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What Was Dan Cleary Talking About? Is He a Witness of Evan Rachel Wood's Abuse?

Before Dan Cleary was Marilyn Manson's personal assistant in 2014, he worked as a keyboard tech for the 2007-08 Rape of the World Tour. Before Evan Rachel Wood named Marilyn Manson as her abuser in February 2021, Dan Cleary named him as her abuser in September 2020, which is why he is featured so prominently in Evan Rachel Wood's documentary Phoenix Rising , where Evan describes him as the one who changed everything. Here I would like to only address one claim made by Dan Cleary, which he has repeatedly made. Dan likes to make big claims that upon examination prove to be exaggerated, presenting himself as more insightful and important than he really is. I wanted to see if this was the case also with the claim that he supposedly witnessed Evan being abused over time. Let's see what he said about it in September 2020 on Twitter: On his February 18, 2021 podcast, where he further explained what he witnessed with Evan, Dan says that he wrote his September 2020 tweet after an ab

Evan Rachel Wood as a Manipulator (Part 2 of 4)


Half of me believed the things that were being used against me. But when I look back, it was really only the things that shattered my self-esteem, not the actual ideals this person had about life. I believed them when they told me, “No one would ever love me like them, no one would ever understand me like they could."

Apparently Marilyn Manson told Evan Rachel Wood when they were in a relationship, "No one will ever love you like me," and "No one will ever understand you like me." To Evan Rachel Wood, this is a form of manipulation. Assuming Manson really did say this (let's pretend for a moment), is it really as bad as Evan wants us to believe? In my opinion, not necessarily. 
 
At this point Evan wants us to already have in our heads that she was in a relationship with an abusive monster, who has been beating her down not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. Obviously, such an abusive monster does not in fact love the one he is abusing, so these words would indeed be false words used to manipulate the object of abuse into staying with him to endure more and more abuse. But what if the man is a gentle romantic who is genuinely in love, who intends to marry you and spend the rest of his life with you and take care of you and have a family with you? Or maybe he feels a moment where he is a bit intimidated or insecure by something you said or did, and he feels he needs to compete for your love? Maybe your romantic partner in a moment of passion really does believe you are perfect soul mates made for each other. There are many more scenarios I can bring up, but saying something like this does not necessarily prove anything about abuse, unless you are Evan Rachel Wood and you are trying to manipulate people into thinking the way she wants you to think, that is.

Even more importantly is what she says in the beginning. Evan previously explained to us how she had no power over her thoughts and no power over her will, but here she goes on to tell us basically that it was only half of her that was being controlled. The reason she does this is because she knows that no one can really control all your thoughts and all your decisions, but in the beginning this is the picture she had to draw for you to understand she was not personally responsible for anything, but here she has to draw you a picture of how she was in reality struggling for her life. You don't struggle if you are being totally controlled, but everybody can sympathize with someone who struggles, so here she will show us her struggles.
 
I was told we were the same—incurable and misunderstood by the world. It made me angry at everything, but it also confirmed the horrible feelings I had toward myself from years of a different kind of conditioning to never feel like what I did was good enough to deserve respect or the knowledge that love as I knew it was not unconditional.

Let's see how Marilyn Manson is said to have shattered Evan's self-esteem:

1. By saying "no one will ever love you like me".

2. By saying "no one will understand you like me".

3. By saying "you're incurable like me".

4. By saying "you're misunderstood by the world like me".

If Evan wants us to believe that these phrases shattered her self-esteem and made her angry at everything, she needs to explain to us how. The only thing she is doing is confusing us. We don't even have a context in which Manson is using these phrases on her. She is saying so much but saying so little at the same time. Let's see if she clears things up for us.

My job, for instance, from age 5, was asking: “What do you want me to do? Who do you want me to be?”

I had mastered the art of pleasing others before I ever had the awareness to ask myself who I  was.

This is also the trap so many of us fall into from the time we’re very young, whether we are a child star or not.


Okay, now I get it. What Evan is doing is projecting her childhood insecurities and traumas onto her relationship with Manson and it is within this context that she interprets Manson's words of affection and not according to his own intentions. 
 
Here Evan is bringing us to her childhood, to when she was an innocent little girl being forced to be "dutiful" as a child actress. "Dutiful" is a term used by Natalie Wood when describing her own childhood as an actress. Now we know why Evan wants to show us her struggling side. Evan never had the chance to figure out who she was, but was trained from the age of 5 to just please others. Here again, Evan as a perpetual victim is telling us how being a victim as a child prepared her to be a victim with Manson.

I fell into an abuser’s arms after years of microaggressions and crushing little pieces of my soul every day to please others. Years of never being able to express my emotions in a safe environment, for fear of upsetting everyone else or being judged. Years of looking at the world, and seeing what role it carved out for me, a woman. Years of feeling shame about a sexuality I had buried deep into my psyche. Years of feeling shame about all of the things that made me feel “strange,” when held to the unrealistic standards we hold everyone but ourselves to.

Microaggression is "a term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups."
 
Poor little 5 year old Evan, innocent as a poodle, was raised to be abused. If it wasn't for the Hollywood studios, or her parents, or her agent, or whoever, who crushed her innocent little soul every single day, being forced to please others, then she would have never allowed herself to be abused by Manson. She has now grown up and realized that the role of a woman is much different from what she understood her role to be while growing up. Growing up ashamed of her sexuality made her open fodder for an abuser like Manson. Growing up feeling shame for feeling strange while held up to a high standard, was just a blow to her psyche making it vulnerable to an abuser.

