Tag: borderline personality disorder

+ANOTHER MORE AUTHENTIC VERSION OF MOTHER’S ACCOUNT OF LEAVING L.A. FOR ALASKA IN 1957

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I just finishing transcribing another version Mother wrote about the decision they made to move to leave Los Angeles and move to Alaska.  I like this one better.  There is no indication of when it was written, but I think it was written before the one I posted last night.

It leaves me thinking that no matter how genuine and authentic their ‘dream’ was, my mother’s undiagnosed and untreated severe mental illness did actually destroy any chance our family had to ACTUALLY ‘live happily ever after’, which is something I believe my parents both hoped for when they made this HUGE move.  That tragedy is real, even if I cannot find even a glimmer of it in this piece she wrote:

*Probably written October 1958 about leaving Los Angeles

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+’MOVING AROUND’ VERSUS ‘STAYING STILL’ – WHAT IS THE DEAL?

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Sometimes I wish I could talk to some ‘mental health professional’ just about the moving around that my mother did.  As she mentions in her piece of writing that I transcribed yesterday and posted the link to in *October 1958 – DREAMS CAN COME TRUE,  my mother believed that my father provided a kind of stabilizing counterweight to her impetuousness.  But I wonder what would have happened to her in her life if my parents had not yoked themselves to one another?

I still have not completely delineated and visibly lined up the number of moves that my mother arranged and that mostly my father accomplished during their married years prior to my leaving their home when I was 18.  Some part of me this morning wants to stop and take account of the moves that had already happened before my mother had written her October 1958 description of their Alaskan ‘venture’, as she called it.

My parents married June 11, 1949 and as far as I know they lived on/at Almont in Los Angeles at least until their first child was born on June 15, 1950.  Then comes a move.  I don’t believe I was born while they were living there, so probably by August 31, 1951 they were living in a rented house on Calavaras (wherever in LA that was).

So, from Almont to Calavaras to a rented apartment by July 10, 1953 when my sister was born, then probably to a house my parents bought in Altadena that they did not sell until they were moving to Alaska even though my spring of 1956 they were in another new house they purchased in Glendora (still in LA area).

We must not have lived in this location of the 4th move for much more than a year, but that would have been four moves in the first seven years of their marriage.  The move to Alaska, which involved my father leaving first and being gone from us for two months in June and July of 1957.  According to mother’s writing, they sold the Glendora house (and the Altadena one) before my father went to Alaska and moved into a ‘court apartment’.

From this apartment, after my father had left, my mother then moved us into a motel, out of the motel into a rented house, out of the house into her mother’s, up to the mountains for a week, back to her mothers, and then probably into another motel before she left for Anchorage.

So, adding up these longer and shorter term moves and locations, let’s see – that’s around 11 moves that were made with children in tow before mother reached Alaska and the infamous Log House in Eagle River on August 1, 1957.  The log house was probably move number 12.

We stayed ‘all cozy’ in the log house until June 1958, by which time my father had already located the 160 acres spot of our homestead and had staked claim, or filed on the land.  We moved out of the log house into Bockstahler’s ‘shack’ or ‘cabin’ (its title depended on mothers move moment to moment) where we stayed until October 1958.

At that point the six of us moved into an apartment on Government Hill in Anchorage area where we stayed until about the following March, and by April 1, 1959 we were off on our homesteading adventure.

So by the time my mother wrote her *October 1958 – DREAMS CAN COME TRUE piece she (I’m quite certain it wasn’t my father) had orchestrated, staged and managed to accomplish 14 moves.  I was 7 when this piece was written, and already by then I had been dragged around through probably 13 moves with my parents, and that was only the beginning.

So, talking about ‘life’ and ‘childhood’ in attachment-related terms, right along with the incredible vacillation and instability of my mother’s moment-to-moment mental-mood states and the insecurity they caused in the lives of all around her came the physical moving from place to place that even further guaranteed a complete environment of lack of safety and security for my parents children.

