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Forty one years ago when I was an oblivious 19-year-old I traveled off on an adventure with a stranger named Gar in a U-haul van from San Diego to the backwoods little town of Brandywine, West Virginia.  For all that this adventure contained it is only what happened at the end of it that I relate to this post.  At the very end we had to find the U-haul lot in Washington, D.C. to return the van so we could catch our flight back to San Diego.

No helpful GPS assistance back then!  We had a map and we were lost.  Repeatedly we stopped for directions from strangers who were all seemingly very helpful.  Yet for every set of instructions we were given, as we followed them exactly with every turn, we ended up more lost than we were when we started.

Did all these seemingly helpless strangers misguide us intentionally?  I will never know, but this experience comes to mind today in combination with something I wish to say about my grandson.  I will call him Pete.

My daughter and her husband live 1700 miles away from me, so the closest gift of watching Pete grow and change (he is 18 months old now) comes from the wonderful little videos my daughter sends me.  I have one of them open in a window that pops up and starts the video every time I open my internet browser so I can hear and watch that tiny segment of my grandson’s life as many times as I want to.

The video takes place as Pete sits at the side of a parking lot in a country park my daughter and family visited recently in Canada.  Pete’s mom is filming him gently gathering and scattering little handfuls of tiny pebbles under his mommy’s watchful guidance.

After a few tosses of the little stones Pete takes a few in his hand and lifts them to his ear to listen to them.  My daughter says he does this a lot as he learns about himself in the world around him.  Pete has noticed the high pitched skittering clicking sound the pebbles make as he scatters them.  He is studying both the actions of himself and the pebbles — AND the sound they are making.

Only Pete knows what he heard in the pebbles held to his ear, but as he moves on to dropping those pebbles he is singing softly to himself notes and tones that are in harmony with the sound the pebbles are making.

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Knowing what I know about the bigger picture of this little boy’s life I know that this tiny segment of his history belongs in a long, unbroken continuous line of being loved.  Pete has never been distressed by those who care for him since the time of his birth.  There is no adult trauma drama in his life that would deplete him, would rob him of his opportunities to explore himself in a safe and secure world.

Nobody is sending his physiological development off on a wild goose chase of survival.  Nobody is sidetracking his normal process of moving through his most critical earliest stages of development HIS way.  Nobody is leaving him unguided.  He is not being super-challenged by experiences of traumatic stress that do not belong to him and that would overwhelm him as he is traveling through these most important developmental stages.

His life is the complete opposite of what mine was.  As I watch Pete discovering himself in interaction with musical pebbles, as I listen to him sing along, I know that the lack of impediments thrown into his life is going to let him become strong and clear and real and FOUND in his journey through life.

He will NOT BE LOST.  He will not be left with big empty holes inside of him like a chunk of Swiss cheese that he would then be left trying to fill up with meaningless and harmful addictions and pursuits over the course of his lifespan.  I also know that Pete will never be left unloved and unguided and unprotected.

Nothing could make me happier.

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+GUIDING THE SOULS OF CHILDREN – SOME BEAUTIFUL PRAYERS

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*Age 14 – SILENT TREATMENT

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Blog post one thousand – a collection of links to information about depression. Research finds that there is a link between depression and child abuse.  I survived 18 years of terrible child abuse at the hands of my severely ill Borderline mother, and yet it wasn’t until I was 29 years old that I began to have any clue at all that what had happened to me was ABUSE.  I also didn’t know I was depressed as an adult, and I did not know that being a depressed mother of a newborn puts the baby at high risk for lifelong depression.

The interplay between trauma survivorship and depression is complex – but here are a few articles at the tip of the iceberg:

Prenatal depression effects on the fetus and the newborn

Brain-Imaging in Depressed Moms Shows Blunted Response to Crying Infant

EEG during different emotions in 10-month-old infants of depressed mothers

Brain development, infant communication, and empathy disorders: Intrinsic factors in child mental health

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Study links persistent depression to childhood abuse By Kate Kelland | Reuters – Sun, Aug 14, 2011

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CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S. — July 09, 2007|By Elizabeth Cohen CNN

“Doctors are now medicating unhappiness,” said Dr. Ronald Dworkin. “Too many people take drugs when they really need to be making changes in their lives.”  For Dworkin, the proof is in the statistics. According to a government study, antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. They’re prescribed more than drugs to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, or headaches. CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen discusses the CDC study on antidepressants

