Category: Child Abuse

+TRAUMA? STOP IT!

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Saturday, April 11, 2015.  Here is yet another expert’s word about the impact of trauma and hopes for its healing.  This is the link to one of Dr. Bessel A. van der Kolk’s talks on this subject where you can listen free of charge.  Dr. van der Kolk is a Dutch psychiatrist noted for his research in the area of post-traumatic stress since the 1970s.  His work focuses on the interaction of attachment, neurobiology, and developmental aspects of trauma’s effects on people —

Psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk’s Dangerous Idea? Trauma is a leading public health problem and we have to fix it.

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Dr. van der Kolk is the author of

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

“Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.

Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.”

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Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society (1996)

“This bestselling classic presents seminal theory and research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Together, the leading editors and contributors comprehensively examine how trauma affects an individual’s biology, conceptions of the world, and psychological functioning. Key topics include why certain people cope successfully with traumatic experiences while others do not, the neurobiological processes underlying PTSD symptomatology, enduring questions surrounding traumatic memories and dissociation, and the core components of effective interventions. A highly influential work that laid the foundation for many of the field’s continuing advances, this volume remains an immensely informative and thought-provoking clinical reference and text.”

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This is the home page of The Trauma Center, with pages for clinical and educational services, and Dr. Bessel A. van der Kolk’s Trauma Center Research:

TRAUMA CENTER at Justice Resource Institute — http://www.traumacenter.org/

“The Trauma Center is a program of Justice Resource Institute (JRI), a large nonprofit organization dedicated to social justice by offering hope and promise of fulfillment to children, adults, and families who are at risk of not receiving effective services essential to their safety, progress, and/or survival. The Executive Director of the Trauma Center is Joseph Spinazzola, Ph.D., and the Medical Director and Founder of the Trauma Center is Bessel van der Kolk, MD, who is an internationally recognized leader in the field of psychological trauma.

The Trauma Center provides comprehensive services to traumatized children and adults and their families at the main office in Brookline.

In addition to clinical services, The Trauma Center offers training, consultation, and educational programming for post-graduate mental health professionals. Our Certificate Program in Traumatic Stress Studies has state-of-the-art seminars, lectures and supervision groups. Our monthly Lecture Series is open to all mental health professionals.

The Trauma Center Research Department is housed at our Brookline location and is also directed by Dr. van der Kolk. The Research Department conducts studies on traumatic memory and how treatment effects trauma survivors’ minds, bodies, and brains.

At this Web site you will find a wealth of information – on our clinical services, on our training, consultation and education programs, and on Dr. van der Kolk and others’ research and theories. Whether you are in therapy or a therapist, a student or a scholar, a lawyer or a judge, a representative of the media, you can learn a great deal here.”

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

+WHAT HAPPENS IN THE WOMB MATTERS – Link to an article

alchemynow2 Comments

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Friday, April 10, 2015.  Nothing like a trip back in time to get the mental blood flowing.  Back to origins.  Back to the beginning of time.  OUR time.  Each and every one of us.  Succored in the matrix of our mother’s womb.  At the beginning….

Although, as readers are aware (!!), I am uncomfortable with the SINGLE word “resiliency” I am at the same time completely comfortable with the paired words “resiliency factors.”  This is because long ago in my life I found for myself that my wordview is not comfortable “splitting archetypes” in such a way that one noun becomes disinherited by another in a kind of polarity contest (to put it most simply).  This tendency to split things in half seems to be very “Western” and perhaps our doing so is our attempt to dignify our experience living in this reality which is one of relativity – and therefore of relationships between “things” including ideas.

I NEVER think of “resiliency factors” without at the same time holding in my thoughts what is to me the WHOLENESS of this working concept as it HAS to also include “risk factors.”  There is a living organic RELATIONSHIP not only between these two factors but also, of course, a relationship with the individual person (in this case) who experiences them IN CONTEXT over the course of their lifespan from conception until death.

These factors are entirely interactional, entirely relative, entirely personal.  What might be a risk factor for one person can be a powerful resiliency factor for another person.  But one factor that is completely a PLUS for every single person is life in the matrix of the womb – or we would never GET HERE!

BUT, womb life can be a risk business for some.  Even our womb life is interactional with the environment we are growing within.  How could it not be?

I know fundamentally that my mother was happy and physically healthy while she carried me.  Without those nine calm months I do not believe I would have survived the hell of her abuse of me over the next 18 years.  (Her psychotic break that led directly to her abuse of me happened while she was birthing breech-me.)

