+DON’T MESS WITH ME!

roken rec++++

Monday, May 29, 2017.  I am angry.  Really, really angry.  Not, perhaps, as angry as I was a couple of hours ago, but I would certainly NOT say that I am peaceful and calm.

I have neighbors kitty corner across the street from me who feed 50+ pigeons.  A month ago I posted a kind, clear note on their door requesting that this feeding stop.  The male rooster birds, at least seven of them, spend dawn to dark sitting on the power poles, power lines, roof tops right where I live making their noxious broken record broken record broken record unremitting car alarm car alarm CAR ALARM calls – and because with my autism spectrum EXTREMELY acute and sensitive powers of hearing I cannot – CANNOT tolerate their horrible racket.

I also cannot ignore noxious stimuli.  I cannot blanket sound, diminish it as irrelevant, banish it into the background in ANY way.

Over this past month I have not SEEN the neighbors throwing buckets of food on the ground every morning, but I also have not seen the birds leave this area of town – to grace the REST of this town with their presence.

Because out of my sense of fairness I put my email address at the bottom of the note – thinking it was I who was initiating confrontation so the least I could do was provide an avenue of contact to my neighbors other than forcing them to come talk with me – I left myself available for the email they sent me last night.

WHAT did they say?  That they are feeding the birds in the darkness now so I can’t SEE them feeding, that they have been feeding the pigeons for years, and that if I don’t like living with the noise – I can MOVE!

+

Well, at least last eve I was able to courteously acknowledge their message.  TODAY?  RAGE!

Turns out I have several major portions of my life over which I am ANGRY!  But the immediate concern is that those birds LEAVE – which means neighbors cease from FEEDING THEM!

There is a city ordinance in my defense.  I can contact the city.  I would rather not be pushed to that point.

I sent an email today with the ordinance link in it.  I ALSO – well, I am MAD enough to do it – included links to the CDC ACE Study page and to one of Laura Porter’s ACEs videos.  I also mentioned that most people who prefer non-humans to people did not have safe and secure early attachment!  I also assured them that I am nobody’s enemy!

GO ME!

HA HA HA!!

+

Now, the OTHER side of this very difficult coin is for me the lifelong learning it is STILL taking me to begin to glimpse a comprehension that personal FORGIVENESS has NOTHING at ALL to do with JUSTICE!!

This present threat to my sanctuary home and its sound area is all tangled up with my horrid 18 year early years’ torment, torture and abuse.  It is connected to the fact that I had NOBODY on my side, nobody who had my back!

And today?

Well, over the past month as these male birds continue to torture me with their presence and noxious noise, I have tried to “think kind thoughts” about my neighbors, knowing (HA!)  if they HAD not fed those birds they would not all 50 of them remain congregated within a block of my house.

Now that I learned the birds are STILL being fed, my compassionate efforts turned to hot cinders and vanished in today’s strong winds.

NOW?  This present moment NOW?  This issue was NEVER about forgiveness.  It was about me trying ‘to be nice’, trying to ……… do WHAT?

Avoid invoking the law for my own protection and in defense of my self and my home.

Justice has NOTHING to do with forgiveness!  There was no justice in my childhood to defend or protect me.  Oh – don’t even get me started!

Today?  If those neighbors continue to feed the birds the pests will not dissipate.  I will give this whole situation – how long – before I contact the city?

I am not sure – yet.

And, yes, forgiveness matters.  It is how, as I am trying to learn, the way we keep the hurts and the rage out of our innards.  It’s how we maintain right relations with our self, our Creator, and with one another.

Yet when one has nobody to do the work for them, we must access the justice available through the law ALSO.

As my friend here in town told me today in reference to her own history, there reaches a point where we simply are left knowing we have our limits.  Our boundaries.  Our rights.  As my friend says, when she reaches THAT point, that is the DON’T MESS WITH ME point.

Yeah.

That’s right.  That’s me.  Today.  And I am working to learn how my abuse history is tangled up in why it took me so long to reach this point!

(I mean, really, WHO would tell someone in this situation they were still feeding the pigeons – in the dark?  Who does something like that?  Perhaps the real question is WHY?  (Hence my sending them back the ACEs info links.)

Yeah, I am making progress.  This is now downright approaching FUNNY!  I mean – REALLY?)

++++

Click here to

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+CDC ACE STUDY – “PARENT IN PRISON” – MIGHT THIS ACTUALLY BE AN ASSET TO FAMILIES IN MANY CASES?

++++

Tuesday, May 23, 2017.  This post continues my thinking process from my most recent posts.  In this process of recognizing paradox, I can say that I both do not want thoughts about trauma to appear to me out of nowhere – at the same time I of course DO welcome insights into this kind of invisible work that I seem destined to do!

So, here I am this morning with an addition to the story of dear Rose and her humble, troubled family.

Rose began to be sick last Thursday.  Then came the hoop-de-da of one of her grandson’s high school graduation last weekend.  Rose managed to make it through the events without major stomach eruptions until Sunday – when, literally, her body returned to sick sick SICK.  Flu?  Duress, stress and distress?

Skipping a whole lot of details of the past few days in that family I need to mention that last evening the little 6 year old great grandson began to have a severe stomach ache with vomiting.  In the midst of that what did his mother do?  (Read post at link highlighted above – the mother of this little boy is Rose’s granddaughter.)

This mother turned around and walked out the door, leaving her pitiful, suffering little son (along with her 5 year old daughter who showed no signs of sickness) behind.

Rose could NOT let this happen without comment – and yet ANOTHER horrible screaming, swearing fight between these two women took place.  The mother walked away anyway, Rose was horribly verbally abused, the little ones witnessed and of course heard this raging abuse – and we KNOW were damaged because of it.  (online search “teicher verbal abuse”)

+

I am in a proverbial pinch.  I HAVE to explain to Rose how verbal abuse has been found scientifically to be the worse form of abuse for children to experience.  Exposure to it, even in the womb, sends the developing body/brain straight off into trauma altered development.  Verbal abuse, ALL KINDS of verbal abuse, not only that directed at children, is terribly harmful.

I asked Rose if she could AT LEAST pause last evening (she telephones me often as I ‘walk’ the path of life with her and those little ones) apologize to those children!  Just to even say something like, “WOW!  I am SO SORRY we yelled like that!  It must be so scary to listen to the people you love be so mad at one another!)

Nope!

Not a chance!

These patterns of harm to children through verbal abuse around and to them DO harm terribly, but in this real world, WHO is ready to recognize THAT?

These stresses/distresses are RUPTURES – as the neuroscientists explain – in the safe and secure continuum circuits – and if they are NOT repaired, the escalation of developmental harm from trauma compounds.  (It is an essential pattern in safe and secure attachment relationships that any RUPTURES be REPAIRED ASAP.)

+

Rose needed to tell me that she is ALSO receiving “elder abuse,” a term she is obviously aware of along with its patterns.  She is correct.  The abuse happening in her home caused by her granddaughter is devastating to the peace and tranquility that Rose tries so hard to create and maintain for herself and the wee ones she cares for.

SO…..

Epiphany!  This morning it dawned on me that if we are going to truly learn about risk and resilience – protective factors and risk factors in combination and operation – along with (see recent posts) “Asset-Based Community Development” – new – and perhaps very strange patterns of thinking – are going to HAVE to appear among those of us who care to assist trauma healing.

+

The father of these children is in prison.  I don’t know why.  Haven’t asked.  At this point I don’t care.  He’s gone.

