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“Well, tickle me pink!” I have no idea what the history of that cliche is, but it comes to mind as I entertain myself with a little humor, Linda style. I give myself full permission to access anything that I can use to prepare for my next task — and to accomplish it — with great success!
I have (literally) a hell of a story to tell. I am not alone in this. Anyone who has suffered abuse in life has the same kind of story to tell, but it is those of us who were raised from birth (and perhaps from conception) within the earliest possible truly malevolent environments that have the worst stories to tell.
Not that there is some sort of new-fangled “GONG” show especially for people who want to march up to some television stage and compete for “Who has the very worst infant-child abuse story to tell” kind of prize. But there ARE critical differences in the long term consequences of differing kinds of early abuse.
A week or so ago during my conversation with my friend I was having lunch with the topic of Oprah came up. “Oh,” my friend said. “I heard that now Oprah passed 50 she has decided to let her abusers go.”
“Well, I’ll be horn swaggled,” I think to myself. Not THE great and powerful Oprah? Such a public example of the “should do” for all other infant-child abuse survivors.
I’ve never been an Oprah fan. That could be because I am not a personal fan of either television or magazines. But in the last week that I have been sitting in an office taking care of its business so my friend could take her vacation I have honed my anti-Oprah insights.
Now, I can in part thank my daughter for this. She is a very busy professional woman with a marriage and new baby to tend to. She hasn’t much time left over for one of her simple pleasures: Making gorgeous, creative, stunningly artistic switchplate covers out of collage. So I am taking advantage of the quiet time I have at the office to cut apart magazines and prepare a delicious palette of tiny images for my daughter to work with should she ever find the time to sit down and make some of her designs.
In this process I found a pile of ‘used’ Oprah magazines at our local thrift store. This is the first time I have ever opened one of those magazines — and quite frankly what I found inside appalled me though it did not surprise me. For all the rumors in the wind I have heard about the ‘do good’ doings of this most-rich woman in America’s spotlight I found nothing in that magazine but continued promotion of the ‘be gorgeous’ make believe woman image in VERY expensive advertising.
Putting aside what I might think about anyone who devotes an entire magazine to their self, and putting aside what I think of anyone with that kind of money who doesn’t avidly reinvest it on the level of ‘who truly needs what for a better life’ down at the bottom of America’s society, I have to be honest and tell you that my motivation for writing a hell of a book with my hell of a childhood story of abuse in it is entirely (self) motivated by my not being responded to on Oprah’s website when I left two separate emails mentioning my story.
No response then, no response ever as far as I am concerned. I can’t think of anything more delightful than for me to actually write a bestseller that attracts someone of Oprah’s staff, who then invites me onto the Oprah show — so that I can utter back one word and one word only: Nope.
Now maybe if they were holding my grandson hostage I MIGHT not say “Nope,” but as that’s unlikely I am quite certain there is nothing, absolutely nothing on this blue and green earth of ours that could drag me anywhere near that woman.
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My point being — I can guarantee that no matter what abuse of what kind Oprah experienced during her childhood years, someone loved her — and someone from the instant she was born provided her with safe and secure attachment.
And I WILL be the one to say this: That is all that really matters.
Without having safe and secure earliest caregiver interactions nobody’s body-nervous system-brain can grow a safe and secure attachment pattern in it. Without these patterns, there is nothing EVER to be done about truly leaving one’s abuser(s) in the past. The changes (the damage) is IN THE BODY of early abuse survivors because it was built in during development.
Now, I honestly don’t care one bit what Oprah’s abuse history is. But I will bet everything I own (inventory sight unseen for any takers) that someone was there to help Oprah’s body-brain-mind-self form correctly during the first year (ESPECIALLY!) of her life. Once that happens, every other trauma a person experiences for the rest of their lifetime will be processed in a different way than it will be by those whose earliest experiences were not safe and secure — with SOMEBODY.
On top of conception to birth, birth to age one, we have to consider next what happens to age two, and then through age five. All of these experiences are building the body-nervous system-brain — step by step, foundation stone upon foundation stone. I am not saying that childhood sexual abuse is not devastating, but processing the experience (any and ALL experience) is very different between those who had safe and secure earliest caregiver interactions and those who did not.
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Out of curiosity I did try to locate the cost of placing an advertisement in “O” for my book. As far as I can tell the least expensive ad placement is well over $50,000. Signed. Sealed. Delivered. The answer to O-Oprah is “Nope.”