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All this – to highlight – something interesting that came through my email from the ACES CONNECTION  —

THE VULNERABLE PRENATE – Birth Psychology

From this article:

“The prenate (i.e., the unborn baby) is vulnerable in a number of ways that are generally unrecognized and unarticulated. Most people think or assume that prenates are unaware, and seldom attribute to them the status of being human.”

“Theory and research from the last 20 years indicates that prenatal experiences can be remembered, and have lifelong impact. The major purpose of this article is to clarify the conditions under which prenatal experiences may be lifelong and to describe the theoretical and research perspectives that are necessary to understand the effects of prenatal traumatization.”

“The effects of prenatal traumatization cannot be predicted without knowledge of other factors, and prenatal experiences are likely to have lifelong impact when they are followed by reinforcing conditions or interactional trauma. The term interactional trauma means that traumas interact with each other in producing their effects. In statistical analyses, interactional means that the effects of factors depend on the presence of other factors. Both of these definitions communicate the meaning of interaction as it is used in this article.”

READ MORE HERE

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

+WHAT BUILDS HEALTHY – AND THAT MEANS HAPPY – HUMANS FROM THE START OF LIFE?

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Thursday, April 9, 2015.  My dear friend and fellow student of attachment-related trauma (of all possible kinds) done to infants and children, himself a fellow “tadpole” as he named survivors with Trauma Altered Development, just gifted me with two intriguing books – thank you!

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Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers (2006) by Gordon Neufeld  (Author), Gabor Mate M.D. (Author)

Again, the book description from the above title link:

“International authority on child development Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., joins forces with bestselling author Gabor Maté, M.D., to tackle one of the most disturbing trends of our time: Children today looking to their peers for direction—their values, identity, and codes of behavior. This “peer orientation” undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated, and being “cool” matters more to them than anything else.

Hold On to Your Kids explains the causes of this crucial breakdown of parental influence—and demonstrates ways to “reattach” to sons and daughters, establish the proper hierarchy in the home, make kids feel safe and understood, and earn back your children’s loyalty and love. This updated edition also specifically addresses the unprecedented parenting challenges posed by the rise of digital devices and social media. By helping to reawaken instincts innate to us all, Neufeld and Maté will empower parents to be what nature intended: a true source of contact, security, and warmth for their children.”

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Now here I am at the part of the post where I get to say something!  In nearing the end of another intense grandchildren caring week there is not much left of me to garner thoughts in language much beyond what a 32-month-old can understand.  But, really, that IS the point.

As Dr. Siegel – what is the word?  SHOUTS?  Preaches, screams, expounds?  What Siegel knows, what Siegel tells us is that what happens conception to age 3 not only wires up the body-brain of a new human being for a lifetime BUT also INTEGRATES the activity between brain (a part of the Central Nervous System) regions – connected together with everything else within us.

By age 3 new humans are essentially ready to roll onto the show room floor.  The rest of childhood?  A whole lot of fill in the blanks of missing information as it is fed INTO that most incredible structure in all known existence – THE HUMAN BRAIN – which will make the best use out of information that it can based exactly on what happened to that new person conception to age three.

PLEASE investigate this important information if you haven’t discovered Siegel before now!!  An online search for “daniel siegel” will enable you to access many valuable YouTube videos of his talks and a host of links to his life work’s expressions.  (His latest envelope-pushing, state-of-the-art thinking is currently not in the free access domain.  Sadly.)

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Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect (2012) by Jonice Webb (Author), Christine Musello (Contributor)

This book description is from Amazon.com at the title link (above):

“Running on Empty is the first self-help book about Emotional Neglect: an invisible force from your childhood which you can’t see, but may be affecting you profoundly to this day. It is about what didn’t happen in your childhood, what wasn’t said, and what cannot be remembered.

Do you sometimes feel as if you’re just going through the motions in life? Are you good at looking and acting as if you’re fine, but secretly feel lonely and disconnected? Perhaps you have a fine life and are good at your work, but somehow it’s just not enough to make you happy.

If so, you are not alone. The world is full of people who have an innate sense that something is wrong with them. Who feel they live on the outside looking in, but have no explanation for their feeling and no way to put it into words. Who blame themselves for not being happier.

