Daniel Mackler Journal
by Steve Hein

I am starting to keep a journal of thoughts, feelings etc. related to Daniel. See below.

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I am reading something written by someone with the screen name of Mimsy. It seems to be a copy of a post she made on DM's old forum.

The person who copied it introduces it like this

As will be shown in further entries, Daniel Mackler likes to censor criticism about him. In April 13, 2008 a woman, “Mimsy,” entered Mackler’s forum and took issue with Mackler’s essay “An Analysis of the Limits of Alice Miller.” Due to the fact that the same year Mackler closed his forum, I believe that Mimsy’s response to Mackler’s attack on Miller is worth reproducing here. Mimsy wrote:

New poster here.

Reading through I wanted to add some ideas that I didn’t see in other comments.

I mainly want to say that I think it’s totally reasonable of Alice Miller to be unresponsive to your [Daniel Mackler’s] essay and even dismissive.

Here is a woman who has spent much of her life swimming upstream, going against the flow, fighting against the going paradigm. Simultaneously, she is trying to heal her own wounds; she must feel awfully vulnerable much of the time. So here she is trying to stand up to constant criticism while at the same time carrying around all these unhealed wounds.

And here you come along and attack her, yet again.

--------

ok that is probably enough to give you an idea of how the two people were feeling. IE Mimsy and the person who coped the post.

I have been reading the post carefully, trying to "decode" it and trying to guess at how Daniel and Mimsy were feeling/felt and what their needs were. *sigh It takes a lot of work to try to figure out what people need!

To save you some time, I will tell you one thing I think I need. I need a safer environment to live in. When people attack, criticize, hurt, kill, wound, threaten, label, judge, reject, and don't understand others it pains me. It scares me. I don't want people criticizing me etc. Or lecturing to me. I have felt lectured to far too many times in my life... it is painful to even see others doing it to each other. And using sarcasm. And using people's words against them. Smart people - emotionally intelligent, damaged people / emotionally abused people are good at that. I call it the "dark side" of emotional intelligence.

I want to say that I like Daniel. I want him to feel liked by me. I want him to feel valued by me, understood.. I have written about this somewhere, but I will repeat myself... I want him to feel respected. His feelings matter to me. One reason is because feelings predict behavior. If he feels attacked by me, criticized, threatened in any way, he probably will stop talking to me. He probably would not come visit us in Uruguay, which we really want him to do. We can't travel due to Priscilla's health probems mostly so we are pretty much stuck here. And I feel relatively free here. I am surrounded by nature. I have lots to do here. I regulary do nature therapy with water projects and my best therapy tool - my shovel. Shoveling is great therapy for getting rid of aggressive emotions.

I have been emailing Daniel a lot lately ha ha. He has been pretty responsive, even with all the mail he gets and with his nutty travel schedule. He just drove across the USA and back, but made time to write me to keep me updated. I admire his energy and passion. I don't know if he gets depressed sometimes, or ever felt suicidal, like P and I do and have done... I do know that I am attracted to his energy, passion and innate emotional intelligence. I also know I want to help him develop it further. I am not sure yet what his "limits" are, but I am pretty sure I won't be writing an article attacking him and talking about his limits as at least one person has done. To save you time I will tell you now how I am feeling... I feel.... strong. Determined. Focused. A bit sarcastic, critical (of those who criticize Daniel) I feel protective of Daniel. I feel understanding of him. I have also had people attacking me on my own forum. It hurts and it took up a huge amout of my time. In my mind I was being robbed emotionally - robbed of my emotional bank account let's say.

I feel a bit superior to the people who criticize Daniel for criticizing Alice. They do the same thing to him, pretty much that they felt so much pain about him doing to her. I feel self-critical a bit for feeling superior. I feel afraid people will criticize and judge me for admitting I feel that way. So I will explain a bit.

All my life I have been put down, underestimated, not understood. So I am trying, even "fighting" to feel valued. Valued is the one word I will use to summarize a lot of my unmet emotional needs.

Now I think of people using the word "parts" as if everyone understands that concept. I don't really like that term or concept. I feel a bit judgmental of those who use it. But I think of Barbara, for example, and I feel empathy for her. Real empathy. I feel sad she was in so much pain. I feel sad Alice didn't handle things better. I feel sad for Barbara's loss of someone she once admired, trusted and confided in. I suppose B felt betrayed. I have also felt betrayed so I know how it hurts.

