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Tuesday, December 30, 2014.  I am currently engaged in a rather lengthy personal research project that led me back again to my past study about how stress impacts the body.  My notes about research articles I found are at this link:

*Allostasis and Allostatic Load

++++

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 »

++++

++++

Saturday, December 27, 2014.  I would be willing to bet everything I own, which is nothing much – including very generously my apartment’s special collection of bed bugs both living and dead – along with everything I know, don’t know, could know, might come to know – that I am significantly correct in my developing instinctual theory that the human brain region collectively known as the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) is not only the seat of change but is also the bull’s eye of Trauma Altered Development (TAD) in the first place, the lifelong consequence of those changes AND is of its healing.

I am not a professional person in any way.  I am not externally qualified to make statements of fact about anything “scientific.”  However, due to the seriousness and the consequences of the extreme, severe, bizarre, comprehensive and long-term abusive trauma I lived through and suffered so greatly from for the entire first 18 years of my life from BEFORE the first breath I ever took in this world I am perfectly suited to making guesses about “what all of THIS might mean.”

If the ACC is designed to spearhead (attachment-related) growth — its own and the developmental trajectory of the body-self it is a part of — in response to environment (safe and secure or its opposite) then why would that special plasticity cease to exist at ANY TIME during a lifetime?

++

I am loosely being propelled forward into a course of self-study involving this topic:

Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 May;935:107-17.

The anterior cingulate cortex. The evolution of an interface between emotion and cognition.

Allman JM, Hakeem A, Erwin JM, Nimchinsky E, Hof P.

Abstract

“We propose that the anterior cingulate cortex is a specialization of neocortex rather than a more primitive stage of cortical evolution. Functions central to intelligent behavior, that is, emotional self-control, focused problem solving, error recognition, and adaptive response to changing conditions, are juxtaposed with the emotions in this structure. Evidence of an important role for the anterior cingulate cortex in these functions has accumulated through single-neuron recording, electrical stimulation, EEG, PET, fMRI, and lesion studies. The anterior cingulate cortex contains a class of spindle-shaped neurons that are found only in humans and the great apes, and thus are a recent evolutionary specialization probably related to these functions. The spindle cells appear to be widely connected with diverse parts of the brain and may have a role in the coordination that would be essential in developing the capacity to focus on difficult problems. Furthermore, they emerge postnatally and their survival may be enhanced or reduced by environmental conditions of enrichment or stress, thus potentially influencing adult competence or dysfunction in emotional self-control and problem-solving capacity.”

++

My dear friend located a full copy of the following article online free:

Anterior Cingulate Cortex:  Unique Role in Cognition and Emotion

by Francis L. Stevens, Ph.D., Robin A. Hurley, M.D., Katherine H. Taber, Ph.D.

“The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) lies in a unique position in the brain, with connections to both the “emotional” limbic system and the “cognitive” prefrontal cortex. Thus, the ACC likely has an important role in integration of neuronal circuitry for affect regulation and can be identified as a distinctive region in understanding psychopathology. Affect-regulation, the ability to control and manage uncomfortable emotions, is a primary goal for mental health clinicians in treating psychopathology. Avoidance of painful emotions is often the motivating force in negative behaviors such as substance abuse, binge eating, and suicide. These actions are taken as part of maladaptive approaches to control, avoid, or regulate painful emotions. Clinicians often treat patients by helping them to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms in regulating their emotions. Understanding the processes by which ACC contributes to regulation of emotions may assist clinicians in their therapeutic work.”

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There is undoubtedly a clear, undeniable connection between the ACC brain region, TAD and the profoundly disturbing findings from the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) studies.  If I choose to do so I will need to search online in an intense study to find who “out there” has traded guesswork for fact along these lines of my thinking.

Using the online search terms — cdc ace anterior cingulate cortex – I can see instantaneously that there is a beginning place for me to begin my inquiry.  (This blog seems to appear at the top of the appearing link list….)  I could say DARN!  For the simple reason that I do not REALLY want to be among those on earth who know what I instinctively know.

Yet the good side of this in my thoughtful meanderings of speculation this morning is that if the ACC is the bull’s eye of trauma-related changes in this brain region, once this connection has been clearly shown it should also be true and demonstrable that this region is also a powerful target for changes that can be made in the opposite direction!

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

Even at a cursory beginning glance — interesting research!  This is just one angle of entering the world of studies about development of the ACC and its very busy and fascinating engineering and operation!!

The social regulation of threat-related attentional disengagement in highly anxious individuals.

Maresh EL, Beckes L, Coan JA.

Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Aug 30;7:515. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00515. eCollection 2013. PMID: 24009576  Free PMC Article Related citations

Effect of relationship experience on trust recovery following a breach.

Schilke O, Reimann M, Cook KS.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Sep 17;110(38):15236-41. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1314857110. Epub 2013 Sep 3. PMID: 24003151  Free PMC Article Related citations

An information theory account of cognitive control.

Fan J.

Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Sep 2;8:680. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00680. eCollection 2014. PMID: 25228875  Free PMC Article Related citations

From imitation to meaning: circuit plasticity and the acquisition of a conventionalized semantics.

García RR, Zamorano F, Aboitiz F.

Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Aug 8;8:605. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00605. eCollection 2014. Review. PMID: 25152726  Free PMC Article Related citations

Common medial frontal mechanisms of adaptive control in humans and rodents.

Narayanan NS, Cavanagh JF, Frank MJ, Laubach M.

Nat Neurosci. 2013 Dec;16(12):1888-95. doi: 10.1038/nn.3549. Epub 2013 Oct 20. PMID: 24141310 Free PMC Article Related citations

The motor system contributes to comprehension of abstract language.

Guan CQ, Meng W, Yao R, Glenberg AM.