Good riddance?  So….. Today I gleaned a strange piece of logic absolutely new to me:  The BEST that could be realistically hoped for in situations such as Rose is in would be for that totally and seemingly hopelessly lost granddaughter to be arrested and removed from the scene of this family by being “admitted” not to treatment – THAT isn’t an option, so tragically) – but to the “holding tank” of prison.

This is the real world.  This also means that although the CDC ACEs process is identifying as one of the top 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences ‘having a parent imprisoned’, there is MORE to the story.  Sure we in general know this, BUT!!

It may very well be that it is a social grace for families that these probably totally traumatized, high ACE and troubled, often abusive human beings, be removed from the trauma drama stage of children’s lives – and from the lives of the people who are trying to adequately care for children.

THIS mother of these children NEEDS to be in prison, according to the pattern of this thinking that appeared to me today.  Not only  HER, but also true probably for many, many mothers.  So it becomes in bizarre ways an asset for the men to be in prison.  It becomes a risk factor that women are so far less likely to end up in prison.

+

As I have written years ago on this blog, DENIAL is a form of childish wishful thinking.  There ARE no magic wands!  There certainly are plenty of struggles.

I sure can’t see any possible way that any kind of useful, practical, GOOD intervention is going to come along to get this age-27 granddaughter of Rose’s out of that house.  I asked today if there is any chance she could/would contact social services – and of course – no.  That option was tried years ago about another child this granddaughter has, now age 8 and in permanent custody of her father in another state.

+

In a different world?  Holding tanks of jails and prisons becoming complete ACEs healing centers?  Women who are equally as troubled as are the masses of incarcerated high ACE men – or more so?  Dynamics most often leave these women ‘our on the street’ – often having more children while not able to care for the ones they already have – not ending up in the ‘sort of short circuit’ prison might offer – what happens?

What CAN happen?

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

Hours later:  Rose and I, with prayer and consultation, MIGHT have come up with at least SOMETHING we can tangibly do that MIGHT contribute something helpful to this situation.  Rose is the only person in the world, really, who knows the story of her grand daughter’s life — going all the way back to her beginning.

Rose and I are talking about making a life history story book for this so-hurt, enraged and lost young lady.  We would NOT give away an only copy of this – but I bet this summer Rose and I can put our hearts and heads together on such a project, and for all the pain and sorrow in the story, we can make the book beautiful.

This young mother has had a TOUGH life, and the only person safe enough to blame is Rose — safe enough to target the rage upon — and this must end, one way or the other.

NOTE:  I have written over the years in posts about the Adult Attachment Interview as it is used to assess adult secure or insecure attachment.  This narrative structure enables exposure of the incoherence present in adult life due to early trauma.  Making this ‘scrapbook’ story of life can help line everything up accurately, thus contributing to healing — coherence — of one’s life.

+

Some prior posts:

+ENCOURAGING A READ OF THE ADULT ATTACHMENT ASSESSMENT INTERVIEW (protocol link here)

+WHAT IN THE WORLD IS ADULT ATTACHMENT?

+TWO SCALES IN COMBO ABSOLUTELY NEEDED! ADULT ATTACHMENT and ACEs

+FEELING FELT. HAVING STORIES TO TELL THAT CANNOT BE HEARD (not even by our self)

+MY MORNING’S THOUGHTS ABOUT “ATTACHMENT”

+SAFE? UNSAFE? HOW DO OUR STATES OF BEING RELATE TO ANCIENT JAWLESS FISH?

+RESILIENCY – ARTICLE LINKS ON FAMILY COPING STRATEGIES

*WOMEN’S ROLE IN ESTABLISHING WORLD PEACE

*RESEARCH LANGUAGE ABOUT RESILIENCY

+MANY LINKS HERE: BLOG POSTS ON ‘DISCLOSURE’ OF TRAUMA’ AND TELLING OUR STORIES

+OVERWHELMED BY TRAUMA, OVERWHELMED BY WORDS: LINK TO AN ARTICLE ABOUT TRAUMA DRAMA THAT CAN HELP US

+’GOOD ENOUGH PARENTING’ – SOME LINKS TO INFO

+WHY MY OWN CHILD ABUSE STORIES DON’T MATTER

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART FOUR): SEVERE INFANT ABUSE SURVIVORS’ UNIQUE WORLDVIEW

++++

Click here to read or to

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+WHAT IS A WORD?

++++

Monday, May 22, 2017.  Part of what contributes to my writing so few posts for this blog over past months has to do with the fact that the blog was never created to cover aspects of Autism Spectrum Disorder information.  I haven’t wanted to write “off topic” for my own blog!

But I, as my own independent person, have always been an inseparable part of everything posted.  That cannot change no matter what the subject of a post is about.  For long term readers, and I know there are some who have been faithfully reading since the blog’s inception, I doubt there would be anything unsettling to them in anything I write.

My conundrum is MINE!

+

Time is always marching every aspect of life as a whole forward.  That we all live at a time in the history of the evolution of our species when new information – even as it is accentuating massive difficult problems our species must face and learn to address – is an amazing fact all by itself.  We are in the midst of Niagara Falls type power of change itself.

Yes, these words spoken by Mahatma Gandhi – “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – will always be true, the PROBLEM I see in this world is that while so many people are willing to help create a better world for all life, we do not have the answer to this one simple, power, one word question:  “HOW?”

+

I recommend to everyone an online search for all information connected to “CDC ACE study”; “N.E.A.R. science and ACEs; community building and related topics.  I try to take my own advice but find that I become super-saturated with information very quickly and have to take my time – however long it takes – before I can return to my quest for answers to the big HOW question.

This IS a quest.  Not for one of us.  Not for some of us.  It is a quest for ALL of us at this point in time.  Time?  It is time, I believe preordained by our Creator (the One Who has given humanity information through all of the world’s great religions – respecting the fact that humans have, over time, “messed with the messages” of these great Holy Ones – meaning each of us must follow our own independent investigation of truth outside of fantasies, false doctrines, idle imaginings, etc. that humans introduce where they do not belong.

We as a species WILL leave our trauma histories behind.  All the new information being discovered (truth coming from the One Creator), is part of building the tools themselves that we need to recognize we are truly one global family.  We are discovering our own operating system manual, how our body is designed to optimally operate!

All the ACEs information, the N.E.A.R. science application options, all the positive global community building patterns, are parts of this process.

HOW will all of us work together to put all this information together and into practice to bring justice, peace and plenty to this world?

+

Now, returning to my thought about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – which I now know powerfully impacts by physical reality, I can comment upon my experience of watching/listening to the powerful video I posted a link to in a short post last evening.

Sustainable community development: from what’s wrong to what’s strong  by Cormac Russell

Well, this speech is connected to — www.nurturedevelopment.org

= absolutely incredible!

+

Now, with background on my own info-learning absorption and processing – it is simply to Temple Grandin’s info-packed video (one of many on YouTube) I turn in my thinking to:  My Experience with Autism – where Grandin describes with ASD there’s nothing wrong with a person’s hearing, yet although words might be heard they can have no meaning whatsoever.

The full details about the insane abusive trauma of my first 18 years from birth are in the book (below) – suffice it to simply mention that although I have known for a long time I do not process ‘social information’ in ordinary ways, and that much of communication is difficult to me, I have long believed this was so BECAUSE of the abuse from birth.

