Chapter 18 eighteen   symptoms

8-23-6

I am proposing that infants born into an environment of perpetual trauma exist in a continual state of peritrauma.  We can consider that their world and their experiences in it are reversed from what is considered to be the ordinary or normal or healthy world an infant is designed to adapt to and to form its brain-mind-self in.  I also propose that researchers are not prepared to study the true scenarios that arise for these infants, and do not truly know the damage that is done to them.  We will not, therefore, understand the long term consequences of this abuse, or how it transmits itself into the adult’s life.

(The ordinary process is for researchers to define “normal” and then look for and at the exceptions when experiences deviate from the norm.  I believe this works when the deviances are relatively minor.  When a great divide occurs between the nature of the experience of normal and the experience of not-normal, I suspect another approach to looking at the topics is required.  If I extrapolate what I can understand from the “normal” information as I think it applies to not-normal, and from that create, in effect, an entirely different “world” or paradigm about what the world of the not-normal might be like, perhaps this might be a helpful approach.)

Maybe it would be like turning the accepted paradigm inside out.  Or upside down.  Maybe if we start at the end and look backwards, which is really what theorists have to do, even studying infant attachment at the age of one year old.  Many developmental milestones have already been passed by the time an infant reaches that age.  And obviously that is so when adult attachment patterns are assessed.

We have damage, and then amplifications of damage

We have different brains, and therefore different minds and different selves, than ordinary – if we have a self at all, or ever got to develop one apart from the “false self” that we were given  by our traumatizing caregivers.  We were raised in entirely different worlds.  Alone, apart, separation, afraid, abandonment – all have entirely different meanings to us.  Entirely different circuits, patterns and pathways in our brain were strengthened and developed during our infant peritrauma.  We would need to have an entirely different set of operating instructions, an entirely different owner’s manual, than would ordinary people.  This is directly due to the abuse we endured during our infanthood stages of brain-mind-self development and the effects that the state of peritrauma and the trauma had on us.  We were innocent and we were hurt.

++++

I am going to record in completely random fashion some of the ideas and “symptoms” I currently have collected on note cards.  These will eventually be deciphered and evaluated as I continue to work:

TIME

+++ the infant is usually alone and WAITING – how does the infant experience this, with good caregivers invisible, unpredictable episodic return, promise that the evil one will return, with sense of foreboding replacing sense of security

+ Time sequencing is off.  Our temporal ordering.  Peritrauma put us into a continual state of time suspension and we missed the developmental brain stages where a sense of ordering of time, and ourselves in this continuum was supposed to occur.  Certainly by 9 months of age when we were supposed to begin to connect past to present with our mental imaging of our virtual other caregivers.  Peritrauma, itself, involves an “altered sense of time.”  Infants are not born with the ability to have a sense of time.

++ missed the stage of connecting separation from return

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

++++ Tied to this is the terrible feeling that we do not MEAN anything to anyone, that therefore without our meaning anything to anyone, we DO NOT EXIST.  That we never had, that we were never even born.  Knowing we were physically born, if we even have this self-consciousness insight, doesn’t help because we are still frozen in time, frozen on the event horizon.  Without meaning, without value, we do not matter and though we are matter, we are not:  This is tied to the “PARADOXAL INJUNCTION” of the unsolvable problem these infants are presented with.  We seek reassurances from others, who we continually TRY to connect to though we cannot, knowing they cannot connect to us, either.

PLACE

+ stuck on event horizon

++ depersonalized makes us feel very distant and far away

++ once our loved ones are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Creates great loss and pain and grief

++ missed the stage of connecting separation from return

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

++++ Tied to this is the terrible feeling that we do not MEAN anything to anyone, that therefore without our meaning anything to anyone, we DO NOT EXIST.  That we never had, that we were never even born.  Knowing we were physically born, if we even have this self-consciousness insight, doesn’t help because we are still frozen in time, frozen on the event horizon.  Without meaning, without value, we do not matter and though we are matter, we are not:  This is tied to the “PARADOXAL INJUNCTION” of the unsolvable problem these infants are presented with.  We seek reassurances from others, who we continually TRY to connect to though we cannot, knowing they cannot connect to us, either.

