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It occurs to me after writing my last post that Trauma Drama is about all that my body knows.
Realizing this fact I immediately thought about soap carving! I tried this once, only rather than finding the soap malleable, I found it to be fragile and everything I tried to make simple shattered in the course of carving. Pieces flaked off the bar of soap where I didn’t intend them to, and my project ended up on the ledge of my bathtub where it met the end I believe – at least for me – soap is intended to meet!
So, now that my right brain and body has made the image-connection between trauma drama and soap carving I need to explore how these two factors of life might be connected.
When I left home and throughout all of my adulthood until I began my own research into what REALLY happened to me as a severely abused infant-child I was actually living a life of trauma drama – and of course didn’t even begin to know it. Looking back, I own this truth because at the same time I realize that’s all my BODY knew about being alive.
I listened to my ‘deadbeat’ neighbor’s 18-year-old grandson and his comparable girlfriend yesterday as I labored on my yard project. She screamed and cried. He yelled and swore. Over the years I’ve watched that boy (and now his girlfriend!) follow a pattern that I can not call anything BUT trauma drama. With all the brilliance of a scholar and all the motivation of a chronic pothead I have watched with disappointment and some amazement as this boy (and obviously his girlfriend) simply toss the full potential of a wonderful life away.
Their drama yesterday had to do with her throwing a snit-fit that had evidently ended with her throwing his cell phone over the Mexican-American border fence behind our shared backyard line. He was out there scrambling around searching for it. It could not be found. To these two young people this is the way to live life. How sad is that?
And yet as I turn my own searchlight on my own life, I know I did little better. Sure, I ‘sought recovery’ when I was thirty, but not even that did very much to help me except to get me ‘off of pot’. Nobody back then actually knew what was wrong with me. In fact, I don’t believe I could find maybe more than one ‘therapist’ in the whole state of Arizona (where I reside) that even now would have the savvy to know that what I am is a trauma-changed in my earliest development person with a body that knows only more of the same.
So, as I try to gain clarity and self-possessed choice, free will and control over how my life GOES now and how I FEEL in my body, I have to increasingly understand how absolutely and fundamentally NORMAL trauma actually feels for and in my own body.
Trying to carve for myself a non-trauma-drama life is something like trying to carve something exquisite and remarkably beautiful out of something as fragile as a bar of soap. Only I don’t want the rest of my life to wash away as easily as a bar of soap does. I will keep trying – with every breath – to avoid letting the DRAMA of TRAUMA reenact itself through MY life. Giving it words in thought, giving myself the power of knowledge about how what happened to me from birth changed my development, finding my own way out of the repetitive darkness that trauma drama creates on the stage of human life is a worth – creative – and very artistic endeavor.
After all, even in the most glorious sunrise Creation has created beauty. I want to follow THAT path – and not the OTHER one – however I am able to do that today. If I have to teach my own body about this better way of life every step of the way, then I intend to do that. Like driving a car with four bad tires, worn-out shocks and no front end alignment, I dare not take my hands off the wheel. I cannot afford to take my eyes off my target. I cannot carve out my better life with my eyes closed!
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Stop the Storm 
Not on topic again, sorry — although this sounds so much like my household (although my parents never took it outside) and like other families in the neighborhood I grew up in…
Nope, I’m here to alert you to another link I just found. It’s sort of the opposite number of everything you’ve been writing about: “Why Spoiled Babies Grow Up To Be Kinder, Smarter Kids,” Time Magazine, Sept. 29, 2010.
I don’t know about you, but my mother rationalized her cruelty to me by saying she did not want to “spoil” me. Her greatest fear, supposedly, was that I’d get a “big head.” The truth was, of course, that she had her own demons and this beautiful, happy little girl just made her viciously jealous and pissed off.
This article hit home for me. It seems like “spoiling” a child is one of the best things you can do for it.
Anyway, thought you’d like the article. Have a great day!
Thanks – I’ll sure check it out (and please, no need to ever worry ’bout ‘off topic’!) Hope your day is great, as well!!
Hi Linda,
Another great post, you really do a good job of raising issues and awareness.
I wrote a piece on trauma exit today & you asked if I would submit a guest post, could you have a look at this and see if you think its suitable if I change to reflect PTSD more?
http://bit.ly/f1LRYI
Keep up the great work.
Take care,
David.
Hi! Post is excellent with two minor ‘typos’ (paragraphs: “A new awareness of my nervous system….” check last sentence; Paragraph “Perhaps birth trauma….” check ‘and’ in last sentence) – otherwise good to go!
I’ve never done this before, so technically “hummmm” –
My first thought – because your format is wonderful and integral to the post – is to ask you to write a new introduction to the post and we can include a direct link to your post. You could introduce yourself and the post…..? Let me know what you think!! thanks a bunch (and NO NEED to alter that piece one bit!) — Linda – alchemynow
Forgot to say, if my idea is OK with you, send your ‘preface-introduction’ in a comment. I won’t approve the comment but will cut and paste into the blog. If I need to ask questions or something I’ll just do another reply like this one! Let me know! thanks!
They have toddlers witnessing all the insanity in their home. Police have been notified many times because of the yelling and cursing. CPS was called when they lived the the Condos next to Shooters. They’re from TX and their constant trauma drama is bad even for us neighbors. They scream their family affairs for all to hear with colorful cursing I never heard curse words combined the way they have chosen to communicate with each other. I do know of Care Hawaii case managers visit and I hear them work with them on being mindful to their neighbors….yet, the toddlers there are exposed…you would find this multi-cultured small town very interesting….I’m Caucasian and deal with the (pre ’60’s in reverse discrimination) when I call the local police here about their children in that home…I’m a real pest. Soon will be relocating on 3 acres of rain forest jungle an 20 ft cargo container. I plan to deck it out like a bedroom and bathroom of dreams…everything else is done outside under a porch or patio..screened in..growing chocolate bean and coffee!!!..and veggies of course!!!!
Your new home-to-be sounds lovely! Doesn’t sound good with that family — I hope and pray for some healing for them! People don’t understand even when little one’s aren’t the ‘direct target’ of abuse, even and especially verbal abuse and screaming, it’s the same to the little ones as if it was being done to them directly — and changes the way their body-brain develops. Yes, having been around Native American communities for many years I know about the ‘reverse prejudice’. It taught me a lot!
Maybe it’s the quarter phase of the moon..as I also have a young couple residing across the street from my window with the same mindset with their cell phone and throwing it around and screaming, cursing at all given hours with their infant wailing away….it is the norm here in Hilo, Hi.
Pitiful.
Mahalo,
Drose
So hard on the BABY! I am so glad this ‘couple’ have no children – I wait with baited breath! This boy (I first met him when he was 11) did NOT have an adequate mother, and the grandmother is such an enabler! NO WORK – and she supports them both and her pothead 32-yr-old son now out of prison. I am so glad I believe in prayer! The way things are going they’ll get worse before they get better – a whole species of lost people!!