Mother, who psychotically could NOT do ANY part of what an infant needs from birth – I mean NONE of it – no attunement, no joy, no reflection of me, no mirroring, no empathy – ZERO love, replaced by psychotic hatred………. (etc.)

NOW I am understanding that of course I have been “on the ASD spectrum” since I was conceived.  NOW I can begin to understand that when I listen to the video — Sustainable community development: from what’s wrong to what’s strong   — the reason I cannot HEAR it is because of the way my autism brain is arranged, designed, and operates.

This information – while actually and finally setting me free to be me – at the same time requires of me an exhausting amount of inner processing to make use of.

What Do We Know about Noise Sensitivity in Autism? | Interactive Autism Network

As I listened – in my evidently very special way – to the community development video – I worked on one of my in-progress weavings (so soothing, orderly, predictable, focusing, calming, etc.).  At the end of my intense (version of) listening I realized…..

I DID NOT REALLY HEAR HEAR HEAR A SINGLE THING SAID!

+

Now, I don’t believe the rest of this information is really relevant to this blog in any way except that I am certainly a completely severe torture/trauma abuse survivor — and — “This is my blog.”

Yet if I consider this NOT my blog but a blog that is meant for this blog’s READERS?

= quandary

+

I am at this point going to not only bridge the chasm between my trauma history and my ASD patterns, I am going to close the gap completely.  In this unification process I am allowing myself to “use my words” in any post I wish to about my ASD experience, probably most often in a bottom-of-the-post designated space that non-fascinated readers can simply choose to ignore (not read)!  So here goes!

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

Before this blog was ever a glint in my mind’s eye I voraciously pursued a study whose backbone is listed at the REFERENCE tab at the top of this page.  I intuitively and instinctively knew how to pursue this vast study to my own advantage.  There are thousands of pages on this blog, tucked away where even I would have to work to find them, of my personal reflections combined with the trauma-related development facts I found.

I outran the edge of the proverbial research envelope at the same time this blog was created.  I knew what researchers were going to find.  I knew that in this time lapse process what I knew was true.

I have moved on.

I do not remember when, where or how I first encountered the CDC ACE Study findings.  I did feel vindicated, happy, and hopeful that this information was available.  Yet, as Dr. Nadine Harris Burke states, what is happening with this information is in the form of a “Movement” that NOBODY understands fully – if at all.

This is where, in my thinking, critical information such as what the above community development talk is about, matters at this juncture in time equally with the scientific patterns of trauma healing.  HOW humans will use the information they acquire is up to THEM!  In their “backyard revolutions” as the video expert describes.

+

So everyone will co-create these healing changes in their own time in their own way.  Unlike how I could intuitively predict the research coming down the pike post-2009 would confirm what I knew was truth, it is now true that NOBODY can predict what happens next!

So, the ASD part for me?

I would not so much use the word NOISE as I would use the word SOUND in describing my version of the ASD experience.  I think all humans are basically “assembled” in similar, but not in identical ways.

When it comes to SOUND – obviously listening to these so-important topic videos requires SOUND.  BUT there are, within my experience, unfathomable layers and levels to the experience of language (as Grandin mentions).

Words in all cases that I can imagine exist because of the sound they make.  This means that for all of us, the way we are assembled in common means that the words in our THOUGHTS, OF our thoughts, have SOUND.

Words are made of sound, an inextricable factor in my world that combines with the fact they MAKE sound every time they are brought (again and again) into existence, into appearance, into use.

+

Now at present now….  I am considering that ASD might be “the place” where human experience is actually able to experience paradox in living action.  This is a BOTH AND world.  As the article above about ASD and noise speaks about, the ASD experience with sound is not predictable – probably in any way.

So with my extremely sensitive and sensitized ‘hearing’ abilities, I cannot, for example, make any kind of annoying environmental sound vanish.  I cannot vanquish sounds discriminately.  I hear them all – and if they are not within what I NEED for peaceful calm experiencing – my “anxiety” becomes painful within my body as it overrides all hope of calm.

Where others might be able to ‘control’ patterns of sound through habit or choice, I have to be able to “manually override” noxious sounds.  And in today’s virtually polluted-on-every-level world = good luck with THAT!

+

Information has levels of ramifications.  Ramifications and the complex interactions of meaning presented to me along with the “ordinary bandwidth” of what the speaker provides in the community development talk, prevents me from being able –at this point in time – to KNOW that I understand a single “word” said.

So one must consider – WHAT IS MEANING?

What did that speaker MEAN?  What does the information he presents MEAN?  What does it mean to me personally, to any of us, to all of us collectively – within WHAT span of time – and for what REASON?

+

Now HERE is one of the places where I suspect my ASD and my severe trauma history overlap and intersect.  It is obvious in the descriptions of developmental neuroscientists such as Dr. Allan N. Schore, early severe trauma prevents ‘the body’ from creating its ‘resting point of balanced equilibrium’ at peaceful calm.

As I have written on this blog in the past, early trauma survivors – those who never had any safe and secure early attachment experiences with their primary caregiver – have a very different set-point.  Calm is NOWHERE within us a natural state.

We have to learn.  We have to work for calm.  Which is its own paradox!

My body does not give me a natural place to rest without sound/noise.  (Neuroscientists know that a living brain is always turned to noise – even our brain’s resting state is noisy.)  So I would go with “quiet enough” – which basically means, for me, that I have to be in an inner place WHERE I AM NOT THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING because thoughts-in-words are ALWAYS making a sound!

+

I was, as ole timey readers know, very fortunate to have lived on a wilderness Alaskan homestead during much of my growing-up years.  I therefore KNEW occasions of silence – and very nearly silence.  Part of me both carries THAT silence within AND craves it ‘out there, back there in time’.

Yeah – at age 65 this is all kind of an exhaustive process!

I do have creative gifts that can allow me to stop thinking entirely.  Weaving is doing that peace-building-within for me now.  Creating my massive garden “once upon a time” did that for me. Yet ‘being in the inner quiet’ does not help me, for example, to move toward comprehension of material that is very important to me – such as that contained in the community building video.

I would PREFER to be working with some kind of a local team of people on relatively the ‘same page’ so that THEY who COULD understand that video would be able to explain it to me in real-time, face-to-face, in storytelling fashion!

Short on that possibility right now, I will try and try and try again to HEAR what this “backyard revolution” has to teach us about finding ways to bring ACEs and N.E.A.R. science info into our communities.

(I listen to this river soundtrack a lot.  I would prefer silence, but there are noisy horrid evil male pigeon roosters outside, traffic, NOISE!  This is the best I can come up with in my negotiations between myself and the environment I live within (which is a billion times better than the horrible apartment I was stuck in up north for three years!).

All these words.  Tiring.  There are ways of both knowing and not knowing at the same time; of understanding and not understanding; of hearing and not hearing at the same time.  I do wonder, “Are those within the autism spectrum range living in a more paradoxical world than “usual” for others?”  (Once we pass out of toddlerhood we are certainly able to FEEL more than one feeling conflictual emotion at a time!  Are we not all both living and dying at the same time?  What IS paradox, really?)

++++

Click here to  Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+HEY! A POSITIVE SPEAKER ABOUT POSITIVE CHANGE – JUST FANTASTIC!

++++

Sunday, May 21, 2017.  Now THIS is POSITIVE and well worth a watch (video)!!!  Use our GIFTS to change the world – beginning in our own community!  Start a “backyard revolution!”

This is an invitation!