ATTACHMENT connections relationships self/others/world

+ really hard for me to let my kids go because I also needed them to need me, I mattered, I had meaning

++ because the regions of our brains — circuitry, patterns, pathways, connections – were formed differently, our boundaries are different – the concept of “INTRUSIVE” has a different sense.  Just the fact that our mind-to-mind and mind-to-self interactions have been affected, with the corresponding damage of a sense of connection to time and place, means that the boundaries of our inner worlds are not in alignment with the boundaries that exist for “ordinary normals.”

++ along with impairment in the regulatory functions, is a lack of adaptability, flexibility, things are rigid in brain and mind, brain cells have been killed, regions of the brain damaged, faulty circuits formed (according to the world of trauma they were effective), lack of resilience – chronic feeling of not being able to cope, especially when comparing self to the ordinary people who lived their ordinary childhoods and thus have more ordinary lives with less distress all the way through and around them –meaning we are always noticing different cues and mis-reading them, or reading them by our old world’s standards

++our sense of self in time and place, and our sense of meaning and value impeded, cannot form a coherent state of mind, remain disorganized, our stories and narrations of our lives reflect this and are not coherent, proper connections in brain and in mind are not and cannot be made, everything is disconnected that should be connected, or improperly connected – the same rules that normals have in their world do not apply to this world

+low tolerance for frustration, easily confused in complicated situations (which life is!)

+inconsiderate of others – can’t hold our minds, their minds in mind

+appear “cross”

+not calm

+or so emotionally detached appear frozen, zombie

+ interferes with all relationships, this scrambled connection to needing that can never be met

+when our caregivers are our threat and not our protection, (and we have nobody else to turn to), does this unresolvable paradox become deeply tied to our existence and to ambivalence so that this state is always triggered when we are under stress distress?

++issues with paradox, contradictions, ambivalence, ambiguity

+the paradox of the dis-assembled whole

++we did not learn to be able to minimize stress (never internalized self-soothing or calming as never had it so lack this ability always), cannot regulate emotions normally, nor behavior, cannot organize the self, and cannot attach, remaining detached and depersonalized

++ because we cannot regulate these things for ourselves, we look toward other people we deem “more stable and capable” to act as our emotional and mental “dialysis machines” which is something our caregivers never did in relationship to us, and our brains-minds-selves formed without these vital self-regulating abilities.  The body automatically regulates itself.  As humans, we need an equally vital ability to regulate all other aspects of our existence

++ do not need people the way others do

++ less serotonin?  Makes mammals bullies, more aggressive, maybe others can sense this and it scares them

+ we do not understand how people who we love can hurt us

+ extremely loyal

++++ Tied to this is the terrible feeling that we do not MEAN anything to anyone, that therefore without our meaning anything to anyone, we DO NOT EXIST.  That we never had, that we were never even born.  Knowing we were physically born, if we even have this self-consciousness insight, doesn’t help because we are still frozen in time, frozen on the event horizon.  Without meaning, without value, we do not matter and though we are matter, we are not:  This is tied to the “PARADOXAL INJUNCTION” of the unsolvable problem these infants are presented with.  We seek reassurances from others, who we continually TRY to connect to though we cannot, knowing they cannot connect to us, either.

+++ the infant is usually alone and WAITING – how does the infant experience this, with good caregivers invisible, unpredictable episodic return, promise that the evil one will return, with sense of foreboding replacing sense of security

++ once our loved ones are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Creates great loss and pain and grief

+ we need people who are important to us in our lives to HOLD ON to us and to their attachment of us and NOT LET GO.  Otherwise we would slip across the event horizon into oblivion and disappear.  We are already the DISAPPEARED – the never born.  We are stuck on the event horizon frozen in our own state of terror and aloneness, with only our sense of foreboding connecting us to anyone else.