If you are one of these people, you may fear that you are not connected enough to your spouse, or that you don’t feel pleasure or love as profoundly as others do. Perhaps when you do experience strong emotions, you have difficulty understanding or tolerating them. You may drink too much, or eat too much, or risk too much, in an attempt to feel something good.

In over twenty years of practicing psychology, many people have arrived in Jonice Webb’s office, driven by the threat of divorce or the onset of depression, or by loneliness, and said, “”Something is missing in me.””

Running on Empty will give you clear strategies for how to heal, and offers a special chapter for mental health professionals. In the world of human suffering, this book is an Emotional Smart Bomb meant to eradicate the effects of an invisible enemy.”

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The emotional neglect book….  At first thoughts those of us who endured horrendous direct emotional abuse (along with other horrors of trauma most cannot imagine) might approach this topic as a “fluff” kind of reading that could not possibly apply to us.

Although this book (I have only read to page 73 and then loaned the book to my daughter to read – hopefully) carries what I consider a “lighter” kind of message, it is an essential one.  At the very top of the list of people who so powerfully impacted me as a non-rescued child is my father who was essentially destroyed as a person by the emotional neglect he suffered from birth.

He LOST his chance 0-3 to build safe and secure attachments to ANY caregivers.  He LOST his chance to build a strong, clear self-within.  He was a complete sitting duck to be Mad Mother’s enabler and he fulfilled that role perfectly!

Every infant/child who did NOT have safe and secure attachment – which absolutely includes, in my thinking, people who PROTECT children from all harm – did experience emotional neglect on an essential level upon which all other abuses were heaped.  We were all human beings with emotional needs and we did NOT get them met.  In fact the evil opposite happened to us.  This matters.

Enough said for now.  I will not say anything more than this, as well:  I am greatly concerned about the high numbers of infants and children being left in large day care centers 50+ hours a week.  I do not think it is a good sign-of-the-times when mothers of a species abandon their offspring during their most critical stages of (attachment) development 0-3 into the care of strangers.

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

+”RESILIENCY” DEBATE: ALL HUMANS CONTINUE TO EXIST BECAUSE WE LEARN TO

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Thursday, April 9, 2015.  What follows in this post is my reply to a conversation between myself and a fellow survivor of an in-survivable childhood about our questions regarding the current thinking about “resiliency.”  This conversation can be accessed here:  BRIEF COMMENTARY ON “RESILIENCY”

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Tina, fire meets fire in the two of us.  In the middle of my eleven hour day caring for young, needy little boys yesterday, as I stood washing dishes at the kitchen sink (I did not have time to read your posted comment until very late evening) I had the inner image come to me of people like us:  We are like fish who were able to come ashore, stand on legs and breath air.  Speaking of air, your words took my breath away.

This morning as I determine to write a reply to you in these brief moments before my w-year-old grandson arrives for yet another day of my care the word – the one simple word for which humans at present really have no true definition for – comes to mind:  Learning.

You and I LEARNED how to endure and survive what was done to us, the unimaginable brutality, the fundamental insane madness, the encroachment of evil done to small children – only we were somehow NOT helpless.  We were able, instant by instant, to LEARN as our lives passed through the time of our childhoods from birth, how to keep our inner self intact along with our body which houses us.

“Learning” is a much humbler word than “resiliency” is.  It carries no special stretch of thought to imagine.  Does a newborn learn how to cry?  Does an infant learn how to smile, roll over, sit up, crawl, walk?  I say my youngest grandson is learning to talk.  How is gaining the ability to talk any different than gaining the ability to crawl – or to survive the in-survivable?  For how we made it through to the other end DID come from within us.  Somehow.

To me it is this “somehow” as it applies to all I mention in this prior paragraph that needs to capture attention when considering how unbearable trauma is made bearable to those who survive it.  And for some, like my mother and your father, the ability to bear whatever happened to them during the most critical stages of their early life seemed to have forced madness to erupt without cessation.

There is no line between survival and triumph, absolute triumph, when it comes to people like you and me.  Of what shape and form was our lifeline?  This line of thought only sends me backward in my thinking.  Does a zygote learn to grow its body?  Does it grow only because it is so-called resilient?

And again I question even the growing collective body of thoughts about “attachment.”  It is essentially an attachment of self from the start of life to self that causes a life to move forward in time no matter what circumstances it may be traveling through.  Attachment is not a series of Hallmark Moments.  It is a very literal physiological process of interactive relationships that take place according to critically important discernable patterns that sustain, maintain life so that death does not occur.