My mother wrote *October 1958 – DREAMS CAN COME TRUE from within the small enclosure of a massive, ugly apartment complex.  True, the move ‘to town’ was no doubt simply seen as ‘as step in the right direction’ toward accomplishing fulfillment of their Alaskan homesteading dreams, but I still find the contrast in location and place interesting as I read her written piece.

By the time my mother was actually on the homestead, and had her ‘dark rainbow dream’ about the horrific wind storm contrasted to how it stopped in her dream when she met the right ‘person’, she had already in her lifetime experienced probably close to 30 moves.

If I could talk to this ‘mental health professional’ I would like to ask what this kind of moving is seen to represent in a person’s life.  That the moving, at least in our family, seemed to be connected to and integrated with this ‘pioneering’ drive makes me suspect that it was then connected to the genetic undercurrent that MANY immigrating ‘pioneers’ had within them as they traveled to America in the first place.

But it is hard to feel a part of the mainstream American current with this kind of ‘traveling’ background – and I have certainly done my share of moving around in my adult life, as well.  I still haven’t counted my own moves, but I do know that right now being here and staying here in this little house I live in now is the single most important aspect to my own current life.

So when I work in my yard on my adobe projects it is in part the grounding I experience as I work with the physical DIRT that helps me right now.  As I looked around me out in my yard this morning I just had this thought:  I wish I had thought beforehand that I could have actually encased my mother’s individual letters I have completed transcribing right into those bricks – where they also would have finally met their final grounded end — because they probably would have remained within those bricks for a very, very, very, very LONG time without GOING anywhere.

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+WHAT MOTHER SAYS ABOUT THE MOVE TO ALASKA

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I have spent too many hours to count on the job of transcribing my mother’s writings today.  No adobe work.  Just this work.  I am nearing the end stretch but not done yet.

This is a link to my mother’s words written about why they decided to move to Alaska and what that process was like.  I am glad I found it – it will certainly be near the front of one of the books of her letters.  I really hoped she didn’t spiral out into orbit as she wrote this piece – and thankfully she didn’t.  She actually seemed to stay on target, which surprised me!  You might be interested in taking a look:

*October 1958 – DREAMS CAN COME TRUE

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+’SUPER INFANT-CHILD ABUSE’, WORSE THAN WAR CRIMES, IN THE REALM OF GENOCIDE-INFANTICIDE

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The comments that have grown at the end of yesterday’s post, +WHAT MY MOTHER FORGOT TO WRITE IN HER NOVEMBER 1957 LETTERS, are about a kind of ‘borderline’ that I believe exists within the mind of most members of ‘the public’.  If the kind of abuse parents like my mother was cannot be imagined, conceived of, or even BELIEVED by ‘the public’ there will not be much hope of true recovery for survivors of this kind of abuse or protection for its current victims.

Although I posted an allusion yesterday to this type of parental abuse as being more closely related to War Crimes (see +THE GENEVA CONVENTION – WE NEED WORDS TO PROTECT ABUSED CHILDREN) than it being related to the ‘species’ of child abuse most members of ‘the public’ might imagine, abuse (which is in itself far to minor a descriptive word) perpetrated against infants and children by parents like my mother was is, in my thinking, even so far PAST war crimes that if it hadn’t happened to me I probably wouldn’t be able to imagine, conceive of or believe it even could be possible myself.

Members of ‘the public’ are, by and large, reasonable (reason-able) people.  They exist on one side of this ‘borderline’ I mention in regard to coming to terms with the possible ranges of infant-child abuse (as well as with the far ranges of ANY kinds of abuse humans can perpetrate).  On the other side of this ‘borderline’ are people like my mother was who have what Dr. Martin Teicher’s Harvard research group names ‘an evolutionarily altered brain’.

But it certainly isn’t JUST their brain that is altered.  It is their ENTIRE physiology.  Once this kind of abusing adult has been created within the malevolent environments of their own early developmental caregiver relationships, the degree of change that might be possible down the road of their lives (much past the age of three, I believe) is minimal — and WILL NEVER make these people magically into SAFE infant-child caregivers.

The kinds of crimes they are capable of committing against their offspring are so far past what ‘the public’ could even begin to imagine as being even ‘war crimes’ that reason-able people cannot usually conceive of them.

No matter how despicable, how devoid of ordinary human conscience any ‘war crime’ might be, if the crimes are committed against adults they are of a different nature than the kinds of infant-child ‘abuse’ that I am talking about.  The kind of trauma altered evolutionarily altered brain that Teicher refers to IS one adapted (along with all the rest of a survivor’s physiology) to continued existence in the worst kind of malevolent world possible.  When this adapted-to malevolent environment does not contain within it even the most essential resources to ensure continued survival – elimination of offspring can very easily be the end result FOR MOTHERS.

This is, of course, not a consciously recognized aspect of the kind of ‘mind’ my mother had, but this obliviousness to FACT does not make the FACT any less real.

On this level I would say that we are not talking about ‘ordinary ranges’ of infant-child abuse.  We are not even talking about ‘ordinary ranges’ of war crimes.

The only closest collection of information that ‘the public’ might be able to reach for, accept and rely upon in their consideration of the kinds of parents I am talking about and the ‘outside-the-range of ordinary’ treatment of their offspring would be to include in their consideration all information currently available about both GENOCIDE and INFANTICIDE.

Such a ‘trauma changed mother’ operates with a physiologically-based biological imperative to eliminate offspring (one or all) in the same way an animal in the wild would (or our ancient ancestors) should life within a hostile, malevolent environment be just about as hard as possible.  The BODY that took this evolutionary detour in its earliest development CANNOT BE CHANGED BACK AGAIN to become at some later date a benevolent-environment body-brain-mind.

(It seems entirely possible to me that the genetics behind suicide and well as perhaps genetic combinations (not yet identified) behind self-harm and eating disorders might also be connected to the permanent ‘evolutionary alternative developmental changes’ related to the influencing physiological (epigentic?) factors that are involved in adaptation to early malevolent environments.)

(Another critically important factor to consider is what Tomkins describes when he says that a human infant’s adrenal gland ‘system’ is 2 1/2 times ‘more powerful’ during the earliest developmental stages in proportion to its body size than it is in our adulthood, making sure that stress-related responses to malevolence within the early environment that require adaptations-changes to best ensure survival happen as FAST, as early in development and as permanently as possible.)

That human infant-children do somehow OFTEN manage to in fact physically stay alive and survive the malevolent treatment that was done to them does NOT exclude the range of ‘abuse’ from the arena of considerations related to GENOCIDE and INFANTICIDE.  In cases such as my mother’s was, the ONLY reason she did not actually eliminate my body from the world of the living is because of her narcissistic desire to avoid reprisal for her actions.

When an infant-child is NOT actually physically killed, this means that the level of suffering from torture, terrorism, ‘abuse’ and malevolent treatment continues on and on and on and on……..  The fact that these survivors did indeed survive in NO WAY lessens the reality of the acts toward GENOCIDE and INFANTICIDE that these ‘super abusing parents’ commit.

Perhaps, I mentioned in one of my replies connected to yesterday’s post about what my mother ‘forgot’ to tell my grandmother, ‘the public’ is perfectly fine with allowing for a range of ‘acceptable losses’ related to allowing the worst of the worst possible infant-child abuse to continue – in effect, right under our noses.

When thinking about Universal Human Rights of Children we must at the same time consider that when these rights are massively denied and the reverse of human rights is what is actually happening to infant-children, we need to begin to understand that we need the equivalent of a Geneva Convention’s rules for what is to be done on behalf of these ‘super survivors’ of ‘super abusive’ parents — and what is to be done to, with and about these parents, as well.

NOTE:  I nearly always add to my posts over time once they are published – best to come directly to this site to read the up-to-the-minute versions!

