Tag: abuse

+MY MOTHER’S NAME IN WICKIPEDIA – NEED TO WRITE HER AN ARTICLE THERE

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Interesting, my daughter just sent me this from Wickipedia:

“Mildred Ann Cahill (1925-2002) Alaskan homesteader”

My mother’s rich, rich brother isn’t listed there.  Click on link, interesting info on origins of Irish name, “Cahill.”  They make no note in this entry of her married name, “Lloyd” here.

Does make me realize that I don’t think my mother spells her own middle name in her writings, and we don’t have her birth certificate so I don’t know if the “e” is attached to her middle name or not — from this Wickipedia info, I guess NOT!

I probably need to have someone who knows computer code help me post a page on Mildred on Wickipedia before the books are published (I can’t do it, I don’t know coding).  Once the four volumes are completed I will have my family help me with that project!

These chapter headings I chose from her words are worthy of ‘homesteading history’ exploration — as is the entire story itself:

*HOPE FOR A MOUNTAIN: MILDRED’S ALASKAN HOMESTEADING TALE – VOLUME TWO – LIVING FOR THE LAND

PART ONE:  IT WILL WORK OUT ONE MOVE AT A TIME

ONE             Bill Will File on the Land Tomorrow

TWO            On a Merry Chase from Morn to Morn – and I’m Not Kidding

THREE        I’ll Homestead In Summertime, thank you!

FOUR          Oh How, Oh How Will I Ever Manage??

FIVE            We’re Both So Upset and Yet Determined

SIX               I’ll Give Up Anything for Our Homestead

PART TWO:  SUCH BEAUTY FOR INSPIRATION AND PEACE THAT CAN’T BE FOUND IN TODAY’S CIVILIZATION

SEVEN           Little Pieces of This Rock

EIGHT           Stick To My Land Here Like Glue

NINE              How Much Of a Beating Can We Take?

TEN                We Belong On Our Land for All Time

ELEVEN        It’s Really an Almost HOLY Feeling

TWELVE       Homesteaders Even In Alaska Are Becoming Extinct

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I am now going to take a much needed ‘vacation’ before I tackle the formation of the ‘final files’ for the other two volumes of her writings and get ready for my family coming to visit — and to get ready!!!

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See also:

*HOPE FOR A MOUNTAIN: MILDRED’S ALASKAN HOMESTEADING TALE – VOLUME ONE – BEGINNING A DREAM

PART ONE:  WAITING AND THE LOVE LETTERS

ONE               Don’t Ever Leave Me Again (14)

TWO              Find Me a House So I Can Come Home (49)

THREE          If You Care About Me and Our Future (73)

FOUR            Fear of Sand in the New Car (108)

FIVE              The Worst Is Over With (140)

PART TWO:  ARRIVING NORTH AND SETTLING IN

SIX                  So Keen on Alaska (172)

SEVEN          No Hicks Here (197)

EIGHT            Now That the Trees Are Bare (235)

NINE              He Will Do the Winter Driving (262)

TEN                All Mean Well I Guess (As Women Can) (297)

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+SECOND VOLUME OF MY MOTHER’S WRITINGS IS READY

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Here is the link to the next volume that is now ready:

*HOPE FOR A MOUNTAIN: MILDRED’S ALASKAN HOMESTEADING TALE – VOLUME TWO – LIVING FOR THE LAND

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+THE IN-TENSE JOB OF EDITING-PROOFING MY ABUSIVE MOTHER’S LETTERS

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Oh my, I have to say, what an intense process this is — doing what is nearing the final edit-proofs of my mother’s writings!  I have worked for ten hours today on the second volume and have only made it through 130 of the over 300 pages it contains!

I know this about myself, that I have an almost ‘strange’ ability to focus on work I am doing at times.  I suspect strongly that this ability is tied to my dissociation (as odd as that might seem).  The level of focus it is taking me to work my way through this edit-proofing process is astounding even me!  I am ‘up for air’ right now.  Or rather, I am nearly off to sleep at this hour (1:00 in the morning my time now).

I believe this effort will literally ‘pay off’ — and hopefully soon.  I received my first compliment from my sister today, who followed the link to Volume One I sent her today, and reported that she couldn’t leave ‘the story’ until she finished it.  It took her four hours — and she is an extremely fast reader.

Part of what is tricky about this process I am engaged in — said if I leave completely out of the picture WHO my mother was and WHAT she did to me — is that my mother wrote in a literary format that is becoming obsolete in today’s world.  My mother ‘speaks’ over and over and over again in the body of this text of her words that she ‘wants to write’ — while at the same time being completely engrossed in her act of writing!

Yet I sense that her form of letter writing lies as some sort of ‘mongrel cross’ between the actual ‘literary tradition’ and the ‘oral nonliteray tradition’.  Yet because her writing is being carefully crafted to fit a published book format — at the same time that I am attempting to preserve THE literary voice she uses to transmit information (most often to her mother) — I have to pay close attention not ONLY to the words she writes, but also to the pauses, the spaces, her nearly flamboyant and chronic use of dashes, her omission of punctuation — so that in the end readers will be able to follow the story Mildred is telling without falling through the ‘gaps’ that are as much a part of her writing style as are the words themselves.

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This process I am engaged in is, to put it mildly, quite BIZARRE!  I am polishing, if not honing my mother’s ability to present a complete facade of herself as being a ‘one kind of woman’ at the exclusion of the ‘other kind of woman’ that my mother was essentially extremely capable of being.  Right now I cannot think about ‘any of that’ because this job I am currently doing would be an impossible task for me to complete.