PLoS One. 2013 Sep 26;8(9):e75183. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0075183. eCollection 2013. PMID: 24086463  Free PMC Article Related citations

Asymmetric correlation between experienced parental attachment and event-related potentials evoked in response to parental faces.

Dai J, Zhai H, Zhou A, Gong Y, Luo L.

PLoS One. 2013 Jul 2;8(7):e68795. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068795. Print 2013. PMID: 23844240 Free PMC Article Related citations

Parcellation of the cingulate cortex at rest and during tasks: a meta-analytic clustering and experimental study.

Torta DM, Costa T, Duca S, Fox PT, Cauda F.

Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Jun 14;7:275. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00275. eCollection 2013. PMID: 23785324  Free PMC Article Related citations

The empathic brain and its dysfunction in psychiatric populations: implications for intervention across different clinical conditions.

Decety J, Moriguchi Y.

Biopsychosoc Med. 2007 Nov 16;1:22. PMID: 18021398  Free PMC Article Related citation

Social outcomes in childhood brain disorder: a heuristic integration of social neuroscience and developmental psychology.

Yeates KO, Bigler ED, Dennis M, Gerhardt CA, Rubin KH, Stancin T, Taylor HG, Vannatta K.

Psychol Bull. 2007 May;133(3):535-56. Review. PMID: 17469991  Free PMC Article Related citations

The experience of emotion.

Barrett LF, Mesquita B, Ochsner KN, Gross JJ.

Annu Rev Psychol. 2007;58:373-403. PMID: 17002554  Free PMC Article Related citations

Beyond affect: a role for genetic variation of the serotonin transporter in neural activation during a cognitive attention task.

Canli T, Omura K, Haas BW, Fallgatter A, Constable RT, Lesch KP.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Aug 23;102(34):12224-9. Epub 2005 Aug 10. PMID: 16093315  Free PMC Article Related citations

Neurobiologic processes in drug reward and addiction.

Adinoff B.

Harv Rev Psychiatry. 2004 Nov-Dec;12(6):305-20. Review. PMID:15764467  Free PMC Article Related citations

The neural bases of cooperation and competition: an fMRI investigation.

Decety J, Jackson PL, Sommerville JA, Chaminade T, Meltzoff AN.

Neuroimage. 2004 Oct;23(2):744-51. PMID: 15488424 Free PMC Article Related citations

The human cortex responds to an interoceptive challenge.

Critchley HD.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Apr 27;101(17):6333-4. Epub 2004 Apr 19.  PMID: 15096592  Free PMC Article Related citations

Trace but not delay fear conditioning requires attention and the anterior cingulate cortex.

Han CJ, O’Tuathaigh CM, van Trigt L, Quinn JJ, Fanselow MS, Mongeau R, Koch C, Anderson DJ.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Oct 28;100(22):13087-92. Epub 2003 Oct 10.

PMID: 14555761 Free PMC Article Related citations

Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing.

Frith U, Frith CD.

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2003 Mar 29;358(1431):459-73.

PMID: 12689373 Free PMC Article Related citations

Childhood maltreatment is associated with a sex-dependent functional reorganization of a brain inhibitory control network.

Elton A, Tripathi SP, Mletzko T, Young J, Cisler JM, James GA, Kilts CD.

Hum Brain Mapp. 2014 Apr;35(4):1654-67. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22280. Epub 2013 Apr 24.

PMID: 23616424 Related citations

Interaction of neuropeptide Y genotype and childhood emotional maltreatment on brain activity during emotional processing.

Opmeer EM, Kortekaas R, van Tol MJ, van der Wee NJ, Woudstra S, van Buchem MA, Penninx BW, Veltman DJ, Aleman A.

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2014 May;9(5):601-9. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst025. Epub 2013 Mar 11. PMID: 23482625 Related citations

Overlapping and segregated resting-state functional connectivity in patients with major depressive disorder with and without childhood neglect.

Wang L, Dai Z, Peng H, Tan L, Ding Y, He Z, Zhang Y, Xia M, Li Z, Li W, Cai Y, Lu S, Liao M, Zhang L, Wu W, He Y, Li L.

Hum Brain Mapp. 2014 Apr;35(4):1154-66. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22241. Epub 2013 Feb 13. PMID: 23408420  Related citations

Resting-state functional connectivity in adults with childhood emotional maltreatment.

van der Werff SJ, Pannekoek JN, Veer IM, van Tol MJ, Aleman A, Veltman DJ, Zitman FG, Rombouts SA, Elzinga BM, van der Wee NJ.

Psychol Med. 2013 Sep;43(9):1825-36. doi: 10.1017/S0033291712002942. Epub 2012 Dec 20. PMID: 23254143  Related citations

Improving Executive Function and its Neurobiological Mechanisms through a Mindfulness-Based Intervention: Advances within the Field of Developmental Neuroscience.

Tang YY, Yang L, Leve LD, Harold GT.

Child Dev Perspect. 2012 Dec;6(4):361-366.

PMID: 25419230 Free PMC Article Related citations

Childhood and adult trauma both correlate with dorsal anterior cingulate activation to threat in combat veterans.

Herringa RJ, Phillips ML, Fournier JC, Kronhaus DM, Germain A.

Psychol Med. 2013 Jul;43(7):1533-42. doi: 10.1017/S0033291712002310. Epub 2012 Oct 18.

PMID: 23171514  Free PMC Article Related citations

[Review of the effects of mindfulness meditation on mental and physical health and its mechanisms of action].

Ngô TL.

Sante Ment Que. 2013 Autumn;38(2):19-34. Review. French.

PMID:24719001 Related citations

Is meditation associated with altered brain structure? A systematic review and meta-analysis of morphometric neuroimaging in meditation practitioners.

Fox KC, Nijeboer S, Dixon ML, Floman JL, Ellamil M, Rumak SP, Sedlmeier P, Christoff K.

