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Friday, January 29, 2015.  My oh my this week flew by although flying isn’t exactly how the going-through-the-time-of-it felt like!  “Just” life!  What a process!

I wanted to mention a research-related page I currently have open on my computer that I found yesterday.  Accidents happen with a 2-year-old in my apartment during these days.  I have my machine as high up as I can get it in this tiny apartment but he is a very tall child and already once this week he crossed the line of “NO NO” and somehow closed all the tabs of research on my computer and actually broke the scroll button on my mouse.

So I have no real confidence what’s on my screen will stay put, and pages that I stumble upon are not likely to reappear as my thinking-searching lines change moment-to-moment.  I often simply accidentally happen upon things that intrigue me.  Fodder for streams of my thinking that I cannot REALLY pursue.

Like this one.  So WAY out of my range of knowledge!  BUT I love the language in here which speaks to my imagination – to the poesis of my mind – it is beautiful!  And intriguing!  And infinitely useful metaphorically speaking!

I have to capture this title now because I doubt I would ever be able to stumble upon it again!

Quantum error correction in a solid-state hybrid spin register

Nope.  I don’t really have a clue what these authors are talking about!  BUT, because I believe that in some mysterious way all of the Creator’s creation happens in some glorious, beautiful way to mirror the reality of spirituality within it, that what this article speaks about on the “quantum” level is true on many other levels of existence, as well!

++

I did a brief (for me, ‘cause I have no real time right now to pursue any serious thoughts ‘cept as they relate to the simple facts of getting through my days) online search for these terms yesterday:  error detection correction epigenetics.

I know that “error detection” is a HUGE part of what our rapidly forming Anterior Cingulate Coretex is involved with as it begins to process information and form itself from the moment we are born (and evidently not BEFORE that moment).  It dawned on me as I ironed some cloth for the bags I am sewing yesterday that if error detection is involved in this brain region then OF COURSE – DA! – solutions and corrections must ALSO be connected to the growth and processing of this brain region.

So then I found this article:  Time Course of Error Detection and Correction in Humans: Neurophysiological Evidence

Of course I didn’t get very far at all scanning this article before I encountered this term:  efference copy.  Very interesting.  THIS explains why we are unable to tickle our self!!

WOW!

Not that I had actually been wondering about that!  BUT!!

Of course there were other interesting tangential things that appeared yesterday at the end of my fingertips, like a description for the term SOLVER I had never encountered before.

Simply put, my ironing board revelations led me on to exploring in the brief moments before the little one awoke from his nap how it is that humans – in particular – although all of the natural world must do this innately – attempt to SOLVE problems!!

Problem solving.  OF COURSE that has to be what maintaining ongoing life is about!

From the “Time Course” article – I love finding LANGUAGE that my left brain can use to begin to describe what my right brain seems to so solidly and unequivocally KNOWS:

“To adapt their behavior to an ever-changing environment, humans need to be able to monitor their performance and to detect and correct any errors.”

“This mechanism [being described] compares an internal goal with the predicted consequences of the ongoing movement, made available through the efference copy…. An internal “error signal” is generated if a mismatch is detected by the system.”

I wish I had time and a focus of thought right now that would let me follow my inner research inclinations right now.  But I don’t.  By the time I finish my child caring tasks here and hopefully find a way to return to my high desert Arizona home town by next September an entirely new host of research related to my questioning will have appeared.  I must wait….

In the meantime I am affirmed that at least in the language of research what I KNOW as an extreme severe early trauma survivor is that we ARE all born to find and implement solutions to life’s ongoing problems.  EVERY ONE of us is geared by natural design to problem solve.  We are BORN “solvers.”

Sometimes what needs to happen to have big problems solved is not available on earth right now.  Time has to pass.  Our species has to continue to evolve.  Yet at the same time biology KNOWS both how to adapt to life changes even when solutions don’t seem broadly available so that individuals can HOPEFULLY keep producing offspring so that our species CAN move forward – in the best ways possible until the best world possible DOES in fact exist on earth.

I believe that WILL happen.  It is only a matter of time.

++++

While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase – if you dare.

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

++++

Sunday, January 25, 2015.  It is more than a human urge to desperately want to “feel felt.”  It is a biological imperative that cannot be overridden.  This imperative lies at the center of the wheel of who we are.  The degrees of fulfillment of this imperative determine the direction of our development from the moment we are born.  And our physiological development even before we are born prepares us in every way for the kind of world we are living within:  Safe or unsafe, which translates within our growing body as being degrees of calm or stressful.

Some of us found that the world we were born into was not calm.  It was not even stressful.  It was dangerous and in all the critical ways that matter to members of a social species, our world was a threat to our survival.  Our response?  DISTRESS.

All of our physiological systems, to the degree that they were able, began to change the trajectory of their development to ensure our survival in a world that was NOT going to meet our basic needs.  What did “top level management” understand about the risk and danger of the malevolent world we came into?  It understood that we were NOT going to FEEL FELT.

Nobody was going to pay attention to how WE felt about anything that mattered to us.

If we are NOT felt, and we detect on the level of our body that this is so, then our physiological development changes accordingly to keep us alive in a dangerous world. Simple as that.

Yes, this is GRIM TALK.  Grim.  But here we still here.  We did well at staying alive thanks to the flexible engineering of human genetics and its expression.  But in many ways that matter most to human beings, especially to those born into a GOOD ENOUGH early caregiving environment, we are NOT WELL!  This fact can simply be translated into – we lack the most basic abilities required for a life time of well-being.  We DO NOT feel safe – EVER.

True, we can finagle our thinking in our conscious ways of interacting moment to moment to convince our self that “all is REALLY OK,” but down in the “basement” of our existence, down deep within us where the molecular process work to sustain our existence, our BODY self knows that “in great danger at the start of life = in great danger for the rest of life.”

++

Where do these changes due to our Trauma Altered Development show up?  They show up when we try to think about OR tell our self or anyone else our life story, the narrative of our life.

Our story never lies.

++

Google search these terms:  “stop the storm adult attachment interview” and “stop the storm coherent narrative” for a few links to past posts on this blog on this subject.

++

I have for years asserted that (A) healing our self heals our life story, and (B) healing the telling of our life story heals our self.

I know now from a few years forward in time that while what I thought ‘back then’ is NOT untrue, there is more to the story of story.  SOMEBODY HAS TO BE THERE TO HEAR OUR STORY as we tell it – or we are right back where we started from at the start of our early trauma-filled life!

Feeling felt requires that someone HEARS us, fully HEARS us!

This is really what safe and secure attachment is ALL about – down to the essence of our physiological development, at the level of our genetic machinery and its expression.  If there is nobody THERE to HEAR us, to FEEL us as in EMPATHY will all capital letters, then we are – ALL ALONE IN A DANGEROUS WORLD!

We are unsafe.  We are insecure.  And that HURTS us in every way.

++

So, what happens in cases like mine when my experiences were so terrible that NOBODY can even read my story now?  What happens when our true story is so traumatic it traumatizes other people who WOULD reach in to our life to hear and feel us if it was safe for them to do so – but they cannot because our story – our truth – is too much for them to bear?

Good question.  Really, really good question.