Maybe I have to ‘go to’ some dissociated and disconnected ‘place’ while I do this job that has more in common with the ‘dissociated and disconnected place’ my mother was able to ‘go to’ while she WROTE these words!  That could be an eerie and unsettling awareness if I let it breach my quasi-professional ‘role’ I have myself in right now.

Partly what concerns me, and I mean this as in ‘involves me’, is that a STORY (according to some very professional International Storytellers I was honored to converse with once upon a time) exists in its OWN RIGHT separate from its teller.

I have written about this before on my blog, how I see the history of our species’ story contained in our DNA itself, how I see genetic memory as being the living of a living story that is so ancient, and so much larger than any single separate entity that calls herself-himself human.

I am — most essentially — pursuing a course of action that I have chosen.  I am being the Fair Witness to this STORY that my mother is telling.  It is HER VERSION of this STORY that is in her words.  Yet Mildred’s husband and all of her children, along with fellow homesteaders, acquaintances (Mildred could not form friendships), and random strangers all had some part in this story.

Storytellers in the oral nonliterate tradition will speak about the requisite involvement of ‘audience’ with ‘story’.  Both the living audience and the living story combine to FORM a living work of art — in time — in space.  I am actively involved with the telling of this story so that it can become a story an audience can participate with.

Horror of Horrors, how can this be?  I certainly know my mother was vilely violent, a child abusing maniac, a dangerous, MEAN and awful mother.  I certainly also know she is not presenting THIS part of herself in this story!  No real surprise there to me any longer — though it greatly amazed and puzzled me for a long time during ‘my process’ with Mildred’s written words.

But because I have chosen my Fair Witness role, and because I have chosen to create the narrative chronicle of the shards and fragments of my mother’s writings as her completely disorganized papers came to me originally after her death, and because I am choosing not to analyze or interpret ANYTHING she says (there will be probably close to 800,000 words here in these four volumes – my guess), all I need to do is FOCUS and DO THIS WORK.

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The image that just came to me as I wrote these last words was of taking a piece of paper and some crayon or pencil — something — and finding a pattern, laying the paper on top of it, and rubbing, rubbing, rubbing — until the image becomes clear on the paper.  No, the evil genie is not going to appear through this rubbing process.  Just an image.  Just a story.  Just a version of a story, seen through my mother’s particular keyhole.  It is her perspective, and my job I have assigned myself is to rub this story, polish it, bring it forth as crystal-clearly as possible — so that THIS story, this strangely-NOT-the-mother-I-knew-wrote-this-story – story — will appear.

The next image that comes to me is of a clean room, like the ones they use at Intel, where nobody can go in THOSE rooms.  If they do, they wear suits, or they work with strange gizmos in their hands through glass.  Because I know that my mother’s story IS CONTAMINATED.  It has to be deadly toxic – somewhere — because she was.

But I leave all that alone right now.  I work with her words as if I never met this person before in my entire lifetime.  And on some strange, twisted, yet very real level, I probably never did meet THIS woman, who wrote THESE words in this story I plan to just plain publish!

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*HOPE FOR A MOUNTAIN: MILDRED’S ALASKAN HOMESTEADING TALE – VOLUME ONE – BEGINNING A DREAM

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+WORD WARRIOR NEWS: WORKING NOTES

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Today’s working notes:

I’m in the thick of the June 1957 letters

Throwing out a thought here – this all feels like quicksand

My own version of ‘getting clear’ – as it will come through working with ‘this story’ – I think (and I can’t say KNOW yet which is the problem) — that I am fundamentally looking not so much at Borderline but at her insecure attachment disorder

her’s being ‘disorganized-disoriented’ insecure attachment – and if I am right once I get to the point where I can fillet her story and find the PATTERNS — meant that the Borderline was ‘just’ a particular constellation of patterns around which she (unconsciously) organized and oriented herself

I am looking for the BIGGER PICTURE – by hoping to find the exact patterns

I need this before I can do the 360° book or anything else

If most of people’s real problems are directly ’caused’ by insecure attachment, then that is the STARTING POINT for everything I have to say —

All the ‘research’ will then fall into place because it all describes changes that happen within a human’s developing physiology — and now I see that it is not ‘just’ the brain, but entire nervous system, etc — as development goes ‘off course’ in a malevolent, unsafe and insecure early attachment environment

by degrees

Mother’s actually ended up being about as far away from ‘good’ as possible, like 300° off course — then everything else about her life was about this disorganization and disorientation

but I want to be able to PROVE my point by being able to point to the patterns in her story — her abuse of me was simply a ‘side-line’

I also want to be able to draw parallels – though the degrees of change might be different — between mother’s attachment disorder and other severely abusive parent’s actions based on their own D-D insecure attachment

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+WORD WARRIOR NEWS: THE MIRACLE OF AN INTERVIEW IS COMING UP THIS SATURDAY

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It seems like such an amazing ‘gift’ that the most significant eye witness to 45 years of my mother’s life will be doing an interview with my very smart and savvy daughter this coming Saturday.  It seems like such a gift because IT IS such a gift!  My daughter will be the ‘fair witness’ to JV’s account.

JV knows things – lots of things.  I spoke with her briefly yesterday to let her know that my daughter is willing to interview her — and to listen to all that JV has to say about my mother.  JV seemed very relieved that she would not be trying to say what she wants to and needs to say to ME.