+ are we always selfish?  In the “trying to connect” instead of the “connected” to other state?  (ties in with not being able to hold their mind in our minds)

+ this lack of connection is like trying to call someone on the phone, and the connection is always interrupted, or is never made.  The telephone that perpetually just rings and rings.  Nobody answers.  Nor can they if the problem is in our brains

+ we are not able to attach or to connect:  we are the detached.  We are inside a circle we can’t get out of and nobody can get into.  Stuck and frozen on the even horizon

+ there are “people” who we never connected to in the first place.  Then there are our “attachment figures” who we are always in the PROCESS of TRYIING to connect to.  These are NOT people in our sphere.  We have no people in our world.

+ which makes us depersonalized

+ again, not being able to mentalize, certainly connected to our developmental stage when we were supposed to mentalize the virtual other, and before that from birth when our caregivers did not mentalize us

+ stress with people is so confusing and overwhelming, also

++ interferences with information processing to complex conclusions

++ depersonalized makes us feel very distant and far away

++ missed the stage of connecting separation from return

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

MIND

+++  we are hypervigilent – hyper sensitive, picking up on cues actually in far more sophisticated ways than normal, but they are not conscious, like hyper radar – like me with the powder puff – like an autistic’s person’s abilities to notice refined details that most can miss and not get stuck on – but we don’t SEE this, but we are always responding, which is part of what keeps us NON-CALM

++ constant intrusions of past into present into reading of future, trauma rules that don’t apply, trying to make sense or meaning or assign values without those “ordinary” abilities

++ because the regions of our brains — circuitry, patterns, pathways, connections – were formed differently, our boundaries are different – the concept of “INTRUSIVE” has a different sense.  Just the fact that our mind-to-mind and mind-to-self interactions have been affected, with the corresponding damage of a sense of connection to time and place, means that the boundaries of our inner worlds are not in alignment with the boundaries that exist for “ordinary normals.”

++ along with impairment in the regulatory functions, is a lack of adaptability, flexibility, things are rigid in brain and mind, brain cells have been killed, regions of the brain damaged, faulty circuits formed (according to the world of trauma they were effective), lack of resilience – chronic feeling of not being able to cope, especially when comparing self to the ordinary people who lived their ordinary childhoods and thus have more ordinary lives with less distress all the way through and around them –meaning we are always noticing different cues and mis-reading them, or reading them by our old world’s standards

++ because we cannot regulate these things for ourselves, we look toward other people we deem “more stable and capable” to act as our emotional and mental “dialysis machines” which is something our caregivers never did in relationship to us, and our brains-minds-selves formed without these vital self-regulating abilities.  The body automatically regulates itself.  As humans, we need an equally vital ability to regulate all other aspects of our existence

++our sense of self in time and place, and our sense of meaning and value impeded, cannot form a coherent state of mind, remain disorganized, our stories and narrations of our lives reflect this and are not coherent, proper connections in brain and in mind are not and cannot be made, everything is disconnected that should be connected, or improperly connected – the same rules that normals have in their world do not apply to this world

+ we cannot hold our own mind in mind

+ we cannot hold anyone else’s mind in mind

+ cannot mentalize

++we did not learn to be able to minimize stress (never internalized self-soothing or calming as never had it so lack this ability always), cannot regulate emotions normally, nor behavior, cannot organize the self, and cannot attach, remaining detached and depersonalized

+++Cannot regulate distress – all stress that normals would feel is never translated out of the primitive level state of distress tied directly to terror and fear of annihilation

++++Haywire value system for the assignment and assessment of meaning and value, which is something that is built into the brain from interactions with others from the infant’s birth

++our sense of self in time and place, and our sense of meaning and value impeded, cannot form a coherent state of mind, remain disorganized, our stories and narrations of our lives reflect this and are not coherent, proper connections in brain and in mind are not and cannot be made, everything is disconnected that should be connected, or improperly connected – the same rules that normals have in their world do not apply to this world