My ‘bone to pick’ with the O-Oprah Empire has to do with my concerns that NOT acknowledging the existence of resiliency factors of all kinds during early infant-child development depletes the truth of any claims for so-called ‘recovery’ – no matter who makes them. All RISK factors are always balanced by RESILIENCY factors — not by magic, not by magical thinking, and not by the power of persuasion or suggestion by anyone who is a member of the Magic Kingdom — and I don’t mean Disney’s.
As long as our society does not acknowledge risk and resiliency factors equally, we will not come to the truth about how early infant-child abuse changes physiological development so that early abuse can create very different kinds of body-brains. The HAVES don’t have to be grateful for what they DID receive on the resiliency side of their existence at the same time they can maintain and perpetrate the MYTH that ‘everyone can be as I am, do as I do’.
NOPE!
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Stop the Storm 
Don’t feel too bad about Oprah not contacting you. I also sent her letters. I never heard a peep from her either. Maybe she had an overwhelming amount of similar mail sent to her.
We do have much in common, and I don’t feel understood…ever.
Morning! Even for those with known childhood sexual abuse histories (I don’t have), I believe much of ‘what’s wrong’ happened way, way earlier — and is not recognized as contributing to so much of ‘what’s wrong’.
Those earlier ‘troubles’ underlie all of the later ‘troubles’ but in looking at our whole life, our whole story, our whole set of traumas, our whole resultant difficulties, we aren’t ‘taught’ how to pick all this mess apart so that we can begin to more clearly identify all the separate ‘parts’ that contribute to this ‘whole’.
We are left trying to remain intact and ‘functional’, trying to remain on our own two feet while STILL in the midst of the ongoing tornado-storm that is in our body because it was put there, built right into it, as we grew and developed.
Part of why I mention this in response to your comment is that from birth our early caregivers build our body-brain (including our emotional and social brain-self) through a process related to ‘feeling understood’. MIRRORING, REFLECTING BACK, and RESONATING are three extremely important processes that must happen — in safe and secure earliest attachment relationship-interactions — so that we can grow up with what we need.
When those three things don’t happen for us from the time we are born, and especially in our first year of life, we don’t even end up with a body-brain-mind-self that has a real CLUE what it feels like for someone to understand us — to mirror, reflect, and resonate with us so that we can FEEL FELT.
Feeling felt is actually a ‘technical term’ for what we experience when we feel understood. Add onto these complications the fact that all infant-child abuse survivors have had things happen to them that are far, far, far past what most safe and securely attached (and nonabused) people can imagine, let alone empathize with!!
As I begin to UNDERSTAND all of what I am describing I also begin to understand that the most important person who I need to UNDERSTAND me is — ME! Yes, that can be a lonely, lonely ‘place’ to be in, but all that went so wrong in our early life REALLY does to hurt us is prevent our own strong, clear, happy, safe, securely attached individual, autonomous OWN SELF from forming. We are robbed of our own self, and that, to me, is the biggest hurt, the deepest wound, and the most important one for us to heal.
As we begin to more clearly understand the nature of our hurts, we are fine tuning our own reception abilities in terms of being able to look around us and visually begin to SEE these same early abuse survivor patterns in other people. We begin to recognize them not only in our self, but in others. Then we begin to see how MANY people did not have what they needed in safe, safe, SAFE — and secure attachment environments. These people are changed just as we are, to different degrees — and it is the quality and nature of the SAFE AND SECURE attachments that any of us have with ANYONE in our earliest years that fights back against any and all harm that was done to us THEN so that we have stronger inner resources NOW.
There are two pieces of information I need to add to my previous reply. Dissociation that was built into us through early trauma and abuse most often includes ‘depersonalization’ and ‘derealization’. Part of what makes this happen is that our early brain didn’t form patterns of ‘repair’ to go along in a reasonable and healthy way with the overwhelming patterns of ‘RUPTURE’ that the deprivations and traumas of our early lives created.
This means that dissociation — or patterns of all these ruptures without corresponding (and necessary) repair just leaves us with lots of holes in the fabric of our social-emotional brain processing — all the way through our nervous system. When we feel ‘depersonalization’ and ‘derealization’ as parts of dissociation, we are feeling those holes. Anything we can learn about recognizing these patterns when we feel them — and recognizing how TODAY to help ourselves gain REPAIR for the ruptures (triggers) that send us off on the dissociation pathway, the better off we will be.
The second point I need to mention is that ALL RELATIONSHIPS in our present life that are safe and secure attachments are important to our well-being. But along with this comes the fact that not even we, our self, have what it takes to REALLY be able to experience true empathy. We are not as good as we might think we are at mirroring other people back to their self, reflecting back to them or with resonating with ANYONE else as we COULD have been if someone had done that repairing-of-ruptures for us as our body-brain grew early in our lives.