I don't want Barbara to feel judged. So I try to slow myself down and think of how I am feeling and which feelings are toxic feelings and how I want or don't want Barbara or others to feel. And I think of my fear of people calling me a hypocrite and me feeling defensive and feeling a need to scream "I AM NOT PERFECT!!!! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE ALREADY!"

But I don't feel very defensive now. Maybe like 1-3. But I can imagine it if enough people were attacking me enough.

I also feel unheard. I feel nearly invisible in the world. I want more people to read my writing. I believe it is worth reading. I believe it can save lifes, relationships and money.

I spent neary 50,000 dollars on a divorce battle... pure emotional battle. It was a huge waste. Needless. Had anyone - I, my ex, or the two lawyers know about the things I write about ..... *shakes head.. well countless dollars and tears and suffering could have been prevented.

Still feeling protective of DM I feel a little desire to tell Mimsy she is a hypocrite because she points out, several times I think, that AM is not perfect. But what about Daniel, dear Mimsy? Do you expect him to be perfect, or more perfect than Alice?

All this "fighting" is so silly on some level. It seems childish, but children don't fight with so many big words like dissociation. Or whatever it is. lol Or "splitting off" or "repetition compulsion" etc.. I think you get my drift.

Anyhow, I feel better now. Thank you for reading. I hope you don't feel worse, more "negative" energy after reading this. I hope you feel understanding of me and forgiving for not being "perfect" ha ha. No, I am definitely not perfect. Probably I sometimes come across that way to people, if so I apologize in advance.

Anyhow I am trying to start a new Alice Miller forum. I feel scared to do so because it really seems people who are interested in Alice are prettty messed up, damaged etc. And they haven't seemed to have learned anywhere -- definitely not from Alice - how to express their pain in a constructive, emotionally sustainable way. IE in a way that keeps relationships and connections. So yeah, that's it for now. Thanks again for reading. Oh - if you do want to tell me how you feel, please use feeling words. Please try to tell me what you need, what needs are motivating you. This will save me time. And yeah, I will probably just move any posts on the new forum that are attacking of me or anyone else.

With the new forum I want to try something never done before. I will explain more later, but basically it is something like this. I will ask pple to say how they are feeling when they start to post. Especially if they are feeling critical, sarcastic, judgmental, superior, self-righteous etc. Then I will ask them to try to say what needs go along with each feeling. This will save me a lot of time. If they don't seem to be aware of how they are feeling, like a friend who nearly screamed at me when I suggested she was sounding defensive.. She said, "DEFENSIVE??" lol That is a true story. She was studying psychology. Her father was an alcoholic....

Anyhow, if they don't seem to know how they are actually feeling then I will probably move the post. When I say move it I mean move it to what I might call the education box... where I will put things we can learn from later, depending on how much time, motivation I or any other admin has.

So yeah, that's a bit for you.

One last time - maybe - thanks for reading. :)

Steve

--

before I forget, I want to say thanks to steph in oz for being something like my "enlightened witness"

Was Alice Miller Emotionally Abusive?

http://sylvieshene.blogspot.com

took a nap, talked to p etc. - woke up ta dm, am ect - wanted to add this...

when i said i feel superior sometimes because i felt underestimated, put down etc before in my life i didnt finish my thought. here is how my belef goes

the reason i feel a need to feel superior is to help bring me back to "balance" from being made to feel inferior so many times in my life. so in some ways i am just trying to get back to "equal" - many many many people have much more power than i do, status etc. and i don't believe they are doing as much for humanity. i believe my work is more valuable to humanity than anything the current president of the usa has done, for example. i felt optimistic about him, inspired by him - before he was elected. but since then i havent been impressed.

i am more impressed with daniel and i mean that sincerely. i dont think daniel will ever be a puppet to anyone, no matter how much money they have.

i also believe that someone we "know" our potential and we feel pain when we are noton the path to reach it. to be on this path we must constantly receive emotional support. like a plan constantly needs the basics, water, sun etc. i never got enough water and sun. i got some kind of weed killer or spirit or soul killer insitead.