This person knew my weaknesses, and he fed them one by one until I was broken and at his mercy.

Manson knew all this. The crafty devil knew it all. Like a skilled physician, he took every vulnerable part of her soul and twisted it for his pleasure. He must have smiled when he first heard she was abused growing up. Now he had her, and could use her anyway he wanted, with her just aiming to please his every desire, because this is how she was raised to be.

Now we know why it took so many years for Evan to realize she was abused. She first needed to realize that women do not always need to please others, she needed to be comfortable with her sexuality, she needed to realize that being strange was good and it is alright to not live up to other's ideals. Check, check, check, check ... and now she realized Manson took advantage of these things to abuse her, and like Delores from Westworld when she realized she was being abused, she set out for revenge.

Anyone with a little discernment can see what she is doing. Evan is telling us she was always a victim of her environment and a victim of her relationships. She never had a choice in the matter. If she had been taught to figure herself out instead of growing up being told what to do, then she would have never fallen into Manson's carefully devised traps.

He didn’t invent the weaknesses, he was wicked enough to spot them and know exactly how to disguise his control with love. He knew the first few times he was right would be enough to seal the deal. If he confirmed one bad suspicion I had about myself or others, he could ensure my allegiance by promising to love me in spite of my shortcomings and even offering to help.

Now that Evan is "woke", she can see who Manson really is - the devil incarnate. Every "I love you" was in reality a form of abuse. It was a cleverly disguised plan, you see? Sure, it took a few tries to get it right, but when he found the right formula, eureka!

She claims that Manson said, "I will love you in spite of your shortcomings and I will help you." Evan, can we get some context here and some elaboration? What shortcomings? Help you with what? So vague. How can we form an opinion of what you are claiming when you are so vague? All you want to do is tell us how to think. 
 
Oh, right, you are vague because you don't want us to form an opinion. You want to tell us your truth, not the truth. Your truth is all that matters. Facts don't matter. Your feelings about the facts are what matter. You are the victim, of course, so we must all bow down to everything you say and accept your truth for what it is, even if it may not really be the actual truth.

Oh, how lucky I was to have such a wise person by my side, someone to free me, to break the chains of society’s backward thinking, by wooing me with the promise of another world, our world. I was the victim, pure and simple, too perfect for the outside to appreciate and he my only hero. This was exactly what he wanted.

She said it! "I was the victim!"

In this paragraph Evan decides to mock Manson. "You go girl!" screams the crowd.

Evan describes to us her perception of Manson while in a relationship with him. She thought he was wise, he was by her side, he was a liberator from conventional society, he promised her a world in which they would be together, he was a hero. According to Evan, this is exactly what Manson wanted her to think, but in reality his wicked plan was to make her his victim. Manson didn't really love her, he just needed her as a punching bag. Nothing else to it. This is exactly how it was. No need to elaborate. This is Evan's truth, and we must all give the Nazi salute and say "Hail!" Perception is everything, especially perception from hindsight. This is after all what the Phoenix Act is all about. It is not about truth, but perception after belated hindsight. If someone comes to believe they were abused after years go by, having not realized they were abused before, then this opens the door to convictions based on perception rather than truth.

Anything that went wrong after that was blamed on the outside, it was other people that drove him to this. He wasn’t abusive, he was “complicated,” and it’s all (insert name here)’s fault. He understands me, he really cares about me, he might hit me, but, at least, he’s honest. I am strong for staying. The world turns their back, but not me. I can take it.

Now Evan is accusing Manson of blaming others for his behavior. Of course, Evan can blame others for her behavior, but not Manson. Don't forget, she is the victim, Manson is evil incarnate, a devil from the pits of hell. We shouldn't allow Manson a definition of how he would like to be perceived. Evan's definition is sufficient. If Manson says he is "complicated", you say "abuser", because so Evan saith. "Abuser" defines his entire being.

Evan is now back to having no ability to think and no ability to make decisions, and reveals here what was going on in her head while she was getting abused by Manson. She tells us she was sympathetic towards him. Every punch to her face was an opportunity to show her loyalty and love for him. Wow, what a great girl! Stupid, but just so pure and innocent like a butterfly emerging from the cocoon. She is so pure in her heart that she couldn't put two and two together that everything Manson was doing to her was wrong, not even one little thing.
 
This logic, of course, is a symptom of cognitive dissonance.

Of course it is, Evan, of course it is. We can't forget the psychological word to persuade people to believe that what you went through was legitimate. It's not your fault. It's all his fault. Only him. That bastard.

I tell you this because I never thought I would ever be a woman that stayed with a man who hit her, threatened her life, constantly put down her efforts, appearance, and scared her so badly that she still struggles with PTSD over a decade later.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is "a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act, war/combat, or rape or who have been threatened with death, sexual violence or serious injury."
 
So Evan says that she is bringing up cognitive dissonance because like most abused women, she would never have allowed this to happen to her, but because her abuser gave her a mental illness, this is why she endured with him so long, this is why she couldn't think or choose, and now she has PTSD from it over a decade later. Over a decade? They started dating in 2007 and this article was written and published in 2017, so it was a decade, if we are to believe it all started from the beginning.
 
To conclude part two, let us review the psychological terminology she is using here to manipulate her readers into thinking that what she went through and is currently going through is legitimate:
 
1. Microaggression
 
2. Cognitive Dissonance
 
3. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
 
 
 

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