More discussion HERE including presentation of depression symptoms

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Depression and Abuse

Recession Linked To Increased Child Abuse

Genetics, abuse history and adult depression

Seeking chemical happiness: Why one in 10 of us reaches for the anti-depressants in middle age by Claire Bates – Last updated at 8:00 AM on 22nd June 2011

Why are antidepressants the most prescribed drug in the U.S.?  by Jane McGrath

Why Antidepressants Don’t Work for Treating Depression by Dr. Mark Hyman

Why Antidepressants Don’t Live Up to the Hype By John Cloud (TIME)

Safety of Antidepressants

Why do antidepressants stop working? By David Mrazek, M.D. May 6, 2011

Depression in babies and young infants  – by Beth McHugh

Suicide rates doubled for children of 5-14 years old over the past 20 years!   Research by James W. Prescott, Ph.D.

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The following is from this website:  Depression Facts and Stats — By Bob Murray, PhD and Alicia Fortinberry, MS

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Today, September 19, 2011, marks the writing of my 999th post on this Stop the Storm blog.  This count does not include the many hundreds of ‘pages’ included as background information.  It is only a count of the actual posts to the home-page.  I am wishing I had something happy to write this morning but I am sad to say what is most pressing within me is about sadness itself — and not just any sadness.  My concern today is about sad babies.

How do we begin to think that any child who suffers from depression is going to magically somehow in ‘the future’ manage to have a happy life?

Infant Depression?  By Will Meek, PhD – posted November 10, 2006 – “ABC News had a report this week on the belief that 1 in 40 infants may suffer from depression.”

Personally I believe sadness in infants and toddlers under the age of two is much, much greater than the 1 in 40 figure stated in that article.  How do we discover whether or not a little one is sad?  What do we look for?  What do we SEE?

What happens to such a little person to create such sadness?  I do not believe ‘It’s in their genes.”

I heard tell of such a sad little person yesterday.  Everything described to me lets me know this infant DID NOT get what she needed in her earliest infant-caregiver interactions to give her a safe and secure attachment base in the world.  No, the child (18 months old) was not directly ‘abused’, but I heard all the signs that this little one was – and is – being neglected.

In a society that so barely recognizes our combined responsibility to STOP direct abuse to children, how can we begin to comprehend the many forms that neglect of the needs of little ones actually takes?

I have posted and reposted many times on this blog an article by Dr. Schore that describes in minute detail what a human being needs to BECOME FULLY HUMAN.  The article is too complex and the material is too foreign for anyone to read and understand – so it seems.  I suspect my daughter and I will in the future spend a great deal of time and effort to ‘translate’ this article into ‘human speak’.  If we don’t comprehend what Dr. Shore is saying in this article we will never truly know what some parents do so rightly – and other parents do so wrongly.

EFFECTS OF A SECURE ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIP ON RIGHT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, AFFECT REGULATION, AND INFANT MENTAL HEALTH

By ALLAN N. SCHORE

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There is nothing more important for our human species than adequate MOTHERING conception to age two.  This article describes in detail what adequate MOTHERING is, how it happens, what adequate mothering provides to a human being, and what goes so terribly wrong when adequate mothering is absent.  True, many humans receive their MOTHERING from others who are not their MOTHERS, but it is MOTHERING that humans need to build a human body and brain that will allow a human to become FULLY HUMAN — no matter who provides it.

FULLY HUMAN.  What does that mean?  Happy.  Healthy.  Present in the world and positively engaged in healthy and happy ways on all levels with self, others and the environment.

Sounds simple?  Sounds basic?  Take a look at Dr. Schore’s article and begin to understand that what nature has designed for human early development is massively complex!  Mothers and earliest caregivers have been able to provide the kind of optimal care Schore describes for eons over the span of our human development.

What happens to change a human being born with full potential for being happy, healthy and joyous for a lifetime into a less-than fully human being?  At a minimum, when safe and secure LOVING and ADEQUATE attachment relationships are withheld the survivor of this neglect simply shuffles down to the bottom of  the pile of happy life fulfillment and most likely stays there for a lifetime.  They become ‘the losers’ in ways that we recognize in our culture – at the same time we do not wish to recognize what happens to deplete these people.