I also asked JV if she wants to read my mother’s letters, and she does — ALL OF THEM — including the letters written back and forth between my parents in the summer of 1957 while my father went to Alaska ahead of his family and mother and kids stayed in Los Angeles.  I am hard at work on a ‘proof’ of those letters now.  JV will do the interview, we will print of all the letters and send them to Alaska for her to read (and very hopefully to make notes on), and then probably have a second interview with her afterward.

I was dismayed to realize after my ‘edit-proof’ on letters from August 1, 1957 when Mildred arrived in Alaska until the following March 31, 1958 that those 8 months of letters fill over 150 pages!  Lots more work to do here, so best get to it!!!

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+OUR RIGHT TO QUANTUM HEALING – ALLOWING THE MIRACLES TO HAPPEN

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I have heard it said that such a thing exists as QUANTUM HEALING.  I am not going to bother searching around online for all kinds of information about this miracle.  I believe it exists, and I believe we can all access it.  I also believe I am smack in the middle of such a process now.

Perhaps because it is in my nature to force positive change when I think I need it within myself, and perhaps especially now at this point in my life where I literally feel I have an important job and mission to accomplish that can contribute something good and useful to understanding what severe infant-child abuse looks like – from within and from without – and perhaps because I also personally feel I am under a time pressure to outrun the cancer that has visited my body so that I can complete this job before I ‘move on’ from this world — I do not wish to ‘mamby-pamby’ my way through or around any obstacle that appears in my pathway.

I am blessed with the resources that I need at this point in my life that help me not to get sidetracked, bogged down or waylaid in my efforts.  I just spoke to my ONLY real friend in town here about the work I am doing (she has known the entire process).  She wisely suggested that I ask my daughter to do the telephone interview about my mother with JV, my mother’s long-term Alaskan friend.  I am too emotionally involved, and too emotional.

As I spoke with my friend about the kinds of ‘things’ about my mother that JV has to tell, I suffered through wave after wave of ‘goosebump attacks’.  I also dissolved into sorrowful tears.  The recognition and experience of the deep, deep sorrow and sadness happens because I profoundly recognize what a terrible, terrible tragedy this story truly is that I am ‘in line’ for telling.

It is, however, my nearly unending sadness over the suffering of my mother that prevents me from wanting to complete this upcoming interview with my mother’s friend.  It is the suffering of my mother that will interfere with my ability to allow JV to say what she needs to tell me.  As my friend pointed out today, if I ever once ‘fell into’ the tears that I did today as I talked to her while I talked with JV next Saturday, she has no doubt that JV will not wish to continue to tell me the truths that she knows about my mother.

The wise solution presented this morning by my friend would allow my very compassionate, intelligent, invested but objective, extremely fast typing, sensitive daughter to complete this telephone interview with JV.  I will ask my daughter this evening, find out her response, and then call JV and ask for her permission to do ‘things’ this brilliantly safe and effective way.

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So, given this presenting obstacle, the ‘rules’ of quantum healing dictate that a better alternative exists.  It is my job to utilize my resources to find exactly where these obstacles are, and to find more resources to find my way around them.

I have also come to realize that when we consider the quality and nature of the darkness that can infiltrate a human beings body-brain-mind-self — an my mother was infiltrated by this darkness through trauma as a developing infant-child — it could be said that conditions DO exist in the world involving the potential for harm that seem beyond where any ‘rational’ human can pursue, follow, explore or ‘know’.  The degree of infant-child abuse that my mother was perfectly capable of perpetrating falls within this sphere and realm.

After the dream I had a few days ago that clearly alerted me of the powers of spiritual assistance, protection, guidance and healing that do exist right along with the darkness, I am experiencing my journey of working with my mother’s story for publication differently.

There is a saying, “Going where angels fear to tread.”  Only through the appearance of this dream I wrote about a few days ago did I gain a very real understanding (and again, I am not Catholic) that the archangel Michael, or St. Michael – San Miguel — exists, and that he is not afraid of ANYTHING on this earth.  There is no darkness, no realm of horror or of human deprivation and suffering that can possibly prevent this angel from assisting people to understand and to heal from.

In addition, the ‘guardians of the gates’, or Cherubs – Cherubim that were also referenced in my dream are also allies for this good work of trying to understand the powerful, and yes dark, roots of trauma, abuse, neglect and malevolent treatment of infants and children that can lead to deeply disturbing changes in development that can create infant-child abusing people like my mother was.

In my own very human way this entire ‘job’ or ‘mission’ that I am pursuing is big, big, big, bigger than I am.  The fact that I cry from the center of my soul for the pain and suffering MY MOTHER experienced in her lifetime would be mystifying to me if I did not understand that these pictures are so much bigger than any of us who experience them personally.

My mother did not, for instance, CHOOSE of her own free will to pick up a broom and bash my little girl head and body with it.  Something else — call it ‘impulsivity’ or ’emotional dysregulation’ certainly contributed to her thousands of acts of violence.  But the picture is SO MUCH BIGGER.  It came down the generations — and for a reason.  That this ‘reason’ is so difficult to detect within a story of lack of reason doesn’t mean that finding the reason is impossible — or that it isn’t critically important.

In my own process of moving forward I have to accept changes in my course as they present them.  Now I see that I have to create a ‘homesteading process’ and a ‘historical homesteading story’ separately from the book that is the chronicle of my mothers disturbed — and very disturbing — madness.

I am preparing myself to recognize this fact, that I cannot create a ‘one volume’ that can accomplish what I hoped it could.  At the same time, the expose of my mother’s potential for terrible child abuse is paramount.  I have nothing for anyone to sue me for.  I will change the names of every ‘character’ my mother writes about to protect the privacy of the innocent (even though, as my last post mentions, I have to walk past my own ‘bitterness’ to do this).

