Alice Miller † 2010

Dear Emeritus: Professor Miller believes how we handle life is decided during our early years. Lucky for those surrounding me I took the violence (brutal beatings and utter humiliation) I experienced as a child out on myself. And, occasionally, still do. My father, himself a product of black pedagogy, a shell shocked soldier of WWII  (Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Major Depressive Disorder and victim of Nazi arrogance ... his life was far more traumatic and chaotic than I previously realized) furthered the cycle of violence. Mother, severely schizophrenic, herself subject of abuse, past and present, watched on helplessly. Both pitted their sons against each other and totally destroyed the family. We all fled home. I, first into "the arms of God," and then, because the Roman god turned out to be a rotter, across the Atlantic all the way to The United States, as far away as possible from hellish, toxic home and hellish, toxic Seminary, until I finally felt safe.