In other words, we as a society are perfectly willing to let little ones suffer.  Who cares?  They aren’t OUR children!

The Role of Attachment in Healing Infant Depression – by Rita Brhel

Depression in babies and young infants  — by Beth McHugh

The trauma of depression in infants:  a link with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?  By Frances Thomson Salo

Parenting Style May Foster Anxiety

Overprotective parents may raise worried kids.

By PT Staff, published on September 01, 1994 – last reviewed on May 15, 2009

Infant Separation Anxiety Is Common In The Developmental Phase!

Infant-Toddler attachment disorders

Help for Infants and Toddlers with Attachment Disorder

Reactive Attachment Disorder

Attachment Explained

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What would happen if every month everyone in our great nation gave 2% of their income, no matter what the source of that income might be, to someone who needs it?  The only stipulation would be that whatever is given must be given within 10 miles of home residence and NOT given to a church or any other organization directly — but given rather to people when we can see the white of their eyes, the light in their eyes, the smile on their faces — to those we can ask their name, tell them ours, shake their hand and wish them blessings.

This sharing gift, given without prejudice or judgment of ANY kind, would be given as cash or as something bought by the giver and given to the receiver (donating to a food bank counts if you see the whites of the eyes of the volunteers who accept the food on behalf of others).  There is plenty to go around in our neighborhoods, our towns, our states, our nations and around our planet.  We each need to PERSONALLY care enough to share.

2% will only ‘hurt’ if we are out of practice in giving to other human beings around us — but practice makes perfect!

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The interaction between the awake, conscious self and the sleeping self informed through dreams is fascinating.  For survivors of severe trauma sleeping and dreaming is often complicated — and changed from what non-traumatized people experience, just as our lives are changed.

I am in process of book writing.  I am still working my way through the age-10 severe trauma memory.  I could not write about those experiences at all unless I wrote longhand away from home and my computer in a public place.  A spent the week before this last one accomplishing that difficult task.

Yet I am finding that so difficult is this memory that I am having nearly as hard a time transferring what I wrote longhand into my computer as I did writing it in the first place!  Every day I have transferred a section of that piece of writing — just a short section.  I can do no more.  And yet my ever-curious mind wants to know more about what is so different about this memory that makes it so hard to face (and write about).

I did not sleep well last night.  My entire night of troubled sleep was nothing but a series of POP-UP windows from my mind that kept appearing to wake me up — or at least to make sure I never really got to sleep at all.  They were no different than the obnoxious pop-ups that appear on my computer screen.  Even though I have various versions of protection in place on my computer, they still find their way into my range of vision — demanding my attention.

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I just hand wrote a section of book writing that I will synopsize here.  This is about the very important protection that dissociation provides for survivors of severe trauma — especially if the trauma began at or near birth so that those dissociative patterns built the brain as they build themselves into the brain (and nervous system).

It strikes me now that my mother’s Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) genetic potential may well have been triggered into action by her earliest traumas BEFORE she was able to find another way to survive her trauma.

That would mean that she never got the chance that others without BPD have to find other ways to get along in their life with the trauma held in check and at bay in some other way.

Yes, she suffered from dissociation — but hers operated differently than mine does.  For all of us who have experienced severe traumas and now experience dissociation, there is a very wise reason why this happens to us.  In my efforts to write about the specific chain of traumatic events that happened to me in the spring of 1962 when I was 10, I am coming dangerously close to my own inner protective walls that surround and protect me from much (most) of the details of my early traumas.

These walls, these massive retaining walls within us constrain and contain traumas that are too much for us to know about.  I am concluding that if the society we live within was able, ready and willing to truly listen to survivors tell about the trauma that happened to us, we would NOT be forced to try to deal with these traumas alone.  The ones we do not remember, the traumas that we dissociate ourselves from, need to be told to the members of our species en masse so that the lessons contained in these traumas can educate our entire species.

Those of us who carry trauma sealed away behind protective retaining walls are doing our job of continuing to live the best we can.  These dissociated traumas have not gone anywhere.  They can be triggered into our awareness in all sorts of ways, and certainly trying to write a coherent, cohesive true story about our traumatic past will trigger MUCH discomfort.

