Dr. Danielle Roberts Defended

This doctor was branding women. Who does that? I would believe she would be telling her friends about this whole experience. She seems desperate enough.

I see it like this… Alcoholism is a disease; we do our best to support those trying to overcome the effects of that disease. But if someone injures another party while under the influence, the harm has been done. It is possible to struggle with being a victim of alcoholism or a victim of an evil intentioned cult leader and still commit criminal acts while “under the influence”. Raniere, vile as he is, is not the only one who caused harm.

I’m sure family and friends would like to see victims recover, and I hope victims are getting help to repair the damage done to their psyches and thought processes. But some of these victims also caused harm, and there are consequences. Sometimes it’s painful to face yourself and what you’ve done. And sometimes you need to accept that there is no way to repair the damage you caused.

Yes – there is a lot of over the top nastiness being tossed around here. It’s life in the real world. Choose to act as a survivor rather than a victim.

Your response has triggered two strong responses within me based on my own experiences about victimizing the victim, which seems to be blood sport for many to prop themselves up to feel superior.

My first reaction is to my marriage; my ex-husband, whom I put through his final year of college and years of graduate school decided he didn’t want to be married or be a father to our two children and beat me, threatened to kill me and our children and then started being physically abusive to our children, which is when I left him and stopped trying to be a family and save our marriage (my dream since childhood was to be loved, be happily married and have a beautiful, loving, healthy and fun family);

and later my fiance that I worked for and depended upon this work to support my children in every way on my own as the only parent, as their father never saw them again and didn’t care to be involved or help in any way, became mentally and emotionally abusive hurting me repeatedly with options to either stay, keep working and be the sole provider in every way to my children or go to a homeless shelter and risk my children being abused, sexually assaulted or even sex trafficked — not to mention myself.

I grew up abused and worked to support myself from the age of 11. I was determined for my children not to live through what I have endured and to get their education. Most upsetting is how other human beings treated me like I was trash.

People enjoy making someone a victim, especially those with so little resources to be able to put energy into sticking up for themselves, when they are so busy trying to protect their children, themselves and to create a better life and put food on the table and pay electric bill, phone bill, and buy gas to get to work.

Certainly, i was a victim of being born into abuse and not ever being taught that i was worthy of being loved, treated with kindness, care, fairness or respect. Survival was the main focus each and every day. I wanted to live and I wanted a better life for my children with opportunities.

People love blaming the victim — in this case me — that I should have known better.

Being treated like I must be defective or worthless in some way and deserved what I had coming, that I should have just left and gone to live in a homeless shelter or put my children into foster care were daily judgements and comments i endured and still get should I ever confide or open up to a supposed friend or open up to injuries presented for treatment to most nurses and even some doctors.

No one gives a damn and most don’t want to hear it or do anything providing meaningful, purposeful help. It is so much easier to blame victims and keep blaming them and not ever look at deficiencies in the lack of purposeful help offered or our culture to victimize victims over and over again until they shut-up, disappear, die or somehow get a lucky break and go away.

The overall message when i did seek help that somehow I was flawed since the day I was born into an abusive, neglectful home were that I should have done better for myself — yet, I was the one working since I was 8 years old and became self-supportive by age 11 and was responsible enough to provide food for my family, help buy necessities and pay utilities, car insurance, gas, all my medical care, and talk my mother down from one of her drug induced mania episodes where she would be holding a knife threatening to kill me or commit suicide, for example, or my father killing my cat and telling me I am next as he beat me and kicked me repeatedly.

In my experience most people don’t comprehend where I financially supported myself since age 11, and just wanted to be loved, accepted and respected. I wanted a safe place to call home where I could be happy, be myself, and be accepted.

Society often takes delight in shaming the victim. It is difficult to understand how Raniere’s victims chose to be cruel to others, it is appalling how vindicated they puffed themselves up to be in cases like imprisoning Dani and keeping her papers; lying to instigate litigation; drugging people; pushing people into sexual situations; promoting DOS as a women’s empowerment organization; or branding women as licensed medical doctor.

As someone who has lived my life at times desperate to be loved or seen as a person of value, i have often been used and disrespected by people and continue to this day to overcome worthiness issues and not be used. i can see how someone desperate for love, acceptance, care, kindness, respect, recognition as being worthy and of value could be manipulated by a sociopath, especially in these conditions where the accepting group of their peers are pushing and promoting specific actions/behaviors from them. The manner is how nasty and inhumane Kristen Keefe, who reminds me so much of my older sister, treated Dani demonstrates her own fear of garnering favor with Raniere and protecting her child by taking harsh measures against Dani. Kristen was in self-preservation mode from her own fear and insecurities, so she took whomever down to elevate herself.