Sustainable community development: from what’s wrong to what’s strong | Cormac Russell  

++++

This is a fantastic list of FEELINGS!

by Center for Nonviolent Communication |  Website: http://www.cnvc.org |

++++

Click here to read or to

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+WHEN THE GOING GETS ROUGH?

++++

Sunday, May 21, 2017.  Well, it seems I need to go back to read CDC ACE study basics.  I also need to locate the ‘fleshed out’ version of the ten study questionnaire is not good enough to capture the complex, difficult reality of what is going on in this world around us.

+

Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults:  The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study

Vincent J Felitti MD, FACP Correspondence information about the author Vincent J Felitti, Robert F Anda MD, MS, Dale Nordenberg MD, David F Williamson MS, PhD, Alison M Spitz MS, MPH, Valerie Edwards BA, Mary P Koss PhD, James S Marks MD, MPH

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, May 1998, Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 245–258

+

I also need to locate information about possible expansions of the basic questionnaire – if there are any in progress – that might include sibling abuse and death of a sibling, abuse of fathers, and suicide within families as these experiences can also severely traumatize children and families.

I am also wondering how ‘separation and divorce’ are being addressed in today’s culture where the commitment of marriage is missing all together while parents pop into and out of their relationships dragging all combinations of offspring along with them through their immature and conflictual chaos.

++++

As I struggle with being what I call “a carrier of solutions” (as someone might be a carrier of a disease) I seem to run around in circles.  I think of the common recycling image of arrow pointing to arrow pointing to arrow – and ‘round and ‘round I go.

What and where are the problems?  What and where are solutions?

Now, I know an incredible woman here, I will call her Rose.  She’s 74, low income/poverty but grateful for everything in her life.  Her antique trailer has wiring problems she cannot afford to fix.  The beat up replacement door someone put on years ago is too small for the door frame, creating large drafty spaces.

Long ago the roof leaked, and although a pitched metal roof was added on top of the original flat one, nobody ever replaced the mostly ruined large ceiling tiles.  Stained, warped, sagging, patched with tape and plastic bags, it’s still a roof over her head, for which Rose is eternally grateful, as she is for every part of her home, including the totally worn and torn kitchen linoleum.

Rose does not drive, has no car, walks up and down very steep hills and miles between to take her 5 year old great granddaughter to HeadStart – and back – every day – winter and rain included — her pitiful shoes literally in shredded threads.  She is also raising her 6 year old great grandson, while these children’s birth mother, Rose’s grand daughter, offers absolutely nothing (but heartache) to her little ones’ care (their father is in prison).  She ‘lives’ with her grandmother, Rose, though disappears for nights, for days, no word to her children, to ‘hole up with’ her abusive boyfriend….

Who has in HIS custody his two little ones — ages 1 and 3 year – with THEIR mother also absent – running around from one abusive man to another one.

(This grand daughter reported to Rose last Friday that she ‘wants to have a baby’ with her abusive boyfriend — who, evidently, is again cavorting around with the mother of his children although she does not wish to have a thing to do with raising them!  I don’t think anyone sane enough to be able to WRITE could possibly be crazy enough to invent stories as nuts as the trauma lives that some people are actually living!)

So – in Rose’s history….  She was an only child whose father was killed in a mining accident when Rose was 12.  Her mother was wise, kind, quiet, an expert seamstress who worked hard and lovingly raised Rose with strong values.  Rose’s mother’s mother over a century ago ran away with her two children from her terribly abusive husband in Mexico north to New Mexico.  The warrior woman is in Rose’s blood.

So where, I muse, did things seem to take a direct turn toward hell in Rose’s life?  When Rose fell in “L-O-V-E” as a young woman, she did not remotely heed her mother’s warnings that her choice of a mate was at best a rotten scoundrel.  Rose married in spite of her mother’s resistance, and YES!  Her husband was an abusive, womanizing drunk – who eventually divorced Rose, leaving her penniless to raise their children alone.

Rose’s youngest son, a terrible alcoholic, shot himself in the head in his bedroom when he was 20.  His age 15 sister was outside, heard the shot, ran into the house and found her brother dead.  When this girl ran out of the house that day she never went back home.  She moved in with her boyfriend, and……  Well, this mother was TOTALLY incompetent to raise her own children, and is the grandmother of the two little ones Rose is raising.

Rose worries terribly that there is no one in this family competent to raise her two little beloved great grandchildren if/when something happens to her!  True!

+

And, then there is Angelica and her family.  This grandmother has been raising her 5 grandchildren since their mother, Angelica’s daughter, who was in her mid 30s, was murdered five years ago by her drunk, insane, violent boyfriend, who, after shooting his wife in the face, tossed their 2 year old son on his dead wife’s bloody body, ran out of the house in horror at what he’d done, and blew his own brain out in the front yard.  The dead woman’s 13 year old daughter is the one who found this death scene.  Anyone wonder why this now 18 year old is deeply addicted to drugs, involved in a truly insane, abusive relationship life?

Still, Angelica sallies forth and carries on like any warrior grandmother would.  Yet she lets sneak out of her mouth once in a while, “This is NOT what I wanted for my life!  I wanted to travel……”  And the thoughts disappear along with the words that might describe some other life…..  (This woman’s son hung himself when he was 16.)

I mentioned to Angelica the day I listened to her spew out the entire story of the mayhem in her family’s life if she might wish to attend a mothering support group if one was started in town.  Her response?  “Oh, no.  I couldn’t do that.  My husband wouldn’t like it.”

+

So……..  Where does anyone start with this CDC ACE information?  I have been writing above about Hispanic women I have met in this small town.  Last week I also heard about another woman I haven’t yet met – who is “Anglo” on “this side of town” — who has several friends, evidently (and this is within the aging baby boomer population), who are in horribly abusive relationships and will not listen TO ANYONE or do ANYTHING to extricate themselves from their hell-lives.

+

Meanwhile I run in those arrow-pointing circles from hopeful through hopeless back to hopeful.  I realize as Dr. Nadine Harris Burke asserts, that ACEs healing in the N.E.A.R. science paradigm is a MOVEMENT – and movements take time….

I am currently working around THIS idea – ANY place to begin this critically important healing work in this area!

STOP THE STORM

Changing inter-generational trauma drama into patterns of peaceful calm

An open consultation group for positive community change

+

> EVERYONE WELCOME <

+

Ongoing discussions based on the Centers for Disease Control’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (CDC ACE Study) and the global grassroots’ work to apply N.E.A.R. Science to individual, family and community healing (N = neuroscience; E = epigenetics; A = ACEs; R = resilience).  Information about the critical role of Safe and Secure Attachment relationships will also be included! (search topics online for background)

+

Tuesdays at Two

TRANQUILBUZZ Coffee House

112 West Yankie St., Silver City, NM  88061 (NE corner of Yankie/Texas)

Info:  FaceBook message One Global Family Little School of Creative Living

+

Where WILL those arrows lead?  If there is a place where people get ON to these cycles of horrendous inter-generational trauma — is there a way and a place to get OFF of them?

++++

Click here to read or to

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

 

 

 

 

+WHAT WE DON’T KNOW CAN’T HELP US

++++

Thursday, May 11, 2017.  I haven’t been writing here often, not because I have nothing to say – but because I have too much to say.

Living, thinking and acting are interactional, multi-level, interconnected, multi-dimensional experiences.  One thing is certain:  We are all living upon this planet together.  We are one human family.  We are learning this personally and collectively.

