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Tuesday, December 22, 2015. I feel I need to apologize for writing so few posts during these months of my tenure up north here in North Dakota, but I also know no apology is needed. There are simply times and seasons of life. At least now we have passed in this hemisphere into the time of growing day length. I am happy for that although several months of winter still lie waiting ahead.
This winter has been very warm. That is a good thing. Yet it may also be a bad thing. I am not one who knows about such things. I am a wonderer. (A wanderer, too, I must admit.)
I am into my third year away from my adopted Arizona-Mexican border land that was so kind to me for fourteen years. I still have no real idea what lies ahead for me in my life. Will I return there next September after my lease here is up? Time. It will tell.
Meanwhile I continue to battle with the noise from the apartment above me that is so unsettling to my so-sound-sensitive ears. Things seem to be better – most of the time – and I have not yet had to call the police with a noise complaint as the apartment managers suggested that I do on November 9th. It is not the children’s fault up there who are not put to bed before midnight and who are allowed to sleep until noon.
I have contacted Head Start to see if they will send me some information I can anonymously slip under the door up there. It has been suggested that if a time approaches when my own well-being means a noise complaint must be made that I call social services first. I don’t want to do that, either.
I do pray for myself – and for that family up there – and for the world – and for EVERYTHING! Which brings me to the point of mentioning what has inspired me to finally attempt to place a few words on the blog this evening.
Someone on my Facebook feed posted this quote. “Star of the West” was an early magazine published in the United States. I don’t know how to access those to see if I could find the volume the following appeared in.
What I do know as a very high ACE score, terrible child abuse survivor for the first 18 years of my life, is that trauma seriously impacted every stage of my early development so that now I am a Trauma Altered Development person (my friend calls this being a tadpole).
This means that my nervous system/brain, stress response system, immune system, etc. is different – entirely different – than would have been the case if someone had intervened, stopped that abuse, rescued me and my siblings from our severely mentally ill psychotic mother.
This means – in regard to this quote I am posting – that very often it is impossible – IMPOSSIBLE for me – and for many ‘tadpoles’ like me – to “simply” change our “mood.” We experience our life differently than other people do through absolutely NO FAULT of our own!!!
In my older age I am experiencing cumulative effects of the traumas in my life and am now “on disability” for them. I cannot simply “forget the past” and “be OK.” I cannot will myself to “be happy.” I work every moment of my existence to endure – and endure some more – and endure….
Some moments and hours, some days, are better and easier than others are. Being down south, as readers mostly know, was very much better for me than is being up here in an apartment, in a city, in this climate, etc. I can’t get out to see friends, work in my garden, more etc!!!!!
So – here is the quote!! This is what I do in every way I possibly can. It includes why I came back up here, so that I could help my daughter and my little grandsons in any way that I can, especially now at this juncture in the family’s lifespan.
But – still – there is NOTHING easy about my life right now. True, “things could be much worse,” but knowing that is no panacea for tadpole people! THIS helps my heart!! THIS feels realistic to me and within the realm of possibility!!
And – at this “holiday season” there can be many complications for people and for families! I thought these words might be helpful to people who might be struggling with extra difficulties – realize they are NOT ALONE!!!!! We care!!!
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“Be not the slave of your moods, but their master. But if you are so angry, so depressed and so sore that your spirit cannot find deliverance and peace even in prayer, then quickly go and give some pleasure to someone lowly, or to a guilty or innocent sufferer! Sacrifice yourself, your talent, your time, your rest to another, to one who has to bear a heavier burden than you – and your unhappy mood will dissolve into a blessed, contented submission to God.” –
By Abdu’l-Baha, in Star of the West (sometime prior to 1921), a Baha’i publication
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Certainly an ongoing and repeating process!!
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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. A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.
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Tags: adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame
Stop the Storm 