What LINDA wants is not what is important here if what I want is not a part of the bigger picture of the good that come out of my work with my mother’s words.  Gaining clarity.  That’s what I am after.  And because St. Michael is there to fight the war of light against darkness, as a very real spiritual entity (and who am I to argue this fact?), nothing short of my own physical annihilation prior to my completing this task will stop me.

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In case there are readers who are unfamiliar with my ‘story’, here are some links to read (warning:  may trigger):

*Age 3 – THE TOILET BOWL

*Age 5 – THE BUBBLE GUM

*AGE 6 – FIRST GRADE — NIGHT ON THE STOOL

*Age 9 – BLOODY NOSE

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+ANGER, RAGE, BITTERNESS, RESENTMENT — TELLING US RIGHT FROM WRONG

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I woke up this morning feeling very clear about something in my life around which the giant black-winged bird of bitterness circles, like a creature sure of its prey.  This is good.  It allows me to further explore some of the parameters of this ‘state of being’ named bitterness from the inside rather just from without.

Bitterness.  A personal HOTSPOT!  This reminds me of what I heard during the ten year period of my life from 1980 – 1990 when I attended weekly 12-step meetings:  Resentments kill.

As I look around today at my inner deadly wound that could feed a great swell of bitterness (and of resentment) inside of me today I see that these two states of being must be intimately connected one to the other.

Somehow I had some profound inner certainties arise when I ‘went through treatment’ in 1980, but most of what my inner self knew was not confirmed within the confines of the 12-step meetings I attended.  I was brand new to any form of recovery, and was the first person in the long line of my family and ancestry to do so.  Yet when I encountered the 12-steps that demanded me to understand that I could be ‘restored to sanity’ — I knew fundamentally that I had no experience with ‘sanity’ in my life and had never, ever had the chance to explore its blessings.

‘Recovery’ people around me told me I was ‘resisting’ recovery as I questioned from the insides of myself what made sense about this ‘new way of life’ that was being presented to me and what did not.  “You are rationalizing,” they told me.  “You are intellectualizing,” they told me.

When I tried to do my first ‘4th step’ in treatment and tried to do it right, I tried to write about my ‘resentments’.  Instantly, as soon as I set my recovery-minded pen to paper I encountered an insanely abusive experience of my 9th grade high school self — and my little ‘recovery ship’ blew itself right out of the water.

And there was nobody around me to help me understand the insanely abusive childhood I had lived for 18 years.  There was nobody there — oddly and actually enough — to help me work with the TRUTH that was supposedly at the heart of these 12-step recovery programs.

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On my own, and from within my body, my mind, my self and within my heart of hearts I DID know something important that I used within my own healing.  I knew that every single time I feel ANGER, and every single time I might bump up against or crash into something that could be named RESENTMENT, what I was-am truthfully encountering is the line as I KNOW it between right and wrong.  Every time ‘anger’ or ‘resentment’ appears within me — and as I can see today, the risk for ‘bitterness’ as well, I know that something I HIGHLY VALUE has been touched upon so that I have another extremely important piece of information about who and how I am in the world.

I value RIGHT.  I know the difference between right and WRONG.  Whenever a WRONG has been committed somewhere, my inner alarm of anger, rage, resentment, and/or bitterness goes off.  Instantly and loudly!

What I do with the information about right and wrong is up to me.  Swirling around in the topsy-turvy inner world of anger, rage, resentment and bitterness helps no one RIGHT a WRONG that has been committed.

Ultimately this entire topic, to me, is about this one single thing:  If we as individuals have a strong and powerfully clear inner sense of RIGHT versus WRONG — we can be at very high risk of suffering the consequences of ‘holding onto’ the emotional states encountering breaches of RIGHT versus WRONG will alert us to.  If I cannot give myself permission to identify for my thinking-acting-choosing self something related to a WRONG that I identify, no hope for contributing something to make the world a better place – even if that ‘world’ is simply my own little tiny piece of it.

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Interestingly (to me) the shaky platform of possible resentment and bitterness for me today has to do with something very important to me:  The work I am doing with my mother’s words so that I can publish a complete EXPOSE of the inner world of my mother that NOBODY ELSE seemed to detect outside of our family.

As I work with her words, and as I mentioned in recent posts, discover that words she wrote about her feelings and attitudes of other ADULTS in her life 50 years ago still have the power to unsettle, upset and possibly hurt those living people IF I publish my mother’s words as she wrote them.

I find that this MAKES ME MAD!  These ‘public’ people who today would take a stand to protect their own self from the hurt of my mother’s 50-year-old words are the exact same people WHO NEVER SAW MY MOTHER’S TRUE — TERRIBLY ABUSIVE — OTHER SELF during those years that I especially (and also my siblings) most needed SOMEONE TO HELP US!!!

My intent on publishing this biography – or expose of a monster — is to a large extent to help everyone possible outside a severely abusive parent’s home begin to understand more and more about how much terror, trauma and suffering for infants and children can be going on BEHIND THE NICEY-NICE PUBLIC FACADE of someone as ‘charmingly persuasive’ as my mother was.

That I NOW, after 18 years of unbelievable torture and abuse have to WORRY about the FEELINGS of those same people who did NOT SEE WHAT MY MOTHER WAS CAPABLE OF, or did see, and felt they had no way to intervene on my or my siblings’ behalf, MAKES ME FEROCIOUSLY ANGRY!!