It seems, Tina, that you and I could importantly collaborate on a book about these topics and our time, effort and investment would not be wasted.  If, however as I suspect, humans are involved in an organic process of learning right now it may be that a requisite level of maturity has not yet collectively been reached that would allow for comprehension of what we have to say.  What we know.

In the meantime you and I exist as chaos theorists discovered within that “mystic” space where creation itself takes place in the “insignificant” realms of statistical improbability.

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

+WHAT MIGHT LOVE FEEL LIKE? A “RESILIENCY FACTOR” STORY FROM MY ABUSIVE CHILDHOOD

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Monday, April 6, 2015.  While I don’t understand my point exactly in writing this post it seems to be one that has moved past the perculation stage into WRITE ME NOW.  So here is a little more about my personal conflicts with the concept of “resiliency” as it may be achieving a generic standing within the “healing trauma” circles.

The adult human body is made up of about 37 trillion cells.  The United States Census Bureau estimates that the world population exceeded 7 billion on March 12, 2012.  To do research that tried to extrapolate meaningful information about ALL cells or ALL people based on a small sample of ONE would be ludicrous.

Nobody can determine each individual’s experiences with trauma in such a way that the data generated could be made useful to anyone, let alone everyone!  So naturally what I have lived through and what I know as a result of my studies about what happened to me and how I survived it will never fit into any clear “significant probability” statistic with meaning.  I can, however, share parts of my story to illustrate points important to me.

I am sharing a story included on this blog that I certainly am NOT going to read right now.  I may never return to read it again.  (This is often the case with my own childhood stories once written, which is why my ace professional researcher and writer daughter is my editor for our books.  She has not yet proofed the story at this link.)

*Age 8 – BLOODY NOSE

What I wish to say about the experience detailed in this story as it connects to my standpoint on “resiliency” is that had I NOT gone through this event I do not believe I would have come out of my childhood having ANY sense of what “feeling loved” felt like.

The story is of trauma, true, but for me having my family gathered around me as I was nearly bleeding to death was the ONLY clear time of my 18-year childhood that I felt I belonged to this family.  It was the ONLY time that the feeling I lived with all of rest of my childhood from birth that I was at any moment, out of nowhere (my mother was psychotically mentally ill with me as her abuse target as my book at link below describes) going to be brutally attacked was absent.

This event COULD have been a very low spot – what I call a risk factor moment —  in my horrifying childhood rather than being the powerful, necessary (to me) resiliency factor moment that I built upon to successfully raise my own children and to care about others.  (In my case, I believe in what I call “borrowed secure attachment” rather than in “earned secure attachment” – a online search of terms “stop the storm borrowed secure attachment” will highlight some related posts.)

There is no possible “resiliency measurement tool” that could capture what truly traumatic childhoods are/were like.  But in the interest of preserving the integrity of useful data through meticulous research what is found MUST be processed by thinkers steeped in the depths of what early trauma IS.  The impeccable artistry and beauty of individual survivor’s lives must not be lost in the mad rush to understand what numbers-only are telling us.

Only with this understanding can any useful thinking about a vague concept like “resiliency” be made to pull its weight in efforts to understand and stop trauma and to assist those who survive it to increase their well-being across their lifespan.

I learned all I was going to find out in the 18 years of my childhood about what love-of-Linda was going to feel like.  All I was going to learn about what love might be like PERIOD I learned during those moments.  I believe traumatized children notice every possible useful bit of information and make PROFOUNDLY amazing good use of those tidbits.  That kind of resiliency, if we are going to call it that, is to me nothing more or less than the will to survive coupled with accumulating the tools necessary to do so.

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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+A WORD ABOUT “RESILIENCY” – A CONCEPT MISAPPLIED AND MISUNDERSTOOD?

alchemynow3 Comments

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Sunday, April 5, 2015.  Easter day among Christians.  A day of resurrection, of hope and healing.

Speaking of which, I feel very fortunate to have just received a comment on this blog today about this reader’s new blog entitled “Guiding Hope – Let Hope Rise” – and it is BEAUTIFUL!!

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My life is very intense these days.  I am not left with much inner time or space for writing here, so this will be a rather indirect and short post.  There is a picture on Facebook by EARTHWORKS’s Page I am posting the specific link to RIGHT HERE.  It shows two pictures of a California reservoir and lake side by side.  On the left is the full lake and on the right is a pitiful remnant of water as drought and fracking have dangerously depleted this water supply.