+++++ total overabundance of implicit memory of traumatic experiences that an infant’s developmental stages do not provide a way to synthesize or process, along with physical damage from stress hormone toxins that have damaged the physical parts of the brain that are supposed to process trauma, and all experiences, so that these regions of the brain will never operate correctly:  brain damage – overwhelming

+++ unequivocal emotions – we have no doubts – not in the normal way, and cannot contain or process the more complex level of loving and hating the same person, cannot contain ambiguity – things have to be clear.  All our emotions are separate, sort of, real, deep and intense, passion is so intense – but we don’t have ability to regulate them, they are scary

+++ the infant is usually alone and WAITING – how does the infant experience this, with good caregivers invisible, unpredictable episodic return, promise that the evil one will return, with sense of foreboding replacing sense of security

++ For me, the hormone changes triggered, or jump started something within me at almost 16 – when I had the vision, and my first sense of  “self” tied to the future and experience OTHER than the peritrauma I had been in continually from birth.  I think this is tied to Crittenden’s idea of developmental attachment, the purpose it has to allow us to seek a mate and care for our future offspring.  Maybe more violence among men as they do not go through this stage, or get these hormones, like women do

++++ Tied to this is the terrible feeling that we do not MEAN anything to anyone, that therefore without our meaning anything to anyone, we DO NOT EXIST.  That we never had, that we were never even born.  Knowing we were physically born, if we even have this self-consciousness insight, doesn’t help because we are still frozen in time, frozen on the event horizon.  Without meaning, without value, we do not matter and though we are matter, we are not:  This is tied to the “PARADOXAL INJUNCTION” of the unsolvable problem these infants are presented with.  We seek reassurances from others, who we continually TRY to connect to though we cannot, knowing they cannot connect to us, either.

++ interferences with information processing to complex conclusions

++ once our loved ones are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Creates great loss and pain and grief

++ missed the stage of connecting separation from return

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

+ we feel like our own brain/minds attack us, like we are own worst enemy

+ can’t bridge gap between separation and return

EMOTIONS

+when our caregivers are our threat and not our protection, (and we have nobody else to turn to), does this unresolvable paradox become deeply tied to our existence and to ambivalence so that this state is always triggered when we are under stress distress?

++issues with paradox, contradictions, ambivalence, ambiguity

+the paradox of the dis-assembled whole

++ trying to imagine what normal is, how to be happy, trying to imagine what happiness even is, always in the perpetual state of TRYING to get better, trying to understand, trying to connect

++ happy brain neurons not stimulated, therefore died off

+low tolerance for frustration, easily confused in complicated situations (which life is!)

+inconsiderate of others – can’t hold our minds, their minds in mind

+appear “cross”

+not calm

+or so emotionally detached appear frozen, zombie

++ no emotional or mental sense of well being, is replaced with foreboding, dread, and an awareness of approaching evil

+ pain generalizes, not the happiness

+ we have a “terrible tear place”

+ we are unstable, too close to chaos

+++Cannot regulate distress – all stress that normals would feel is never translated out of the primitive level state of distress tied directly to terror and fear of annihilation

++we did not learn to be able to minimize stress (never internalized self-soothing or calming as never had it so lack this ability always), cannot regulate emotions normally, nor behavior, cannot organize the self, and cannot attach, remaining detached and depersonalized

++ because we cannot regulate these things for ourselves, we look toward other people we deem “more stable and capable” to act as our emotional and mental “dialysis machines” which is something our caregivers never did in relationship to us, and our brains-minds-selves formed without these vital self-regulating abilities.  The body automatically regulates itself.  As humans, we need an equally vital ability to regulate all other aspects of our existence

+++ unequivocal emotions – we have no doubts – not in the normal way, and cannot contain or process the more complex level of loving and hating the same person, cannot contain ambiguity – things have to be clear.  All our emotions are separate, sort of, real, deep and intense, passion is so intense – but we don’t have ability to regulate them, they are scary

++ less serotonin?  Makes mammals bullies, more aggressive, maybe others can sense this and it scares them