This is UNFAIR, UNJUST and just plain WRONG!  Or is it?  Not according to the law — the same system of law, I might add, who should have arrested my mother (and my father) and charged them with the crimes of assuault, battery, abuse, terror and torture and sentenced them — an imprisoned them both for no less than

14,500 years!

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What this situation is doing for me right now is bringing up right in front of my face what the choice-point feels like — in the present moment — between LEARNING something when a serious breach of RIGHT and WRONG – injustice, lack of fairness — appears, or letting it continue to perpetuate the old wounds so that bitterness and resentment can throw me off of my own good life track.

This brings me to mentioning something that belongs in this discussion at the same time that it is an extremely difficult point for severe infant-child abusers to identify and tackle:  Irony, ambivalence and paradox.

These three states of mind were missing within the body-brain-mind-self of our abusers — especially if our abusers were Borderline Personality Disorder people!

This fact leaves us with the whole giant mess of WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!  Without having been given protection or reprieve — at the same time we did not get any version of a handle on how to HANDLE ironic, ambivalent and paradoxical conditions in our lives!!

What I am describing above about having to ‘protect’ the feelings, privacy and rights of grown up people who certainly DID NOT — for whatever reason — even begin to assure that I had those same qualities protected in my childhood — is ironical.  It presents me with my own experience of ambivalence as I consider ‘both sides of the picture’.  And you bet there is a profound, fundamental paradox present in this situation.

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But I CANNOT CHANGE THE REALITY!  None of it.  Whenever anger, resentment, bitterness appear, there is a sure chance that irony, ambivalence and paradox has appeared RIGHT within the conditions that stimulated our ‘fight’ stress response reaction.  How do we find and create our own inner point of calm in the midst of this STORM?

In other words, how do we make our own self ‘RIGHT WITHIN’ while we live in the real world?  Simply finding a way to ‘intellectually (left brain)’ understand reasonably what this whole mess I am experiencing right now is all about will NOT solve the emotional experience of it.

Those of us who have suffered from extreme abuse have an entire universe of body memory, body feeling, and right-brain emotional experience connected to these HOTSPOTS in life.  We have to be aware of this — as I was 30 years ago when I entered so-called ‘recovery’ and could find no one to help me include my own inner wisdom and knowledge with the 12-step ‘plan’ for ‘recovery’.

“Follow your instincts,” would be my most simple and accurate advice.  If you FEEL anger, range, bitterness, resentment — you are face-to-face with SOME kind of injustice that has been committed and still might exist.  LOOK AT THE INJUSTICE that is at the heart of what stimulated your reaction.  You have been ‘trauma triggered’.  WHAT DO YOU TRULY KNOW ABOUT IT?   WHAT YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED?   Tend to the wound that needs healing within YOU (and within those you love and care about, as well).

But do not pretend that the injustice does not exist.  If we HAVE these reactions I am talking about, I firmly and absolutely believe that they are physiologically triggered by our immune system’s response to harm and to threat of harm!  This HAS to be a fact because all our emotions, especially our most intense, powerful, primitive survival-based emotions of FEAR AND ANGER (as well as SADNESS) are directly tied into our basic nervous system (body-brain) which is PROTECTED by our immune system response.

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Human life is complicated.  No way around this fact.

What stimulated the immune-triggered developmental changes in my mother than made her grow into the ‘kind of person’ she was meant that the powerful inner bitterness of a terribly wounded, powerless but still FIGHTING little child removed from my mother the power of consciousness about what had happened to her, ‘what’ she became as a result of it, how bitter she was – AND HOW MEAN AND DANGEROUS SHE WAS.

Every single time my mother uses a single, solitary word ‘against’ another adult in her life 50 years ago is PROOF of the quality of MEAN my mother was.  But these tiny words, no matter what they were, no matter how disparaging and offensive they might appear NOW for the people she was writing about — were NOTHING compared to what was going on within the ‘home’ she terrorized and controlled.

Yes, I DO profoundly wish to expose the kind of ‘monster’ my mother was.  I want to DO SOMETHING to help others ‘out there in the world’ begin to wake up and pay attention when their own INNER WARNING system goes off inside of themselves that SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THIS PERSON!

How else are we truly going to make any progress whatsoever toward protecting suffering infants and children who are being tormented, tortured, traumatized and abused — by viciously cruel, mean and dangerous parents — FREELY and without consequence.?

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I am within conflict.  I am willing to change the names of the people my mother wrote about.  But I do not wish to alter the pattern of my mother’s mean words.  They are what this story is about.

My personal feelings right now are mine to deal with.  They let me know that I have great JUSTIFIABLE anger at the adults in my childhood that did not HELP me or my siblings.  But as the 12-step programs DO SAY, holding onto the anger, bitterness and resentments do not make anything better.  They can educate us about right and wrong, about choice, about opportunities for improving life all the way around.  But left alone as simple physiological states tied to mental patterns that are destructive help no one.

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In case there are readers who are unfamiliar with my ‘story’, here are some links to read (warning:  may trigger):

*Age 3 – THE TOILET BOWL

*Age 5 – THE BUBBLE GUM

*AGE 6 – FIRST GRADE — NIGHT ON THE STOOL

*Age 9 – BLOODY NOSE

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+FEELING BITTER – BITTERNESS AS A STATE OF MIND, A STATE OF BEING: “NO THANKS!”

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The word ‘bitter’ came up in some comments recently.  All the time I’ve been out working this morning on my adobe project I have been thinking about this word and about its corresponding ‘state of being’ or ‘state of mind’.