I notice that even those supporting the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) research and findings are still using the concept of “resilience” and “resiliency” AS IF someone knows what this means in reference to survival of severe early trauma.

Briefly, I am opposed to this concept.  Most simply put in today’s writings I refer to the reservoir image at the above link to Facebook if you can access it to illustrate what I deeply feel and believe.

Those people who come out of a dangerous, malicious, malevolent, abusive, traumatic early life – and without safe and secure attachment — in essence have little access throughout their lifespan to an array of essential resources that non-survivor “people” recognize and take for granted so that high ACE-score people’s reservoir matches the image of the pitiful depleted lake.

With those depleted essential resources survivors MAXIMIZE their lives!  Not only do we survive what should not be survived most often from birth but we exist as caring, compassionate, giving people who sacrifice greatly to help OTHER people – including those we love most dearly – MAXIMIZE their resources.

But we often do this by depleting our inner resources in ways we do not detect often until way, way down the road of our lives.  We give and give and love and love and help and help and sacrifice and sacrifice until finally  – if we are not very, very astute and careful – we make it to the ending stretches of our life being left with nearly next to NOTHING.

On top of this predicament very few low-ACE score (safely and securely attached people) EVER know who we are, what happened to us, what it took to survive, and how we sustain our ever-giving willingness to share even our scarce, rare and precious resources with others.

“Regular people” need to become willing to LISTEN to us.  Yes, the power being provided by the CDC ACE research is finally making its way as ripples into the awareness of the public on many important levels.  But, from my point of view, bandying about the concept of “resiliency” is not all that helpful to survivors.

We have done incredible things with our depleted reservoir of resources.  If that is not “resiliency” that we have had and developed and used heartily ALL of our lives, I can’t begin to imagine what “others” are thinking that concept means.  WE DO NOT NEED MORE RESILIENCY.  That is “blaming the victim” mentality.

What WE need, what everyone who is unjustly suffering needs – is for those people who DO have full reservoirs, plenty of resources, to wake up to the truth!!  In this world of haves vs have nots, in this world where terrible conditions are allowed to threaten infants and children and even their caregivers, what we have is ignorance that can foster bias and prejudice against those who suffer most.

Education is a must!  Many non-survivors have no tolerance when it comes to investigating what the suffering of others really is.  The truth makes those others too uncomfortable.  “Get some resiliency going, folks!  Toughen up, learn the truth, put your efforts into the work of truly healing this world!  Ignorance does not set you free, and getting “more and better resiliency” is NOT going to make a high ACE-score survivor have anything like a magically better life.  What we need is the added resource of YOU!”

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

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+LINK TO THE CDC ACEs COMMUNITY PAGE – A GREAT RESOURCE!

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Tuesday, March 31, 2015. Wikipedia has a detailed page of background and introductory information about the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Adverse Childhood Experiences Study.

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Here is a link my great researcher friend told me about today.  Highly recommended!

ACEs Connection – Healthy, happy kids grow up to create a healthy, happy world

Here is a description of this site:

About

This community of practice uses trauma-informed, resilience-building practices to prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and to change systems to stop traumatizing already traumatized people.  ACES CONNECTION NETWORK OVERVIEWACEsTooHigh is a news site for the general public on all things ACEs-, trauma-informed, and resilience-building.ACEsConnection is a social networking site for all people interested in implementing ACEs-, trauma-informed, and resilience-building practices.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment. Provide funding and support.

GOALS

Prevention, Resilience-Building and Systems Change. Prevent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs); build resilience in individuals, families and communities; change systems so they no longer traumatize already traumatized people.

Community of Practice for Collective Impact. Support cross sector collaborations in all 30,000 cities and towns nationwide through in-person and online actions.

ACESTOOHIGH.COM

Solutions-oriented news site. Reports on the epidemiology, neurobiology, biomedical and epigenetic consequences of ACEs, and resilience research. Covers how people, organizations, agencies and communities are implementing practices based on the research. Includes developments across all sectors- education, juvenile justice, criminal justice, public health, medicine, mental health, social services, cities, counties, states, and more.

ACESCONNECTION.COM

Community of Practice for Collective Impact. What comes after Facebook? Interest-based communities of practice. A community of practice is a type of social network in which people work together to set and implement goals. Collective impact is the commitment of a group of people from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem. ACEs Connection is a community of practice that uses trauma-informed and resilience-building practices to prevent ACEs and further trauma.

