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Wednesday, November 12, 2014. I left a short comment over on the
Your Page – Readers’ Responses
section of the blog. However, if I don’t say something here to cover all my bases in trying to provide at least a few words to a commenter today who asked that they not be made “public” I will not sleep well tonight. It is important for readers to feel safe enough among the pages of this blog to leave their thoughts, perceptions, questions, observations and feelings where other blog readers can see them.
I understand that a first-time commenter might be very hesitant to do so, but when someone mentions specifically that they want to be “heard” at the same time their words cannot be posted here I am left with a quandary.
I am not a professional. I write from my own life, from my own heart, but all I put in these pages is what I have to offer. I do not respond privately with blog readers who might very much need help for many reasons. Among them is my belief that EVERYONE can benefit from what EVERYONE has to say!
Names can be changed when a comment is posted if that helps people feel “safer” to speak here. I do honor requests not to publish.
The pages of this blog are full of information about what it is like for severe early abuse and neglect survivors who were forced to adapt our physiological development in major ways in order to survive. Our trauma/abuse is key and central to HOW we are in our body in this world. But WHO we are is a sacred essence that no abuse can possibly touch or change.
Trauma Altered Development means that our nervous system including our brain, our immune system, our stress-calm response system are all different-from-ordinary. At the root of our growth from birth if we were harmed and not protected, cared for and loved as we needed to be is a deep sense of being alive in a dangerous world. We adapted IN OUR BODY to survive under these conditions.
We are, in effect (search Google for “stop the storm teicher article”) evolutionary altered individuals designed by and to survive within a malevolent world so that HOW we are in the world is a mismatch for a more benevolent “benign” world. We FEEL that difference, and yes, we can be an enigma to ourselves and to everyone else because of this fact.
What we all have, then, is some version of an “insecure attachment disorder” which will intervene between us and those we love, those who love us (our experience of being/feeling loved), and other people. We get different kinds of information in different ways from ordinary and we respond to this information differently.
While me may FEEL (and be told we are) broken or damaged, the real truth is that we ARE different. We did not choose to be this way. We did not choose the circumstances we were forced to grow up with. Our BODY, however, found its own way to CHOOSE to survive. And here we are!
Yes, we suffer in incredible ways for our entire lifespan. (I suggest a Google search for “CDC ACE study pyramid” as an example of what the Centers for Disease Control is discovering about how it is to live with consequences of an extremely difficult infancy and childhood.) My belief is that the more information we can find and study about how early trauma changes THE BODY in its development the more we will begin to understand our self. Knowledge IS power!
Anyone who has found their way to this blog is, in my thinking, already an excellent online researcher! Keep going! One way to find places to read on this blog is to simply enter search terms on Google that begin with “stop the storm blog” and then include what interests you — “trauma altered development” or “attachment” — is a good start.
There are all kinds of YouTube videos to watch that are very helpful. Anything you find there done by Dr. Daniel Siegel is excellent, as is anything you find by Dr. Gordon Neufeld. My great friend and co-researcher Sandy could add a comment to this post with a whole collection of names to find videos on over at dear YouTube! HINT, Sandy!!)
A reader can also just pick a month from the list at the side of this blog’s main page going all the way back to the first month I began posting in April 2009 and find many, many helpful posts on this blog. Also check out what’s at some of the tabs at the top of the page, and also go to one of my other blogs connected to this one where information is stored: Workspace for Stop the Storm at http://workspacestopthestorm.wordpress.com/.
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It may seem to be a mystery how we can be such caring, dedicated and loving parents considering our backgrounds. One simple statistic is that while 35% of those who were abused in childhood do go on to abuse their own kids, 65% do not. What factors are involved in these patterns? I don’t think anyone knows.
But I do know that the horrors of child abuse and neglect trauma NEVER belonged to us. Those patterns belonged to the people who hurt us. I have done a lot of work in traveling all the way back through my childhood and I have found within myself child self absolute purity and beauty. We can find the person we were then and make the connection to who we are now MINUS the horrors of the abuse. EXCEPT FOR what I mentioned above….
Our physiological development was changed by the terrible stress of the traumas we endured. We need to know what that means to us, and it is a primary mission of this blog to present information that can help all of us learn about what it means to live in a trauma altered development. So…. Dig around here and READ READ READ — and don’t forget to leave comments that I am allowed to publish here — for ALL of our development!
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- Contains the amino acids L-theanine, to support relaxing brain wave activity
- Contains taurine to ease tension, as well as the calming neurotransmitter GABA
- Features magnesium to support muscle and nerve relaxation
- Contains calming holy basil leaf extract and Relora® to gently soothe away the tension in your body
- 2 tablets daily, or as recommended by your health care professional
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Here is our first book out in ebook format. Click here to view or purchase –
Story Without Words: How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?
It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge. Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are welcome.
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Stop the Storm 