Looking at the definition (see below) I see that the origins of this word are connected to BITE, and that the word has been in our modern Enlglish language for a long time (since before the 12th century).  This is not a new word, and does not apply to some distant, remote intellectual concept or idea.  I suspect that the feeling of bitter, and the experience of bitterness are primary and fundamental to the human condition.

I am trying to imagine at what age a child might be capable of feeling bitter.  I can’t imagine that it is a feeling that is even humanly possible before the age of three, perhaps four.  What developmental stages must a person have completed before the potential for feeling bitter becomes active-activated?

This looks to me to be one of those comprehensive emotions that involves thoughts as well as very real emotions in the body – as they are processed through the right emotional brain.  It’s a tough one, one more than I can begin to comprehend today.  I will just say that I am ‘thinking about it’.

This feeling and/or state of being is NOT one of well-being, joyfulness, or of peace and calm.  It sounds like one that can eat a person up alive — like a cancer.  I would guess that crashed hopes, disappointments, betrayal, perhaps retained childish fantasies of a perfect world, inability to tolerate ‘any more pain’, confusion about how to resolve conflict (i.e. ruptures without repair), along with a sense of powerless must all contribute to the complexity of ‘bitter’.

While I was working outside today before it got too hot and I had to retreat inside for shelter, I was thinking that this word, ‘bitter’, makes me think of ‘soul sickness’.  Of course I don’t really, actually KNOW what soul is, I can’t make logical sense out of this idea that came to me:  Bitterness can be healed through informed compassion and forgiveness.

It would seem to me that ‘bitterness’ would create such an imbalance within a person that vast amounts of life force would be removed from the actual LIVING of a person’s life because the life force would be all tied up in the dead-end condition that bitterness creates.  Of all emotional states of being that I can imagine today, it strikes me that this one, feeling bitter, might be one that needs to be on the absolute top of the priority heap for removal and/or transformation.

Talk about a ‘monkey wrench’ thrown into the gears of a person’s ongoing life, ‘bitterness’ could do that.  From an autonomic nervous system, and vagus nerve system, and stress response system perspective — bitterness to me would take its place when all other responses to trauma, threat, challenge (as well as growth) have proved inadequate and completely ineffective and useless.

The antidote to bitterness must be in taking actions connected to clearly identifying the ‘problems’ at the heart of the bitterness — and then finding active ways to try to gain new confidence, competence and ‘coping resources’ to be able to move off of the ‘stopped dead in your tracks’ state of bitterness that solves absolutely NOTHING.

I have been searching and searching inside of myself today trying to find any ‘sore spot’ within me where bitterness might lie.  I honestly can’t find one — which is some ways amazes me — and makes me curious.  How could I have experienced 18 years of terror and abuse as a child and NOT feel bitter?  It feels like a miracle, a gift — something that was spiritually given to me that I take completely fore granted.  I don’t think it’s something I avoided by myself!  Which leads me today to realize how grateful I am for this gift, and how I wish to say, “Thank You” to Creation for its absence in my life.

It must be some kind of mercy that has been shown to me — and on a ‘soul’ level, I know it’s not something that I either earned or deserved.  That’s what’s so special about gifts.

But this does not mean I am not vulnerable to ‘bitterness’ in the future.  I hope I can pay attention, be wary and vigilant — so that if ever the tiniest shred of bitterness appears within me, I will be able to either root it out or pray it out!!

Bitterness is NOT ‘a keeper’!  I am a big fan of things that are constructive (rather than things that are destructive).  I don’t want bitterness in me, in my relationships, in my life.  Perhaps I learned this lesson because of how SUPER bitter my mother was, and saw its potential for harming others.  Maybe I was ‘helped’ to be free of bitterness myself because I SO DIDN’T WISH TO HARM anyone else — and as a side benefit, I don’t have to suffer from it either!  Hey!  That’s pretty cool!

(Maybe I see being bitter like being bored – a waste of time!)

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BITTER

Etymology: Middle English, from Old English biter; akin to Old High German bittar bitter, Old English bītan to bite — more at bite Date: before 12th century

1 a : being or inducing the one of the four basic taste sensations that is peculiarly acrid, astringent, or disagreeable and suggestive of an infusion of hops — compare salt, sour, sweet b : distasteful or distressing to the mind : galling <a bitter sense of shame>
2 : marked by intensity or severity: a : accompanied by severe pain or suffering <a bitter death> b : being relentlessly determined : vehement <a bitter partisan> c : exhibiting intense animosity <bitter enemies> d (1) : harshly reproachful <bitter complaints> (2) : marked by cynicism and rancor <bitter contempt> e : intensely unpleasant especially in coldness or rawness <a bitter wind>
3 : expressive of severe pain, grief, or regret <bitter tears>

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In case there are readers who are unfamiliar with my ‘story’, here are some links to read (warning:  may trigger):

*Age 3 – THE TOILET BOWL

*Age 5 – THE BUBBLE GUM

*AGE 6 – FIRST GRADE — NIGHT ON THE STOOL

*Age 9 – BLOODY NOSE

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+WORD WARRIOR NEWS: MY BROKEN, BROKEN, BROKEN MOTHER

alchemynow2 Comments

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I just spoke on the telephone with a woman in her mid-80s in Alaska, JV,  who other than my mother’s mother, maintained the longest relationship with my mother of Mildred’s lifetime.  I visited with JV last when I visited Alaska last summer.  It had been about 38 years since I had seen her.  Now when I talk on the phone to JV that visit certainly helps.  She and I can ‘see’ one another now.  And I am grateful beyond words for JV — as an amazing woman — and for the friendship she had with my mother.