Distributed Network. Instead of a top-down effort, this is a cross-sector, community effort. Engages and empowers a critical mass of ACEs-, trauma-informed, and resilience-building champions. The move from a few centralized networks to many overlapping distributed networks enables residents, advocates and professionals to participate equally across sectors and geographies to create change.

Social Network. A focused social network for people implementing or interested in implementing ACEs-, trauma-informed, and resilience-building practices in their personal or professional lives. Members participate in blogs, discussion forums, live chats, private messaging, webinars, in-person meet-ups and events, shared documents, photos, videos, audio files, calendars, and social hooks with Facebook and Twitter.

Information and Resources. A staff of journalists, tech, media, and social service professionals monitor the site and are available to answer questions at any time. Staff scan all major media outlets daily and post a cross sector collection of ACEs-, trauma-informed, and resilience related stories. Members are emailed Daily Digests and Weekly Roundups, collections of the top stories, reports, and research across media. An interactive movement map tracks member locations. A resource center houses tools for presentations, advocacy campaigns, and community collaborations.

Goal-Oriented Action Groups. After joining ACEs Connection, members can start or join groups. Groups are either geography-based (city, county, region, state) or topic-based (pediatrics, criminal justice, education). Groups can be public or private and as small (two) or large (hundreds) as needed. Groups are a vehicle for planning, implementing, and evaluating the process of becoming ACEs-, trauma-informed, and resilience-building. Groups are not for discussions only and are best utilized in conjunction with in-person meet-ups. All groups create collaborative working documents to track progress including: Assets/Gaps Map, Timeline, Goals/Action Plan, and Successes/Outcomes.

Community Management. The start-up, growth, and maintenance of groups are facilitated by Community Managers. ACEs Connection Community Managers assist in identifying, training, and mentoring group Community Managers. Together, they work with group members to develop and implement goals, strategies, and action plans through online and in-person activities. They blog relevant info, post events, feature member activities, coordinate working documents, and schedule in-person meet-ups.

There is no cost to become a member on ACEsConnection.

To join ACEs Connection, go to http://www.acesconnection.com/join and create a profile. Be sure to provide your first and last name as your Display Name.

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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+BECAUSE THE WIND BLEW

alchemynow2 Comments

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Saturday, March 28, 2015.  I discovered this, one of my all-time favorite books, in 1989 as I blazed through my art therapy graduate program at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque:  Eskimo Realities (1973) by Edmund Snow Carpenter.  In its pages I found a description of a world view reflected in language and in art creations that resonated within my own heart of hearts.

Carpenter described in this book how the Eskimo language of these arctic-circle people has over 200 words to meticulously describe snow, and how wind is described not in terms of where it blows from but rather by where it is headed and what influence any particular wind might have upon whatever lies at the end of a wind’s path.

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I see wind as being a mystery within a mystery:

“Consider, how the wind, faithful to that which God hath ordained, bloweth upon all the regions of the earth, be they inhabited or desolate. Neither the sight of desolation, nor the evidences of prosperity, can either pain or please it. It bloweth in every direction, as bidden by its Creator.” — Bahá’u’lláh.  Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1990, p. 346

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I do not remember wind from the early years of my childhood before we moved from Los Angeles to Alaska a month before my 6th birthday.  In fact, I don’t think I ever noticed wind at all until after my 7th birthday when we moved up to our mountain to homestead.

From that point forward wind alive along the valley and across the mountains captured my attention.

I had no words and therefore no ability to think about the horrors of the abuse I had suffered from my (mentally ill, psychotic) mother from the moment of my birth.  I had no words, no thoughts about my experience of suffering.  When awareness of wind, when wind itself came into my life I finally had an experience that I know now was about wind being a reflection of how I felt.

The sum total of how I felt, of my feelings as they had no words and were invisible to everyone including myself.  Feelings came and feeling went.  When I was being screamed at I felt scared.  No word for that.  When I was beaten I HURT.  No words for that.  When I was next put into solitary confinement I often cried and cried – as quietly as I could – often for hours, hidden alone as I was.

No words for that.

Suddenly there was WIND and to me the wind was the FEELING of the earth, the stone, all that grew upon it, of the clouds, the melting glacier rivers, of the beauty I recognized everywhere upon that mountain.  Wind was life itself.

Wind was the feeling of me, of all the feelings of me, in me, through me.  All the feelings I had no words for, no names for.  Wind and me were silence given force and sound.