The big questions then become, “What can I offer to the betterment of humanity?  What talents and capacities do I have that I can contribute in service to others?”

Humans are evolving creatures.  Life moves forward.  What do we learn from our personal and collective past that is useful in building a better life for self and others – for ALL?

+

Oddly, it seems to me, the supposed uniqueness and independence attributed to American people has been turned in use against us.  Capitalism thrives on convincing us that selfish pursuits are in our best interest.  Following down this path impedes positive collective transformation toward a better world and a better future for all – within our national boundaries and around the globe.

The more that self-centered patterns infiltrate our existence the more spiritual disease cripples our hopes of joyful living.  We humans, as members of one human family, CAN overcome the ‘dysfunctional elements’ that are NOT carved into stone!

If I take a ‘upper level’ perspective on traumas during childhood that continue most often to harm people across their lifespan, I see that the absence of healthy people who CARE and are informed and who ACT on the behalf of ‘the disadvantaged’ are actually at least equally to blame, equally at fault, as are the ones who directly – through abuse/neglect – harm those who are the most precious of our human resources.

Ignorance is not bliss.  It is not an excuse.  Apathy destroys.

+

At the same time, I doubt that it will be through shaming, blaming, criticizing or judging that humanity – anywhere – will move forward toward increasing collective well-being and maturity.

I have struggled over time to define and refine my personal perspectives on resilience and resiliency.  It seems that I have to come up from UNDER this concept to understand it, rather than coming at it from ABOVE.  ABOVE — I suggest — is a merely cerebral mentally-based (disembodied) approach rather than being a grassroots BODY-based (embodied) angle.

At this point I believe we LIVE resiliency.  I am in the middle of thinking through what I might be able to offer this new community I have chosen to be a part of toward improved hopes for the younger generations.

I am thinking A LOT about intergenerational motherhood.

Mothers not only bring children into the world, we are also the first educators of the human race.  What we KNOW, what we DO, on every level down to the directions we give to our offspring’s DNA operations, we teach to those we bring into the world.

Yes, ALL others are in some way connected in this process, but it is the comprehensive environment we create and sustain within which mothering happens that determines the overall levels of health and well-being for our species.

+

So, ultimately, resiliency is about resources available to mothers so that they can use these resources to ‘feed’ their offspring – true on every possible level.

As I work through my own potentials to contribute to increased well-being of those around me, I think a lot about how the contributions of intergenerational motherhood can be better recognized and utilized between women in the area where I live.

I am hearing incredible stories from grandmothers and great grandmothers who are raising very young children due to breakdowns in social ordering among those women who bring these little ones into the world.  These breakdowns are directly connected to the social breakdowns that seem to be destroying the men who father these children (along with a following successive line  of ‘broken’ boyfriends).

+

Well, yes, there are hosts of hosts of troubles, trials, traumas.  Yet what matters most to me right now in real time are the incredible strengths that are – no matter what – creating triumphs in these people’s lives.

By rising to the level of metaphor I can free myself to explore information on more of a macro level.  For example, if I think of resiliency in terms of immune system responses — and elevate my thinking about “immune system” to a very big and broad level having to do with how and why our human species has endured this long – I can begin to think in terms of all the miracles of human existence that so far override our troubles that I can begin to KNOW solutions are available to ALL of us – together – to resolve and solve difficulties.

Given my extreme history of abuse, I do not make these statements lightly.  I do look for new information to inform my perspectives, and I make use of what I find in as creative a way as possible.

+

An example:  This week I attended a free movie with my neighbor at our public library.  It was a PBS NOVA show that perhaps many readers have seen called “Decoding the Neanderthals.”

From my personal perspective, it is the most amazing affirmation of human survival that our species seems to have bred out the Neanderthals over a span of 10,000 years.  Researchers have discovered that Neanderthals gave us immune system DNA that meant we could then fight off pathogens in our new northern environment that were completely foreign to our species.

Evidently every human descended from ancestors who left Africa millennia ago have some percentage of Neanderthal genes.  We carry those ancient ancestors within us.

Incredible.

+

So, in closing I will simply state that we CAN open our hearts and minds to new possibilities for healing and growth we might otherwise never be able to imagine – or think about.  We live in a wondrous world.  We are wondrous creatures who co-create life – even on our molecular levels – in every nanosecond we are alive here – together!

(I am working with a wonderful friend and lifelong resident of this area (herself a 74-year-old great grandmother raising her age 5 and 6 great grandchildren) toward creation of a ACE Motherhood Group — to Affirm, Celebrate, Encourage — the beauty and resourcefulness of generational (inter-generational) mothering (motherhood).)

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+HOW CAN AN IDEA AS SIMPLE AS “DINE’N’DOODLE” INVOLVE SUCH COMPLEXITY? Solutions?

++++

Wednesday, March 29, 2017.  Creativity as I experience it does not seem to operate in straight lines.  Inspiration that can come as a special kind of *POP!!!!* in the form of an idea doesn’t need to be substantiated to be “true” – in the same way professional storytellers agree that “All stories are true, and some of them actually happened.”

I am reminded that over 30 years ago I tried to take a university course on logic.  I barely lasted one lecture.  I dropped the class.  The same way that I tried taking bookkeeping in high school.  I also barely lasted one class period on this subject, and also, as with the logic course, immediately rushed to authorities to drop drop DROP the class.

Now I am working through ideas connected to community art and creativity (I call creative living) that I want to offer free of charge is this little town.  I THOUGHT I had resolved my problem, having talked with lots of people here of all cultures and income levels, to settle on holding the Saturday events specifically tailored to children, youth and their families at the public library.

The library is thrilled at the offering!  Unfortunately the free room they offer has a 16 person limit – which is not all that big.  I have been told by the children’s librarian that as long as nothing messy leaves the “art and craft room” people will be welcome to spill out into the children’s library section.

+

This creates logistical challenges, for example, of being able to provide hard surfaces for people to work on when outside the main room.

+

Well, I have been happy with this compromise and last week told the gracious people at the Food Co-op here of my new plan and dropped their so-kindly offered Community Room, available only on Sundays, as a possible location.

Fine.

Until suddenly last Sunday an entirely NEW idea popped into my thinking arena.  I will have all necessary supplies in my car (actually, a 1978 el Camino) from the Saturdays event – so why not ALSO offer something in the Food Co-Op’s Community Room on Sundays?

+

SMACK!  Bird flying into a window at full speed SMACK!  I am right back to having to consider the cultural and income-disparities between those mostly-Anglo people who figure out how to afford to buy all the wonderful organic products the Co-op sells – and those in the REST of the community.

The Sunday idea when it popped in the 2nd time came already named as “Dine’n’Doodle.”  The Community Room is located in the Co-ops location a block north of the store at their Market Café.

So.  SO?

+

Lighthearted shared creative play – really – fits so nicely with shared eating.  Shared dining.  IF everyone in the community is equally – what?

Which brings up the darn question, “What does “community” mean, anyway?”

Does community mean EVERYONE – until exclusions begin to chip away at who belongs and who does not belong?

Well, in my heart of heart thinking right there is a HUGE problem!

Who dines on what if such an event is held for the “whole community?”

Yes, it seems more than fair to me that people buy their meal from the Market Café to eat as a part of the Dine’n’Doodle event.

Yet 50% of the people who live in this town are AT the poverty level, I have been told – and this does not include those living BELOW the poverty level.  50% of the households are single parent homes – with no co-habitation.