Lauren Salman reminds me of both of my sisters, who have always been willing to steal, destroy, gaslight and manipulate to protect whatever they can hustle and get for themselves. Self-preservation and the measures a victim will take or endure to protect what they fear most to lose be it their life, their children, love, acceptance, etc. has yet to be fully studied or even openly discussed. it does seem like Raniere used concentration camp conditions of control and even classifications of merit/superiority/usefulness (ie sash, compared to Jews forced to provide services to Nazis or go to gas chamber) to experiment on these women in DOS and his followers (fright experiments, Salinas being told he is bi-sexual and to have sex with Bentacourt, the black mail, nude photos, sleep deprivation, starvation, not being paid, passports confiscated, etc.).

I hope it isn’t studied because life has taught me that people that treat others this way are not worth having in your life and are not people you will ever be able to build anything beautiful, magnificent, solid and sustaining with. Every human being seeks to experience; love, connection, kindness, acceptance, recognition, desire, care, a platform for creativity, shelter, food, safety, security and sense that there is more to behold in this life. This is what Raniere and his minions used to manipulate and control others. It’s as if they took Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and would bring people up then rip away the lower rungs to constantly be in survival mode physically, mentally, emotionally.

Without knowing the childhood and early adulthood background of Dr. Denise Roberts, I am hesitant to maliciously malign her. She is a victim and a perpetrator. What she conspired to do branding these women — and without anesthesia in a sanitary environment — is appalling. She should lose her medical license over this. Why someone would invest so much of themselves to go through medical school and do something so heinous doesn’t make any sense. For this reason, I think judging her harshly condemning her to a box with no lid to get out is inhumane. Encouraging her to get mental health help (even if court ordered); get her life on a positive, solid path and use her education to benefit the world, as well as herself, is the more humane approach. The opportunity for redemption, Practicing medicine outside of prison or areas underserved is of better use to society compared to casting her away without a medical license, though I do not think she should practice medicine to the public at large until she has gone through several years of counseling and, perhaps, probation where she checks in with an officer and has her therapist and psychiatrist send status reports.

Real estate is assessed for highest and best use, so why not evaluate some of the victims/perpetrators that could contribute meaningfully to society in controlled circumstances. Condemning people to be worthless to society or detriments to society are very different and both are subjective. Sarah Edwards is more culpable than Dr. Roberts for duping, gaslighting and manipulating people as she lined her pockets.. and Esther seems even worse, as do mother and daughter Salzman. None of them are medical doctors that could work in a prison or at the border or a quarantined center for Coronoavirus center, where Roberts could be of benefit, The others can scrub toilets in prison for their highest and best use. Keefe belongs there too because she harmed others to elevate herself and lied about being the mother to her own child, though not illegal seems immoral. Having taken beatings to keep my children sheltered and fed, it is very hard to understand other than she is a weak person and similar to my sisters wants life good for herself and will manipulate, gaslight and be extremely harsh and cruel to protect her own interests, as were both Salzmans. Claire is most depraved because she did all of this for sheer power and control, which was her issue for Raniere to manipulate to control her, which had nothing to do with her security, protecting a child or a promised avatar bay.

Society often gives the wolves in sheep clothing all the opportunities, benefits and support. True victims rarely if ever get this. Power is just given without question until it’s often too late. Survival of the fittest breeds victims to become victimizers that don’t bat an eyelash over lying, stealing, harming and manipulating for their own benefit with the ability to cry victim as it serves their purpose. My older sister could easily be a Raniere and has people running in circles to please her, just like my mother did. Some people just have a twisted, sick gift to manipulate to get others to serve them with no conscience on what they take, hurt, harm, destroy in the process, and can always get a new, fresh audience for their faux compassion and interest that initially draws people in before they realize they are the new victim to be used and fleeced to the other’s desire and playing old victims against each other to get whatever it is they want or just the thirst of blood from the drama created. In reading about Raniere and his inner-circle, I see so many examples of people and situations in my own life and I feel revulsion for most discussed and compassion for a few that seen genuinely misguided and manipulated. If people are not taught they are of value, worthy, lovable and deserving from childhood, it is very challenging to learn how to get this state of mind for oneself. Throw in dependent children, abusive men, nasty family that will steal and take whatever they can while talking trash and criticizing, and all the insecure bottom feeders in the world that flock to take advantage of whomever they can with low falling fruit an easy target, please don’t underestimate the journey of leaving victim in the past. Humanism carries us forward into more.