++

I had big hopes nearly a year ago when my daughter approached Dr. Bruce Perry at a conference she attended to hear him speak and gave him a copy of our book, Story Without Words.  He accepted the manuscript and promised to read it to write a blurb about it – if he chose to.  He told my daughter that he “always wants to hear what adult survivors have to say.”

We have heard no word from him.  Sure, he must be incredibly busy but how long do we wait before we conclude he is not going to respond back to us?

What if reading an adult’s story such as the small segment of mine that exists in this book is more than he can afford to bear – personally?  What if it is an entirely different matter to do everything in one’s power to “help” hurting kids – who are in fact quite unable to TRULY tell the breadth and depth of their story?

After all, no adult is responsible (response-able) to DO ANYTHING for anyone whose true story they cannot bear to hear.  Nothing but silence reigns.  A silent story.  Great.  Very hard to feel felt THAT way!

++

My siblings share the silence that contains our shared childhood story.  One of my sisters spoke with me yesterday about how she wanted to write her memoirs to share with her children, grandchildren, and to pass into the future for following generations.  She has found that the pain and terror that exists in that story is far too much for her to healthily bear.

I know what she means.

I asked her if she could tell her story better to her grandchildren.  Perhaps they and her children could come up with questions for an interview with her.  It came to me that any version of our story we felt was “good enough” and “safe enough” to tell our early-teen age grandchildren would probably be the ONLY version that was good enough and safe enough for us to tell our self.

But what about the vast, VAST rest of our TRUE story that we cannot afford to tell our self and that nobody else can afford to listen to?  (I have to begin to think at this point that if Dr. Perry cannot read my story, or even get past its cover, then I have no real hope of finding ANYONE to resonate with personally.  Nobody to be there to give me that essential gift of FEELING FELT.

Until I get to the next world.

My story will be no problem for ANYONE on that side, in that eternal world where only goodness exists.  I bank on that world with every fiber of my being.  I count on it.  In that world great holy souls and angels, and my very Creator and all the earthly Manifestations of love throughout human history, will already know my story.  They will resolve all the mysteries in my life.  THERE I WILL be healed.

I have no doubt.

And, yes, that does seem a long time to wait….

In the meantime I make it my business to work as hard as I can to envision a world on earth as it WILL come to exist where NOBODY will have stories to tell that NOBODY can afford to hear.

++++++++++++++++

NOTE:  The truth is that the story my mother had to tell could not be heard by anyone, including her self.  It broke her mind.  Then she acted out the story through her psychosis.  Her children and her husband were her “players.”

When anyone of any age FEELS FELT that means that the person/people doing the FEELING HAVE to respond appropriately.  That’s the way this works.  There is no other way.  If the story hurts, the hearer WILL help.  There is no other choice.

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase – if you can.

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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Saturday, January 23, 2015.  I just watched this thought – and emotion – provoking PBS movie that was recommended to me recently:

Rich Hill

An INDEPENDENT LENS movie

Director Andrew Droz Palermo was recently named “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine

Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Rich Hill follows three teenage boys, Andrew, Harley, and Appachey, as they struggle with isolation, broken families, and lack of opportunity in their Missouri town, where the idea of the American Dream may remain elusively out of reach, but the desire for a better tomorrow remains.

Rich Hill can be streamed free of charge from the PBS website through Tuesday, February 3^rd.

To watch Rich Hill – Click HERE:  http://video.pbs.org/program/independent-lens/ —

Scroll down until you see the title listed among the other movies offered.

++

This is the main webpage for information about this documentary:  http://www.richhillfilm.com/

The last link at the right along the top of this page is this:  IMPACT – which includes this information:

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

In partnership with non-profit organizations, experts, and leaders around the country, we are developing an impact and engagement campaign for RICH HILL that will give audiences meaningful ways to support vulnerable kids and their families living in low-income households in rural America.

In the meantime, there are wonderful people and organizations at local and national levels working to bring resources to small town and rural communities. Consider supporting your local school, food bank, CASA chapter, or any of the following national organizations:

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform

The Full Frame Initiative

The National Center for Children in Poverty

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE

To set up an educational screening in your classroom, please contact Mat Levy at Passion River: mat@passionriver.com
To set up a community screening at your non-profit, church, community group, etc., please contact Kayleigh Butera: kbutera@theorchard.com

 ++

Now, the hard part.  I was grateful for being able to watch this fine movie at home – alone – so that I could put the action  on pause when I needed to and walk away when I needed to.  The subject matter and the young men’s stories tore at my heart in many, many ways.

No matter what materials are given to a person their life is their work of art.  But what burdens some people have been given to bear, and how little to work with to resolve their problems!

Where is social justice, accountability, response-ability?

++++

While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase – if you dare.

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

 

++++

Saturday, January 23, 2015.  I had no context for and no perspective about the horrors that happened to me during the first 18 years of my life until I was 29 years old.  At that point someone in AA had “12-stepped me” by telling me her story.  I entered a 7-week in-patient alcohol treatment program October 1980.  Treatment for marijuana addiction did not yet exist.  I was able to “translate” into AA terms what I knew about my own life.

It was in that treatment program that I first told ANYONE ANYTHING about what happened to me as a child.  I did not know I was abused.  I did not know I was a victim.  I did not know I was “depressed.”  (I know now I was using pot daily to self-medicate that depression.)  I knew NOTHING about these concepts.

In essence, I had no information to use to begin to understand anything about myself until “that story” was told to me and some kind of resonance began to reverberate within me.

I only mention these aspects of my life in passing today because there is one point I am pondering at this moment.  Through over 25+ years of healing work on my part I ALWAYS insisted that there was no active alcoholism or any other “substance” addiction to explain the insanity within my home of origin.

It took all of these 25+ years for me to figure out on my own that my so-abusive mother was severely mentally ill.  It has only been in the past two years that I also learned on my own that she was severely PSYCHOTICALLY mentally ill.  And – in my life – that might be THE MOST IMPORTANT point for me to come to understand.

++

This morning my thoughts seem to be tapped by a rivulet of awareness and memory that I can only think is coming to me by my “nerves” that have been touched this week with a commenter’s mention of addiction (Adult Children of Alcoholics – ACoA).  A piece of information is coming clear to me out of the fog of memory stored away where I do not usually go.  The piece is coming to a new look.

I have sorted and transcribed volumes of my mother’s writings that came into my hands upon her death in 2003.  Among those years of diaries and letters I found a description of her diet pill (speed) use during her pregnancy 1960-61 as “samples” of the drug were pushed upon her by her doctor during her prenatal clinic visits.  And I mean PUSHED as in “You are FAT!  Do something about it!  TAKE THESE PILLS!”

I was 8 years old when she became pregnant with this, her 5^th child and 9 years old in 4^th grade by the time she gave birth.  For some interesting reason I can’t quite track right now (nor does that matter), today memories of that year’s time are coming back to me in a new context:  My mother was not only psychotically mentally ill during this time, she was ALSO under the influence of powerful drugs.

++

This means, I see at this moment, that her psychosis-driven terrible abuse of me during this year was AMPLIFIED not ONLY by her pregnancy but ALSO by the speed she was consuming.  (And, yes, I believe this child of hers suffers from life-long effects of  her use of those drugs during her pregnancy.)

We moved down off of our Alaskan mountain homestead during these months and were living in an apartment building in Anchorage.  This gives me a kind of enclosed circumstances for memories so that I have them placed along the chaotic time-line of my childhood.  I know WHERE we were living so I have a context for certain “bunches” of memories that belong in this time frame.