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2014 Jun;43:48-73. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.03.016. Epub 2014 Apr 3.

PMID: 24705269 Related citations

Shifting brain asymmetry: the link between meditation and structural lateralization.

Kurth F, Mackenzie-Graham A, Toga AW, Luders E.

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2014 Mar 17. [Epub ahead of print]

PMID: 24643652 Related citations

Disentangling the neural mechanisms involved in Hinduism- and Buddhism-related meditations.

Tomasino B, Chiesa A, Fabbro F.

Brain Cogn. 2014 Oct;90:32-40. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2014.03.013. Epub 2014 Jun 27.

PMID: 24975229 Related citations

Tai Chi Chuan optimizes the functional organization of the intrinsic human brain architecture in older adults.

Wei GX, Dong HM, Yang Z, Luo J, Zuo XN.

Front Aging Neurosci. 2014 Apr 17;6:74. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2014.00074. eCollection 2014.

PMID: 24860494 Free PMC Article Related citations

Just a tiny beginning!!!!!!

++++

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 »

++++

++++

Monday, December 22, 2014.  I have been investigating the Anterior Cingulate Cortex online as it relates to empathy, attachment, emotional and social processing, the brain’s default resting mode, physical and emotional pain, anxiety, depression, OCD, Borderline Personality Disorder, ADHD, autism, Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD), difficulties with behavioral inhibition and choice-making, hoarding, speech pathology, PTSD, schizophrenia, bi-polar, damage by abuse, “silent treatment” and bullying, etc. – you name it!  A fascinating and important search/study!

I found these two articles which are both available online free by clicking on title links:

The pain of social disconnection: examining the shared neural underpinnings of physical and social pain by Naomi I. Eisenberger

Abstract | Experiences of social rejection, exclusion or loss are generally considered to be some of the most ‘painful’ experiences that we endure. Indeed, many of us go to great lengths to avoid situations that may engender these experiences (such as public speaking). Why is it that these negative social experiences have such a profound effect on our emotional well-being? Emerging evidence suggests that experiences of social pain — the painful feelings associated with social disconnection — rely on some of the same neurobiological substrates that underlie experiences of physical pain. Understanding the ways in which physical and social pain overlap may provide new insights into the surprising relationship between these two types of experiences.

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Do neural responses to rejection depend on attachment style? An fMRI study by  C. Nathan DeWall, Carrie L. Masten, Caitlin Powell, David Combs, David R. Schurtz, and Naomi I. Eisenberger

Social bonds fulfill the basic human need to belong. Being rejected thwarts this basic need, putting bonds with others at risk. Attachment theory suggests that people satisfy their need to belong through different means. Whereas anxious attachment is associated with craving acceptance and showing vigilance to cues that signal possible rejection, avoidant attachment is associated with discomfort with closeness and using avoidant strategies to regulate one’s relationships. Given these different styles by which people satisfy their need to belong (that can operate simultaneously within the same individual), responses to social rejection may differ according to these individual differences in attachment anxiety and avoidance. To test this hypothesis, we used neuroimaging techniques to examine how the degree to which people display each of the two attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) uniquely correlated with their neural activity during a simulated experience of social exclusion. Anxious attachment related to heightened activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula, regions previously associated with rejection-related distress. In contrast, avoidant attachment related to less activity in these regions. Findings are discussed in terms of the strategies that individuals with varying attachment styles might use to promote maintenance of social bonds.

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Reader’s can put “substance p” into this blog’s search box to find related posts here such as:

+SUBSTANCE P – IT’S OUR BODY’S BIOLOGICAL LINK TO FEELING EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL PAIN

+INFANT-CHILD ABUSE, SUBSTANCE P AND A LIFETIME OF SADNESS

++++

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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Friday, December 19, 2014.  I would like to mention and recommend an excellent blog on healing from trauma that my dear friend told me about today.  I subscribed and look forward to receiving notifications of postings.  Please take a look!

Trauma’s Labyrinth by Dr. Laura K. Kerr.

This was the blog article I read today on my first visit to Dr. Kerr’s pages:  WANT TO REDUCE MENTAL ILLNESS? ADDRESS TRAUMA. WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD? ADDRESS TRAUMA.

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

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And….

This is one of my favorite facebook videos!  My idea of LOVE!

++++

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 »

++++

++++

Friday, December 19, 2014.  I am greatly involved as I care for my 28-month-old grandson during weekdays with teaching him how to talk.  I don’t stop there.  I am also concurrently teaching him about thinking and thoughts.  Because language is a new acquisition for him, and because he is moving into the stage where he will be able to speak words related to virtually every thought he has, instructing him to notice thoughts and to name them as such seems important to me.

He really has no choice but to listen to me.

Yesterday, for instance, he began to talk about Mommy.  I noted to him that he was at that moment thinking about her.  I watched the expression on his face.  I could see him thinking.  Next he said to me, “Mommy in my head.”  I explained to him that Mommy can’t fit inside his head but his THOUGHTS about his Mommy can!

It just makes sense to me at my stage of learning in life to teach this little person to be aware of his thinking process at the beginning of their existence for him.  He may not literally remember what I am teaching him now, but I believe in some ways what he “gets” now about consciousness will rest as a foundation within him for the rest of his life.

I believe it is very important for all of us to know what we know.  Being able to NOTICE what we are in the process of knowing is an exercise in awareness.  Being able to know something about how our thoughts form in interaction with the life we are in the process of living includes gaining comprehension about how we are interacting with other people along with how we are affecting them — and how they are affecting us.

Oh, that life could remain as simply clear as it is for someone this young.

++

During the current phase of my own life I try to be consciously aware enough of my thoughts to immediately discard most of them.