On and on it goes from there!  Even nationally –

Interactive National Food Map

US Statistics on Poverty

  • 1 million people (13.5 percent) were in poverty, including 14.5 million (20 percent) children under the age of 18.
  • 2 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, including more than 13 million children.

POVERTY AND HUNGER IN AMERICA

Food Insecurity

  • 13.1 million children lived in food-insecure households in 2015.[i]
  • Twenty percent or more of the child population in 30 states and D.C. lived in food-insecure households in 2014, according to the most recent data available. Mississippi (27%) and New Mexico (27%) had the highest rates of children in households without consistent access to food.[ii]
  • In 2014, the top five states with the highest rate of food-insecure children under 18 were Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Alabama, and Arkansas.[iii]
  • In 2014, the top five states with the lowest rate of food-insecure children under 18 were North Dakota, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Virginia.[iv]

+

Yup, here we are in New Mexico.  And here’s New Mexico again on a map of unemployment stats nationwide – HERE

+

I know I could easily dig up more grim stats – even localizing it by THIS county and THIS town – but my mind travels right now toward the national tragedy of growing disparity between the haves and have nots in our nation.  The United Nations tracked America at the very bottom of rich nations in the well-being of children –

+AMERICA, WHERE IS OUR SHAME/GUILT? ‘Child Well-being in Rich Countries: A comparative overview’, Innocenti Report Card 11– UNICEF Office of Research (2013).

+

True – there are plenty of problems all over this planet!   But there are also SERIOUS problems right here!

UNICEF

Innocenti Report Card 13

Children in the Developed World

+

And there are also plenty of problems right here in this little town.  I don’t want to be a part of problems if I can help it.  I want to be part of solutions.  I believe that what happens to any one of us as members of the human family, happens to us all.  There is a moral element to positive community change.  It is inescapable.

NOBODY in this town set out to create the problems that are here.  Certainly NOT the hardworking, kind, dedicated people who work for the Food Co-op and who so generously offer their Community Room at their Market Café!

+

Right now, I just can’t think my way through this.  I DO NOT have the answers!  I don’t think any ONE of us does!  These are all shared concerns!  These are COMMUNITY CONCERNS that require COMMUNITY solutions!  (If I had the money, which I most definitely do not, I would buy a whole bunch of food from the Co-op every week and cook up lots of yummy, healthy food to share.  We COULD do this with potluck – but trying to accomplish this is “above my current pay grade.”  I want to make the art part work!)

The Co-op/Market Café people are thinking about this. I will talk with them again next week to see if they have suggestions – and/or a bottom line – which I imagine they certainly might – which makes perfect sense.

I have also asked volunteers at a small thrift store in town here that raises money for “food concerns” to think about these things, as well.  I will also see what they come up with next week.  I will welcome ANY ideas about this!

+

Now, when this Dine’n’Doodle idea (concept) POPPED into my mind last Sunday – like a guest that did not even pause to pretend to knock – it appeared with “attachments.”  I will try to line them up here!

  • If there is a great response by community to the totally fun event that will be held beginning May  6th at the library, and if there is more interest than that space can comfortably manage, then
  • People could be INVITED to come either to both events, meaning they would be welcome to show up for the Dine’n’Doodle event at the Market Café Community Room on Sundays, or just choose to come on Sundays because it’s a fantastic room!
  • Perhaps a bridge could begin to be built between those without apparent means to eat the expensive foods from the co-op, but at least they might COME to that physical location in town – many for probably the very first time in their lives.
  • Dietary kinds of education COULD take place – gently, kindly (no shaming, no judgment of current diet and income differences, etc. – which in this case might well be split between retiring Anglo babyboomers moving to this town and the rest of the community which has a large percent of Hispanic culture people) – informing people of positive impacts of – ??????????? I can’t say that I know ANY of this!  I am NO kind of expert, but many who work for the co-op and Market Café ARE kinds of experts on these things!
  • The literal, physical blending of “layers” of this community would, by itself, be a wonderful thing! “Newcomers” might begin to think in new ways.  New customers in real time might come from this experience, and customers of the future might be connected to, as well.  Time DOES march on, and populations from young to old march right along with it.
  • Change takes time, but it CAN start somewhere. Somewhere small.  Feeling welcome matters.  How could that happen in this kind of complex situation?

But again here come the swirling layers of complexity connected to suggesting DINING along with community building and shared fun artistic and creative play!  I can’t imagine it “proper” for people to bring burgers or Cheetos through the Market Café to dine with their friends and family in the Community Room (which does not seem to have a separate entrance).  In fact, it would feel disrespectful of our hosts – the Cafe itself!

True, SOME might very well choose to order from the fantastic, healthy menu at the Café.  I know, however, that I personally cannot afford to do that.  How many others stand on my side of that line?

I fear – LOTS.

+

So, I would guess that a creative idea that pops in – might, for one thing, be entirely ahead of its time.

I could throw the Dine’n’Doodle idea right back out the door through whence it appeared.  I could forget a Sunday event completely.  I could simply change the name of the event to something like DoodleRama and be done with the complexity – at least for now.  I could hold the Saturday event and let people there decide on a venue and then secure it if they want to.

I could simply (!?) LET GO of all these concerns, doing the best I can for the community with what is available to start with – and have faith that humans can grow things together – when they want to!

Meanwhile I have at least cleared my thoughts here, having created a storage facility for words attached to thoughts – tossed out into the digital, invisible world.

While I await other people’s input, suggestions, decisions.

It’s all good!  Hopefully we are aiming in that direction, anyway!

NOTE:  Some of the issues involved in my current dilemma are about access to QUALITY organic foods, as well as concerns about nutrition and how poverty here is limiting food choices.  Cultural diet histories also hold powerful influence over food choices.  Access, however, DOES definitely involve what people KNOW and how the THINK about food.

If the Sunday event COULD find a way to be most-comfortably inclusive, over time a LOT of good could grow out of this kind of opportunity.

And of course the CDC ACE study findings are seriously tangled up in all of these patterns, as this Laura Porter video on the subject so thoroughly describes.

Community, safe and secure attachment, and food are linked from birth in a social species.  Quality of these earliest mother-infant interactions directly signal to the developing infant what the conditions of the environment it lives in – and will hence live in for the rest of its life in a body – are like.  Trauma = scarcity of resources.  Trauma altered development = changes to developing physiology on every level so that survival to reproductive age is assured as much as possible.

From the breast forward – community and food are intimately connected.  We might think we can choose not to pay attention to what’s basic to health and happiness without paying a price.

We can’t.

+

Experts believe fixing food deserts is not enough – Medium

https://medium.com/…/experts-believe-fixing-food-deserts-is-not-enough-d8ea910e5&#8230;

Sep 28, 2016 – Chicago based ecologist Nance Klehm believes that eliminating food deserts alone will not close the nutrition gap. “I don’t like the term food …

Food deserts limit New Mexicans’ access to food while community …

http://www.projectfeedthehood.org/food-deserts-limit-new-mexicans-access-to-food-while-&#8230;

  1. Feb 3, 2012 -As you can clearly see from this snapshot, New Mexico is covered in food deserts, especially in the middle and western parts of the state.

Helping Food-Insecure Households in New Mexico Afford Healthier …

http://www.nmvoices.org/archives/5499

  1. New Mexicois a poor state with high rates of food insecurity and with too many …. too many areas inNew Mexico are considered food deserts without ready …

Fixing A Food Desert Isn’t As Easy As Putting A Grocery Store On …

www.huffingtonpost.com/…/mobile-grocery-store-food-desert-new-mexico_us_5642

Nov 11, 2015 – A mobile grocery store in New Mexico is no more. What’s sprung up in its place could be even better.