The feeling of the wind was a “one thing” to me.  Not consciously, of course.  Not in words.  Wind does not need or ask for words.  It has its own pulse, its own rhythms, its own sound – whispers, sighs, moaning, roaring — as it shoves and pushes, twists and turns, sometimes invisibly dancing past everything in its way.  Wind has its own effects.  Sometimes it meets itself coming and going.

Wind is a feeling.  Wind found me.  Wind adopted me.

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In the present moment………………..

I am in the middle of the one day per week I take for myself.  My me day.  My quiet day in between the days I care for my young grandsons.

On this day I am again with the wind.

Last Wednesday evening my ex-husband (I will call Frank) telephoned me to invite me to a dinner that took place last night at a Golden Corral buffet restaurant as we were joined by two of his brothers and their wives, along with my daughters.

Frank and I separated in 1984 and divorced in 1985, at which point his entire family that I had been a part of for ten years also divorced me.  Abandoned me?  I had had not seen or spoken to Frank for 30 years until I returned to this area (North Dakota) October 2013 to help with my grandsons.  At this point Frank was divorcing his wife of 30 years who he could not be free of me fast enough to marry – way back when.

I had not seen or spoken to any of these four extra ‘exs’ since Christmas 1983 until last night when I joined them all for dinner.  Why the invite?  Why did I go?

Because the wind blew through my life yet again on a pathway strange to me.  I certainly had some rocky moments from the time of Frank’s call until Thursday evening when I decided to go to this dinner simply because I was asked to.

The experience was pleasant enough.  Frank paid for my dinner.  I ate too much along with everyone else.  The whole event felt like it was taking place in a time warp, to be sure.  And today?  The aftermath for me?

I am yet again among the uncountable times I have trusted in the connection I have with the wind simply working to let it all go.  Let it go.  Let it go.

I believe in God.  I believe God has purposes and plans, reasons for things that happen that will remain mysteries to me until I get to the next world where I hope for SOME explanations.  At least for some things I have lived through because there sure have been – and continue to be – some rough ones.

Sometimes I suspect God lets us finish difficult things at one point of our lives because we have done all we can do and even all God expects us to do, wishes for us to do.  And we can move on.  I moved on from those painful divorcing years.  Thirty years later I am back here and VOILA!

Maybe God sometimes hands our “school papers” back to us down the road as if saying, “Here!  There is more for you to work on here.  There is more you can learn.  There are some more steps you can take here to improve the strength and goodness of your soul.”

Well, I sure had another school paper returned to me to work on last night!  I cannot avoid having feelings.  Yes, some certain sadness at how “things” turned out.  These are all good people.  Salt of the Earth people.

I just did not belong!

But then, I know now and this realization came to me very strongly and clearly when I put my key into my apartment’s lock last night and stepped inside my so-temporary home here.  “No, I did NOT belong in that marriage.  I did NOT belong in that family.  But, then, I know now I really do NOT belong ANYWHERE.  I never have.  I never will in this lifetime.”

I am passing through.  I am a traveler.  I wander.  I am a wanderer.  My perennial image of my current phase of life resonates with Mary Poppins (who will become Mary Poppout come next September when I hope to return to the high desert borderlands of southeastern Arizona).

I can’t see that I ASKED for the life I have lived on many significant levels.  I believe God gives us two kinds of destinies.  One belongs to Him and is irrevocable to be endured with dignity and grace.  The other kind of destiny is one we CAN influence by choice.

And last night?  I claim to myself that I believe in trust, faith, love, grace, forgiveness.  That dinner almost felt like a kind of “last supper” to me.  It was not easy.  But, then, perhaps the most important lessons of our lives never are.

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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+LINK TO AN ARTICLE – Mental Health May Depend on Creatures in the Gut

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Monday, March 9, 2015.  Well, I sure have been out of the writing loop lately!!  Too busy just plain living these days, it seems.  Young children are busy-makers – and there goes TIME!

I certainly have writing thoughts race across my mind as if they belong on some continually streaming billboard of invisibility, but THIS article caught my attention LOUDLY enough to get me to stop to create a post to drop this link into:

Mental Health May Depend on Creatures in the Gut

The microbiome may yield a new class of psychobiotics for the treatment of anxiety, depression and other mood disorders

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Gut reactions.  Gut feelings.  Gut instinct.