Yet there are also times when words appear to me that hang around and don’t let go of me.  Dare I explore such words?  This morning the phrase “dark night of the soul” seems, against my wishes, to label my new day.  What is my own “spiritual crisis” at this time of my life?  I certainly cannot deny that I am having one.  Not wishing to acknowledge or admit this fact just won’t help me move through it, learn anything from or about it, or (is it possible?) not repeat whatever steps I took to get “here” in the first place!

I am fairly certain that I will go with one of my daughters tomorrow night to see the new movie, Interstellar that my dear friend is so highly recommending to me.  I am a little intimidated by how long it is – three hours!?  Yet I am curious, also: Will this movie somehow trigger a positive turn-around for me so that I can jump into some sort of warp speed of my own that will let me alter this dark-soul-night trajectory I seem to be on?

Of course we are at the days of the Winter Solstice, and having moved back up to Fargo, North Dakota from the Mexico-Arizona border a year ago fall has put not only short days of light and very long nights, but also nearly continually gray skies and NO direct sun into my tiny apartment near the top of my list of “what is not good for Linda.”  (Bed bug infestation is naturally at the very top of my list right now.  They are very much still here infiltrating and contaminating my earthly existence.)

So I guess I could congratulate myself and applaud my choice of season to actually HAVE one of the “dark nights of the soul” in.  My timing is evidently perfect.

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

++++

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, December 18, 2014.  I swear, Little Miss Muffet has NOTHING on me!  I was peacefully sitting at my laptop reading an email from my Arizona piano teacher who just had heart surgery (one of the top 2 sweetest men I have ever met in my life) and along RAN a NASTY LARGE BED BUG aiming straight at me with all the power of natural intent.  I have SPRAYED the boards of that plant stand next to my computer several times!  I was not going to be able to follow this critter’s life span to see if EVENTUALLY it would die from spray on its legs.  SO SMASH!!!!!

I am SO not a happy camper!

It would cost one half of my monthly income to bring a professional exterminator in here.  I spoke with the woman at HUD this week who handles my rental assistance voucher, explained my situation and was told (A) HUD has nothing at all to do with these kinds of landlord-tenant concerns, and (B) that I MUST get free legal assistance BEFORE I EVER speak to the management of this apartment complex about this bug infestation.

Yes, I do continue to find dead bugs hanging around in here.  But my concern is, “How many bugs are in here among the UNDEAD?”

NOT a happy camper!

++

This mess is teaching me some things, though.  (1) People who HAVE had bed bugs in their own house show me both empathy (based on experiences of their own) AND compassion for this terrible mess.  (2) People who have NOT had bed bugs show me compassion AND their own terror of getting these bugs in their own home, but I do NOT detect empathy from these people.  (Yes, I am among the contaminated, contagious and very nearly completely quarantined!!)

I am not a “native” from a “country” filled with either compassionate or empathetic people.  I have been trying, consciously, for YEARS to understand what these two critically important conditions of humanity actually are.  It is hard for me to detect them.  It is hard for me to differentiate between them.

This whole situation makes me feel pretty darn desperate — in survival mode — and this is SO not good for me!  No, this isn’t life and/or death – exactly.  But my peace of mind, what little bit of it I have been able to create and salvage in this strange life of mine, is GONE!

So, back to my “logical” mind for a tiny bit of sanctuary as I seek to understand at least SOMETHING that might be useful to me.

(A)  One of my daughters and her husband picked up bed bugs in a motel 10 years ago while visiting Arizona and brought them home.  The bugs were confined to their bedroom.  A professional extermination ended the problem although my incredibly bug phobic daughter had to be “bed bug bait” in her bed for 3 weeks to lure the newly-hatched into poison zone.  (Her husband was evidently not found to be suitable for bed bug cuisine.)

My daughter has BOTH empathy (from personal experience) and great compassion.  She is also very concerned that her little son who I care for days will bring them home to her house.  I keep the little one’s coat and hat in my refrigerator from the instant he arrives until he leaves her.  They strip the little one as soon as they get him home again.  Of course she is among the fearful of another bout with bed bugs!

(B)  My friend who is coming to take “the baby” and me out to run around town on our weekly visit does not come in the house.  She has COMPASSION but I am not sure whether or not she has EMPATHY for me in this situation.

(C) The HUD lady was kind in her words (that is her job) but she told me she would not stay in own home for one SECOND if she knew those bugs were in there.  She told me she would “pay whatever it cost” to get rid of them.  Well……  She is not in poverty…….

++

What else do I know?  I will be back to finish this post after my outing visit with my friend.  All I know is that this is CREEPY and highly stressful/distressful to me.  I was sitting at my keyboard practicing the other night when there came a BED BUG on its RACE to get to me for its dinner — running as fast as it could on the edge of the stand my keyboard sits upon.  My relaxation ENDED that abruptly until bug was smashed and I sprayed yet more poison on that stand.

I have to be vigilant, HYPER vigilant at all times in here!  Yet my enemy is MOSTLY completely hidden and invisible.  Not unlike the abusive trauma and its continual threat from Mad Mother throughout my 18-year childhood!

But the protection of the young – the ability to not be constantly aware of threat and danger – is not with me now, although I HAVE to sleep!!  Darn it anyway!

Of course as a child there was NOTHING I could do to end my abuse.  Now there has to be something I can do to end this awful situation I have going on around me now.

++

All I can say now is — please see next post.

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

++++

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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Monday, December 15, 2014.  I think I could have entitled this post “FINDING AN ATTACHMENT VILLAGE” but I think the dream I woke from and remembered some parts of early this morning holds some deeper reverberations for me personally.  In my younger adult years when my brain worked more clearly as it could determine specific categories for my thoughts and concerns I would be able — and, I suppose, willing — to look for these specifics among the small parts of my dream that I remember.