also on another note i wanted to add that before i napped i read some of dm's post about cults. i will probably comment more later but reading it in some parts was like reading me talk about myself, or reading someone else talk about me. like dm i also feel "called" some how to do what i do. even my partner does not understand this feeling. and yet i am a strong atheist so i dont feel called by any god of any religion.

i also want to say that in my mind at least i have pushed daniel a bit. i guess you could say i am testing his "limits" - maybe i wrote tthis somewhere else before. if i did sorry. i need to go thru all my writing. i am trying to consume and process a lot in a short time. i just started reading his work a few days ago. maybe a week or so. no more tthan that but anyhow, not long.

so back to his limits. though i hesitate to use that word since someone i will call ct used it in a hurtful way. ct actually said, if i recall, that he hates daniel. i feel hurt by that. but anyhow, i have been pretty much my regular self with daniel - something most pple cannot handle. and so far he has responded or reacted ok. my partner was afraid he would psychoanalyze me, which he hasn't done. at least not to me ha ha. i still am a bit afraid of him "critiqueing" me one day like he did Alice. But I will go with this principle:

Protection through understanding

In other words, if he feels understood, he will have no motivation, no need to attack me. So part of my desire of him feeling understood by me is that. And part is my own personal challenge to see how well I can do. I still feel bad I didn't handle things better with David Caruso. I feel loss and regret when I think of David.

Confession to DM - If you read my page on David you will see I did to him kind of what you did to Alice. I even started the page with a quote by him, I see now. I would call this a case of using his words against him. David doesn't talk to me anymore. We did email many times and we met in person. I visited his home... so...yeah.. a pretty big loss in my life..

I got some more emails from DM. Maybe latter I will share more of them but now I want to say he will be in Australia for about 4 weeks, partly to promote his film "Open DIalogue" about the mental heallth care system in Finland. Here is a flyer he sent me. He will be showing the file for free in Melbourn on Monday Oct 28 at 5:30pm at the U of Melbourne, 207 Bouverie B!.03

Here is a PDF flyer xx link xx

about to go back to sleep. re-read dm's last email... made me think about how i was feeling when i wrote something about ct. hmmm how was i feeling? partly protective of dm. partly bored/resentful about feeling bored, partly judgmental *warning alarm goes off* *siren sound*

i think of the person i am gonna call AT

here is some of his last email

his subject was "falling apart" - id say to him to try very hard not to use expressions like that - try to think of it as "feeling pain" "learning what I need and what pains me" "another painful lesson/reminder"

AT is in what i call teen prison. which reminds me, i tried to sign up for the freedomainradio forum and it seems i was rejected! i told stefan that i shared a lot of his ideas and sent him a link to my page on teen prisoners.. hmm i also told him i wanted to tell people on his forum about my work, my site. maybe he thought i was just going to use his forum for marketing myself... *sigh - another example of how it often doesnt pay to be honest.

anyhow here is how AT starts his letter

God I'm such an attention whore. Every single time I talk to you I say "this is the end, I'm dying on the inside

Problems I see - * labeling himself, not showing himself understanding, compassion. using expressions that he has picked up/learned like attention whore and "every single time" - that is beating oneself up even more. a child knows that "every single time" means they were "bad" "disapproved of" -- so i am trying to help AT change the way he expresses his pain, via his feelings and identifying his unmet emotional needs. i wish i could help free him physically from the abusive environment he is in.. but i can only be there or here as his "enlightened witness" as Alice Miller might say.

back to ct - i guess i also feel self protective. i want to distance myself from him. i see he is very needy. not very emotionally literate. i can smell trouble.... and the way he wrote about DM... well it is scary. and as i see it he is spreading abuse. he says he was pretty severely abused in his home and he likes Alice Miller a lot. He seems to be defending her. But he, again, in my opinion, is contributing to the "problem" as much or more than he is contributing to the solution. I have the solution people ha ha. But I am serious. It pains me that more pple dont read my writing and apply it. I searched for this today and found no one has picked it up, copied it on google. "feeling empathy and feeling defensive are mutually exclusive" - i but anyhow it is after five now. i am starting to fall asleep. but i want to read some of barbara rogers writing on the problems with the term spirituality.