USDA online tool marks much of NM as a food desert

https://conalma.org/usda-online-tool-marks-much-of-nm-as-a-food-desert/

  1. May 4, 2011 -A food desert is made up of low-income communities without ready access to healthy and affordable food. Much of our state is considered a …

From farm to ‘food deserts’: Mobile Market provides local produce …

https://www.abqjournal.com/623318/farm-to-food-deserts.html

  1. Aug 5, 2015 -ALBUQUERQUE, M. — Within the high desert that is Albuquerque there are a number of “food deserts,” where people do not have easy …

Our view: Alleviate food deserts by planting crops – The Santa Fe New …

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/…food-deserts…/article_f473d9fa-676e-5b67-ae66-0aedf&#8230;

Jun 4, 2015 – They are prevalent in New Mexico. In food deserts, residents have limited access to a sole, full-service grocery store, leading to a higher …

Youth gardens can help address New Mexico’s food desert problems …

newscenter.nmsu.edu/…/youth-gardens-can-help-address-new-mexicos-food-desert-pr…

  1. Oct 20, 2013 -Hidalgo County M. youth garden helps to address the county’s food desert problem.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

 

+WHAT MATTERS MOST WHEN “TREATING” SEVERE EARLY TRAUMA SURVIVORS?

++++

Monday, March 27, 2017.  I perhaps should not be surprised that the therapist I am seeing (today being appointment #2) has never heard of the CDC ACE study, trauma altered development, or trauma informed care.  Too bad I can’t just provide him with some of these blog links.

This is NOT new information!  It is beyond me how therapists and counselors have not become at least CURIOUS about patterns they see in their clients enough – in today’s world – to at least GO ONLINE and SEARCH for answers that have now been available for decades.

AND – there are even BOOKS they could learn from!!!  AND journal articles!  I mean, REALLY!?!?!?!

+

+Dr. Teicher’s ARTICLE ON TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT

+

+CALM THE CRYING BABY — IMMUNE SYSTEM STIMULATES VAGUS NERVE TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT – December 22, 2009

+IMPORTANT POST ON ALTERED LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT – December 12, 2010

+DECEMBER 2010 IMPORTANT POSTS on Trauma Altered Development – December 25, 2010

+Dr. Teicher’s ARTICLE ON TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT – December 27, 2010

+TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT AND THE POWER OF THE SOUL TO KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG – February 22, 2011

+A LIFE COMPLICATED BY TRAUMA-ALTERED DEVELOPMENT (CHILD ABUSE RELATED) – February 25, 2011

+FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE ABUSE SURVIVOR’S ALTERED PERITRAUMATIC SENSE OF TIME – March 11, 2011

+AS DR. MARTIN TEICHER STATES — EARLY ABUSE, ALTERED BRAIN DEVELOPMENT AND THE SCARS THAT WON’T HEAL – April 5, 2011

+THE GOOD-BAD INFO ABOUT TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT FROM CHILD ABUSE TRAUMA – September 3. 2011

+THE ACE SCORE REVOLUTION (Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Altered Development)  – August 9, 2015

And this is just a few of the hundreds of related posts on this one blog alone!

+

Well, it’s hard for me to remain positive about this therapy deal – but at least this gentleman searched out the Paper Tiger movie informationA friend of mine kindly sent me a copy of the DVD which I loaned to this therapist today.  I had recommended that he find and watch at least one of Laura Porter’s videos on ACEs – perhaps this will happen soon?

So – we MUST educate those who are paid to assist us!  If we attempt this, and persist, and our “target student” is resistant – well, find somebody else!  This guy today at least understood the very simple reality that those of us raised within terribly traumatic early environments ARE NOT LIKE OTHER PEOPLE!

He said to me, “You mean like you and I will need to create a bridge so that we can communicate.”

Yep.  That’s it exactly.  BUT – I know that a major future effort needs to be made to inform the counselor and therapist state licensing boards.  Nobody should be allowed to practice without having the basic information about what I am presenting here right now.  I realize this public educational process will take decades, and reaching these licensure boards is not at all likely to happen in my lifetime.

But this information MUST get out there!  That’s what we do.

It is so important, also, to realize that NOBODY could have gone through what we went through without being altered in their physiological development in consequence.

MORE important earlier posts on this blog:

+SOME ARTICLES FROM DR. MARTIN H. TEICHER – AN EXPERT ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE – March 14, 2014

+

+SIBLING ABUSE: WHAT IS IT? AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE…. – July 17, 2013 — Sibling abuse has been identified as the most common form of family violence in the United States, occurring more frequently than parent-child abuse or spousal abuse… “

+

+THE ‘TERROR-ABLE’ CONSEQUENCES OF INFANT-CHILDHOOD VERBAL ABUSE – January 22, 2010

+A LONG, THOUGHTFUL LOOK AT VERBAL ABUSE AS MALIGNANT TEASING – January 29, 2010

+SOME PRIMARY LINKS ON INFANT VERBAL ABUSE – September 24, 2010

+LINKS – PREVERBAL COMMUNICATION and DEVELOPMENT (RISK FACTORS, INFANT ABUSE) – December 10, 2010

+INFANT-CHILD VERBAL ABUSE – WOUNDS TO THE MUSIC/LANGUAGE BRAIN – October 1, 2011

+CANCER-CELL THOUGHTS IN COMMON WITH ALL VERBAL ABUSE – January 28, 2012

+HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL POST FOR VERBAL ABUSE – CANCER-CELL-WORD-THOUGHTS – DUMP ‘EM HERE! – January 28, 2012

+THE FALLACY OF “STICKS’N’STONES” – VERBAL BULLYING HURTS – February 20, 2013

+BABBLE BABY HEAVEN – March 13, 2014 — Human infants are not excited or upset when babbling, but instead they will babble spontaneously and incessantly only when emotionally calm.”

++++

Well, while I am at this – here are some great resources —  just a drop in the ocean of what’s available!! – NO excuse in my thinking for professionals to be ignorant of this kind of information!

++++

Some Suggested Reading and Resource Titles

– Allen, J. G. (2001).  Traumatic relationships and serious mental disorders.  West Sussex, England:  John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

– Child Welfare Information Gateway (2009).  Understanding the effects of maltreatment on brain development.  Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved July 1, 2013, from www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/issue_briefs/brain_development/

– Citisite (2009, November 9).  NeuroScience.  Early childhood:  A. Schore. D. Siegel.  Brain Development.  Retrieved July 1, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOp4s1PXQGs

– Citisite (2011, July 11).  Allan Schore.  JOY & FUN.  Gene, neurobiology.  Child brain development.  Retrieved July 1, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0iocZu1mVg

– Fields, R. D. (2010, October 30).  Sticks and stones — hurtful words damage the brain:  Verbal abuse in childhood inflicts lasting physical effects on brain structure.  The New Brain.  Retrieved July 1, 2013 from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201010/sticks-and-stones-hurtful-words-damage-the-brain

– Kestenbaum, R., Farber, E. A., Sroufe, L. A. (1989).  Individual differences in empathy among preschoolers: Relation to attachment history.  New Directions for Child Development, 44, 51-64.