I rarely remember ANYTHING about my dreams any more, a loss that began for me just prior to my parimenopausal years.  I don’t know that my physiological transition out of my childbearing years was actually linked to the changes in my dreaming and remembering patterns, but it seems to be true for me.  All I have been able to really determine about my current (age 63) patterns is that I seem to always be very busy and very productively involved with things that matter in my dreams.  Sometimes I think that if I did remember most of what goes on “beyond the veil of waking” I would simply be SO TIRED that what I must do in THIS world would be interfered with.

So…  This dream….

I remember being alone and searching for something I can’t quite name.  I found my way through an old wooden door into the back of an equally worn vertically-set wood plank shed with a steel roof.  The out-of-doors was only slightly barred from entering the sanctuary of this shelter, which I realized upon entering was actually very, very extensive.

I only went in far enough to lay down upon the dry grass upon the earth.  I was feeling sad and not surprisingly to me, very tired.  A kind of weariness that comes from carrying an immense burden for a long, long time.  The kind of burden that constantly threatens a person to topple over onto one’s knees without the ability to rise again.

As I lay upon the warm earth in the quite quasi darkness I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of liquid pour out of every pore of my skin.  It felt warm like salty tears, warm like living blood leaving me.  My only concern was to keep the papers (my writings?) I held in each hand high enough in the air that they would not get wet during this process — whatever it was.

++

Eventually I was able to return to my feet.  I gazed around me at the collection of material things that I knew were very important to someone.  There was an automobile mostly covered with an old dust shrouded tarp.  Old wooden low shelves filled to their edges.  I was careful not to touch anything as I backed out through the door I had entered.

I remember this part of the dream clearly because as I came into the sunshine I woke up, rose to see what time it was (2:30 am) and then went back to sleep.

I think it has been rare for me during my lifetime to return to a dream once I have been awakened from it, but I did so with this one.  Next I remember The People.  Lots of people gathered at the front of this huge (mostly) enclosed place.  It was a village.  People radiated simple kindness.

One man among a group welcomed me, but he also posed a question.  “What are you doing here among us,” he asked me.  His gaze held my eyes as he paused.  I could see that he was searching for the kindest way to express his thoughts.  Finally he continued, “You are so…..PRETTY!”

++

I knew what was not spoken while I was dreaming.  I know it even more as I go about my day.

What obviously separated ME from all those gentle people was the fact that I was not a dark-skinned person.  I was, and am, white.

++

These people did not have a home in this world the way that I, as an American, would name it.  Yet these people had created for themselves and for one another a most glorious home that was physically created of nothing but cast off and worn out materials that they had found new use for.

These people showed no sorrow, showed no fear and certainly showed nothing but puzzlement at meeting me there.  How had I found my way to “their place” in the world?  I knew these people had suffered greatly in their lives from trauma, trials and from tribulations.   There was a kind of pride among these people of a very good sort.  Suffering had translated for them into the greatest honor.

These people shared a collective dignity and nobility among them that felt like a kind of envelope encasing everyone and everything I saw in the dream, myself included.  How can I describe this?  Like finding like and if the “like” had not been there in and with me I sense I would have never found my way to that place.

++

Certainly there are plenty of non-brown-skin people on this planet that have and do suffer greatly.  But I also know that by far the preponderance of terrible suffering (by actual count) happens among those who would not consider themselves to be among the white-skinned people.  (List of world’s wealthiest countries HERE)

As I write this next point in this post I know that I am working with conscious thought more than I am with information from the deeper reaches of who I am and what I know.  I simply suspect that because of the profound suffering I experienced during the first 18 years of my life I accumulated a kind of honor that will probably never leave me in this lifetime.  I recognize the great value of this honor, even as it let me find and be so warmly recognized by The People in my dream.  I find — though my rational mind wants to scream at me, “NO!  This is NOT true!” — that there HAS to be value in the suffering I experienced and still do experience that has allowed me to retain this kind of honor that I believe everyone is born with.

I also have a sense that it would primarily be true that people like those in my dream were would be the ones I would share most in common with AND feel most at home with.  We are resilient.  We are humble.  We are resourceful.  We share and love with greatest kindness.

I think there is something connecting my “bleeding, crying, letting the burden sink into the earth” part of my dream that enabled me to later return in the dream to the front area of this huge shelter where I was able to meet The People.

I think we can become clear about how our suffering is NOT who we are even though the pain of our experiences has given us powerful and very real gifts.  In part maybe I am reverberating from the topic of my post yesterday.  I do believe a soul is at risk of “leaving the body behind on this earth” when that soul has reached a point where the burden upon it has become more than it can bear.

I believe connecting with those who are members of  our “attachment village,” OUR people, is among the most powerful preventive factor that can keep us from reaching the overwhelmed state.

Yet for myself, in this dream, it was my lying on the earth that let so much of my burden first leave me.  This happened for me BEFORE I was able to connect with The People.  Yet I also know with both my rational and my “other” kinds of knowing that every single one of the people I met in my dream had also experienced great healing through very similar ways.

We CANNOT be separated from the earth as long as we live with our body in this lifetime.  The earth gives us every single thing we need in order to live — even one another.  But for me, because forced isolation and solitary confinement was such a HUGE part of the abuse I suffered, it was being able to experience such close connection with other human beings that gave me such a lovely — and necessary — sense of “sanctuary” as a human being in this dream.

I have long been bonded to the earth, but I greatly struggle with any sense of being bonded with and connected to human beings.  I think this dream was an important step in helping me understand that even though I might not have these feelings around most of the people I actually meet, that does not mean that I am not CAPABLE of forming these attachment connections.

In fact, in the world of my dreams, I have now been shown that those connections already exist.

I am NOT alone.

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

++++

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 »

++++

++++

Sunday, December 14, 2014.  The weather is so drab, gray and damp, but fortunately much warmer than usual.  I had to set off 6 bed bug bombs in this small apartment yesterday and I sprayed again, as well.  Then I vacated and spent the night at my daughter’s.  I took care of my two young grandsons so my daughter and her hubby could go out on a date.  This morning I am back here again trying to make some kind of sense of the horrific tangled disarrangement this bug battle is causing in my life.

