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The comments that have grown at the end of yesterday’s post, +WHAT MY MOTHER FORGOT TO WRITE IN HER NOVEMBER 1957 LETTERS, are about a kind of ‘borderline’ that I believe exists within the mind of most members of ‘the public’. If the kind of abuse parents like my mother was cannot be imagined, conceived of, or even BELIEVED by ‘the public’ there will not be much hope of true recovery for survivors of this kind of abuse or protection for its current victims.
Although I posted an allusion yesterday to this type of parental abuse as being more closely related to War Crimes (see +THE GENEVA CONVENTION – WE NEED WORDS TO PROTECT ABUSED CHILDREN) than it being related to the ‘species’ of child abuse most members of ‘the public’ might imagine, abuse (which is in itself far to minor a descriptive word) perpetrated against infants and children by parents like my mother was is, in my thinking, even so far PAST war crimes that if it hadn’t happened to me I probably wouldn’t be able to imagine, conceive of or believe it even could be possible myself.
Members of ‘the public’ are, by and large, reasonable (reason-able) people. They exist on one side of this ‘borderline’ I mention in regard to coming to terms with the possible ranges of infant-child abuse (as well as with the far ranges of ANY kinds of abuse humans can perpetrate). On the other side of this ‘borderline’ are people like my mother was who have what Dr. Martin Teicher’s Harvard research group names ‘an evolutionarily altered brain’.
But it certainly isn’t JUST their brain that is altered. It is their ENTIRE physiology. Once this kind of abusing adult has been created within the malevolent environments of their own early developmental caregiver relationships, the degree of change that might be possible down the road of their lives (much past the age of three, I believe) is minimal — and WILL NEVER make these people magically into SAFE infant-child caregivers.
The kinds of crimes they are capable of committing against their offspring are so far past what ‘the public’ could even begin to imagine as being even ‘war crimes’ that reason-able people cannot usually conceive of them.
No matter how despicable, how devoid of ordinary human conscience any ‘war crime’ might be, if the crimes are committed against adults they are of a different nature than the kinds of infant-child ‘abuse’ that I am talking about. The kind of trauma altered evolutionarily altered brain that Teicher refers to IS one adapted (along with all the rest of a survivor’s physiology) to continued existence in the worst kind of malevolent world possible. When this adapted-to malevolent environment does not contain within it even the most essential resources to ensure continued survival – elimination of offspring can very easily be the end result FOR MOTHERS.
This is, of course, not a consciously recognized aspect of the kind of ‘mind’ my mother had, but this obliviousness to FACT does not make the FACT any less real.
On this level I would say that we are not talking about ‘ordinary ranges’ of infant-child abuse. We are not even talking about ‘ordinary ranges’ of war crimes.
The only closest collection of information that ‘the public’ might be able to reach for, accept and rely upon in their consideration of the kinds of parents I am talking about and the ‘outside-the-range of ordinary’ treatment of their offspring would be to include in their consideration all information currently available about both GENOCIDE and INFANTICIDE.
Such a ‘trauma changed mother’ operates with a physiologically-based biological imperative to eliminate offspring (one or all) in the same way an animal in the wild would (or our ancient ancestors) should life within a hostile, malevolent environment be just about as hard as possible. The BODY that took this evolutionary detour in its earliest development CANNOT BE CHANGED BACK AGAIN to become at some later date a benevolent-environment body-brain-mind.
(It seems entirely possible to me that the genetics behind suicide and well as perhaps genetic combinations (not yet identified) behind self-harm and eating disorders might also be connected to the permanent ‘evolutionary alternative developmental changes’ related to the influencing physiological (epigentic?) factors that are involved in adaptation to early malevolent environments.)
(Another critically important factor to consider is what Tomkins describes when he says that a human infant’s adrenal gland ‘system’ is 2 1/2 times ‘more powerful’ during the earliest developmental stages in proportion to its body size than it is in our adulthood, making sure that stress-related responses to malevolence within the early environment that require adaptations-changes to best ensure survival happen as FAST, as early in development and as permanently as possible.)
That human infant-children do somehow OFTEN manage to in fact physically stay alive and survive the malevolent treatment that was done to them does NOT exclude the range of ‘abuse’ from the arena of considerations related to GENOCIDE and INFANTICIDE. In cases such as my mother’s was, the ONLY reason she did not actually eliminate my body from the world of the living is because of her narcissistic desire to avoid reprisal for her actions.
When an infant-child is NOT actually physically killed, this means that the level of suffering from torture, terrorism, ‘abuse’ and malevolent treatment continues on and on and on and on…….. The fact that these survivors did indeed survive in NO WAY lessens the reality of the acts toward GENOCIDE and INFANTICIDE that these ‘super abusing parents’ commit.
Perhaps, I mentioned in one of my replies connected to yesterday’s post about what my mother ‘forgot’ to tell my grandmother, ‘the public’ is perfectly fine with allowing for a range of ‘acceptable losses’ related to allowing the worst of the worst possible infant-child abuse to continue – in effect, right under our noses.
When thinking about Universal Human Rights of Children we must at the same time consider that when these rights are massively denied and the reverse of human rights is what is actually happening to infant-children, we need to begin to understand that we need the equivalent of a Geneva Convention’s rules for what is to be done on behalf of these ‘super survivors’ of ‘super abusive’ parents — and what is to be done to, with and about these parents, as well.
NOTE: I nearly always add to my posts over time once they are published – best to come directly to this site to read the up-to-the-minute versions!
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