That discomfort appeared in those repeating – nay, never ending — series of pop-up trauma alert windows that disturbed my sleep last night.

The BPD disease that took over my mother changed the nature of her retaining walls — and hence of the patterns of dissociation that were built into her body-brain.  I am fortunate that my protective firewalls against trauma are still inside of ME.  My mother’s broke down in such a way she could no longer ascertain what her walls were, where they were, what they were doing, and how their dissolution affected her and everyone around her.

These protective, defensive retaining walls that keep overwhelming trauma contained are there for a reason.  Dissociation happens for a reason.  A wise and good reason — or it wouldn’t happen at all.  It is not the dissociation that should ever be blamed for difficulties in a survivor’s life.  It was and will always be the nature of the original traumas that caused our difficulties.  The ways that we are able to continue to survive in spite of these traumas are part of our immune system’s defense against threat and attack.

But it just struck me this morning that BPD might just be a defense against trauma that kicks in just a little too early in a child’s life.  Without its interference it COULD have been that the survivor would have found other less harmful ways to endure although I have no doubt that, given the current still-primitive level of civilization humans live in, surviving these traumas cannot be done without the very real assistance of dissociation that keeps our memory of our own self experiencing traumas — as well as the memory of the traumas themselves — away from the survivor who would be the one doing the remembering.

When this dissociation happens for individuals we can always trust that the trauma was ALWAYS too much for a single person to deal with and was ALWAYS something that belonged to the larger social whole of our species — to deal with, to learn from AND TO PREVENT!

In essence,  safe and secure attachment prevents dissociation on all levels and in many, many ways within individuals and within societies.  Dissociation is what happens in its absence.

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The more I ‘plumb the depths’ of the picture of the abuse that was done to me by my Borderline mother and as I study her own record of a segment of her life contained in her letters, diaries and childhood stories, I find that the origins of my mother’s disease were completely hidden from her and from those who were responsible for her early care.  But just because the origins of her disease were not obviously present does NOT mean they were not there.

In its essence, I believe that the foundation of the cause of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) lies squarely in a breach of mother-infant early attachment.  It is essential that those considering the disease of BPD and the terrible consequences this disease is most likely to cause for the sufferer and the offspring of BPD parents (and day care providers) that the information in this article becomes well-known.

While it is a well-documented scientific treatise on the subject of what human infants MUST HAVE in their first year of life to build an adequate emotional-regulatory right limbic brain, it must be understood that how this earliest-forming brain region develops directly influences the development of all the rest of an infant’s nervous system and stress response system for life.  Earliest developmental patterning will include extreme stress-distress stimulation of all the overwhelming toxic stress hormones that can and do signal a developing human (and mammal) that there is something WRONG with the environment.  All further development will then be sent off on a detour direction that cannot be reversed on its most fundamental levels.

If you have reason to question the kinds and amount of trauma-drama that is present in your life or present in the life of others you care about, beginning at the beginning by reading, studying and acknowledging the information at this link is of utmost importance:

EFFECTS OF A SECURE ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIP ON RIGHT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, AFFECT REGULATION, AND INFANT MENTAL HEALTH

By Dr. ALLAN N. SCHORE

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It is clear within my mother’s writings that she THOUGHT all was perfect in her childhood.

The denial of the truth that her infancy and childhood was far from perfect contributed to the misery of her life.

Truth creates the channels that funnel off overwhelming traumatic stress and distress.

Absence of the truth in essence puts an early abuse survivor into a pressure cooker that has no release valve.

If such a survivor’s body has access to certain genetic combinations of potential that CAN be activated under early traumatic conditions that have NOT allowed for any other safe release of traumatic-stress-distress-pressure, the activation of the genetic potentials of certain diseases will occur.  BPD is, I definitely believe, one of these genetic combination ‘release valves’.  Activation of this disorder allows a survivor to continue to physically survive while awareness of the overwhelming trauma is completely blocked – for a lifetime.

(In this way BPD genetic potential can be seen as a resiliency factor ensuring survival against otherwise insurmountable odds.  In my opinion a severe Borderline like my mother was pays for their survival with their sanity.)

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Anyone who cannot track the contributing factors of a BPD’s earliest life needs to open wider the lens of their observation of the facts within the environment the BPD was formed in ESPECIALLY conception to age two (the first 33 months of life).