+++  we are hypervigilent – hyper sensitive, picking up on cues actually in far more sophisticated ways than normal, but they are not conscious, like hyper radar – like me with the powder puff – like an autistic’s person’s abilities to notice refined details that most can miss and not get stuck on – but we don’t SEE this, but we are always responding, which is part of what keeps us NON-CALM

+++++ total overabundance of implicit memory of traumatic experiences that an infant’s developmental stages do not provide a way to synthesize or process, along with physical damage from stress hormone toxins that have damaged the physical parts of the brain that are supposed to process trauma, and all experiences, so that these regions of the brain will never operate correctly:  brain damage – overwhelming

++++Haywire value system for the assignment and assessment of meaning and value, which is something that is built into the brain from interactions with others from the infant’s birth

+++ the infant is usually alone and WAITING – how does the infant experience this, with good caregivers invisible, unpredictable episodic return, promise that the evil one will return, with sense of foreboding replacing sense of security

+healing:  naming old overwhelming feelings and finding when the originated and how, at what developmental stages, connected to who and what experiences – to recognize them when we feel them in the present

+ then to be able to somehow get a distance from them to make clear choices in the present

++ missed the stage of connecting separation from return

+ cannot regulate our emotions, usually don’t recognize what triggers them, cannot moderate their duration or intensity, and often not our reactions to and with them to the present and to others

+ are feelings inside the inner circle with us?  Are they with us on the event horizon?

+ not on AA’s “inability to be honest with themselves.  They are not at fault.  They seem to have been born that way” – seem to only because the damage that was done to them was done so early.  This is not a condition one is often “born with” = it happens to us

+ can’t read cues, not even to protect ourselves.

+ in some cases the adults would not recognize or respond to others’ cues for protection, either

+ + interferences with information processing to complex conclusions

++ once our loved ones are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Creates great loss and pain and grief

++ missed the stage of connecting separation from return

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

++++ Tied to this is the terrible feeling that we do not MEAN anything to anyone, that therefore without our meaning anything to anyone, we DO NOT EXIST.  That we never had, that we were never even born.  Knowing we were physically born, if we even have this self-consciousness insight, doesn’t help because we are still frozen in time, frozen on the event horizon.  Without meaning, without value, we do not matter and though we are matter, we are not:  This is tied to the “PARADOXAL INJUNCTION” of the unsolvable problem these infants are presented with.  We seek reassurances from others, who we continually TRY to connect to though we cannot, knowing they cannot connect to us, either.

+ trouble with fun

++ For me, the hormone changes triggered, or jump started something within me at almost 16 – when I had the vision, and my first sense of  “self” tied to the future and experience OTHER than the peritrauma I had been in continually from birth.  I think this is tied to Crittenden’s idea of developmental attachment, the purpose it has to allow us to seek a mate and care for our future offspring.  Maybe more violence among men as they do not go through this stage, or get these hormones, like women do

BRAIN FORMATION

++we did not learn to be able to minimize stress (never internalized self-soothing or calming as never had it so lack this ability always), cannot regulate emotions normally, nor behavior, cannot organize the self, and cannot attach, remaining detached and depersonalized ++ our brains do not process information correctly into the “big picture” leaving us with having to deal on some level with an overabundance of stimuli others don’t have to deal with – like autism, but social for us

++ because the regions of our brains — circuitry, patterns, pathways, connections – were formed differently, our boundaries are different – the concept of “INTRUSIVE” has a different sense.  Just the fact that our mind-to-mind and mind-to-self interactions have been affected, with the corresponding damage of a sense of connection to time and place, means that the boundaries of our inner worlds are not in alignment with the boundaries that exist for “ordinary normals.”