Some of the memories are HORRIBLE!

They haunted me this morning like tendrils of really toxic smoke leaking out around a formidable closed door I keep so many of my memories sealed behind.  For my own good.  For the good of everyone around me.  So I can keep on going.

Those memories.

Well, I was gifted with being able to spend a couple of hours this morning visiting with some women friends of mine and from this venture another set of my memories from this time period came back to me.  I can hold those up like a lighted liberty torch and this fact makes it a small bit easier to tangentially think about the horrific ones.

The horrible ones HAPPENED to me.  Bad things were DONE to me.  Those actions hurt me but they did not originate within ME.  Only goodness came from within child-me.  As I have written before on this blog, being able to locate OUR perfect child SELF in our abusive childhoods is essential to our degrees of well-being – both as we consider what we lived through THEN and absolutely necessary for us – NOW!

(See earlier posts:  +THAT MESS – WAS NEVER MINE; +WHEN THE GOODNESS APPEARS IN SPITE OF THE TRAUMAS)

++

I just had another train of thoughts appear connected to what I planned to say next.  It has yet again to do with my internal arguments against current use of the concept of “resilience” as it tends to be applied to survivors of truly HORRIFIC early trauma.  People also use the words “protective factors” in their thinking along these lines.  HUH?  I am asking myself what exactly ANYTHING “good” in my life did to protect child me from ANYTHING that happened to me?

Nothing.

But before I get lost in THAT train of thought let me return myself to saying this.

On the bad memory side of what I suffered during my 4^th grade year was escalated insane abuse having to do with Mother’s obsession about my washing and drying the family’s dishes.  NOTHING I tried to do right protected me from Mother’s abuse.

She had created a list of 100 steps to doing the dishes RIGHT!  The list began (although I never have tried to remember all of those steps and never will) with the exact order that the table was to be cleared, continued with emptying dishes from the table of their condiments and returning those food products to their original jars and bottles MAKING SURE to meticulously clean the openings of those jars before I put them away.

Then there was an exact series of RULES about how to pre-rinse and stack the dishes, the order they were to be exactly washed:  first plastics, then glass, then silverware, etc. on down the line to the dirtiest pots and pans which had to be scrubbed every time to return to them their as-new pristine condition, on through steps of washing the stove top, refrigerator door, all cupboard doors, cleaning the floor, and wiping the dishes and putting them away.

I could NEVER NEVER NEVER do this job right!  NEVER!  No matter how HARD I tried.

I did not KNOW there was no hope for reprieve for me.  There was no way I could avoid the storms of abuse that continually surrounded and engulfed me.

One of the very creative special kinds of abuses (besides the beatings, etc.) Mother designed for me the winter of her speed use was to make me take any “free” time I might have had – in between all kinds of other household chores she assigned me – to sit at the table to write the entire list of 100 steps over and over and over and over again.

If I tried to “get it all right” after a meal then I was “in trouble” for “being too slow.”  If I tried to work faster I was equally in trouble for “making too much noise.”

My life was HORRIBLE with Mother and I was helplessly hopelessly in my childhood to SUFFER.  I know now that this was the specific design of Mother’s psychosis as her mind broke during her birthing of me to make her believe I was not human, I was the devil’s child.

All that aside….

On the good side as I was reminded of it in conversation with friends today….

I LOVED SCHOOL!!!  I had an excellent teacher.  Miss Evans creatively assigned projects to her pupils that made MY heart shine!  She gave me an outlet for my SELF to exist in my otherwise HORRIFIC life.

I have never forgotten my pure absolute JOY in learning about musk oxen for one report for this class, or the report I did on tomatoes where I learned they are a FRUIT, a BERRY and NOT a vegetable!

And most importantly I have never forgotten the in-depth report I did on Jane Addams who founded Hull House in Chicago.  I even made a puppet of her, carefully wrapping papier mache over an old light bulb and hand stitching her a dress so that SHE rather than I could tell her story for my in-class presentation.

Today I know it was MY SOUL who was so attracted to my heroine Jane.  It was MY SOUL that so delighted in learning, in beauty, in creativity.

Was it a “protective” factor that Alaska had the best schools in the nation back then and that I was allowed to go to school?  Was it a protective factor that my mother came from a Boston family that HIGHLY valued education so that Mother allowed me time to do my homework?

That other train of thinking lies outside my thoughts for this post.  What I do know is that I – as a person in my own right whose existence had to essentially – and I mean ESSENTIALLY be hidden from Mother due to the kind of psychotic life she lived in her mind regarding me – as a person in my own right I DID exist.  Among the darkness of the memories of horror that exist in my entire childhood I CAN find my shining self there.  (Today I am grateful for the help I got to be able to do this.  I am out of practice as on the whole I LEAVE MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES ALONE at this point in my life.)

There were MANY other insane abuses that Mother did to me this year.  But I am now free to think about my new-found piece of information that at least at this time ‘drugs’ did complicate Mother’s illness right along with something GOOD and not just along with something BAD.

This matters to me.

++

NOTE on memory work:

I find that the nexus (center, focus) of any “work” I might do regarding the abuse of my childhood has to be located exactly in the nexus of me as a child during time when I was momentarily living my own life.  In other words, I have to look carefully to find moments BETWEEN direct attacks on me by mother in order to find my balance point before I approach a memory.

When memories are “accidentally” triggered it is hard to be able to stop from looking at the memory IN ANY WAY until I have located my inner — non-suffering — child-self first.

Due to the severity of Mother’s illness and her abuse of me I was hardly ever safe from her attacks at all unless I was at school.  Yet because of the amount of work I have done on re-membering myself in my childhood I can usually find my “islands of self” at times when I was just being me and NOT suffering.

The LIGHT was in ME during my childhood.  All of the darkness was in Mother.

But if something happens to trigger my sadness, my sorrow, my suffering “out of the blue” it is essential that I DO NOT in any way “go into” those trauma memories (if I can help it) unaccompanied by my inner-light-child-self as I existed all the way through my childhood – simply because it was MY childhood and I WAS in it!!

I had to look very carefully in order to find this me-self I am describing because my childhood was unbelievably bad and there was VERY little time when I was not actively being made to suffer.  I trained myself, is what I did.  EVERY early trauma survivor can do this if I can!!

++++

While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

++++

Thursday, January 22, 2015.  I find it interesting to observe how my thinking changes sometimes when I think about one thing I want to write a post again feeling quite certain I know where the post is going to go, only to begin the post and find my thoughts are led off in a direction I never anticipated.  This must be part of the living, breathing part of the writing process.  It can be full of surprises.

I THOUGHT I was going to write a post about something I have seldom said anything about on this blog because I feel I know so little about it:  Forgiveness.  I did type that word into the blog’s search bar and some posts did show up.  But never once have I felt assurance within as I think or write about forgiveness.

Because I often have a river of thought flowing near my consciousness lately about what resilience might mean to me (as I have mentioned the concept in some recent posts) I guess I am not surprised that this word appeared quickly alongside my morning thoughts about forgiveness.  Even the word forgiveness showed up now only in connection to some thoughts yesterday about addictions.

Life doesn’t seem to be about untangling a big messed up ball of yarn, to use a simplistic image.  It’s more like trying to separate thousands of these messed up balls from one another at the same time.  Things are so complicated, so complex, so enmeshed and, yes, “cross-tangled.”

To give myself a break I go back again to one of my main thought currents.  I don’t care how advanced any society on earth may think that it is at this juncture in the history of our species.  The truth is we are ALL children!  There is so much more we do not know about life than what we do know we would perhaps not only laugh at ourselves if we truly had an objective point of view – we would most likely giggle ourselves silly!

++

Yes, there is much, much suffering in the world.  Many of us know suffering with every breath we take.  Not necessarily so because life is so terrible for us today but because we carry great suffering within us from our earlier years, and because we are so sensitized to suffering we feel suffering for all who have suffered and for those who are suffering now.

But where are solutions in this mix?  What can we KNOW and what does that tell us about what we do NOT know?

++

I will explain below why I am bringing THIS topic into my post right now.  I consider these words to be the truth.  I believe it is vital that every single person on earth investigate truth for their self.  This is, in my beliefs, not only an absolute right given by the Creator to everyone but searching for our own truth is also our spiritual obligation:  It is our road home.

One simple note before I post this.  I have written several times on this post that “forgiveness” of my mother, my father, and for the entire ignoring public has been an extremely complicated process for me because of the unbelievable – let me see, I’ll say – SIZE of the abuse and neglect that was done to me from birth until I was able to escape at age 18.  Minimally my mother “should” have received a jail term of 15,000 years JUST for the physical assaults she did against me.

The kind of psychotic abuse I endured is nearly beyond comprehension.  No.  What am I saying?  It IS beyond comprehension.

The good news is?  I DO NOT HAVE TO COMPREHEND IT!

I DO have to forgive EVERYONE involved.

Impossible to do?  Well, it is anything but easy for me.  It is taking my lifetime and I don’t think in this world there is any kind of completion to “forgiveness.”  I think it is an organic life process that will last as long as I am alive on earth.

Now.  For those interested this is the most profound and SENSIBLE piece of writing I have ever found on the subject of forgiveness.  Why so?  Because its truths sit right where they MUST be – connected intimately to – of all things – JUSTICE:

+THE RIGHT METHOD OF TREATING CRIMINALS

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Twelve hours have now passed since I began writing this post.  I was interrupted – and continued to be interrupted – and now as I sit here hoping to be able to complete this in some kind of form resembling what I was aiming toward hours ago I know that I can’t.

++

The following information just arrived in my email, sent by one of my sisters who listened so closely to everything I discovered during my studies that began a decade ago into what I now know is Trauma Altered Development.  She included this note:  “This is SO important! You were so far ahead with your research on attachment.”

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

Posted: 01/20/2015 3:20 pm EST Updated: 3 hours ago

By Johann Hari , Author of ‘Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs’

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This cannot all be simple coincidence.  If you scroll down to see yesterday’s comments on this post — +A WORD ON TRAUMA TRIGGERS AND FALLING APART – you will see some discussion on sorrow, pain and suffering in the aftermath of early traumas that were so severe there is no end to the tears connected to them within us.

I noticed that the commenter mentioned he found the link to this post on an Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) facebook page.

My inner response to this writer fed into my motivation and direction for this post as I began it this morning.  I rarely remember any of my dreams but I woke from a dream this morning when my alarm went off within which I was crying.  The subject of the dream was alcohol and drug use by so many people, so many people that I could find nobody left to form a friendship with who was not affected by addiction.

Now.  This link sent by my sister.

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Yet in THIS post I was going to talk about a word that came to me this morning as its appearance is linked in my thoughts to my struggle to find a word that makes more sense to me than “resilience” does.

My word this morning:  ADJUST.  This word has DIRECT links in its origins to JUST and to JUSTICE.

Origin of JUST:  Middle English, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French juste, from Latin justus, from jus right, law; akin to Sanskrit yos welfare; First Known Use: 14^th century

Origin of JUSTICE:  Middle English, from Anglo-French justise, from Latin justitia, from Justus – First Known Use: 12th century.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

More than this I cannot say right now.  What I do know is that beginning with my reading of the commenter’s words yesterday (mentioned above) I must have let myself get too close to the precipice below which lies my own pain.  I feel sad beyond words and am haunted at the moment by my unshed tears.  No, I will not cry.  I know it would not help me to “feel better.”

What happened to me, and to so many others, is TOO BIG for tears.  What happened to us DEMANDED JUSTICE and justice was not there for us.  Nor was it there for most of those who became perpetrators when they were little and needed it most.

Research, as it is revealing truths such as this one from the article link my sister sent me:  “So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.”

++

I know too much.  And I am not finished learning.  Many times this is a taxing, wearing, very sad process for me.  Yes, my own personal task is to forgive those who harmed me.  BUT?  What about the justice part?  Justice will not come until a whole lot more people know what I do.

++++

While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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Tuesday, January 20, 2015.  Big news for today?  The grandson I care for weekdays turns 2 1/2 today!  I have just a few quiet moments before he is dropped off here this morning.  I am thinking about what he would be missing throughout his day if he were to go to a big daycare center rather than to my little apartment.  He is learning to talk remarkably fast, and a big part of this process for him is that he has someone who loves him to LISTEN to what he says!

Although it can be totally exhausting to listen to a little one chatter nonstop all day long, and although his care continually interrupts my own thoughts all day long, and although this intense level of caring for little people involves important sacrifices of personal “wants,” I question how much is going to be changed for these new generations because so few adults are spending this kind of time with new little humans – at least in “mainstream” America today.

Relatively speaking he doesn’t yet have very many words, but that makes what words he does have at his command treasures beyond measure as he uses them to express his SELF to an attachment person as he “comes into the world.”  I do a lot of filling in the blanks and reading between the lines — or between his words, actually.  I can hear him tell me now what he is thinking about as thoughts come through his mind increasingly connected to words.  I know enough about his personal life at home to make important connections.

He told me yesterday mommy covers him with a blanket when he goes to sleep at night.

He/we were able to share thoughts that communicated that Yogi the Bear eats sandwiches AND cake.

He told me he likes to play Candy Land with Mommy and that his daddy wears BIG socks and that he himself wears tiny socks because he has tiny feet.

These small interactions I have with my grandson happen in a grounded way as he follows me around doing what small things I can really accomplish here in this city small apartment in a day.  He spends a lot of time in the room while I sew and I teach him all kinds of things through conversation and he teaches me in return.

He is BECOMING a person!

Not a system.

++

People.  Are we “objects?”  Are we part object and part something else?  How do we learn WHAT we are beginning from our birth?  WHO we are?

In modern mainstream life we are breaking natural bonds that connect us to one another and hence to our self as we break our bonds with the natural world we are a part of.  I learned so much in the seven years I lived among the “poor” people along the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona.  Children were raised most of the time by older children, yet adults were continually around to interact in loving ways with all of them.  They showed me what being a part of a social species is REALLY about.

In contrast among families with so many working mothers children are up in the morning and out the door from the time they are born, placed for “care” in what I still call “day orphanages” while parents are working.  Night brings a frantic scurrying rush of pick-the-kids-up, race home, maybe eat a meal, have “loving times” and then off to bed.  Weekends?  No less frantic.

Where are the ongoing moment-to-moment meaningful interactions between little people and ANY ONE?

Where is the loving, consistent and continual CARE giving to these blossoming little ones?  Who notices them?  Who sees and listens to them and then gives back to them in their real-time instants of life what they need to become fully social beings?

++

I bring all of this up this morning not only because of what I am anticipating for my day, but also because of an article I spent a little time with last night.  It would take me being able to print this article (I do not have a printer) and at least two hours of concentrated thinking for me to more fully understand the parameters of what this research is about, but what thoughts I do have from a cursory consideration of its contents is that there is both a connection and a separation between these two activities in the human brain:  empathizing and systematizing.

Regional Gray Matter Volume Is Associated with Empathizing and Systemizing in Young Adults

And, yes, autism is mentioned in this article – a seemingly “mysterious” condition whose increase in prevalence should VASTLY concern everyone.  This information begs the question within me, “How do we know the difference between an object and a person?

(I just saw another bed bug racing toward me at 8 am this morning as I sat at this computer.  I am so NOT a happy camper!!  As I see it I am paying a very high price to be here in this place doing what I am doing right now.  I am eager to leave come the end of August no matter HOW much I am going to miss my family!  I have my limits and they are being tested!)

++

A decade ago when I began my study of developmental neuroscience (thanks to the internet!) I read articles that stated human mirror neurons are not involved in empathy processes.  I am not going to thoroughly scour the newest research for what “they” are finding out now, although this article contains some of that information.  I am thinking intuitively, and that kind of thinking for all of us is LIVING thinking that comes from our WHOLE self, not just from some intellectually (supposedly) informed “logical” part of our brain.

Little people especially under the age of five are not designed by nature to grow into whole (empathizing) people by being immersed in a universe of their same-age peers.  In mainstream culture when children are packed off to daycare during most of their waking early life they are being treated as objects that could just as well be packed into a suitcase and delivered somewhere — like a suit of clothes.  Children are MORE than the clothes they are wearing?

Are we more than what our mirror neurons SEE in the world as they activate matching “systems” thinking inside our heads?  Are little people more than “objects” to be hauled here and there, put here and there, and hauled back again?

Those kinds of actions relate to “systems” thinking.  Which adults actually CARE or even KNOW how their little people FEEL about the lives they are being forced to live long before they have any language to TALK about themselves in the world?  Who is taking the time to LISTEN to them even when their words begin to appear?

++

Along the border all the children comingled with one another, the older taking care of the younger because that’s what, in their universe, people do.  They are in community.  All ages.  Adults nearby.  When the older children are at school the adults spend their days together, as well.  They have VERY little money.  That part of their system is only marginally important.  They are important to one another.

What a concept.

My grandson just arrived.  I need to go pay attention….

++++

While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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Sunday, January 18, 2015..  Since my completion of my earlier post today, +DEVELOPMENTAL TRAUMA – RESEARCH REVEALS NEW LEVELS OF POWERFUL TRUTHS, I have made the decision to take a break from my studies related to the articles I cited in that post.  I see other “writing on the wall” that I must take a pause to consider.  The new research about critical stages of early development and what can both constitute and cause trauma altered development is coming out fast and furiously.  HOWEVER I also believe that it will take a minimum of five years for the new information streaming from the most prestigious learning and research centers on the planet to catch up with “practice.”

I actually do not see how it will be possible for very many current professionals, be they psychiatrists, psychologists, child and family therapists or educators to be able to retrain themselves based on this new information.

It may actually take at least a full generation yet to come for those people – the next generation of professionals – to become completely trained within the new contexts for humanity that new research is so profoundly elucidating now.

We are at the stage when an entirely new paradigm is appearing.  No quantum leap is really practical on the practical level of “mental health” or even medical practice.  There are many children being born who are suffering in ways that are not necessary, and whose suffering has created and will continue to create “symptoms” in their lives of a very serious nature that nobody WITHOUT the new information to fully inform their thinking and approach to “treatment” will be able to adequately address.

This is a tragedy that I am so excruciatingly aware of, yet I really can do nothing to change what is happening on the bigger-picture levels.  New terminology such as “trauma informed care” are appearing, but at the same time there are only a very few who are aware of what researchers are discovering about what trauma really is when it comes to what most affects the earliest development of humans as it triggers cascading changes that nobody at present knows how to “fix” or repair.  Recognizing these things is a very necessary and helpful step.

Until we become clear about what causes trauma altered development – and I mean really clear from the top professionals down to the mass public – we will not recognize how to prevent these changes from happening in the first place.

++

On a personal level I give myself the sign for “good enough” and take a bow.  I must, I choose to, focus on whatever means I have available to me to down-regulate my distress.  I practice piano and drum, and this learning is a kind of welcome active meditation for me.  I sew.  A lot.  I am building up my “craft” inventory for any summer shows I can sell at next summer as I try to accumulate money for my move south.

I care well for a little one.  I try to eat well and to find more peaceful channels to let my thoughts flow through.

I can’t “force the river” of changes outside of myself.  I will prepare for my return move south toward the end of this coming summer.  I have even gone a number of days without seeing a bed bug in this tiny apartment, although I still have no confidence that they are really gone from my life.  That has been a horrible and very stressful experience for me to go through, as I have mentioned in earlier posts.

Northern winters are hard on me although this current one has been a welcome marvel, and I am grateful for its gentleness.  I have learned a lot during this time of my life and I am not finished learning, but I also can feel a shift within myself this evening as if I have climbed to the top of a very high hill with great difficulty and have now crested the hill and am heading down the other side.

That is good.

++++

While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

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Sunday, January 18, 2015.  I am yet again having my gift (that at the same time feels so much like a curse) for being able to inwardly see “the writing on the wall” ahead of scientific research that I can locate and use to confirm my suspicions — confirmed.  Such processes as are explicated in the research paper I am referring to in this post existed to me in my “gut thinking” nearly from the start of my exploration a decade ago to discover what happened to me that so changed my life due to my exposure to the severe, consistent and psychotic abuse I endured from my mother from the moment I was born.

I “knew” and still know that it is genetically programmed into human beings from their beginnings at conception to anticipate in a profoundly EXPECTANT manner on all levels of their developing physiology to be born into a WONDERFUL world.  Our species would not have endured and survived if momentary bouts of optimal conditions surrounding our birth and development had not periodically occurred.

This is tied in my deepest understandings of human life to the fact that what goes most rightly for humans happens because we are biologically not only created to EXPECT a wonderful life, but we are created to be able to adapt in ways that change “how we come out” if anything less than optimal exists in the world we are being created for and born into.

Always it is the biological hope that “best times” will return to our species that individuals are designed to adapt and change their development to help continue ongoing life for the species with the HOPE that optimal, good times will return.  Someday.  To someone.  At some time in the future.

As the brief article excerpts below discuss, there are “critical windows” in human development during which developmental processes pass through that once completed cannot be returned to again.  Yes, the question of what can be “restored” when degrees of change in response to less-than optimal and even downright horribly traumatic experiences have taken place once a critical window has closed are being increasingly examined to restore both hope and healing where it is needed most, gaining a true understanding of the processes involved takes the WORK of serious study.

Truth is, doing this kind of exploratory study is exhausting to me on every level of my self-hood I can imagine.  Truth is, I am tired.  Where exactly is the line between the “work” that belongs to one generation and the “work” that belongs to the next and proceeding generations?  I am not officially OLD at 63, but the degree of trauma from birth I survived until I left home at 18 COST me so, so dearly.  I am worn out.

