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We all have to live in this world one way or another.  Me?  Evidently more hermit than not, and not because I was BORN this way.  Eighteen years of abuse and solitary confinement made me this way.

So I am most grateful for my yard and my home.  I love living in the high southeastern Arizona desert because more months than not outside is the better place to be.

My garden is finally completing itself (with my work, help, play, enjoyment, creativity) along the neglected east side of this property.  For nearly three years I have viewed ‘the mess’ over there with no vision of what ‘it’ wanted to transform itself into.

Inch my inch I KNOW now — and thanks to a generous ‘free-cycle’ gift of much twisted-weathered 2′ x 6′ give-a-way lumber and as many wooden pallets as I can haul home (and play house with) I will soon have at least 100 feet of solid fencing — for…..

A herd of miniature whether goats

A miniature rabbit

A big rabbit!

I have to make THEM a house – so time to get to the task – after saying…..

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AS A CHILD I NEVER WAS ALLOWED TO PLAY!

I listen to the freedom of children’s laughter and their continual banter and chattering with one another.

How could I have survived NEVER being safe enough to have this freedom or this companionship all the way through my 18 years of childhood?

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MAYBE GOD WANTS US TO LOVE ALL PEOPLE.  IF HE HAD WANTED US TO LIKE PEOPLE I THINK HE WOULD HAVE MADE THEM NICER.

I have lived in this house in this trailer court-neighborhood on the Mexican-American line long enough to have seen the 7-year-olds since they were in diapers at less than one year.  I watch those that were old enough to come visit me and hang around in their little groups who are now in their teens begin to have those looks in their eyes – those looks that are so strange to me – the looks of the adults they are soon growing up to be.

I know for a fact I can trust all children before they reach about age 9.  After that the look begins to appear in their eyes that lets me know they are critical now (as they should be as they are most able to socially (at least) soon join the adult world).  I can tell they now have a boundary line of their own that operates as they lose the ability to trust anyone over their own age.  Why should I then trust them ‘in return’?

I am also not one bit a fan of ulterior motives – conscious or unconscious – I don’t care.  I grew up with a BPD mother with nothing BUT her own ulterior motives regarding me.  I, in direct opposite to Mother, never had anything like an ulterior motive until I was 17 (and that was to sneak out of the house to see ‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘Rosemary’s Baby’).

I was never allowed – and therefore was not able to – gradually pass through the social-emotional developmental stages that everyone else I have ever met (having never yet met anyone abused in so many ways and under such insane conditions as I was) naturally went through so that the RULES of upcoming-and-arriving adulthood naturally fill up the gaps within people so that so little of the genuine child-of-integrity continues to exist.

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UPPITY ME?  A LESSON IN HUMILITY?

What’s a missing front tooth?  Fine at age 5-6-7, but not at 60.  Not when suddenly out of nowhere a front tooth vanishes from one’s top denture!

Where did the tooth GO?  I have no idea!  Strainer in the sink did not catch that tooth as I cleaned my dentures yesterday morning.  Gone gone gone!

Toppled my illusion world of all’s-OK-with-the-world in a big hurry.  I don’t have the $$ to run to a dentist to have this all fixed.  A friend of mine took my top denture ‘over the line’ to a dentist in Mexico to see what can be done.

Meanwhile?

I know I was taking too much of my own opinion too seriously.  Thinking my older friends need to ‘lead the way’ and get old with their increasingly crappy bodies with GUSTO – with pride!  Get a golf cart to ‘run’ down to the horse corral to greet, visit, groom their horses!  Don’t be ashamed!  Age happens to everyone!

Yeah, right.  And me now with no top teeth?  Eating alone becomes a huge burden.  Forget smiling with confidence in front of others!

Where was I scoring on my uppity-vs-humility (reality) spectrum?

Did the angels (tooth fairies) snatch my tooth to teach me some lesson?  Seems so…..

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I found this easily this morning via a Google search.  I am surprised and thankful.  I wanted to post this back to a recent commenter, but decided also that this information is so important I need to post it again on the ‘front page’!

+CAREGIVING IN ADULT ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIPS

Every adult has times when their need for attachment overrides their ability to caregive to another person.  It is vital for people in committed relationships with infant-child abuse and trauma survivors to clearly know about the patterns described at this link!

Becoming informed and therefore conscious about how attachment patterns operate helps us be able to understand self and others better so that we can work toward making different choices about needs in relationships.