++ happy brain neurons not stimulated, therefore died off

++ constant intrusions of past into present into reading of future, trauma rules that don’t apply, trying to make sense or meaning or assign values without those “ordinary” abilities

++ because we cannot regulate these things for ourselves, we look toward other people we deem “more stable and capable” to act as our emotional and mental “dialysis machines” which is something our caregivers never did in relationship to us, and our brains-minds-selves formed without these vital self-regulating abilities.  The body automatically regulates itself.  As humans, we need an equally vital ability to regulate all other aspects of our existence

++ no emotional or mental sense of well being, is replaced with foreboding, dread, and an awareness of approaching evil

++ along with impairment in the regulatory functions, is a lack of adaptability, flexibility, things are rigid in brain and mind, brain cells have been killed, regions of the brain damaged, faulty circuits formed (according to the world of trauma they were effective), lack of resilience – chronic feeling of not being able to cope, especially when comparing self to the ordinary people who lived their ordinary childhoods and thus have more ordinary lives with less distress all the way through and around them –meaning we are always noticing different cues and mis-reading them, or reading them by our old world’s standards

++++Haywire value system for the assignment and assessment of meaning and value, which is something that is built into the brain from interactions with others from the infant’s birth

++our sense of self in time and place, and our sense of meaning and value impeded, cannot form a coherent state of mind, remain disorganized, our stories and narrations of our lives reflect this and are not coherent, proper connections in brain and in mind are not and cannot be made, everything is disconnected that should be connected, or improperly connected – the same rules that normals have in their world do not apply to this world

+++++ total overabundance of implicit memory of traumatic experiences that an infant’s developmental stages do not provide a way to synthesize or process, along with physical damage from stress hormone toxins that have damaged the physical parts of the brain that are supposed to process trauma, and all experiences, so that these regions of the brain will never operate correctly:  brain damage – overwhelming

++ hyper unaware awareness

++ less serotonin?  Makes mammals bullies, more aggressive, maybe others can sense this and it scares them

+++  we are hypervigilent – hyper sensitive, picking up on cues actually in far more sophisticated ways than normal, but they are not conscious, like hyper radar – like me with the powder puff – like an autistic’s person’s abilities to notice refined details that most can miss and not get stuck on – but we don’t SEE this, but we are always responding, which is part of what keeps us NON-CALM

+ can’t bridge gap between separation and return

+++ unequivocal emotions – we have no doubts – not in the normal way, and cannot contain or process the more complex level of loving and hating the same person, cannot contain ambiguity – things have to be clear.  All our emotions are separate, sort of, real, deep and intense, passion is so intense – but we don’t have ability to regulate them, they are scary

+++ the infant is usually alone and WAITING – how does the infant experience this, with good caregivers invisible, unpredictable episodic return, promise that the evil one will return, with sense of foreboding replacing sense of security

+ mirroring was missing

+ nobody mentalized us

+ the ability to mentalize did not pattern itself into our brains.  Nor did the ability to regulate emotions, their triggers, or their intensities

+ not being socialized to read our own or others’ cues

+ infant sleep interruptions as part of the abuse, as part of the intrusions into the infant’s world.  Would interfere with the hemispheric processing of experience and memory that occurs during sleep, or would amplify this problem

+ the invisible disabilities, invisible brain damage.  Not like we think of brain damage.  This is damage to the brain-mind-self

++ interferences with information processing to complex conclusions

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

++ once our loved ones are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Creates great loss and pain and grief

++++ Tied to this is the terrible feeling that we do not MEAN anything to anyone, that therefore without our meaning anything to anyone, we DO NOT EXIST.  That we never had, that we were never even born.  Knowing we were physically born, if we even have this self-consciousness insight, doesn’t help because we are still frozen in time, frozen on the event horizon.  Without meaning, without value, we do not matter and though we are matter, we are not:  This is tied to the “PARADOXAL INJUNCTION” of the unsolvable problem these infants are presented with.  We seek reassurances from others, who we continually TRY to connect to though we cannot, knowing they cannot connect to us, either.

++ For me, the hormone changes triggered, or jump started something within me at almost 16 – when I had the vision, and my first sense of  “self” tied to the future and experience OTHER than the peritrauma I had been in continually from birth.  I think this is tied to Crittenden’s idea of developmental attachment, the purpose it has to allow us to seek a mate and care for our future offspring.  Maybe more violence among men as they do not go through this stage, or get these hormones, like women do

+ Terrible trouble with MEANING!!