Yet I fight on.  Something within me FORCES me to continue to look for the CONTEXT within which developmental trauma happens and heals.

My inner “writing on the wall” self knows the bigger picture.  Little old regular me?  I DON’T want to know.  I don’t want ANY of this to be relevant in my life.

But it is relevant.  How much of the task life has seemed to assign to me can I actually DO?  What would be the end-point?  How will I know what I have contributed to the ongoing search for what trauma does to people has been “good enough?”  When I fall down in my traces and cannot get up?

Or do I simply be kinder to myself until other aspects of my current existence change to be more in my favor?

++

Truth is, most of what has sustained me over the years of my studies existed in the place I call home along the Mexican-American border in southeastern Arizona.  I am HOMESICK in every possible.  I cannot replenish my self where I am currently living.  The conditions here are hostile to my nature.  I want to and need to go home.

But, I have also made an inner commitment to remain here caring full-time weekdays for my youngest grandson until he turns 3 the end of this coming July.  I am working with him to irrevocably help him establish his self-hood.  The current stage’s development has to do with my helping him not only learn how to talk in words, but how to recognize his thoughts, the life of his mind, and how to pursue and foster his innate love of learning.

By the end of this coming August I plan to find a way to leave here and GO HOME.  This by itself presents a huge challenge to me considering my continued poverty and trauma-changes related disabilities.

++

On the other side of the coin of my own personal challenges, I learned an important new term today, the one I have been waiting for as it rests above what I knew before I could find the science to back me up:  EXPERIENCE EXPECTANCY

“In addition to the experience-dependent adaptation there is the often-overlooked concept of experience-expectant development, which was established by Greenough et al. (1987). According to this concept distinct developmental time periods exist, during which the brain expects and “waits” to interact with the environment, that is, only if the brain is exposed to a certain amount of experience its functions can be adapted and optimized. Joseph applied this concept to describe the environmental influences on neuronal development and its consequences for emotional development and attachment (Joseph, 1999).”

“Since a major hallmark of experience-dependent as well as experience-expectant development is the existence of developmental time windows, the behavioral outcome of perinatal adverse experience should be a function of the timing and duration of the stress exposure (Andersen, 2003; Andersen and Teicher,2008).”

These statements are included in this extremely important 2014 article:

Full article free online

Front Neurosci. 2014 Feb 5;8:11. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2014.00011. eCollection 2014.

Perinatal programming of emotional brain circuits: an integrative view from systems to molecules.

Bock J¹, Rether K², Gröger N³, Xie L², Braun K⁴.

From this article

“Environmental influences such as perinatal stress have been shown to program the developing organism to adapt brain and behavioral functions to cope with daily life challenges. Evidence is now accumulating that the specific and individual effects of early life adversity on the functional development of brain and behavior emerge as a function of the type, intensity, timing and the duration of the adverse environment, and that early life stress (ELS) is a major risk factor for developing behavioral dysfunctions and mental disorders. Results from clinical as well as experimental studies in animal models support the hypothesis that ELS can induce functional “scars” in prefrontal and limbic brain areas, regions that are essential for emotional control, learning and memory functions. On the other hand, the concept of “stress inoculation” is emerging from more recent research, which revealed positive functional adaptations in response to ELS resulting in resilience against stress and other adversities later in life. Moreover, recent studies indicate that early life experiences and the resulting behavioral consequences can be transmitted to the next generation, leading to a transgenerational cycle of adverse or positive adaptations of brain function and behavior. In this review we propose a unifying view of stress vulnerability and resilience by connecting genetic predisposition and programming sensitivity to the context of experience-expectancy and transgenerational epigenetic traits. The adaptive maturation of stress responsive neural and endocrine systems requires environmental challenges to optimize their functions. Repeated environmental challenges can be viewed within the framework of the match/mismatch hypothesis, the outcome, psychopathology or resilience, depends on the respective predisposition and on the context later in life.” (Bock, Rether, Gröger, Xie & Braun, 2014).

“…during perinatal sensitive periods the environment exerts a critical impact on the maturation of brain structure and function (Weinstock, 2008; Korosi and Baram, 2009; Fox et al., 2010; Loman and Gunnar, 2010; Lucassen et al., 2013). Structural abnormalities related to early adverse experience are mostly found in brain regions that are involved in the control and mediation of emotionality, providing a direct link between childhood adversity and psychopathological behavior in adulthood (McCrory et al., 2010). Moreover, the outcome of stress exposure depends on the maturational status of a given brain region, e.g., disorders arising from exposure to adversity at times of frontal cortex development should differ from those of the hippocampus or the amygdala. The experience-dependent synaptic reorganization can be viewed as a general principle of perinatal brain development, where a genetic predisposition interacts with environmental and psychological “epigenetic” factors. As a consequence, synaptic circuitries adapt or maladapt to an adverse environment such as socio-emotional neglect, abuse and traumatic experience. This can result in dysfunctional neuronal systems, which might trigger the emergence of mental disorders later in life (Furukawa et al., 1999; Agid et al., 2000; Van Den Bergh et al., 2006; Cirulli et al., 2009).”

+++++++++++++++++

Now it seems that the spigot has been opened full bore and there is so much new information appearing that I feel I will be sucked into it and never again appear as my “ordinary” kind of self.

Here is just one more example of what I have found today in my search for sources of information:

“The goal of the current review is to illustrate how the circuitry of the developing PFC can be sculpted by a wide range of pre- and postnatal factors. We begin with an overview of prefrontal functioning and development, and we conclude with a consideration of how early experiences influence prefrontal development and behavior.” (Kolba, Mychasiuka, Muhammada, Lia, Frost, &  Gibb, 2012)

“It is now clear that even fairly innocuous-looking experiences can profoundly affect brain development and that the range of experiences that can alter brain development is much larger than had once been believed. In addition, although it has been known for some time that sensory cortical regions are very responsive to early experiences, it has only recently been shown that the PFC is at least as sensitive to a wide range of stimuli (Table 1).”

Experience and the developing prefrontal cortex

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Bryan Kolba, Richelle Mychasiuk, Arif Muhammad, Yilin Lia, Douglas O. Frost, and Robbin Gibb

Edited by Gene E. Robinson, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL, and approved July 20, 2012 (received for review February 13, 2012)

++++++++++++++++++

Please see next post:

+PRACTICAL PRACTICE (there are times when warriors have to rest)

++++

While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

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.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

++++

Thursday, January 15, 2015.  Perhaps it would be more helpful to me if I looked at some things I care deeply about from the perspective of why I care rather than why so many in our society do not care.  What is it about me that makes me KNOW that there are times when mothering well requires sacrifice and suffering, a most unpopular notion among so many women in today’s world.

Am I being forced by mass thinking that surrounds me to accept the idea that I am simply “old school,” out-of-step and out-of-synch with what “everyone else” knows to be NEW school, and therefore correct?  I am not really even allowed to add “and proper” at the end of the sentence I just wrote because that word and the concepts it pertains to – proper – is itself an “old school” value.  Is, then, essential mothering itself obsolete?

Oh no, oh no, OH NO!  From my point of view, from my perspective, from my knowledge base, we as a society built from the people that society contains and is built by, are in DEEP trouble if what I “suspect” proves to actually be true!