I needed to talk with JV about the issue of what my mother says in her letters about her.  JV very reasonably said, “I have to see what she said about me.”  I assured JV as I go through my next edit I will pull out all the references to her and to her family my mother makes and print a copy to send to her.  JV, out of all people on earth, knows exactly the entire context for the entire story of my mother, and probably knew her better than anyone ever did.

JV and I made an appointment for a telephone visit a week from this Saturday, on the 17th of July.  She would have spoken to me this coming Saturday, but I have to prepare myself for this conversation.  JV is not a writer, but she wants to tell me what she knows.  I will be sitting at my computer and will document everything that JV has to say.

JV is the last person, other than the hospital personnel in the emergency, to speak to my mother before her death.

Here is one thing JV told me tonight that will give you an idea of the kinds of things JV knows and wishes to tell me about my mother.  Long after I had left home, after my mother and father’s divorce, my mother had rented a very expensive two bedroom apartment that was beyond her means to keep.  She charged all kinds of expensive furnishings for it, even though both JV and her husband tried (as they did probably hundreds and hundreds of times during the years they knew my mother — 1957 to 2002) to warn Mildred about her actions — to no avail.

During this period Mildred was becoming increasingly paranoid of her grown children, JV says, until it reached the point that my mother wrote “666” on her forehead and on her hands “to protect herself from the devil and from her children because the devil had taken them from her.”

When I talk, as I did in my earlier post today about the seriousness of Borderline Personality Disorder, I am thinking about how even this one single action of my mother’s had roots in the entire spectrum of illness that had swallowed my mother whole from the time she was a little, little girl.

JV told me tonight that many times she knew there were things mother was doing with her children (meaning in particular with me) that were terribly, terribly WRONG.  There was no talk of ‘reporting’ abusive parents to authorities back then in the late 50s-early 60s.  JV did her best to intervene, and talked with my mother — and every time this happened my mother broke off contact with JV for a long, long time.

JV wants to tell me these stories.  I think in the year that has passed since last summer when she and I and my youngest brother visited, at which time I gave JV the ‘handle’ on my mother that Mildred was not simply ‘eccentric’ but was severely abusive and severely mentally ill — JV has been thinking about our family’s situation.  She wants to help us to heal, and I explained to her tonight that the potential for healing with this story is far greater than ‘just’ for the Lloyd family children.

When I mentioned earlier today in a post about the dream I had last night about fighting the good fight and causing no harm or hurt, I mentioned San Miguel, or Saint Michael as well as the Cherub image regarding the combined image of the bull and the lion that relates to guarding the gates — of truth.

St. Michael, in Catholic belief, leads the Army of Light against the Army of Darkness.  The story at the link I posted earlier about St. Michael (San Miguel) is a fascinating one — and is specifically about healing.

My mother’s story, and my and my siblings’ stories as her offspring, carry within them the seeds of healing because they present the potential of harm the absence of the ‘light’ creates.  My mother’s mind was dark, no matter how bubbly, vivacious, creative, determined, etc. she might have appeared to others.  JV knows the truth about my mother.  My mother – also – shared with JV (as perhaps the only human being she ever did so with) the awful, dark truth about her own horrific childhood.  It is very possible that JV wishes to share some of those stories with me as well.

I feel like a vessel.  I feel like a tool.  I feel like a conduit or a channel for a story that resonates with others who suffered severe, unbelievably severe child abuse.  But it is NOT just the story that matters, in spite of all the words that the story is crafted from.  What matters are the patterns that exist within the story — and it is my part, my job, my mission, my responsibility, and my greatest hope that I will be able to FIND, identify and clearly point to these patterns in my mother’s life.

Borderline Personality Disorder IS ABOUT PATTERNS.  We can call these patterns symptoms – but they are, to me, so much more than that.  These patterns are the outward signs of an evolutionarily altered being (as Dr. Martin Teicher and his research group describe).  Although Teicher, et. al. do not specifically point to or even mention BPD, I personally believe that in cases as severe as my mother’s was, the signs, the patterns are clearly visible.  My mother was a gifted child, whose body-brain-mind-self was formed within an early environment that was hazardous to her health — and changed her development so that she ended up becoming an entirely different person than who she would have become if her needs had been met from birth.

I am grateful for the gift that JV is going to give me – give us.  I have to prepare for this interview conversation with her.  Any of you readers who understand what I am presenting here and wish to offer prayers that this work be done well and reach those who can be helped to heal from it — thank you!

We are doing battle with the darkness, though I will not call it evil.  We are talking about dis-ease here — and one that we need as much information about as possible.  Mine is an information and fact-finding mission.  Mercy!  I even have to wish myself well on what is coming up next!

I believe there is a constellation of patterns with the severely abusive Borderline psyche-body-mind that can be identified, and I believe the comprehensive story of my mother’s holds a vitally important key that can unlock the mystery behind ‘splitting-projecting’ severely abusive parents.  I am looking for the patterns and I am looking for this key.  I am looking.  I am looking.  I am looking……

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+BE VERY CAREFUL OF A ‘BORDERLINE’ NAME CHANGE – WE DON’T YET KNOW ENOUGH

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I do not agree that the name for Borderline Personality Disorder can be accurately or effectively changed – YET!  This post is about why not.

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From the BPD Today website:

“The term BPD was coined during a time when little was known about this disorder. This name does not describe the disorder accurately and a new name needs to take it’s place. Emotional regulation disorder is very commonly used along with emotional intensity disorder.

Feel free to vote yourself on the name for this very painful disorder and read information on other’s thoughts.”