Because these earliest years are usually obscured by time and enshrouded in mystery and denial, the cloak that covers the truth needs to be removed in the present by expanding the arenas of search for those on a healing journey – no matter what their relationship with the BPD person might be.

Lifting the veil that is hiding the truth about trauma in families means looking for the facts about the bigger picture.  Often one needs to literally draw a picture of ‘the family tree’.  Onto this picture, over time, needs to be added ALL INFORMATION a person can locate.

I believe there will ALWAYS be overwhelming unresolved family trauma in the history of a BPD person.  Who in that past was in a war?  Who was alcoholic/addicted?  Who was sexually abused (including incest)?  Who was raped?  Where were the dead children in sibling lines?  Who had children that didn’t want them?  Who was MEAN and was MEAN to children and mates, and who were the survivors of this treatment (including witnesses of trauma and those who suffered from extreme prejudice of all kinds)?  Who suffered from joblessness, poverty, loss of family fortune (including language barriers, lack of education, illiteracy), too many moves, too much chaos, too much challenge without adequate resources, prolonged homelessness?  Who was divorced, murdered, in jail?  Who suffered from fire, natural disasters, displacement, spousal abuse, severe prolonged illness (including ‘mental illness’), premature death?  Who provided early care prior to age six if the mother did not?  Who was orphaned/adopted?  What was the trauma present in the background of any alternate primary early-(0-2) caregiver?  Who suffered from neglect including latchkey children under the age of 12?

To do this job of ‘spotting’ the trauma in a family tree one can create a list such as this one and then simply use colored crayons to attach a color code to each kind of difficulty.  As the truth about people in the family (true also for adoptees and orphans regarding old and new familial relations), put a dot of matching color beside their name.  (Remember that these risk factors work in ‘cumulative cooperation’ with one another and with resiliency factors.)

Severe unresolved trauma patterns in families will ALWAYS affect the ability of mothers to mother correctly.  A study of Dr. Schore’s article will present an objective FACTUAL picture of what adequate mothering is – no matter who is providing it.

People are free to dance around and away from the truth about the history of those who abused them all they want to – or they can find the truth and honor it.

My mother’s BPD disease removed from her the ability to recognize the truth.  Her disease created an alternate version of reality that was entirely supported by the brain-body changes her body went through in response to her earliest traumas.  That nobody, including her, ever owned the truth about those formative and extremely damaging traumas of my mother’s life directly caused my mother to do to me what she did.  My mother’s disease prevented her from having ANY access to the truth.  That’s what BPD is meant to accomplish in a ‘survival at all costs’ world in the face of overwhelming early trauma.

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RELATED POSTS:  +RATIONAL THOUGHT: POWER OF THE HUMAN SOUL BPD STEALS AWAY TO ENSURE SURVIVAL

+CHILD ABUSE AND BPD: TRACKING THE TRAUMA IN THE FAMILY TREE

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On a much lighter note – gotta love life!!  Two true animal stories written on this blog some time ago:

+HITCHING A RIDE WITH KIND STRANGERS

*In Honor of the Grieving Chicken (2003)

Enjoy!

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The fact that I do not want to write this post has nothing to do with the fact that I am writing it anyway because I believe there are some things I need to say to make very clear what my current thinking is about child-abusing people with Borderline Personality Disorder.

I will decide by the time I finish writing here if I am going to post here the second comment made by a BPD reader yesterday.  At present I have deleted both of her comments from this blog because I consider the thinking behind her words nonproductive to the purpose of this blog about healing trauma.  To me, her words were nothing but toxic.  (As I read them it was like I heard my mother’s voice speaking from the grave.)

I will reiterate some things I have posted here before.  (1) Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is often misdiagnosed.  (2) I believe the neuroscientific technology does exist that could clearly and definitively diagnose this disorder by watching a BPD brain perform relevant tasks.  (3) I also believe that diagnosing BPD in this manner presents a conflict of ethical proportions that our current civilizations are not yet ready to sort their way through.  (4)  Just because nobody chooses to use the current technology to diagnose this disorder does not mean that without it, BPD is always identified correctly.

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Next I will lay out the playing field for human life as I see it.  (1)  There is only one God.  (2)  God creates an individual soul out of love at the second human conception occurs.  (3)  There is no such thing as “choosing” before birth to suffer.  (4)  I believe that human DNA is a supramemory device.  There are people who can probably identify ancestral memory, but that is not the same thing as reincarnation.

For the purposes of what I wish to say about BPD, including my dead mother:  (1)  Each human soul God creates is good.  (2)  Under ordinary circumstances humans have free will to choose to do good or to do evil in their lifetime.  (3)  I do not believe humans are given the right to judge anyone.  That is God’s job.  (4)  Under severe early trauma alterations in human development do occur very early in life.  (5)  Some people have potential for surviving unbearable pain and trauma in their genetic code, and these combinations can be triggered into action in a little one’s physiological fight to maintain their life.  (6)  I believe BPD is definitely one of these trauma-triggered genetic survival physiological tactics a little one’s body can take under horrific early conditions of stress and trauma.  (7) There are some physiological changes (being knocked unconscious being a most obvious one) that interfere with the expression of the powers of the soul.  Severe BPD is one of these physiological changes as it impedes normal rational thinking processes (and other abilities as well).

Among the powers invested to the human soul at this stage of advancement for our species is the power of rational thought.  This power resides to a great degree in the more newly evolved cortices of our brain.  Early trauma can change development of the body-brain in ways that eliminate anything like ordinary, advanced human-soul abilities to exercise rational thought.

We can call these people ‘mentally ill’ if we want to, but it is important to know that if early relationship trauma in unsafe and insecure attachment environments was responsible for triggering physiological changes to ensure survival, the changes that happen to the formation of the brain are very real.  Again, in a BPD brain these changes can be watched as they operate.

Nothing about these conditions makes these people ‘bad people’, but it does make them non-rational.  They do not think in ordinary ways.  They do not know they do not think in ordinary, rational ways.  Everything that a BPD person thinks makes sense to them.  But the queasy, eerie, uneasy feeling of ‘ICK’ a person feels when they encounter BPD ‘counter-logic’ is a telling sign that there is no bridge to cross between how an ordinary person thinks and a BPD person thinks.

(I also believe that there is healing for BPD people, but there is no cure.  This devastating disease, whose onset is clearly linked to child abuse, can be prevented just as child abuse can be — when our society is willing to take appropriate actions on behalf of all infants and children to ensure they are given what they need when they are little to grow up WELL!)

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Many current psychological practitioners believe that BPD is ‘just’ about emotional dysregulation.  Nearly half of our population suffered from some flaws in their early caregiver attachments.  This half of us all have some version of what is known as an insecure attachment disorder.  This means that on some level everyone within this half has some degree of both emotional dysregulation and an empathy disorder.

Emotional regulatory abilities are directly built into the human social-emotional brain primarily during the most rapid brain growth period of development during the first year of life.  If those earliest infant-caregiver interactions contain dysregulation, in effect that inability to adequately regulate emotion will be downloaded into an infant’s forming brain.

More accurately, BPD includes great disturbance in the rational  thought processes of higher human functioning.  There is no negotiating using ‘common sense’ with a Borderline.  Their version of the world, as distorted, twisted and narcissistic as it is — that includes no ability to self reflect, to experience true empathy or genuine compassion, no ability for remorse and a very, very questionable ability to exercise true conscience or consciousness — is, to a Borderline not only the ONLY world there is, but also the only CORRECT world.

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I would say that from now on if any blog reader posts a comment that I read with a growing sense of negativity, dishonesty (blind as it may be), and shaming in their words — coupled with a growing dark feeling in my gut like there are masses of centipedes thriving in their — I will not hesitate to eliminate their words from this blogspace.  The readers whose comments will most likely cover the ground I just mentioned will be, without a doubt, Borderline Personality Disorder people.

In a reply I posted:  BPD has a purpose: To keep survivors of early abuse alive. The most important way it ensures continued survival for its host is by erasing from the survivor/BPD the ability to both truly feel their own pain (and the pain of others) as it erases the ability to learn anything of any depth about cause and effect.

My mother outran her pain her entire lifetime. It is not that she didn’t suffer, but she had no ability to comprehend that fact.

Being nearly a babe yourself at your young age of 27, you will most likely be able to outrun your pain for a very long time yet to come. Those of us who survived severe abuse, and WHO ARE NOT BORDERLINES do have to feel, acknowledge and continue to learn about what happened to us and how it affects us in our life for the rest of our lives.

Unlike BPD people, we do not have an illness that makes us truly immune to pain so that we can continue to live at the same time we ignore the truths of our lives.

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I cannot go back and retrieve this woman’s first comment in which she stated she is 27, had three children, two of them austitic, that she abused them ‘because she was stressed and emotionally dysregulated’, saw the light and gave the children ‘away’ (not a bad thing, I add), and now is going off to enjoy her life at the spa, etc…….  And shame on any child abuse survivor who goes after the truth!

But here is her second BPD comment:
Well I definitely never did anything like what you mentioned your mother did, and I don’t find it acceptable. It did, however, it did happen to me in that severity, along with sexual abuse as well. Yes, what happened was hurtful, but I do not wallow in pain and I no longer inflict guilt on myself about my children because the past is the past. I keep track of them they seem  very happy now. I was adopted too and if it had been the right parents, I wouldve been perfectly fine.

My bio brother was adopted at 4 years of age he’s fine. I don’t condone abuse, I kept trying to cope with the boys, I kept trying to be a better mom and and cope with their autism but with no help I couldn’t. I started having crazy thoughts of him dying, I had a nervous breakdown and felt tremendous guilt and sent the kids to safety. Its been a painful year but now its over and I have the right to enjoy life just as anyone else. I have traumas but they are being overcome. I am beautiful inside and out, people
like me. I am a good friend and fun to be around. You all fail to recognize that I did the right thing.

I already unsubscribed from here because I have no more time to sit here reading what judgmental, whiny 60 year olds have to write. That at their age they still have not overcome childhood trauma. How pitiful. You want to spend the rest of your life whining? Go ahead. If you are so passionate about helping abused children, I agree with the cause, go do something about it. Become a social worker, volunteer, don’t just sit here and whine about everything. I was once like you, living in the past, until someone gave me that advice of forgiveness and I took heed and I am finally enjoying life. Good luck to you. Ps I believe in tough love, not pity parties!

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My wise daughter’s reply to me about this comment:  “This is sickening.  Crazy woman.  Ick.  Don’t let it influence you at all!!!!”

Please consult the links at this post if you have any questions about the healing power of telling the truth for those of us who do NOT have BPD.  (BPDs live because the truth overwhelmed them and their body used this genetic combination to ensure their continued survival anyway.  They do not have the physiological ability to literally ‘tell the truth’ – not what happened to them or what happens to others around them now.)

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

+CHILD ABUSE AND BPD: TRACKING THE TRAUMA IN THE FAMILY TREE

+WHY DID MY SIBLINGS NOT BELIEVE MY ABUSIVE BPD MOTHER?

+MY ABUSIVE BPD MOTHER LOST HER WINGS – AND NEVER GREW UP

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It is an antithesis of this blog to have had a BPD commenter remark yesterday that when adult infant-child abuse survivors choose to put words to their traumas and speak/write about them that we are feeling sorry for ourselves and ‘whining’.

In response to today’s commenter on the post — *THE DANGERS OF MEMORY RETRIEVAL I posted the following links to older posts written on this blog over time that address the topic of disclosure and the power that naming and giving words to trauma have to heal human beings.

It is the nature of trauma that it will repeat itself in life until the lessons contained in the traumatic experience are heard and learned.  Trauma dramas repeated as disrespect, confusion and often as violence in relationships of all kinds — including in child-caregiver relationships — is a sure sign that unresolved trauma is still alive and unwell within the adults in relationship.

We are never too old to apply what we can figure out about the old adage, “Clarity begins at home.”  After yesterday’s BPD extremely judgmental and condemning, ridiculing and verbally abusive comment (which I did not post), I realized this about BPD individuals (you can certainly relate to this if your abuser had Borderline Personality Disorder):

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BPD has a purpose: To keep survivors of early abuse alive. The most important way it ensures continued survival for its host is by erasing from the survivor/BPD the ability to both truly feel their own pain (and the pain of others) as it erases the ability to learn anything of any depth about cause and effect.

My mother outran her pain her entire lifetime. It is not that she didn’t suffer, but she had no ability to comprehend that fact.

