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I just took a break and did my jogging — plus — which I will get to in my next post.  But before I move THAT far forward, I want to think through some implications that are dawning on me know from my last post:  +DISSOCIATION: MY MOTHER’S AND MY OWN STORY SHARE IT.  What if I think about the the paper, the snake skin and the snake as I described in that post as if I am thinking about myself in relation to my mother.

First, my guess is that human newborns are programmed from birth to ANTICIPATE being loved.  That means that I was born to be loved and to love.  I was born to expect the best.  Mother was naturally safe to me and someone to ‘reach for’.  I would say natural “unless proven otherwise,” but it took a whole lot of convincing for me to actually understand my mother was not safe.  Yet my baby book record of my before-age-two sentence, “I didn’t mean to,” lets me know I was certainly afraid of her attacks already by that age.

Our species would not have survived very long if our inherited patterns were to destroy the offspring rather than to promote their well-being.  So, it would have been completely in alliance with nature for me NOT to expect harm from my mother.  I would naturally have seen her as being more like the beautiful piece of paper than to see her as a deadly viper.  That was my natural state.

It took me a very, very, very, very long time from the time I was born to be able to begin to anticipate my mother’s attacks.  Actually, because I could NEVER predict what was going to ‘set her off’ to turn her from being like the beautiful paper into the coiled viper who attacked me, it was impossible for me to anticipate her changes before they happened.

Neither could I ALWAYS live in that state of awareness of the viper.  So, as I went along just being natural me in my body, and as she interjected her madness upon me without warning or provocation, I simply had to switch into a dissociated state when she did!  It was like I ‘forgot’ the viper existed unless I was under direct attack.  As a result nearly all of my abuse memories are ‘somewhere else’.  This might be related to why I was almost always taken completely by surprise by her every new attack on me — as if it was the first time it had ever happened.

Rarely did I see her transformation taking place, like I could see the one that happened as I watched my brain let that harmless piece of paper, transform into a harmless snake skin, and then into a full-bodied very living and very deadly snake.  My mother offered me no transitions and no transitional states — which is essential for a well-balanced and well-adapted brain, mind and self to form.

If I knew how, I could set this line to music:  “There was a whole lotta switchin’ goin’ on.”

My mother lacked transitional states.  She rapidly and drastically just – switched.  Did SHE know she was doing this?  I don’t know.  Did she have a choice?  Could she have stopped herself?  I doubt I will ever be able to figure out what was going on inside of her — but inside of me?  Perhaps I always expected the best and got the worst.

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