– Lopatto, E.  (2012, February 13).  Childhood abuse interferes with brain formation, Harvard study shows.  Bloomberg News.  Retrieved July 1, 2013, from http://bangordailynews.com/2012/02/13/health/childhood-abuse-interferes-with-brain-formation-harvard-study-shows/

– Mason, P, and Kreger, R. (2010).  Stop walking on eggshells:  Taking your life back when someone you care about has borderline personality disorder (2nd ed.).  Oakland, CA:  New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

– Neufeld, G., & Mate G. (2006).  Hold on to your kids:  Why parents need to matter more than peers.  New York, NY:  Ballantine Books.

– Perry, B., and Szalavitz, M. (2006).  The boy who was raised as a dog:  And other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook — What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love, and healing.  New York, NY:  Basic Books.

– Schore, A. N. (1994).  Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development.  Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

– Schore, A. N. (1997). Early organization of the nonlinear right brain and development of a predisposition to psychiatric disorders.  Development and Psychopathology, 9, 595–631.

– Schore, A. N. (2000). Attachment and the regulation of the right brain.  Attachment and Human Development, 2, 23–47.

– Schore, A. N. (2001).  Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health.  Infant Mental Health Journal, 22 (1-2), 7-66.  Retrieved July 1, 2013, from http://www.allanschore.com/pdf/SchoreIMHJAttachment.pdf

– Schore, A. N. (2003).  Affect dysregulation and disorders of the self.  New York, NY:  W. W. Norton & Company.

– Schore, A. N. (2003).  Affect regulation and the repair of the self.  New York, NY:  W. W. Norton & Company.

– Siegel, D. J., and Hartzell, Mary (2004).  Parenting from the inside out.  New York, NY:  Tarcher/Penguin.

– Siegel, D.J., (2012).  The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.).  New York, NY:  The Guilford Press.

– Siegel, D. J., and Bryson, T. P. (2012).  The whole-brain child:  12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child’s developing mind.  New York, NY:  Random House.

– Teicher, M. H. (2000).  Wounds that time won’t heal:  The neurobiology of child abuse.  Cerebrum:  The Dana Forum on Brain Science, 2 (4).  Retrieved July 1, 2013 from:  http://192.211.16.13/curricular/hhd2006/news/wounds.pdf

– Teicher, M. H., Andersen, S. L., Polcari, A., Anderson, C. M., Navalta, C. P., Kim, D. M. (2003).   The neurobiological consequences of early stress and childhood maltreatment.  Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 27, 33-44.

– Teicher, M. H., Samson, J. A., Polcari, A., McGreenery, C. E. (2006).  Sticks, stones, and hurtful words: Relative effects of various forms of childhood maltreatment.  American Journal of Psychiatry, 163 (6), 993-1000.  Retrieved July 1, 2013 from http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=96671

– Tvoparents (2012, April 5).  Gordon Neufeld on what makes a bully.  Retrieved July 1, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7mznfMI1T4

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WOUND AND AN INJURY?

++++

Monday, March 27, 2017.  I was just wondering what the core difference between “injury” and “wounded” might be.

INJURY – word origins –

Middle English injurie, from Anglo-French, Latin injuria, from injurus injurious, from in- + jur-, jus right — more at just

First Known Use: 14th century

JUST – word origins –

Middle English, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French juste, from Latin justus, from jus right, law; akin to Sanskrit yos welfare

First Known Use: 14th century

WOUND – word origins —

Middle English, from Old English wund; akin to Old High German wunta wound
First Known Use: before 12th century

+

As I have written on this blog before, a major shift occurred for me at the instant I recognized the extent of the abuse I suffered during my first 18 years of life in terms of CRIMES.

I just typed “criminal” into the search window at the top of the blog thinking perhaps the post I wrote that day would show up.  Perhaps it did.  However, for all the posts that DO appear with that search, I do not specifically see the post I am thinking about right now.

I do know that on that day it hit me that if Mother did or attempted to do even ONE time to one of my neighbor children where I was living what she did thousands upon thousands times to me, police would have been called and off Mother would have been whisked!

Following this epiphany I just figured it out, ONLY for an approximate number of physical attacks – not counting any other aspect of the many other abuses she was allowed to do to me – her minimum jail sentence would have been 15,000 years.

But, of course, there was no such involvement on any level of “justice” in my case.

+

For decades in “recovery talk” people spoke of “wounds” as perhaps being more serious than “injuries” might be.  Semantics?  What I am thinking about this morning has more to do with how to get myself UNSTUCK from something painful that of course connects into pain from my severe trauma history.  Once I realized that my inner focus in trying to get off of dead center regarding my concerns is connected to a sense of an “injustice” having been done – then, to me right now, whether or not I experience a wound, or wounding, is not a concern at the top of my “figure this out ASAP” pile.

I want to understand something I am not figuring out on my own right now, so I will certainly be taking this to my 2nd therapist appointment today.  Being stuck is not remotely constructive!

I realize that for decades of my adult life I had friendships within which I could talk with others about anything and everything in my life – and in theirs.  Those friendships do not exist in the same ways any more, even if those same people are still within my sphere of contact.

I miss those kinds of friendships terribly!

Otis Redding – Stand By Me

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+RESILIENCY PEOPLE MATTER WHEN WE NEED THEM MOST

++++

Monday, March 20, 2017.  Happy Spring!  A long time in coming, it seems.

+

Taking advantage of the best of the dips and twists, turns and tangles, and even of the downright obstacles throughout our lives requires human resources.  Accessing these resources depends on availability, access and an indomitable aversion to failure that enables us to hunt for – and then marshal our courage to USE — whatever/whomever we bet will help us move forward in our lives to the best of our abilities.

WHEW!  That spiel turned into a LOT of words!

+

I have found an excellent therapist and a source to pay for it in this lovely small town I chose to relocate to.  As far as I can tell I have just been through one of the toughest three year segments of my adult life.  This is saying a lot because I have made it through MANY events that seemed to carry enough weight to crush me.

In the wording of trauma experts, it seems that the “cumulative burden” of stress/distress – this time – very nearly broke me.  Never before have I felt so knocked down that I wasn’t sure I could get up.

Sometimes it’s not enough to just escape hard times with our life.  We must be able to forge, create, and have hopes of sustaining OUR life as we require certain aspects to grow toward being happy that we are still alive.  We must find ways to live OUR life so that we feel rewarded to be alive.

I think high ACE survivors of really hard early years struggle our whole lives – often with some periods of time along the way when we feel OK in between – to reach and sustain a quality of life that MIGHT resemble what our lives could have been had someone rescued us from our early hell and taken loving care of us.  There isn’t ONE of us who didn’t need to be truly rescued!

So for me right now this therapist I have found, the first one in decades, is a winning lottery ticket for me.  I left my first session today feeling safer in the world.  I no longer feel anywhere near as alone in my struggles to make sense of hardships that I need help in coping with.  I now have help in making sense out of some aspects of being alive (at 65) that seem to make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever!

Why do I feel in nearly all ways so different now than I remember being for decades of my adult life?  I want more internal choices back.  I do not like being this REACTIVE!  I HATE this anxiety!  What is going ON with me?

This therapist has never heard of the ACE study.  He was immediately interested and I believe he will follow through on his promise to at least watch my favorite “ACEs info dispenser” Laura Porter video before our next session.

This will be good.  I can feel it.  I am hopeful, relieved and grateful!

Now – I will go dye a bunch of the yarn I spun as I prepare for my next tapestry weaving.  YAY!

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

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

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

++++

Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame