Escaping the Prison of the Mind

A personal story of the most powerful book I read that helped me heal from alienation - STRT April 2025

“It is the way of weakened minds to see everything through a black cloud. The soul forms its own horizons; your soul is darkened, and consequently, the sky of the future appears stormy and unpromising”

~ Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Caught in the Maelstrom of Anguish

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

When I learned the truth about my alienation from my mother, I felt two emotions: intense anger like a storm and severe shame like a criminal.

Both of these emotions played a huge role in how I approached the world, though I will admit it was to my own detriment. When I described the anger to people, I would say, “It’s not like a billowing orange flame… it is more like a focused blue flame. Hot and precisely directed toward whatever I thought would be the next step to punishing those who hurt me.”

I felt like I owed my mother some amount of restitution as if her suffering for 12.5 years of alienation needed to mean something. What I had was a negative feedback loop. My shame would push me to take action, and my anger was how it manifested. I wasn’t happy. If anything, I was exhausted and felt alone. My activism in the alienation community led me to feel burnt out on multiple occasions, and I would help some people only to pull away again from exhaustion.

I wasn’t particularly good at setting boundaries either. Sometimes, I would stay up way past 1 a.m. (I had work at 6 a.m. the next day), talking on the phone to a parent who was bawling their eyes out to me, knowing there was nothing I could do but be there for them at that moment. Despite the repeated burnouts, I found myself returning to the alienation community to offer what little experience I had, not by way of virtue but out of shame.

I discovered the truth of my alienation in 2013, and this pattern of behavior continued until around 2020. In 2014, I fell into a deep depression, dropping out of college and spending my days working a dead-end retail job to get by. It took me several years to really pull myself out of that funk. I had to accept that the only way I could make things better was if I took the steps needed to live the life I wanted. I learned as much as I could about personal development and business, and I explored the skills I had that could lead to a better career.

In 2017, I created a 10-year plan, which would begin in January 2018. By 2028, I wanted to achieve three things:

1. I would own a house.

2. I would transition into a career I enjoyed.

3. I would reunite with my alienated brother.

I didn’t know how I would achieve these things, but in my mind at the time, I thought the first two items would help me achieve the third. Given that my brother lived in Singapore (2K dollar air ticket round trip), plus I am blacklisted from the country for not serving in their military (another 10K fine or imprisonment), I was convinced I would need a lot of money to reconnect with my brother.

This was my fantasy. I would learn the world of business so I could transform myself into a financial force to be reckoned with. Like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, I would return to Singapore, backed with an absurd amount of wealth that I could use at my disposal. Following this plan gave me an unshakable sense of purpose. I bought my house at the end of 2017 and chose to become a writer in 2019.

I had very little contact with my alienated brother at that time. Many of the methods I teach, like using Labels and Mirrors, using memes and humor to build rapport, and appealing to his interests, were the things that I learned as I built that trust with him. By the time COVID shut the world down, I had short bursts of conversations with my alienated brother.

I was still hellbent on becoming a financial mogul with a private jet, but I was nowhere close to that kind of net worth. As a result, the failures I experienced as a new writer felt agonizing. I had hoped that somehow I could skip the process of building mastery in my skills and somehow jump forward to the reward of wealth, a vast professional network, and an eye for opportunity. The reality was hard to swallow—every overnight success usually comes after decades of failure.

“We are always in a hurry to be happy...; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty believing in good fortune.”

~ Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo

Sometime in 2020, my dad suggested I read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (the same author of The Three Musketeers).

I had told him of my goals multiple times—how I hoped to amass enough wealth to go back to Singapore and right the wrongs that were done to my brothers and me. All I knew was the book was casually referenced in the film The Shawshank Redemption, and it involved a prison break.

Given that Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (another literature book where the main character leaves an abusive home and returns with vast wealth) suffers a morbid ending, I figured I would give The Count of Monte Cristo a read. Maybe he would prove to be a better role model for what I had envisioned for myself.

I have read a great deal of fiction when I was young, and I can confidently say that no book has ever reached me on an emotional and psychological level like The Count of Monte Cristo did.

The book itself is very well written, with plenty of irony, wit, and rich subtext to hold your attention. Here is a quick summary of the book:

Edmond Dantès is a young sailor with a bright future in early 19th‑century France, poised to marry his beloved Mercedes and rise within his ship’s crew. However, envious conspirators—Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort—fabricate a treason charge against him, sealing his fate. Betrayed and abandoned, Edmond is condemned to life in the forbidding Chateau d’If, a grim island prison from which escape seems impossible.

Within these dark confines, Edmond’s world shifts when he encounters the wise Abbé Faria, a fellow inmate whose mentorship unlocks both the power of knowledge and the secret of a vast treasure hidden on the remote island of Monte Cristo. With Faria’s teachings echoing in his mind, Edmond engineers a daring escape by assuming the identity of a deceased prisoner.

Reborn as the enigmatic and affluent Count of Monte Cristo, he reenters society with a singular mission: to dismantle the lives of those who wronged him. Utilizing his newfound wealth, astute intellect, and an array of disguises, he orchestrates an intricate web of revenge, ensuring that each betrayer faces a downfall as severe as the betrayal he endured.

Yet, as his meticulously plotted retribution unfolds, Dantès grapples with the moral complexities of vengeance versus justice. In his pursuit, he comes to question whether the bitter taste of revenge can ever mend the deep wounds of lost years, or if true redemption lies in the capacity for forgiveness and renewal.

The fundamental question of this novel is based on who possesses the right to enact judgment and retribution after great injustice. Dantès finds himself deeply conflicted after suffering a false accusation and wrongful imprisonment. His anger manifests in his disguises, where he pretends to be a friend to the people who hurt him while enacting an elaborate plot for revenge. It was only when someone innocent was hurt that Dantès realized the folly of his actions. Judgment is reserved for the divine.

My own intentions were far less malicious. If anything, I wanted to prove that I was strong and capable. Yet, for the first time in my entire life, I felt like an author had reached through space and time, gripped me by the collar, and said, “Andrew, the path you are on is not going to give you what you think you desire.”

All I wanted at that point was to reunite with my brother. And the truth was I had already done it, just not how I thought it would unfold. I envisioned needing a million dollars and a private jet to fly to Singapore and rescue my brother. But when I took a long, hard look at my situation, I had already reestablished a connection with my brother by being consistent and genuine in communicating with him. We were having candid conversations about politics, philosophy, and our aspirations. On other days, we shared the different projects we worked on professionally. The only thing I did not have was face-to-face contact with him, but I had virtually everything else.

I had initially based my goals for reunification on picking up where things left off—I was 18 and he was 11. But time has moved on, and in 2020, I was 25 and he was 18. We both had grown and become different people with far more nuanced perspectives in life.

What mattered wasn’t the idea of rescuing an 11-year-old little brother. That version of my brother didn’t exist anymore. What I had realized (through this book) was that my relationship with my brother was made possible by being present in the moment. What I thought would take a million dollars, a private jet, and 10 years was all achieved in 3 years with very little money.

The Prison of the Mind

The Count of Monte Cristo taught me something I wouldn’t have learned in typical books and videos on alienation.

In hindsight, we know that trauma leads us to behave in irrational ways out of fear and unhealed wounds. We also recognize that, in theory, we should take the moral high ground. However, what educational and scientific books struggle to capture is the emotional toll trauma has on the person.

Trauma is a heavy burden that taxes your energy and time. In many ways, trauma is a prison where you have the means to get out, but you have to figure out where the key to your cell is first. While trapped, you can have access to anything you need—addictions, coping mechanisms, and other distractions to make the prison time less agonizing. Or books, podcasts, and other educational resources to help you identify the path to freedom.

But I think the hardest part of this mental prison is that most people don’t even realize they are prisoners in their own minds. I see this in both people who are still struggling with alienation and those who have found ways to reunite.

Those who are struggling with alienation are either beaten down to the point of apathy or so angry that they lash out without any thought to the consequences of their actions.

In Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl talks about how the Jews were fiercely angry (and rightly so) after surviving the Holocaust. Their families, communities, and livelihoods were torn apart and taken from them. And yet, somehow they had to find ways to pick up the pieces and carry on after WWII. In his book, he shares that in order to endure unimaginable suffering and still move forward, one must find meaning in that suffering—not by denying the pain, but by choosing a purpose that gives it context, a reason to live beyond the trauma, and a hope that transcends the circumstances.

(I write about finding meaning in alienation in my article: Finding Meaning in Alienation When All Hope is Lost)

Another example I have frequently seen is the alienated child who has discovered the truth of their history of abuse. Often, formerly alienated children are highly reactive. Any behavior that even reminds them of the manipulation and abuse they endured during the alienation explodes into conflict. The fear of getting caught up in abuse and manipulation is so great that a white lie is seen as gaslighting, and bragging is seen as narcissism.

Looking back at my own past, I see that the 10-Year Plan was a way to gain control over my life. I wanted to feel powerful, respectable, and competent. I wanted it so much that I was willing to forgo my integrity for it. And in an ironic twist of fate, integrity helped me reunite with my alienated brother.