This is fascinating and important information – please take a look at the writing at the above link.

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I have two things I wish to write about.  Here’s the first one:

From today – posted on the Prevent Child Abuse New York blog site

New Report Estimates the Cost of Child Abuse at $80 Billion a Year

“Child abuse and neglect will cost our nation over $80 billion in 2012, according to an economic impact analysis released today by Prevent Child Abuse America. The report, Estimated Annual Cost of Child Abuse and Neglect, assesses a number of factors. Direct costs, which include hospitalization, mental health costs, costs incurred by the child welfare system, and law enforcement, total $33 billion. Indirect costs, including special education, early intervention, adult homelessness, mental health and health care, juvenile and adult criminal justice costs, and lost work productivity, total nearly $47 billion.  

Based on this analysis, New York will spend an estimated $5,264,534,000 to address the consequences of child abuse and neglect. This confirms what professionals in the field have long known: There’s a tremendous imbalance between what we spend on preventing child abuse from happening and intervening in and treating child abuse after it already occurs. New York State, for example, spends $23.3 million on Healthy Families New York and $2.5 million on Nurse Family Partnership, two early childhood home visiting programs proven to reduce abuse and improve outcomes for at-risk kids.

We should not diminish the importance of intervening in abusive situations and treating victims, but we must also recognize the trauma of abuse can not be erased. Abuse and neglect account for many grievous social ills. Victims are more likely to experience chronic health problems, mental health issues, developmental delays, poor educational outcomes, and involvement with the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

We need to prioritize children not only in our policies and budgets, but in our everyday actions,” said James M. Hmurovich, President & CEO, Prevent Child Abuse America. “Wouldn’t it make sense to develop a strategy that focuses on a national commitment to actually prevent child abuse and neglect before it ever occurred? If we could decrease these annual costs by 10% in the next 5 years, think of the great things we could do for children and their families. For example, $7.7 million provides 78,000 home visits to 2000-3000 expectant and new parents at risk of abusing or neglecting their child. Ultimately, this benefits not just families, but society as a whole.””

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There’s no possible way to put a dollar value amount on the cost of suffering – and no way to truly evaluate the lifelong consequences every individual infant-child abuse survivor lives with for their ENTIRE life!!

Leave it to Americans!  Check out this recent post –

+WHO CARES ABOUT OUR NATION’S CHILDREN? THE STATE OF AMERICA’S CHILDREN® 2011 REPORT

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Next I just wish to send an invisible thank you to a gentleman I met briefly tonight through a friend of mine who simply looked my way – and recognized one of my greatest gifts.

Nobody has put words to this gift before, not even me.  Yet as this man turned to me and with the love of his soul for God in his eyes and simply said, “You are an encourager.  I can see it in your heart.  I can see it all around you!”  I knew he was speaking the truth.

How did I know?  Because nearly 5 hours later my heart is still blazing with hope.  Hope for myself.  Hope for those I care about.  Hope for my own future.  Hope for all of our futures.

I needed to hear those words.  Yes, I AM an encourager!

On my way driving home from town afterwards a song came to me.  It has been many weeks since a song has sprung into, through and out of my heart.  It has been many days – moving into months now – since I have even been able to tolerate the sound-pitch-tone of any note on my piano keyboard.

As I am working out the notes for this song now – I can HEAR the notes and the song is beautiful!

It is an encouraging song.  I don’t have the words – not yet.  I don’t even know if the song will even end up having words.  But I KNOW the song is about encouragement – as I recognize how I needed God to speak to me those words of encouragement I needed to hear — through that man.

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I think about my garden in which I have been working many hours in recent weeks.  I love plants.  I love everything about gardening – even in this very harsh high desert Arizona environment.

I realize that what I do is ENCOURAGE plants to grow and to thrive in my garden.  What a new and fascinating way to think about my garden!

I also DO love to encourage people – who WANT to grow and change.  I don’t think everyone can be encouraged.  Some people seem to have the door of their soul slammed tightly shut – as if they have completely forgotten that God (however a person understands the only true God there is) exists at all.  More importantly people seem to have severe amnesia about the fact that all life belongs to our Creator – and that humans are spiritual beings with a soul that exists now and for forever.

It is only through the growth and advancement of our soul that we heal and grow – no matter what we wish as societies full of individuals to believe to the contrary.