I was just thinking about one of the reasons I like dm

to me, i find him very transparent. i was thinking of posting some more of our emails. and a little afraid he would feel ... something uncomfortable lets say or maybe disrespected or even betrayed. im not totally sure he is reading this journal or all i write about him but if u read this d, please let me know asap about anything u dont feel ok with. i am gonna use my judgment a bit, trusting that i have a pretty decent sense of how you feel about things so far. but as the saying goes plz correct me when i am wrong.

yesterday i got an email back immediately from d. it had been sitting in my outbox for two days i think. i was afraid he had felt pressured or something from my last mail when i was asking him or possibly "pressuring" him to tell me how long he will be in australia.

but it seems to be that he never got email because he answered my question and another question which i will talk about in a moment.

2 things about this part so far. 1 - my mind is habitually creating false ideas. like the time i thought people had changed a meeting place just so i wouldn't go there anymore. not sure where that article is now... 2. d doesn't like to feel pressured. he told me some pple were pressuring him about something once - so he is sensitive to that now - so that is a big part of the reason i was afraid he felt pressured by me.

now about the second question -

also i really want him to come to uruguay and make a movie. i found out from his radio interview that he has hitchhiked. so have i. he seems to be getting "younger" in a way - more free - like me. i feel more secure or something when i think of how many things we have in common. i also got "younger' as i got older. i started doing things i had been afraid to do. i learned from younger people. from homeless people even. like about hitchhiking and sleeping in my car. i learned the last one, or a bit of it, from a guy in key west florida. where i met vicky haberski, who no longer talks to me. i had written about her mother slapping her on my website then she compalined, vociferously, let's say. i hope that vicky will learn some new ways of communicating her feelings and pain. something like non violent communication. i feel sad she no longer values me, my work, my life. she is a product of the catholic and american culture.

which reminds me of the screen shot i just took...

but anyhow. back to d.

i asked him for his thoughts about someone, someone relatively well known. living, not dead like alice miller ha ha. i wasn't sure if he would trust me with them. i told him he could say off the record or part on and part off if he wanted. i still was afraid he might feel afraid. i thought of cesar who seems to have deliberately misled someone - lloyd demueuse - so he could use ld's words against him and show what a fool demeuse is. cesar seems to have a big need to feel superior... but now i am analyzing... not understanding. not feeling much if any compassion.

so anyhow, from d's reply i felt trusted. now i am afraid u might think i asked mainly to test him to see if he would answer. now i wonder how much of my "subconcious" or semi conscious or fully conscious motiation was behind that. but i feel pretty sure - and plz dont psychoanalyze me - unless i ask u to and value ur opinion or analysis and i feel cared about and understood by you - but anyhow i feel prerry sure that my main motivation - like 95 percent was because i really wanted to know.

one reason i wanted to know is because i have mixed feelings about the guy i asked dm about. i dont think i told dm that cuz i didnt want to bias his reply. not that it would have biased it much, but i think it could have a bit and me being the uber scientific one ha ha didnt want to bias it at all. so.. anyhow, i guess i also wanted to kind of test d to see if he was wackyier than i thought. yeah i think he is a bit "out there" on some things - a bit wacky - that is why i joke and call him wackler sometimes. lol. damn i am afraid he is gonna hate me now if he reads that! but f--- it i will take the risk. again testing my limits or his ha ha. like a little kid. yeah thats me. little kid steve.

but anyhow back to wacky wackler. my friend dan mackler - that rhymes - how cute. not sure how he feels about being called dan but he said he was ok with d.

anyhow... so yeah i feel trusted by d. dm or dw or wdm ha ha wdm what depresses me- priscilla's website!

d is helping fill some of my uen's so thanks d.

Some Observations of Soteria-Alaska - (it is linked to from main page on dm)

my site on dm is about 61 today - oct 19

Left a comment on his blog where he announced he is going to give away some of his videos for free on youtube.....

Here is the blog post

http://wildtruth.net/my-films-are-now-free-on-youtube/

Fred Timm video

Comment I left on his blog

Hi Daniel

I like your new system of making short videos. It reminds me that you are out there doing good work.

And thank you for introducing me to Fred Timm. I found myself agreeing with pretty much everything he said. It was good to hear him.

S