+ we feel like our own brain/minds attack us, like we are own worst enemy

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES

++we did not learn to be able to minimize stress (never internalized self-soothing or calming as never had it so lack this ability always), cannot regulate emotions normally, nor behavior, cannot organize the self, and cannot attach, remaining detached and depersonalized

+Terrible trouble with meaning!

++ no emotional or mental sense of well being, is replaced with foreboding, dread, and an awareness of approaching evil

++our sense of self in time and place, and our sense of meaning and value impeded, cannot form a coherent state of mind, remain disorganized, our stories and narrations of our lives reflect this and are not coherent, proper connections in brain and in mind are not and cannot be made, everything is disconnected that should be connected, or improperly connected – the same rules that normals have in their world do not apply to this world

++ because we cannot regulate these things for ourselves, we look toward other people we deem “more stable and capable” to act as our emotional and mental “dialysis machines” which is something our caregivers never did in relationship to us, and our brains-minds-selves formed without these vital self-regulating abilities.  The body automatically regulates itself.  As humans, we need an equally vital ability to regulate all other aspects of our existence

++++Haywire value system for the assignment and assessment of meaning and value, which is something that is built into the brain from interactions with others from the infant’s birth

++ happy brain neurons not stimulated, therefore died off

+++++ total overabundance of implicit memory of traumatic experiences that an infant’s developmental stages do not provide a way to synthesize or process, along with physical damage from stress hormone toxins that have damaged the physical parts of the brain that are supposed to process trauma, and all experiences, so that these regions of the brain will never operate correctly:  brain damage – overwhelming

+++ unequivocal emotions – we have no doubts – not in the normal way, and cannot contain or process the more complex level of loving and hating the same person, cannot contain ambiguity – things have to be clear.  All our emotions are separate, sort of, real, deep and intense, passion is so intense – but we don’t have ability to regulate them, they are scary

+ the invisible disabilities

++ interferences with information processing to complex conclusions

++ once our loved ones are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Creates great loss and pain and grief

++ missed the stage of connecting separation from return

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

+when our caregivers are our threat and not our protection, (and we have nobody else to turn to), does this unresolvable paradox become deeply tied to our existence and to ambivalence so that this state is always triggered when we are under stress distress?

++ because the regions of our brains — circuitry, patterns, pathways, connections – were formed differently, our boundaries are different – the concept of “INTRUSIVE” has a different sense.  Just the fact that our mind-to-mind and mind-to-self interactions have been affected, with the corresponding damage of a sense of connection to time and place, means that the boundaries of our inner worlds are not in alignment with the boundaries that exist for “ordinary normals.”

++issues with paradox, contradictions, ambivalence, ambiguity

+the paradox of the dis-assembled whole

++ For me, the hormone changes triggered, or jump started something within me at almost 16 – when I had the vision, and my first sense of  “self” tied to the future and experience OTHER than the peritrauma I had been in continually from birth.  I think this is tied to Crittenden’s idea of developmental attachment, the purpose it has to allow us to seek a mate and care for our future offspring.  Maybe more violence among men as they do not go through this stage, or get these hormones, like women do

+ can’t bridge gap between separation and return

SELF

+++ the infant is usually alone and WAITING – how does the infant experience this, with good caregivers invisible, unpredictable episodic return, promise that the evil one will return, with sense of foreboding replacing sense of security

++++Haywire value system for the assignment and assessment of meaning and value, which is something that is built into the brain from interactions with others from the infant’s birth

++ happy brain neurons not stimulated, therefore died off

++ trying to imagine what normal is, how to be happy, trying to imagine what happiness even is, always in the perpetual state of TRYING to get better, trying to understand, trying to connect

++ because the regions of our brains — circuitry, patterns, pathways, connections – were formed differently, our boundaries are different – the concept of “INTRUSIVE” has a different sense.  Just the fact that our mind-to-mind and mind-to-self interactions have been affected, with the corresponding damage of a sense of connection to time and place, means that the boundaries of our inner worlds are not in alignment with the boundaries that exist for “ordinary normals.”