It is spiritual living that matters to me, not the particular religion a person understands.  Spirit is power.  Nothing about the changes that survivors of infant-child abuse suffered in their early development particularly impacted anyone’s soul – unless a person has made their own CHOICE (with a few special exceptions as I see things) to pretend to ‘only’ be an animal.

Humans.  In a body that does, yes, belong while we live on Earth to the animal kingdom.  But then there is the part of us that matters.  Truly matters:  our soul!

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This man I met so briefly tonight knows he is a spiritual being – and that I am one, too – even though we do not share the same ‘religion’.  He was therefore able to share one of what must be his spiritual gifts – to see the spiritual person.

Therefore – this man could and did encourage me!  Encouraging is really even what my blog is all about!  I like this concept.  There is nothing about encouragement to me that smacks of any effort to control or to direct another person in any way.

I entirely missed out on encouragement as I struggled to endure and survive my 18 year childhood so full of terrible abuse, torture and trauma.  Nobody encouraged me.

‘Encourage’ is evidently a young word in modern English, appearing in the 15^th century.  It can’t really be understood at all without considering the word, ‘courage’, around which encouraging occurs.

Definition of COURAGE:

mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty

Ah, but look:

Middle English corage, from Anglo-French curage, from quer, coer heart, from Latin cor — more at heart

First Known Use: 14th century

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It is HEART that lies at the center of this entire idea!  True heart, I know, is about SOUL.

I hope I can in small ways help people who are searching for new goodness, growth and healing recognize that their strength and power lies in their own heart, and that it is with our heart that we can reach out for assistance and courage from the greatest power for love anyone can even begin to imagine:  God.

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Those with severe abuse histories – like I have – from an 18 year childhood of trauma – where do we go to tell our stories when something ‘comes up’?  Calling our ‘need’ a ‘mental health – mental illness’ need is a JOKE!  But, then before I bother to get my proverbial dander in a fluff I remember, as much as we Americans might like to pretend we are an advanced representation of a civilized society – well – that assumption is also a JOKE.

A friend of mine (who is poor) had a tooth pulled nearly two months ago.  She had a dry socket, had that treated, but a month later the hole in her jaw has not healed.  While she has no pain, splinters of her removed tooth are still coming to the surface – something does not appear right here.

As we spoke yesterday my own memory of my difficulties with dentistry that no doubt originated with my experiences at age 17 came to my mind.  I did not speak of them to my friend.  I didn’t need to – doing so was not necessary or appropriate.  BUT ….

This first link leads up to my dentist story, I believe.  I wrote it some time ago and have no desire at this moment to reread this piece.  This second link follows this part of my story up to the minute I walked out of my home or origin a final time.

*Age 17 – What My Parents Taught Me About Racism

*Age 18 – LEADING UP TO GONE FROM HOME

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In thinking about the difference between a so-called ‘mental health’ center providing assistance of one kind or another to people who have nearly ALWAYS suffered from inadequate parenting and early childhoods of extreme trauma, I believe that naming these people as SICK as a result of how traumas affected and changed them during their early critical windows of development is the wrong way to go about helping create positive change in people’s lives.

If I ran the world – and what I envision as the direction a more advanced society will move toward – a network of what I might call Community Compassion Centers could better serve the needs of survivors (and everyone becomes a survivor of some kind of trauma throughout the span of a lifetime).  These centers would have no stigma attached to them whatsoever.  They would be grassroot centers that are designed to meet the everyday needs of PEOPLE.

In my reality, with my history, wishing yesterday that I had such a center to stop by so that I could have talked a bit about my own dentistry story would have been for me simply an everyday need.  Dealing with the residues of severe early trauma and abuse is an everyday process for me.  Nothing about my need is a ‘mental illness’ issue.

If people need prescription drugs – those people do need medical attention and no difference need be made between those needs and any other medical need.

As far as so-called therapy goes, the older I get and the more I look around (I am 60) at society, the more I understand that nearly every single person I encounter would benefit from some specific forms of EDUCATION about how to be a healthier, happier person – and thus a better person within the society they live in.

There ARE a few people who I meet who were NOT abused, neglected or traumatized as children.  In this small town area I live in, it is many of these people who are the best resources for this entire community.  They CARE and they ACT to help others in effective and healthy ways.

Then there are a whole lot of other people who are suffering – even if they do not think about their life in this way.  So many people cannot possibly afford or access so-called therapy – and I am not convinced that it is therapy that very many people need.