NAME SUGGESTIONS ON THIS SITE

Emotional Regulation Disorder

Emotional Intensity Disorder

Impulsive Disorder

Impulsive-Emotional Dysregulation Disorder

Impulse Regulation Disorder

Emotionally Unstable Disorder

Emotional Impulsive Disorder

Emotionally Impulsive Disorder

None of the above

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I would expect a collection of possible names for a change from Borderline Personality Disorder like this one to appear through some joint effort of a group of 5th graders!

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Every single one of these name suggestions (except the last one!) is a simple description of what nearly half of our population suffers from to one degree or another:  A developmentally changed emotional processing ability caused by an insecure attachment disorder.  (Remember – feeling NOTHING is not a healthy way to regulate emotions, either!)

Early infant-caregiver interactions FORM the right emotional-social brain’s regulatory abilities – or not.  Given that currently experts suggest that 50% to 55% of the population has a secure attachment brain, and that the other 50% to 45% of the population does not – then – DO THE MATH!

If there is a problem of ‘stigma’ with the name for BPD, deal with the stigma.

If there is a problem with many people being misdiagnosed and tossed into this disorder’s category because it is being used as some sort of catch-all – deal with professional inaccuracy.

BUT – until researchers can specifically and accurately pinpoint the nervous system and brain changes that are FUNDAMENTAL indicators that Borderline Personality Disorder exists within the physiological BODY of a person, we cannot safely or reasonably change the name of this disorder.

This day is coming.  We might get the willies thinking about the ramifications of being diagnosed with a so-called ‘mental disorder’ through such specific and accurate means – but why would it be any different that all the current ‘medical’ diseases being diagnosed through blood tests, MRIs, etc.?

Not one single ONE of these suggested ‘new’ names carries any useful information about what is unique about Borderline Personality Disorder other than having difficulty regulating emotions – which happens to nearly half of our population that has some degree of insecure attachment disorder.

This would be like someone identifying one of my little pinky’s fingernails, and then suggesting they know EVERYTHING possible about my body from that tiny fragment of information.  ‘Emotional dysregulation’ is a result of inadequate early infant-caregiver brain building interactions.  Yes, a MAJOR problem, but nothing more than the very tip of the beginning for understanding WHAT Borderline Personality Disorder is and what it does to a human being.

My advise?  “Be extremely careful here, folks!  Do not let the ‘snake’ charm you!”  Until we can identify exactly what the venom of the ‘snake’ of the disease of Borderline actually IS, where it came from, how to handle it safely, and how to protect especially the offspring of BPD parents from the extremely dangerous potential that BPD carries for child abuse, we better quit wasting time trying to invent a senseless, meaningless, useless (innocuous?) name for a devastating disorder that we know VERY LITTLE about!

I believe that Borderline Personality Disorder is a symptom of trauma-altered infant=child development that has affected all areas of development.  The central nervous system – including the brain – has been changed so that the regions, circuits, pathways and patterns of the BPD brain DO NOT MATCH “NORMAL.”  The autonomic nervous system (the stress response (HPA-axis) and the calm/connection systems) have been changed, along with the vagus nerve system.  I believe that in approximately 10 years serious and fruitful research into BPD will also identify alterations in immune system response, as well.

THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL!  The development of ‘self’, of consciousness, of conscience, of perception of reality, of the ability to recognize ‘self and other’, of the ability to ‘feel felt’ and have a ‘Theory of Mind’ that allows for true empathy and appropriate response, of the ability to process ‘time and space’, formation and operation of all memory-related abilities, and the operation of dissociation, ‘splitting’ and ‘projection’ are all aspects of BPD that delineate this disorder into one that requires far more than a modicum of attention from 5th-grade level imagination – and its ‘pretend’ belief that the ONLY thing that is disturbed in BPD is regulation of emotions!

To ignore the facts is dangerous as well as stupid, no matter what the supposed intentions might be to ‘spare a poor Borderline’ from social stigma.  Once upon a time someone might have been able to sanely say, “Give Hitler a cup of hot chocolate and he will get better.”  Are we smarter now about the massive complications of human early development that could create such a monster?  I suppose we might be.  There are people today who have advanced to this level:  “Give that man a cup of hot chocolate and ADD MARSHMALLOWS and NOW everything will be better.”  (i.e., “change the name.”)

Is making a reference to Hitler insensitive and just plain rude?  Think about it.  What power especially MOTHERS have to influence the total body-brain-mind-self development of their offspring!  They are affecting not only the lifespan of their children, but their children’s children.  True, a much smaller universe.  But believe me — my Mother was not a whole lot ‘less evil’ than any Hitler could have been within the domain of her very own home.

If there are currently people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder – I say again — who do NOT BELONG in that diagnostic category — THIS IS A PROBLEM in itself that has nothing to do with the diagnostic criteria for this disorder itself.

Guess what?  I don’t think so.

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FYI:

Psychobiology and molecular genetics of resilience

Adriana Feder1, Eric J. Nestler2 & Dennis S. Charney2

Abstract

Every individual experiences stressful life events. In some cases acute or chronic stress leads to depression and other psychiatric disorders, but most people are resilient to such effects. Recent research has begun to identify the environmental, genetic, epigenetic and neural mechanisms that underlie resilience, and has shown that resilience is mediated by adaptive changes in several neural circuits involving numerous neurotransmitter and molecular pathways. These changes shape the functioning of the neural circuits that regulate reward, fear, emotion reactivity and social behaviour, which together are thought to mediate successful coping with stress.