Our mainstream American culture is poorly suited at teaching its populace that we are what Dr. Daniel Siegel calls a species with an “embodied mind.”  Our right brain hemisphere is especially gifted in its connection to ALL of our body wisdom.  My guess is that we know far more than we are used to letting ourselves KNOW that we know!

We can always learn more about paying attention to the SYSTEM that is “us alive.”

Fascinating journeys, folks!  Fascinating!

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

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

  • Contains the amino acids L-theanine, to support relaxing brain wave activity
  • Contains taurine to ease tension, as well as the calming neurotransmitter GABA
  • Features magnesium to support muscle and nerve relaxation
  • Contains calming holy basil leaf extract and Relora®to gently soothe away the tension in your body
  • 2 tablets daily, or as recommended by your health care professional

++++

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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+SOLUTIONS TO END THE CRUELTY OF BULLYING?

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Wednesday, February 18, 2015.  Today is another day of BITTER, cruel cold weather.  There won’t be any more movement around town today than is essential.  The very cold temperatures showed up here in Fargo very late this winter.  And even strangely in Bisbee, Arizona it is 72 above – VERY remarkably, unseasonably warm as their entire winter has been.

We live with the weather on this planet and weather the weather of the human heart, as well.  Weathering the weather of earth and heart occupies us for our lifetime!  Some weather life with grace, some with terror.  Thankfully there are some people who are ahead of the curve in their ability to define not only problems but also to offer workable solutions.

I am just stopping onto the blog this morning to post a very useful Youtube video presented by Dr. Gordon Neufeld, one of the world’s top experts on human development, as he talks about an important topic a friend of mine mentioned to me this week in regard to an in-school anti-bullying campaign some local teens in her area are presenting in their community.

I don’t think information on bullies and bullying gets much clearer than this:

Gordon Neufeld on What Makes a Bully

This full talk is about 70 minutes in length.  Here is a short preview:

Bullies Their Making and Unmaking Preview

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There are bullies in the home, school, workplace, on the streets, in the political arena, in sports and on the internet, and we can certainly even bully our own self!  What on earth makes humans BE MEAN?

An online dictionary search for definitions for “bully” and “bullying” lead off into words like “intimidation” and then to “cruelty.”  Not a beautiful picture!

CRUEL

Short definition —used to describe people who hurt others and do not feel sorry about it: causing or helping to cause suffering : terrible and unfair

Full Definition — 1:  disposed to inflict pain or suffering :  devoid of humane feelings <a cruel tyrant>

2a :  causing or conducive to injury, grief, or pain <a cruel joke> b :  unrelieved by leniency

Synonyms: atrocious, barbaric, barbarous, brutal, brute, butcherly, fiendish,heartless, inhuman, inhumane, sadistic, savage, truculent, vicious,wanton, red in tooth and claw

Antonyms:  benign, benignant, compassionate, good-hearted, humane, kind,kindhearted, sympathetic, tenderhearted

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Here is someone who offers solutions —

Dr. Gordon Neufeld specializes in information about human attachment from birth throughout the lifespan.  He developed a theory of attachment that includes six stages in the development of the capacity for relationship, the construct of polarization that explains both shyness and defensive detachment. His model of attachment is universal in both its application (adults as well as children) and implementation (school as well as home).

“Dr. Neufeld’s legacy is the meta theory of development he has constructed from joining the dots until a consistent picture emerged. His comprehensive model has evolved from years of synthesis and distillation. The result is an integrated developmental approach rooted in depth psychology, grounded in the developmental paradigm, saturated in attachment theory, congruent with current neurological research and honed by forty years of professional practice, parenting and personal reflection. In a world of fragmented knowledge, esoteric terminology, strategies divorced from their philosophical moorings, and a smorgasbord approach to treatment, Dr. Neufeld’s approach is a breath of fresh air.

“His insight model provides a refreshing alternative to the current cognitive behavioural fare, as well as to the medical ‘disorder’ approach. Dr. Neufeld’s approach has clear and practical implications for practice and treatment, regardless of one’s arena of involvement – child, adolescent, adult, marital or family.”  (CLICK HERE for more info on Neufeld’s website)

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

Source Naturals Theanine Serene with Relora

  • Contains the amino acids L-theanine, to support relaxing brain wave activity
  • Contains taurine to ease tension, as well as the calming neurotransmitter GABA
  • Features magnesium to support muscle and nerve relaxation
  • Contains calming holy basil leaf extract and Relora®to gently soothe away the tension in your body
  • 2 tablets daily, or as recommended by your health care professional

++++

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

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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