No, it’s not the end of the world to have these awful pests visiting me.  I am cleaning and cleaning, sorting and throwing, hoping in my frantic efforts SOMETHING I do helps these critters DIE.  Just DIE!  Nobody on earth needs this crazy bunch of bugs to show up anywhere else.

So….  That’s an ongoing misery-creating process.  But this is not what brought me to my computer to write this post.

++

Firstly I will include this link to a December 2009 post I wrote on a topic that I doubt I will ever write about again directly:

+CONSUMERS BEWARE OF TRAUMA TRIGGERS LURKING IN ‘HOLIDAY SEASON MAGIC’

++

Next I will say that I have no idea if my daughter and her husband’s very good friend’s 29-year-old brother’s suicide last week was in any way connected to the holidays.  This young man had attempted suicide two years ago, received “help” and everyone who knew him seemed to have believed that he was alright.

It is the ALRIGHT that I am thinking about here.

Who really knew?

Evidently nobody in his life from what my daughter is finding out in conversations with her friend and his family.

++

There does not seem to have been addiction, abuse or overt trauma in the family, my daughter says.  However, there IS depression among many family members.  Yes, many factors influence both depression and suicide.  But this is not even what I want to write about today.

++

I want to write about LISTENING to people — those we care about as well as strangers.  What is LISTENING?

LISTEN

transitive verb

1: to pay attention to someone or something in order to hear what is being said, sung, played, etc. —used to tell a person to listen to what you are saying

2:  to hear what someone has said and understand that it is serious, important, or true

intransitive verb

++

I cannot say that this young man wasn’t listened to or heard.  I just have a very strong sense that he was not able to speak his truth, not allowed to speak it, because nobody wanted to hear what he had to say.

Oh, this would be SUCH a tragedy if true!

I have mentioned in earlier posts that this North Dakota area is, to me, an extremely unhealthy and unnatural emotional landscape.  People insist on NEVER showing an emotion, talking about an emotion or even knowing that they or anyone else ever HAS an emotion.  I HATE this about this region, which feels “dead” to me or at least “non-living” in so many ways.  Yet I will never know if this emotional-void local culture affected this young man the way I imagine it may have.

His medication was being changed.  To me this is a very high-risk action for anyone to go through alone — and for the many who do need to be hospitalized.  If there were no direct warning signs that suicide was a choice made or about to be made, nobody could have done anything to prevent it.

My point simply is that we must LISTEN to people talk about feelings and states of mind that are less than “positive” if we want to hear the reality of that person.  If all anyone wants to hear is the up-beat “Gee things are going so great for me” kind of language a stage is set where nothing that NEEDS to be said WILL be said.

In other words, people can feel completely unsafe even with those who love them to show their more complicated self in any way.  I think people can make choices to listen in better ways.  Why is it so tempting to be so afraid of people’s descriptions about their less than “perfect” experiences in and with life?  Why do we shut one another off and shut one another up when something “unhappy” might appear in a conversation?

++

If interested, readers can do an online search for the terms “deep brain magnetic stimulation” which will bring up pages about a treatment for depression that can be highly effective.  I have a friend whose partner suffered for many years with severe medication-resistant depression who was treated with this method during its experimental stages and is FINE now!  A true miracle.

Another informative online search term combination is this one:  “link between genes depression suicide.”

++

I am especially encouraging people to open their minds, hearts and EARS during this holiday season to allow for people who ARE struggling at this time of year (at ANY time of year!) can feel encouraged to speak the truth about how they are feeling.  Listening, truly LISTENING to one another is one of the greatest gifts humans have been given to use to share our experiences of life.  This is not one HALF of a gift so that we choose to listen only to “the positive” and shun and shame people for speaking about anything other than what we might judge as negative.

Give me a break!  Give one another a break!  I completely understand why people who NEED to speak do NOT speak.  We have an instinctive ability to know when it is safe or not safe to expose our inner “vulnerabilities” with other people.  We know in our gut, in our body — when speaking our truth will be negatively received in such a way that we then become PREY to someone else who — quite frankly — is acting like they are somehow better than we are.

I am NOT judging this family my daughter knows.  I don’t even know them!  I am writing from an inward place of resonance with deep and seemingly unbounded despair.  I told my daughter bluntly last evening that if I did not have children I do not believe I would still be on this planet.

I don’t know that, of course.  I have been a mother all of my adult life.  I also recognize that BEING a mother is a great gift to me because it HAS enabled me to — stay here — especially at times when I hurt so much I did not believe I could take another breath or survive another second.

This is not a chipper kind of post!!  It is a testament to exactly what I am trying to convey.  There are UPS in life and there are DOWNS — because life is an ongoing, creative, organic process we FEEL our way through, whether or not we have words for our feelings or not.  Whether or not anyone will truly listen to us when we most need to be heard.

Don’t give up!  Yes, if at all possible do not give up!  But also do not wait too long until it is too late to encourage EVERYONE in your life, especially those you care about, to feel COMPLETELY and absolutely safe in sharing anything of their truest, deepest feelings with you when they want and need to.

We need to be truly heard and we need to truly hear.  This is one of the most powerful antidotes to feeling completely isolated an all, all alone.

But even then, there are people who will choose to leave this world earlier than seems best.  There are part of ourselves and certainly depths to others that we will never know.  There are mysteries.  And suffering beyond the point of ability to bear it can also be very, very real.

I am just suggesting that perhaps nobody can really know if they did all they could have done to help someone avoid that precipice of suicide if they cannot truly say they were willing to listen and truly hear what that other person NEEDED to share with them.

While we cannot make someone talk to us we can make ourselves able to listen and to hear.

++

Comments are welcome on this blog.  Please consider changing your name to something that is not identifiable to others if that might make you feel safer to speak.  I can only respond directly to comments I publish/post (you do need to watch for and put a check mark in the little box that lets you receive follow-up replies).   Thank you for reading and please have a safe holiday season and find SOMEONE you can talk to and be open to finding someone who needs you to listen to them.

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

++++

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 »

++++

++++

Monday, December 8, 2014.  I can’t quite figure out when it might be at all appropriate to say to most people, “I AM SO PROUD OF YOU THAT YOU ARE ALIVE!!!

In defining my terms, and therefore the terms of this blog, I am saying that “most people” includes all of those who received what they needed during their earliest years of life (“good enough” caregiving) to become safe and securely attached people.  That would be about 55% of our population.

Coming down the pike, then, there are among the remaining 45% of people who have some degree and version of an insecure attachment disorder — let’s say — about 20% of THIS group a bunch with an “avoidant” insecure attachment disorder.  Those people fit into a society pretty nicely that has no real clue of the value of emotions in the first place.

Now, coming down further into the insecurely attached group, there would be another perhaps 15% that have an “ambivalent” insecure attachment disorder and then — down here where I reside, a remaining approximate 15% who received a very harsh and inadequate, often very abusive, neglectful and traumatic early beginning that left this group with a combination of “disorganized-disoriented” and “reactive” insecure attachment disorders.

OK.  Within this breakdown I am saying that only this bottom 15%, really, are the ones that are NOT among the “most people” group.  It is to these people (myself included) that it is VERY appropriate to affirm the fact that it is only through our MAJOR efforts to find our footing along the extremely treacherous and dangerous path of the early years of our life that has kept us alive — and “YAY US!!”

++

Seems likely to me that the amount of focused effort and energy it has taken us to survive is effort and energy — along with corresponding resources — that “most people” get to spend on making themselves a pretty good life.  This is NOT a post about self-pity.  It is a post about the practical matters of life as a survivor.  It is about being a person with — MORE.

Again, if readers do an online search for “CDC ACE study” all of those articles that will appear in connection with these research findings affirm what I am saying.  Something happens when people have to fight against terrible odds to survive from the very start of life.  True, billions of people are suffering on this planet in ways I cannot begin to imagine — but the truth is, trauma is trauma and because we are all of the human species the same kinds of consequences that take over the bulk of living for people traumatized severely in the earliest years of life is mostly the same.

AND always the major factor mitigating the effects of early trauma is the availability of safe and secure attachment.  Attachment.

++

There is something a bit different in my thoughts as I write this post than there has been in the many hundreds of posts I have already written about the consequences of early trauma.  Again I am also mentioned this article my Dr. Martin Teicher and his researchers:  The neurobiological consequences of early stress and childhood maltreatment.

BUT today for the first time that I know of I am rethinking how I place early traumatic stress survivors on the so-called rungs of the evolutionary ladder.

Always before now I have figured that the kinds of physiological changes this article describes put survivors of malevolent early traumatic childhoods at some BACKWARD state of evolutionary adaptation.  Maybe that is NOT what the kinds of changes that happen to us are all about!

Maybe we are evolutionarily ADVANCED because of what we have endured and survived.  Maybe the mismatch that Teicher describes (I know, the article is complicated but read through it and especially attend to its final paragraphs) between those who had no choice but to adapt in their physiological development to a malevolent world and the more benevolent world we found ourselves living in when we got out of our home of origin is a mismatch of a different kind than the one I have imagined before now.

True, many survivors find their way into abusive relationships, environments of deprived violence and into the clutches of all kinds of addictions — but this is NOT what I am talking about.

I am talking about WHO we are in combination with HOW we are in our trauma-altered body.

Maybe we are designed to “hatch” into a FAR FAR more advanced world than this one is.  Benevolent?  There is a whole lot about current culture and society in America that is NOT benevolent or benign, or even just, wise, fair or even kind.

Maybe we are not the ones that can be fooled.

Maybe we have extremely high standards, ones we have earned the right to know about.

Maybe we know that these standards are missing from this “more benign” world we are now in.  Life is relative.  Just because, for many of us, the worst of the horrors of our early years are not present in our adult lives does not mean, by default, that this world is THAT much better.  THIS world certainly never gave a damn about terribly-abused-child-me.  So much for being a benevolent world out here.  Not all that much has changed, all things considered.

I think most of us live with a close connection to innate, instinctive, ancient wisdom.  We cannot be easily fooled.  We don’t play games.  We see through things “most people” take for granted as being true.  Maybe this world WE live in, as different as it can seem to be from the world of “most people,” is a BETTER inner world than we realize.

We have heightened compassion, extra attentiveness to the REAL conditions of others no matter how they may try to mask their truth from self and from those around them.  We are often extremely sensitive.  SUPER sensitive.  I don’t care about the “survival” theories about how we came to be this way.

I am thinking about the way we are!!  We don’t take life for granted.  We have depths in our hearts that are so wide open that many people cannot comprehend us.  Maybe we KNOW how the world could be a different, BETTER world if “most people” knew what we know.

We are not oblivious.  We are not shallow, trivial or trite.  Our endurance and our strength and our patience has been tested.  Life has found us worthy to still be here.  We don’t need to ever take THAT for granted.  We were not formed in ease.  We were formed in great, great hardship and difficulty.  Most of us, I’ll bet, do not have easy lives even now.  We have the extra struggles.  But we are still here to have them!

Yes, here we still are.  That didn’t “just” happen.  It happened because we MADE it happen.  True there have been miracles along the way that helped us.  But WE let them.

We had to AGREE to still be here.  We are tough and we are tender — in all the right ways.  We know what sacrifice IS.

There is nothing weak or flawed about us.  We are HIGH QUALITY, and we know it if we are honest with ourselves.  But we also have a rare kind of humility.  Arrogance is not our nature.  We crave peace.  We know its absence.  We are watchers.  We are loyal.  Our integrity demands that we say what we mean and mean what we say.

I believe that if we are honest with ourselves we know we are leaders, not followers.  I say, “GOOD FOR US!”

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

++++

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 »
++++

++++

Monday, December 8, 2014.  This may sound redundant, but we are in a life where life matters.  Life as it exists in this lifetime is fundamentally a biological matter.  This IS a physical reality.  True, I don’t believe humans exist here without their soul being present with them.  If the soul leaves the body dies.  Or, if you prefer, if the body dies the soul leaves.  But either way, as far as humans are concerned, the soul which is CONNECTED to our body is not actually IN our body.  Soul has nothing to do with egress or regress.  Soul is not a physical THING.

So here we are hanging in, hanging around — souls in the womb of this earthly life doing whatever development here we can manage to do in order to build up our spiritual abilities to carry with us into the next life, the one that never ends.  (Believe it or not.)

Meanwhile, because we are physical beings here we are connected to everyone and everything here.  I am RELATED — whether I like to admit the fact or not — even to bed bugs!

Those little very clever, tenacious, resilient-adaptive critters.  They are not liked one bit by humans!

BUT – because goodness is really the only reality — everything here contains within it an ability to reflect from a “spiritual mirror” placed within it some aspect of the divine goodness, a ray of the light shining from the “sun” of the One Who created all — there is certainly something good shining back to me not only from the existence of bed bugs themselves but also from this experience I am going through because they have invaded my life.  And what an experience it is.

++

I can do nothing at the time but give a progress report on this elimination process I have been engaged in since I discovered these critters in my tiny apartment about a week ago.  I can’t SEE the bugs so I have no idea if anything I am doing is actually effective.  I started Friday evening setting off chemical bug bombs after dragging much of what I own out and around in order to maximize the coating of bug poison in this environment.

I am spending lots of money running fabric stuff through the apartment building’s dryer — which of course is set too low by management so that we have to all spend twice too much to get things hot and dry.

Then stuff is going in and out of all kinds of bags.  Sealed.  Unsealed.  Coverings on the recliner.  On and off.  Shaking things.  Drying the rag rugs.  Bagging the rag rugs.

WHATEVER!  Big WHATEVER!!!

Then Saturday I bombed again and sprayed with Hot Shot products from Home Depot.  I did make enough progress in my thinking to realize that probably billions of our human species living in dire conditions must live continually with these pests with no other option.  Up in the morning.  Find the bugs, sweep them up, dump them out for the chickens.  If any of these people are fortunate enough to have chickens, which I am sure billions are not.

Perspective.  Yet I still feel 3rd world in a 1st world society.  But EVERYONE is susceptible to these bugs.

On a spiritual level?  These bugs are known as “The Travelers.”  Hey!  I can relate to that!

They are known as resilient survivors.  Hey!  Yeah, that’s me.

Take, for example, the fact that a zero degree F temperature will kill them.  Freeze their sorry brown (or invisible tiny newly hatched) butts DEAD.  BUT!!  That temperature has to hit them INSTANTLY!  If they are embedded (!) within items that mean the core temp of the stuff takes a while to hit zero, the bugs will resiliently ADAPT as the temp goes down so that it will then take another 20 degrees COLDER temperature to kill them!

Well, if LIFE is something the Creator values, which is true, then a tenacious ability to survive it, endure and even to thrive is a very good thing!  That’s why we severe trauma survivors are still here.  Our physiology was able to adapt in our earliest developmental stages to horrible conditions of our environment so that we would be able to stay right here!

++

At least I no longer believe these visitors, these squatters, these free-loading vampires necessarily came out of the walls when it cooled outside.  They didn’t have to go to all that trouble.  I guess it is not even likely that they attached themselves to the potted plants I had outside on my cement slab, traveling inside when I brought the plants in.  Nope!

Once those upstairs neighbors put their infested box spring and mattress out on their balcony the bugs simply went traveling elsewhere to find new food sources.  The neighbors, I believe, knew what they were doing for their OWN “greater good.”  They left their bed outside long enough to get the entire mess through a complete egg hatching cycle.  The WORST thing a person can do for other people!

But hey!  If you are ignorant about the risk being created for others?  Or if you know darn well what that risk is and don’t care?  After all, those neighbors are immigrants from Nepal who watched their fellow citizens die en mass along the sides of the streets where they came from.  What do they REALLY care about a few bugs in MY apartment?

So, the bugs most likely just took their little barbed tootsies along the red brick walls of the outside of this building and immigrated to MY place — through the cooler vents, through the sliding door……

I saw yesterday how THAT happens here.  I watched a good-sized black spider race across an expanse of snow right to my shoveled cement slab heading right for my door.  The welcome mat was so NOT down but my foot sure was!

Do I have a reputation in the neighborhood for being kind to BUGS?

++

Which reminds me, I bought a small Christmas cactus from Home Depot last December when I moved in here because I was desperate for greenery. However, I ALSO hauled in with it an infestation source for tiny black flies that have been a pesky curse in this apartment.  Nothing anyone has suggested to eliminate them has worked.  So, yesterday a woman who had this experience and received the solution from a plant expert, told me to place ALL of my houseplants inside plastic bags and keep them sealed in there for a week.  She said it kills the bugs and does not harm the plants.

So….  NOW….  I see no greenery in here.  I see plastic BAGS!

It is WAR ON BUGS.  But, realistically, that is a war that humans will never actually win although we hope to win a battle or more.  Believe me, I am engaged for the long haul in bed bug extermination although I won’t know until three weeks from now, after an entire egg cycle for the bugs has elapsed, if what I am doing is effective.  This is so NOT fun!

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

++++

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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