What we need are LISTENERS.  Because my thinking is grounded in ‘attachment theory’ I would say what we need are RESONATORS!

A resonator to me is a person who is capable of listening with appropriate empathy (healthy empathy) coupled with compassion and an ability to communicate to the person they are listening to – resonating with – that they FEEL (appropriately) what the ‘talker’ is saying.

There would be no outside belief that anyone needs to ‘be changed’.  People change because they want to and because they believe that they can.  People change for the better as their heart grows – like a beautiful flower opening to fantastic new possibilities.

Humans give these hopes to one another.  We are designed to do this.  We are a social species.  Many of us do not know how to be in direct, open and entirely honest caring relationship with one another.  Many people are – quite frankly – allergic to knowing the truth about their past and how that past is influencing them in the present.

No games.  That is my best motto.  I never had a chance in my first 18 years of life to learn how to play games.  Truth is truth – and I always function best with people who know their own truth and are not one bit shy about being who they are – without trying to change anyone else.

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I suppose there is more I could write on this topic, but the day is gorgeous and I want to be outside in my garden.  Best hopes for everyone’s fantastic day!

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In reading THE STATE OF AMERICA’S CHILDREN^® 2011 REPORT it seems to me that any caring, intelligent adult might wonder if America is falling apart, unraveling not at our seems but at the core of who we are as a nation.  These statistics break my heart.  Who is crying for America’s children?  Who turns their back and walks away?  Who suffers?  Who helps those who are suffering?  And most importantly, WHAT ON EARTH is wrong with our nation and how do we make things right for the children who are NOT receiving what they need?

Are Our Children Ready to Compete in the Global Arena?

How America Ranks Among Industrialized Countries in Investing in and Protecting Children                                   

1^st in gross domestic product

1^st in number of billionaires

1^st in number of persons incarcerated

1^st in health expenditures

1^st in student expenditures

1^st in military technology

1^st in defense expenditures

1^st in military weapons exports

17^th in reading scores

22^nd in low birthweight rates

23^rd in science scores

30^th in infant mortality rates

31^st in math scores

31^st in the gap between the rich and the poor

Last in relative child poverty

Last in adolescent birth rates (ages 15 to 19)

Last in protecting our children against gun violence

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Personally, I don’t think COMPETING in the ‘global arena’ should be our top concern.  How about ethical care for our most important resource – our nation’s children?  How about ensuring equitable chances of having a quality life of well-being at all?

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“Children’s Defense Fund’s (CDF) new report The State of America’s Children 2011 finds children have fallen further behind in many of the leading indicators over the past year as the country slowly climbs out of the recession. This is a comprehensive compilation and analysis of the most recent and reliable national and state-by-state data on population, poverty, family structure, family income, health, nutrition, early childhood development, education, child welfare, juvenile justice, and gun violence. The report provides key child data showing alarming numbers of children at risk: children are the poorest age group with 15.5 million children—one in every five children in America—living in poverty, and more than 60 percent of fourth, eighth and 12th grade public school students are reading or doing math below grade level.”

View this year’s interactive report or download the document.

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These are the areas covered in this report – PLEASE CARE ENOUGH TO TAKE A LOOK!

INTRODUCTION

KEY FACTS

CHILD POPULATION

FAMILY STRUCTURE

CHILD HEALTH

EARLY CHILDHOOD

CHILD WELFARE

GUN VIOLENCE

CHILD POVERTY

FAMILY INCOME

CHILD HUNGER

EDUCATION

JUVENILE JUSTICE

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More here:

WE the U.S. and the WORLD

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Information from The National Center for Children in Poverty – Columbia University

How are the little people in your state faring?  How many are ‘at risk’ on these meaningful measures?  This tool is not about abuse or neglect – just life well-being indicators that increase risk for a difficult life based on the factors presented at this site.

NCCP | Young Child Risk Calculator

www.nccp.org

“The risk factors used in this tool are known to increase the chance of poor health, school, and developmental outcomes for young children.   Economic hardship paired with any of the listed risk factors may indicate a greater chance of poor outcomes.   Children with three or more risks are exceptionally vulnerable. Information about the prevalence of young children experiencing these risks can inform policies aimed at improving outcomes for vulnerable children and reducing the number of children experiencing early risks.”

This link covers demographics for older children, as well –

http://www.nccp.org/profiles/

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