++

If I broaden my own thinking so that I can ponder how millennia of evolution built our species to NEED certain events to happen at certain critical stages of our individual growth and develop such that evolution has given the fulfillment of those needs to the same women – mothers – who conceive and carry into their birthing their children – and if those same mothers are en masse perfectly FINE now with abandoning the care of their infants at or very near birth to other people so that mommy can “go to work outside the home” is there ANY price being paid by these offspring?

If so, what is that price?

We can think as a society that “advancements” have given us so many choices that “old” ways of “doing things” are no longer necessary, or even appropriate.  We simply now “know better” now.

This process includes not feeling afraid of things that scared people in the past.  Of course this process relies on resources that are available some places in the world and not in others.  Clean water and air, adequate food and shelter from the elements, medical care and protection from predators are among the resources that baseline societal well-being relies upon.

The quality of mothering, which rests at the heart of any society, is directly impacted by the availability of vital resources within the society she lives within.  I don’t mean to be redundant here, but the need for resources to meet basic human needs lie densely, compactly, inescapably at a center around which human need fulfillment or deprivation swirl.  We might think we can think our way away from this center without dire consequence, but can we?

As long as we THINK we are immune from harmful consequence we will continue to act in ways our thinking fosters – until?  Until the dire consequences present themselves in a way that cannot be ignored.

I cannot ignore my concerns about the well-being of America’s infants and children NOW.  But, then, I am “old school” and who gives a damn about anything we ole foggies might have to say?

++

I see no way that nature designed humans as they need to complete critical stages in their earliest development that will impact the body these little ones will live with for the rest of their lifespan to be “dropped” off to be cared for by strangers during the earliest months in their life when evolution has designated that an infant MUST have its mother’s intense care and attention.

We KNOW what the earliest developmental stages involve, what needs to be present for these stages to be optimally accomplished and we know what happens when conditions that are not optimal force a little person to develop along a malevolent, unsafe and insecure attachment trajectory.

Yes, obviously, strangers care take care of babies.  Less obvious is that the focused attention of a mother on the optimal care for her infant creates an optimal human being under all ordinary conditions (barring present ill health in offspring that require additional care).

Even in large families where infant care is handled by older children and by other related adults those conditions are not mirrored within today’s narrow-range of dense children’s peer groups tended by adults in a minimally acceptable – dictated purely by financial concerns – ratio.

++

In today’s “modern” world the idea that a mother who brings a baby into the world is the one nature has designed to be its primary caregiver especially during the first year of life is an intensely unpopular – and strongly challenged and condemned if not completely ignored – idea.  How DARE anyone suggest such a thing!!

How could building safe and secure attachment through all waking hours of a baby’s life so that its social-emotional rapidly forming right brain, with its connection to all operations of the entire brain and nervous system (including stress-calm response system and immune system) matters more than making money?  Who cares that building an optimal body-brain, which lays the foundational circuitry in the baby toward the development of self in relation to others within a member of a completely social species, is altered (and in my thinking damaged) by abandonment of mother in the first year of an infant’s life?

Harsh.

Let the little ones pay the price.  After all, it’s not like babies can TALK about their suffering and sacrifices.

And if any adult actually does  speak up on behalf of the needs and losses of these little ones?

Ostracize them.  Shun them.  Ignore them.

“Socially isolate” them.  Funny.  That is what the growing body-brain of an infant having its fundamental needs ignored by its mother feels like.  That is how the BODY-brain interprets rejection, abandonment and the “ignoring” of a mother who is not paying adequate attention to her young infant.

What constitutes adequate attention in today’s “modern” world?  What percentage of a little person’s waking life is “good enough” mothering required for optimal infant development?

++

I know someone who is at this moment in the midst of a week-long training at the national center of one of our nation’s most prominent program to improve the quality of parenting of children:  Parents as Teachers.  I asked this person, who is herself a full-time working mother of young children, if this program ever mentions nature’s design for mothers to be the primary attachment person – during the waking hours — of her infant’s life.  The answer was no.  With this qualifier:  Society does not provide the necessary in infrastructure for mothers to accomplish this task.

So?  Don’t mention it.

Why pay attention to something we en masse CHOOSE to ignore and do nothing about?

Dr. Allan N. Schore is among the hosts of scientists who are telling us the truth:

Attachment and the Regulation of the Right Brain

THE EFFECTS OF EARLY RELATIONAL TRAUMA RIGHT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, AFFECT REGULATION, AND INFANT MENTAL HEALTH

Relational trauma and the developing right brain:  The neurobiology of broken attachment bonds

Modern Attachment Theory: The Central Role of Affect Regulation in Development and Treatment

++

And we move on in our thinking to the developmental needs of children over the age of one?  What about the needs of preschoolers?  Try the knowledge of Dr. Gordon Neufeld for the truth:

Gordon Neufeld: The Importance of Attachment – YouTube

Dr. Gordon Neufeld- What Makes a Child Easy to Parent?

Gordon Neufeld: Kids Need Us More Than Friends – YouTube

Book:  Hold On to Your Kids:  Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers

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In the REALLY old days as humans were being designed through evolution in certain ways to not only survive but to ensure at least some representatives of our species developed in the best way possible, it was always the quality of the life surrounding mothers that determined the quality of development little ones could achieve.

The lack of adequate resources in a family, tribe, culture, society was reflected in the hardships mothers faced in caring for their young.  Optimal resources = optimal mothers = optimal mothering = optimal offspring development.  When this pattern was not possible someone ALWAYS paid the price.

In “the old times” when survival was extremely difficult REALLY difficult choices needed to be made:  Who survives?  A mother already having reached childbearing years could reproduce to “carry forward the line” obviously much more quickly when times became good-enough again than could a small person.

Who would be taken care of and who was required to sacrifice?

For whatever reasons and in whatever ways our current societies perspectives are clouded – if not completely twisted.  We can be gentle in our assessment of so many current mothering practices and say it doesn’t really matter WHO cares for babies.  We do this as we either forget the truth or as we ignore it.  NOTHING is going to improve for generations at the rate we are going in America now where making “the almighty buck” and giving in to women’s RIGHT to go out and work – to escape the kind of sacrifice and suffering she would most often need to go through should she choose to stay at home and care for her own young infants and children.  Because, yes, societal conditions DO NOT meet the personal needs of most mothers who stay at home.

Who wants to sacrifice and suffer?  If THAT is what our society offers to families, is it not logically better to make the ones who cannot voice their truth — because they cannot physiologically do so — pay the price?

I remain unclear as to how things are ever going to get better that way.  I believe it is fundamentally misogyny that is at the root of the current pattern of mothers rejecting the primary nature of the job nature dictates they agree to when they birth a child.

Who wants to talk about how we live in a society that basically HATES women?  Women are DONE WITH THAT hatred.  The biggest tragedy is the suffering at the heart of our culture BECAUSE it just so happens that —— women ARE the mothers of our species.

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NOTE:  Under optimal conditions mothering is not designed to necessarily involve suffering, and perhaps not sacrifice – but that is a topic for another post….

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While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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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Leave a Comment »

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Tuesday, January 13, 2015.  Those of us who “sallied forth” into our life here on earth under horrific conditions of unsafe and insecure attachment were MADE INTO a different kind of people than those who did not.  We “adjusted” in our physiology THEN in ways that need to be understood.  Until they are, the concept of “resiliency” is most likely to be mis-applied to us.