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words - Wait and Hope”

~ Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Finding the Key to Freedom

The hardest part about reuniting with your alienated loved ones is that there is so much outside of your control. Often, the pain and trauma that comes from the alienator is enough to make you feel like you must also be strong, respectable, and powerful to be safe. There is a heightened sense of urgency; the child is with an abusive person right now. Therefore, something must be done right now. In a perfect world, it would be simpler to remove the child from the abusive person immediately to mitigate lifelong trauma.

However, we live in a world where money, network, power, influence, and resourcefulness dramatically impact who gets the child. And that condemns you to an indefinite prison sentence, where you can only leave once you process the trauma that placed you there.

Before you can understand how to get out of this mental prison, you have to know what it looks like to be free. Your freedom doesn’t start on the day the abuse stops. An alienated child can leave the alienator and still self-enforce the alienation. To be candid, my alienator lived in my head for years after leaving the home.

Getting out of the mental prison and healing the trauma wound is a journey to a place of stillness within. It means that the past no longer triggers you, the future no longer scares you, and you are free to be present in the moment.

When you have found peace within yourself, you are no longer swayed by the trauma that hurt you. You can speak about it objectively with complete vulnerability and openness. Instead of always being reactive, your actions are determined by your values.

The future ceases to be scary. You trade anxiety for hope and purpose, occupying yourself with goals and projects that are constructive and meaningful in your life. You might plan ahead, but you are not anticipating a catastrophic disaster.

But the most important piece is that you are present in the moment. Within this sense of stillness, there are no feelings of doubt or unworthiness. In your mind, you wholeheartedly accept that you deserve peace and joy. Your identity is yours, not an amalgamation of behaviors catering to others. When you are with someone, you are 100% attentive, never letting your mind wander off.

When you are able to give your full, genuine self, you carry a different energy that others will notice (especially your alienated loved ones). It becomes pointless to try to provoke you because that inner stillness is not affected by external factors.

So that brings us back to the million-dollar question.

How do you get to a place like this?

Photo by Lucas Clara on Unsplash

The first step is to believe it is possible. Nothing will work unless you believe in a calmer, better, and more peaceful you.

Next, you have to be willing to sit with the emotions that make you feel uncomfortable. This is where you discover the fears and pains that drive you subconsciously. There are many approaches you can take to explore these feelings, and not all of them will work for you. You may need different methods to help you at different stages of your healing journey. What matters is that you keep going even when it gets hard.

Here are some potential ways you can explore your subconscious:

• Reading fiction, especially if it has characters going through experiences you went through.

• Creating art (Poetry, stories, painting, music, sculpting, etc)

• Therapy

• Coaching

• Loving someone who genuinely loves you back (For example, a good romantic partner can be a mirror to who you truly are)

• Meditation (visualizations, prompted meditations based on oracle cards, breathwork, etc)

• Writing (journaling, telling your story, taking notes, free association, creating written resources to help others, etc)

• Helping or teaching someone else

• Spiritual or religious practices

• Spending time in nature

• Roleplay or acting exercises

• Somatic exercises

• Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)

• Lucid dreaming

After exploring these feelings, you will have a list of behaviors you recognize as trauma responses. Identify what triggers those behaviors. Without judgment, acknowledge those behaviors as things that no longer serve you.

Whenever a trigger occurs, you must create as much space between the trigger and your reaction as possible. By creating space, you are actively changing how your brain handles these conflicts, shifting from a survival state to an executive thinking state.

For example, if you have a people-pleasing behavior and someone asks you to do a favor for them, and you know that person will not reciprocate your act of kindness, pause and give yourself the space to set a boundary.

Or perhaps you are someone who has been punished for standing up for yourself, and you feel angry when someone disagrees with you. Pause and examine the intentions of the person you are speaking to—is this disagreement from a place of malice or a different perspective?

This will take practice, and you may have emotionally overwhelming moments. And that is okay. We are all human and we won’t always feel at peace. As long as you consistently commit to taking positive steps toward being the best version of yourself, you will see steady improvement. You will also find more moments where you are relaxed and at peace, even when everyone worries about external matters.

I don’t know if The Count of Monte Cristo will give you the same kind of epiphany it gave me (it is a fantastic book though). What I do know is that your moment of clarity is within your grasp, so long as you have the courage to seek it out.

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How is the Book?

March has been a challenging month for me, so book progress is going slow. I have some personal challenges I must take care of at work, so my book has moved more slowly than I wanted. With that said, I am setting the stage for the book through this monthly newsletter.

If you found any of these newsletter articles helpful, please share them with someone you think would benefit from them. Also, share your comments and feedback—it helps me improve this newsletter.

Until next time,

Andrew Folkler

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