++ along with impairment in the regulatory functions, is a lack of adaptability, flexibility, things are rigid in brain and mind, brain cells have been killed, regions of the brain damaged, faulty circuits formed (according to the world of trauma they were effective), lack of resilience – chronic feeling of not being able to cope, especially when comparing self to the ordinary people who lived their ordinary childhoods and thus have more ordinary lives with less distress all the way through and around them –meaning we are always noticing different cues and mis-reading them, or reading them by our old world’s standards

+when our caregivers are our threat and not our protection, (and we have nobody else to turn to), does this unresolvable paradox become deeply tied to our existence and to ambivalence so that this state is always triggered when we are under stress distress?

++issues with paradox, contradictions, ambivalence, ambiguity

+the paradox of the dis-assembled whole

++ no emotional or mental sense of well being, is replaced with foreboding, dread, and an awareness of approaching evil

++our sense of self in time and place, and our sense of meaning and value impeded, cannot form a coherent state of mind, remain disorganized, our stories and narrations of our lives reflect this and are not coherent, proper connections in brain and in mind are not and cannot be made, everything is disconnected that should be connected, or improperly connected – the same rules that normals have in their world do not apply to this world

++we did not learn to be able to minimize stress (never internalized self-soothing or calming as never had it so lack this ability always), cannot regulate emotions normally, nor behavior, cannot organize the self, and cannot attach, remaining detached and depersonalized

++ because we cannot regulate these things for ourselves, we look toward other people we deem “more stable and capable” to act as our emotional and mental “dialysis machines” which is something our caregivers never did in relationship to us, and our brains-minds-selves formed without these vital self-regulating abilities.  The body automatically regulates itself.  As humans, we need an equally vital ability to regulate all other aspects of our existence

+ + once they are out of sight, they are out of mind.  Great feelings of being alone and isolated, from the beginning.  I can’t get hold of the FEELING – can’t FEEL FELT, can’t keep them with me

++++ Tied to this is the terrible feeling that we do not MEAN anything to anyone, that therefore without our meaning anything to anyone, we DO NOT EXIST.  That we never had, that we were never even born.  Knowing we were physically born, if we even have this self-consciousness insight, doesn’t help because we are still frozen in time, frozen on the event horizon.  Without meaning, without value, we do not matter and though we are matter, we are not:  This is tied to the “PARADOXAL INJUNCTION” of the unsolvable problem these infants are presented with.  We seek reassurances from others, who we continually TRY to connect to though we cannot, knowing they cannot connect to us, either.

++ For me, the hormone changes triggered, or jump started something within me at almost 16 – when I had the vision, and my first sense of  “self” tied to the future and experience OTHER than the peritrauma I had been in continually from birth.  I think this is tied to Crittenden’s idea of developmental attachment, the purpose it has to allow us to seek a mate and care for our future offspring.  Maybe more violence among men as they do not go through this stage, or get these hormones, like women do

+++ unequivocal emotions – we have no doubts – not in the normal way, and cannot contain or process the more complex level of loving and hating the same person, cannot contain ambiguity – things have to be clear.  All our emotions are separate, sort of, real, deep and intense, passion is so intense – but we don’t have ability to regulate them, they are scary

+++++ total overabundance of implicit memory of traumatic experiences that an infant’s developmental stages do not provide a way to synthesize or process, along with physical damage from stress hormone toxins that have damaged the physical parts of the brain that are supposed to process trauma, and all experiences, so that these regions of the brain will never operate correctly:  brain damage – overwhelming

+++++

process of writing the book – ideas and concepts

++telling stories for healing ++ help others to understand their own parents better ++ maybe my father was like the frog dropped in the boiling pot vs the one who was in the pot as it got hotter and  hotter and didn’t notice the changes, or adapted to them gradually ++ ways to make your parenting better for our kids than yours was

+ no shadow   +can’t plan for future, lack of goals