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I have a lot of thoughts this morning as I wait out the dawn for the sun to rise.  I am thinking about the book that was recommended to me by a therapist nearly 30 years ago – the one I read that led to my finally being able to disown my mother.  In People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck I found something I needed:  How to tell truth from untruth by listening to what my body tells me in my gut.

This morning I put this thought together with the concluding paragraphs Dr. Martin Teicher includes in one of his important articles about how the stress caused by infant-child abuse, neglect and trauma changes the development of the brain:

“In our hypothesis, postnatal neglect or other maltreatment serves to elicit a cascade of stress responses that organizes the brain to develop along a specific pathway selected to facilitate reproductive success and survival in a world of deprivation and strife.  This pathway, however, is costly as it is associated with an increased risk of developing serious medical and psychiatric disorders and is unnecessary and maladaptive in a more benign environment.”

I am questioning my own conclusion that I reached after discovering Teicher’s work.  “Who says that severe early abuse survivors hatch out from their first malevolent environment when they leave home into a “more benign environment?”  Does an environment that lacks direct assault constitute a benign environment?”

No.

I woke up this morning thinking about the interactions I had with my neighbor children yesterday (ages 6 and 12).  The 6 year old is still young enough to be oblivious to many of the stresses present in the world she is growing up in and for.  The child who just turned 12 two days ago is increasingly showing great signs of inner conflict and distress.  She is vastly overweight, receives blatant derogatory comments at school about her weight, and openly admitted to me yesterday that the teasing she receives at school makes her feel ‘mean’.  And mean she can be!  She is not a happy child.

I also think about a friend of mine (alcoholic/addict) who has the sweetest heart and who is running his body directly into the ground.  I hadn’t seen him for many months.  He stopped by this week for a visit and brought a friend of his who must have repeated to me six times that his ex-wife ‘ripped him off’ after 34 years of marriage, etc.

I found myself after he told the story once wondering why he repeated it again – and again – and again…..  Then I found myself completely without compassion realizing that I don’t give a hoot about what happened to him.  He is a complete stranger to me.  In my world if something that happens in your life continues to trouble you, deal with it!  Grapple with it!  Wrestle with it!  Examine the conditions surrounding the events that cling on and on and on – and get over it!

UNLESS!!!  I reserve for the category of ‘there’s no way this one will ever leave me’ for victims of early infant-childhood trauma and abuse the reality that because that trauma changed the course of our physiological development permanently so that we ended up with a different body-brain our trauma built us and built itself INTO us.  As long as we live in our body the consequences of our earliest traumas reside within us.  We cannot leave those traumas behind.

SO…..

I did ask both my addicted friend and the friend he brought with him what their childhoods were like.  The addict insists that his earliest years were ideal.  OK.  Addictions can hit without early trauma.  The other man admitted that his early years were awful.

OK

“So go back to the beginning,” I wanted to tell him.  “Go back there and find the beginning of your own path through life and follow it.  Untangle it where you can.  Expose your early sufferings where you can.  But what good will it do you — or others who are weighted down by repeated exposure to a boring story of ‘gee my ex was so mean’ – to hear about something that has nothing to do with us?”

Am I getting harsh in my aging years?  Probably so…..

But

These thoughts are connected for me today as I received a lightening bolt realization:  None of us – no matter what nation we live in – are living in a perfect ‘BENIGN’ world.  As long as anyone is suffering, the world is not benign.

But

We have to look at the biggest picture possible.  This world and the civilizations upon it are supposed to be maturing and advancing, evolving, growing up.  Once this process is complete, only THEN will this world be benign.

Even within the boundaries of our great (rich) nation nearly a quarter of our children go to bed hungry because they don’t have enough food to eat.  Forty percent of our nation’s children are living in unstable housing.  Never mind the numbers of our children that are obese, that don’t make it through high school, or the numbers who cannot read well or think for themselves even if they do graduate.

This is NOT a benign environment, Dr. Martin Teicher.

I have, on some profound levels, bought (as Mr. Peck would say) that lie!

This is not a world where every human being is cherished.  This is not a world that does everything possible to make sure everyone has what they need from conception onward to thrive as the best person they can be as they live a life of well-being.

This COULD be a different, benign benevolent world – but it ISN’T one yet.

Just because those of us who suffered terrible things during our earliest years might have escaped one level of trauma as we stepped away from our home of origin and escaped our childhoods does NOT mean that we entered a wonderful world!

If we are going to define what is good for us and what isn’t, we have to think about what the world COULD be like and not pretend that the world is REALLY that world we imagine.

And perhaps those of us who survived our terrifying and terrible earliest years happen to have a body that is not, as Teicher states, designed ONLY for living in a malevolent world.  Perhaps we have a body that craves that better world that isn’t here yet at the same time that we ALWAYS know that this world we are in is NOT the benign world that most people seem intent on believing it is.

Perhaps we WANT more, NEED more in more intense and direct ways because we have suffered so much already.  Perhaps we crave a truly peaceful, safe-and-secure, fair, just, compassionate and caring world because we know so well how bad things can be – and that stepping out of our home of origin was REALLY only one small step in perhaps a better direction – but NONE of us are ‘there’ yet!!  Making the world a better place is a mutual job that everyone has to work on together.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti

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