Being nearly a babe yourself at your young age of 27, you will most likely be able to outrun your pain for a very long time yet to come. Those of us who survived severe abuse, and WHO ARE NOT BORDERLINES do have to feel, acknowledge and continue to learn about what happened to us and how it affects us in our life for the rest of our lives.

Unlike BPD people, we do not have an illness that makes us truly immune to pain so that we can continue to live at the same time we ignore the truths of our lives.

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It serves no good purpose to stop ourselves or anyone else from speaking the truth.  Sure, there are times and places when ‘disclosure’ might not be immediately appropriate in a given social situation, but other than that we all need to find ways to give ourselves permission to communicate our truth — be it in spoken or written word, poetry, journal/blog writing, writing and playing and signing music, performing dramas, and through all forms of art creation of which our species has been gifted to be able to perform.

The important point is that we ARTICULATE trauma.  As I am finding in my book writing doing so means that I find within every memory of abuse I retained from my childhood my SELF in the middle of those memories, and the GOODNESS I both was and knew at the same time I endured.

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Please check below for some additional relevant posts —

+AVOID THE PRYING EYES OF CREEPY FAMILY: WRITE YOURSELF A PRIVACY-PROTECTED BLOG!!! 

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*THE MEANING OF MENDING OUR LIFE STORY

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+THOUGHT SALAD: HAVING ‘THIS’ TO SAY ABOUT ‘THAT’

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+NOT INVITING IN THE FURIES

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+EXCLUSIVE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OWNED BY SEVERE ABUSE SURVIVORS

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+SECURE AND INSECURE ATTACHMENT AND THE CHILDHOOD NARRATIVE

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+BEING CHEERFUL AND COURAGEOUS IN THE FACE OF A TERRIBLE REALITY

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+HOW DO WE LIVE WELL WHEN WE HAVE TOO MUCH TRAUMA INFORMATION

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+WRITING ABOUT OUR SEVERE EARLY TRAUMAS FROM THE INSIDE OUT

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+WE NEED NEW WORDS TO DIALOG WITH OUR BODY ABOUT TRAUMA

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+MARCHING ON TO VICTORY OVER TRAUMA

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+LINKS TO TODAY’S PAGES ON DISSOCIATION AND DISCLOSURE

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*THE ADVANTAGES OF DISCLOSURE

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These are some additional older posts on the topic of the ‘adult narrative’ of our life stories:

+SECURE AND INSECURE ATTACHMENT AND THE CHILDHOOD NARRATIVE

*THE MEANING OF MENDING OUR LIFE STORY

+HEALING THE TELLING OF MY LIFE STORY – HEALING MYSELF (from infant-child abuse)

+WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR CHILDHOOD STORY: TRUE FOR THE BORDERLINE, TRUE FOR THE BORDERLINE’S OFFSPRING

+THE WARNING THAT WILL GO WITH THIS BOOK WHEN IT’S FINISHED

+A LONG POST ABOUT TRUTH AND WORDS

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

+CREATING A TIMELINE OF OUR EARLIEST LIFE – PUTTING ORDER/ORGANIZATION TO TRAUMA/CHAOS

+WORDS DO NOT MEAN SOCIAL CONNECTION TO ME – THEY ARE OBJECT-TOOLS-WEAPONS

+MY LIVING PHILOSOPHY ABOUT WORDS

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

+HOW NICE TO SAY, “BYE! BYE!” TO TRAUMA DRAMA

+LINK TO A WHOPPER OF A TALE ABOUT TELLING OUR TALE

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+A COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT EARLIER POSTS ON ATTACHMENT

+NEEDY PEOPLE AND BUMPY CONVERSATIONS (GRICE’S MAXIMS, AGAIN!)

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

+A COLLECTION OF LINKS ON BODY-BRAIN CHANGES CAUSED BY EARLY INFANT-CHILD ABUSE

+THOUGHT SALAD: HAVING ‘THIS’ TO SAY ABOUT ‘THAT’

+IN THE PRESENCE OF LAUGHTER WE ARE SAFE, SECURE AND FREE

+WHEN ABUSIVE PARENTS STEAL THEIR CHILD’S THUNDER

+EXPLODING MOTHER, IMPLODING ME: SOME FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN US

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