I think of it as a ‘numb zone’ that pops right in between me and other people — and it is tied to these two arms of dissociation I mentioned (depersonalization and derealization). Our intentions can be the best in the world, but as Dr. Allan Schore says, everyone with an insecure attachment disorder has an empathy disorder, as well.
So if we are surrounded by people even as well intentioned to empathize as we are, yet they also have an insecure attachment disorder, they (as are we) are prevented RIGHT WITHIN OUR PHYSIOLOGY from being able to truly offer back ‘understanding’.
I will also say that many people are motivated toward the helping professions that also come from similar backgrounds as their clients do. If a therapist does not understand patterns of secure and insecure attachment chances are not good that they have made REAL progress in healing themselves in the ways that really matter. That means that they also have empathy disorders — and are probably least likely of all to know or admit this fact.
http://www.l0oree.wordpress.com
you can see at my blog the information i have for my birth mom. My adoption paper has my name as Doreen Van Assen and my Mother’s name as Tillora Henrietta Van Assen. I was adopted through social services in Phoenix Arizona. My adopted mom has always told me I am half dutch and half mexican that was all she knew except she also told me my birth mom was crazy and had all her children taken away by the state before I was born then she willingly gave me away at birth. One birth family contact I have found told me she had heard rumor that my birth mom was raped and caused her some mental illness. I have spoken to her brother Herman once who is estranged from his sister who told me my birth mom’s last known address was west palm beach florida and goes by the last name Jackson now.
Intergenerational trauma, that’s for sure! Good thing we are our OWN plant and we can just grow grow grow!!
My supposedly birthday just so happens to fall one week before the cut off to start kindergarten at age 5.
My birthday is coming up August 31st — which put me right at the line before September first — which made me the youngest in my class. Come to think of it considering all my mother’s comments in her letters about me and school – that was part of it — I was very young for my grade, as you were.
I was the favorite child for at the most six months because my mom was pregnant at the time of the adoption with my sister whom was born on Valentine’s day 1971. My birth certificate says my birthday is august 12 1970. I truly believe my mom had that altered in the court so us girls could be in separate grades. For my mom is an identical twin herself.
What a whammy, to be adopted into such a family!! Such sickness!! Wondering if you ever located birthing parents?
I agree it forms who you are life experiences or you could say experiments with life teach you more than any text book. The time my father molested me he had just retired from marines just finished a 4 year call back overseas to vietnam. spent 24 years in the marines. Latest rank master sergeant. Even a grown up at the time my dad threatened to kill me would have believed it. If you have ever been threatened by a marine corp master sergeant, you might would know what I am talking about. My father could give you a war face that could scare superman. Later about the age of 15 he did apologize to me. He said he raped me because I was adopted and my sister whom is six months younger is not adopted. The reason because my mom never had sex with him after my sister was born. I lived 17 years with this sick twisted family. The day of my highschool graduation because I did not choose the armed services like my three other siblings my dad threw me to the ground kicked me and said get out of my house you lazy bum. I w
As I say on my blog, I have no history that I know of for sexual abuse. My post was an exaggeration more on the ‘cartoon’ end of things than serious. That Oprah’s open discussions concerning sexual abuse have helped so many people speaks also to the tragedy of the prevalence of sexual abuse of children. Sexual abuse needs to be in the open. It needs to be recognized and talked about. I have no doubt that someone molested my mother when she was a child, and her buried experience of sexual abuse complicated her already very hurtful childhood experiences.
I do hold to the fact that what happens as the earliest brain and nervous system forms is critical to a person’s ability to cope with every experience in life — all forms of abuse and trauma included.
I have to say I disagree with you on this one. One thing that saved me during the time of my abuse 1977 was Oprah. I was sexually penetrated by my father for a year once sometimes twice a day then found out caught red handed by my mother who did nothing but ask me what he did to me. At the time I was scared to say anything because father had threatened to kill me if I told anyone. I did tell her that he tried to make me suck his peter in which at the time thought was the grossest thing ever. My mom then spent one night on a pallet in my sister’s and mine bedroom then went back to a shared bed with my father the next day. My father never raped me again but it did severe damage to my emotions. Anyways after school parents were never home. I would always rush home turn the tv to Oprah. Brother left in charge never wanted the tv until after his homework and studies. Whom by the way never knew he was Dyslexic until college after marines. Those early shows of Oprah were all I had to assure me parents are sick