I have been thinking lately about this word as it seems to be rising to the top of the proverbial pop-culture heap as it is being bandied about in regard to – WHAT, exactly?  Experiences of trauma?  I am not clear about what the actual meaning of this word even is.  I am not even sure the word itself is clear about itself!  (As if the word has any say in the matter….)

As I look at the following definitions I am feeling no less confused by what I read than I was before I took a look at dear ole Webster’s online dictionary.  How can a NOUN simply repeat the definition of an ADJECTIVE and – a bit like a Winnie the Pooh diddle – turn around and come back again upon itself so that the ADJECTIVE simply repeats the meaning of the NOUN?

I BOLD and UNDERLINE some of the key word concepts that greatly trouble me in the following definitions as I try to think my way through any “conversation” I may have within my own thoughts or any conversation I may have with another person about ——  well, take a look —–

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NOUN – Full Definition of RESILIENCE First Known Use: 1824

1:  the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress

2:  an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

“quick” definition of RESILIENCE:

:the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens

: the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.

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What about RESLIENT?  First Known Use: 1674

ADJECTIVE – Origin of RESILIENT

Latin resilient-, resiliens, present participle of resilire to jump back, recoil, from re- + salire to leap — more at sally

Full Definition of RESILIENT

:  characterized or marked by resilience: as

a:  capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture

b:  tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

— re·sil·ient·ly adverb

“quick” definition of RESILENT:

: able to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens

: able to return to an original shape after being pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.

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I know better.  I HATE it that I do, but I know better.  My mother’s horrendous literally psychotic abuse of me began at my birth.  I was robbed of ANY chance to grow and develop a body-brain in this world post-birth that was NOT trauma-altered.  What, exactly, within me is available to me as a human being “to return to” that was NOT trauma changed in its development?

I am among the fortunate, however, because my mother was physically very healthy as I developed in her womb.  Her psychotic break happened during her difficult birthing of breech-me.  There are so MANY born who did not even have the first 9 months of their life NOT influenced by some kind of trauma-connected developmental changes.

WHAT ABOUT US?  WHAT ABOUT ME?

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I cringe when I hear someone “in the know” use any word related to “resilient” because I know deeply that I am LEFT OUT of whatever they are talking about.  Nobody can assume that they know what anybody else’s background has been.  They cannot assume that “resilient” as it is being commonly used applies one bit to someone else.

Those of us with severe trauma in our early beginnings were BUILT by, within and for a world where “something bad happens” ALL OF THE TIME!  That was our environment that our development was forced to adapt to at the start of our life – and nearly ALL of the trauma-related developmental changes that happened to us are PERMANENT.

Otherwise?  We would have been PERMANENTLY DEAD a long, long time ago.

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The way these words are being used “out there” makes them POWER-based words.  Everyone needs to realize the truth of this fact and PAY ATTENTION to what that concept is really saying. Those who DID NOT experience horrendous early trauma “get to” bludgeon those of us who DID experience horrendous early trauma with shame-based, ignorant-of-the-facts ridicule no matter how well-intentioned “they” may be.  The underlying yet blatant power differential comes across even in such “innocent” thoughts as “Gee whiz, what a SHAME you suffered what I did not!”

These resilient-related words are the wrong words to apply to people “across the board” – equally!  I think they are in the same nonorganic, mechanistic category as words used to describe humans and their relationships such as “dysfunctional.”  I am NOT a pencil sharpener!  I am NOT a piece of elastic or a rubber band!

This power-based word divides the “haves” from the “have nots” at the same time it slyly APPEARS to be addressing concerns by the “haves” for the suffering of the “have nots.”  This is a dangerous coupling, NOT for those who might actually be of the more safe and securely attached and therefore more privileged levels of society, but for those at or near “the bottom of the heap” who were and may continue to be unjustly neglected, abused and traumatized without protection or redress.

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Nobody can “get back” or “recover” or “return to” something that was brutally stolen from them at the start of their life!

This is a BASELINE concept to understand when approaching any topic having to do with “helping” severe early trauma survivors.

If someone wishes to take a look at the research on very high ACE scores (see Centers for Disease Control’s Adverse Childhood Experiences research) with thoughts about how to HELP, they MUST understand that any concept regarding “resiliency” that they may be attempting to bring into the mix for survivors’ improved well-being is only BARELY accurately relevant because of this small area covered in definition of the words:  adjust easily to misfortune or change

HOWEVER!!!  My word of strong caution remains even here!!  The “easy adjustment” that took place in order for me and others with severely traumatic early beginnings happened on the CELLULAR (molecular) level.  It involved changes that had to be made to our physiology to keep us alive and moving forward – the best that we could – in a fundamentally dangerous, MALEVOLENT environment.

Down the road?  The FIX is in the PREVENTION of conditions that create these kinds of truly MALEVOLENT environments that so change the physiological development of newly forming human beings so that “resiliency” as the word is defined has been STOLEN from them!!!

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I remember this “anti-paradox” as I first began to be aware of it 35 years ago.  AA says that a person can be “restored to sanity.”  I knew deeply when I was first introduced to this idea that I had NEVER known sanity in my life and therefore could NOT be restored to it.  My treatment therapists and other AA people told me I was “resisting my treatment” and that I was “using the defenses” of “rationalizing” and “intellectualizing” rather than facing my problems.  They “bludgeoned” me through shame and guilt into “accepting” what they believed and into denying my own truth, my own knowledge, my own reality.

NOT ANY MORE, folks!  I know a rat when I see one now – dead or alive!  I cannot magically “get back” what I was never “allowed” to keep or to build from the start of my life, therefore resiliency is not the useful concept when applied to me that others would seem to think that it “should” be.

This is a logical kind of fact based on natural, organic, necessary kinds of “tools” available to keep little people alive in the worst of situations through changing their physiological development!  This process reflects ABILITIES we used THEN to stay alive.  Yes, we were able to adapt on these kinds of levels, and that process has CHANGED us so that any ordinary thinking-concept about resiliency ceased to really apply to us a LONG time ago!  We do not live with the same kind of body-nervous system/brain that non-trauma changed people do.

This fact is NOT our fault!  Evaluations, even the most well-intentioned ones, coming from outside of a person do not necessarily match another person’s reality!  It is not healthy or helpful to “assume” that they do.  In fact it can be very, very damning and damaging to others who have suffered more than most people can begin to imagine – and from extremely early ages.

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Whatever FIX anyone tries to apply to survivors way down the road of their life – by definition of the resilient-based words – has virtually next to NOTHING to do with our reality!  (For an example, click here – a webpage I ran across this week:  Psychological Trauma and the Brain ,)

There must be another word, a different concept that would actually apply to people like me and other severe early trauma survivors.  I admit it.  I am still at a loss for what such a word to cover such a concept might actually be.

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Is everyone free to define any word any way they want to?

A lay definition:

http://www.resiliencescale.com/

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The International Resilience Project (2003-2005)

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While there is no money for me in my mention of this herbal-vitamin supplement here, I am taking it daily now and find it extremely helpful.  That means a lot to me, so I thought perhaps other readers might wish to take a look:

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

• 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

++++

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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Leave a Comment »

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