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As I began my re-search over six years ago in my desperate need to find information about how what had happened to me during my abusive childhood was affecting my adult life, I began to find the ‘bits and pieces’ of truth that eventually I was able to fit together into the bigger picture that I live with today.

The more I read about how trauma in infancy-toddlerhood changes development the more hopeless I felt.  All I could interpret from the facts I read was DAMAGE!  DAMAGE!  DAMAGE!

Finally I stumbled over the paper you will find scanned at this link:

*SYMTPOMS: 120909 Scan of Teicher’s Research – Trauma Altered Development Paper

The proverbial light went on, and suddenly all thoughts about my being DAMAGED by the severe abuse I experienced from birth turned into thoughts about how I was a CHANGED being!

Yet I still believe that I carry my own internal light into my continued personal study about the topic of abuse-caused early trauma altered development.  Although there certainly were years during my own ‘recovery’ attempts that began in 1980 where I bought and swallowed all the various self-help ideas about ‘what was wrong with me’, I now know looking back that while I might have put these thoughts in my mouth and chewed on them — they didn’t taste good and they didn’t taste right.

Something within me knew better — and knew that something very critical was missing from all the ‘recovery’ information I could find.  The information I found didn’t feel right deep at my core.

Even though the attachment and developmental neuroscience information that I have most recently studied certainly applies and is a far better fit, I still don’t 100% swallow it?

Why?  Because at my core I value myself too much to eat, chew, swallow and digest ANY information that simply tells me I am damaged, changed in such a way that I ended up ‘mentally ill’ or suffering from pathology, or am in any way FLAWED as a being due to the trauma altered development I was FORCED to go through as my body adapted from birth to a malevolent, traumatic and extremely toxic interpersonal world.

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Although my discovery of Dr. Martin Teicher’s writings elevated my re-search to a platform above writings that did nothing but highlight ‘damage’ that happens from infant-child abuse, I still have always known SOMETHING IS STILL MISSING!  Even though Teicher seemed to see ‘the bigger picture’, I knew instinctively there is a bigger picture still.

Teicher’s work (and his fellows’) cannot be disputed as it stands, but I don’t believe it goes far enough that it can truly serve those of us who have experienced early trauma altered development through severe abuse so that we ended up with an ‘evolutionarily altered brain’ such as his work describes.

It is NOT ‘just’ our brain that changed.  Not in my thinking.  It is our ENTIRE BODY.  All of it down to our innermost molecule and genetic operation including our entire nervous system and our immune system (I still believe future research will find that it was our immune system that instigated our trauma altered development from the beginning).

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO US AS SURVIVORS TO BE AN ‘EVOLUTIONARILY ALTERED BEING’?

I will NOT buy it that we are ‘mentally ill’ or ‘damaged’ or ‘suffering from pathology’ SIMPLY because we are these beings.

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Most simply put I, as the survivor I am, quite simply NOW live post-childhood in a world that does not belong to me, nor I to it.

Teicher’s paper (as you will find it at the link above) might put in a kingpin for true understanding of who-how we are as survivors, but his information is ONLY the beginning.

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As I write this post following the post immediately preceding this one, I think about the DIFFERENT world I would probably fit into a whole lot better than I do this one.

If I could locate people whose body formed in similar ways that mine did, I could discuss this topic on its most REAL and important level.  For starters, my guess is that as a whole we are far less egotistical, self-centered, self-possessed, self-righteous, arrogant, greedy and selfish than are many others who live in ‘that other world’.

We survivors could get together and talk about ‘them’ from our point of view with the information that OUR body tells us and come up with conclusions that very few in ‘that’ world would want to hear — I guarantee it!

If we could escape together from our quarantine in the ‘pathological’ pantry, we could discover our own wisdom — and what I suspect we would find as a group is that we are very closely connected in our experience (and in our body) to our specie’s ancestors — the Most Ancient Ones who lived in a world and during a time when most certainly nobody assumed anyone was ‘safe and secure’ for very long!

THOSE Most Ancient Ones?  I feel proud to think that I have developed in such a way that I could share along with them what OUR reality is like.

That we as survivors, and WE as the Most Ancient Ones were NEVER a part of the PAMPERED group does NOT make us damaged, ill or pathological!  In fact, people from ‘that’ world might find us downright frightening (Are they envious of us?) in our power, our strength, our resilience, our toughness, our determination, our courage and our endurance.  We know things that PAMPERED people are not likely to know in their lifetime — and what WE know is built into our body down to our essential core.

So what if we experience life differently, remember differently, gather different information and process it differently than those who have always lived in ‘that’ world?

Somebody needs to expand their thinking, and I am not at all sure that it is the severe abuse survivors that most need to do this.  Every attitude that belittles us, judges us, criticizes us, condemns us and does NOT value, honor and respect not only WHO we are as beings in the world but HOW we are beings in the world is a victim of their own ignorance, bias, stereotyping, prejudice and superstition.

IN FACT, we severe infant-child abuse survivors are probably the closest to being physiological SUPERHEROES as our current generations of humans are ever going to know!

The problem seems to be for me that I can’t find the boat with my own kind on it.  I am left feeling pretty darned alone with this information.  Those superhero ancestors of ours that were tough enough to endure so that our species is still here are pretty silent these days!  But what they knew we know — how to endure the unendurable to the end of our days.

That’s not a trivial project, folks!  Infant-child abuse survivors share with our Most Ancient ancestors the most important piece of information any living being can have.  In spite of all the distractions one might encounter along life’s way only one single thing matters:  Keep moving forward — no matter what!

So, I will no longer take a bite of, put into my mouth (mind), chew on, nor swallow any information about myself (self-help or not) that in any way discounts not only WHO I am, but HOW I am in the world.  I will no longer believe that I am flawed, damaged, mentally ill or pathological because I am not like the Pampered People are.  I will not try to change myself to be more like them just because they determine that I need to.

I WILL attempt to learn as much as I can about myself so that I can empower myself to be a better me living a better life.  The Pampered People can obviously also do what they want to do, but I now understand that what they know, how they know it, what they believe, and how they might judge me has NOTHING to do with me — and it never did.

We survivors are no more pity-able or pathetic than our Most Ancient Ancestors were — and THIS thought does NOT contribute to my sadness — not even one single, tiny bit!  Hooray!

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