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+THE GENEVA CONVENTION – WE NEED WORDS TO PROTECT ABUSED CHILDREN

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Having just posted +WHAT MY MOTHER FORGOT TO WRITE IN HER NOVEMBER 1957 LETTERS, which follows the series of selections from my mother’s letters last week about me, ‘my clothes’ and my grandmother has led me in one direction, and one direction only.  While NO child should EVER have to experience abuse of any kind – no PERSON – abuse does continue to happen.

As I work toward the publication of my books I am realizing that some child abuse (and other domestic abuse situations) lie closer in their reality to conditions surrounding being held as a Prisoner of War than they do to any other situation we could think of.

I am including in this post the wording at the beginning of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.  Victims of severe infant-child abuse and other domestic violence victims are attacked by armed force.  While I don’t know if anyone has come up with a version of the Convention’s wording as it might relate to civilian attack, even reading these words as they were designed to address circumstances of adult armed conflict gives me a lot to think about as a survivor of my mother’s nearly unimaginable attacks of abuse against me over the 18 years of my infant-childhood.

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From the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 75 U.N.T.S. 135, entered into force Oct. 21, 1950.

PART I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1

The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.

Article 2

In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.

Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

Article 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:

1. Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.

2. The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.

C. This Article shall in no way affect the status of medical personnel and chaplains as provided for in Article 33 of the present Convention.

Article 5

The present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation.

Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.

READ REST HERE

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+WHAT MY MOTHER FORGOT TO WRITE IN HER NOVEMBER 1957 LETTERS

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This is what my mother forgot to say in her letters to her mother in November of 1957, two months after my sixth birthday when I was in the first grade.  She forgot to tell her mother that she had beat her skinny little daughter so hard that she could barely stand up and until it really hurt her to sit down.

She forgot to say that she left bleeding gashes in her little girl’s arm from digging her sharp fingernails into her skin as she dragged her around the kitchen while she beat her with her other fist.  She forgot to say that she slapped her face so hard it made her little girl’s nose bleed all over her crying face and into her mouth.  She forgot to say that she screamed her rage so loudly that if there had been any neighbors in hearing range maybe they would have come racing through the woods to see what all the terrible noise was about.

She forgot to say that she propped her little girl on the tall kitchen stool in the dark back hall and made her sit there while she returned to the kitchen to make everyone else some supper.  She forgot to say that the rest of the family ate all that good smelling food but Linda didn’t get any.  She forgot to say that Linda was ignored by everyone, even her father, not only during supper, but for all the time the dishes were being washed and the others watched TV and then went to happily off to bed after all the lights were turned off.

She forgot to say that her firstborn little girl spent the whole night awake even though she was very tired, sitting on that stool.  She forgot to say that her little girl’s stomach hurt very much, not because she was still so hungry, but because the terror stayed in there growing and growing and growing.

She forgot to say that her little girl needed to go to the bathroom but stayed frozen on that stool, terrified to move because she had been told to SIT THERE OR ELSE.

She forgot to say that she was a stupid, evil, very mean mother for buying a little girl who traveled more than two hours a day on a filthy Alaskan school bus some city girl’s turquoise jacket with white fake fur ruffs on the sleeves and around the bottom edges and inside the hood.  She forgot to say that it was IMPOSSIBLE for this little girl to find a way to keep this jacket clean but that didn’t matter and nobody told Linda THAT.

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+FOUND THE LETTER – not a good one

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Filling in the blank spots, and this one is about the turquoise coat – this letter was in the ziplock of undated letters – figured out where it goes [I had just turned 6, first grade]:

November 11, 1957

“Linda is driving us crazy.  Mom she’s a TOM BOY and acts as such at school.  I’m determined for her not to wear levis to school (most do).  But she ruins everything she wears:  tears, holes, ground in dirt.  She’s harder on clothes than John is!  I don’t dare let her wear skirt you sent except to Sunday school!  I’ve lectured, explained, preached and spanked.  Well, she no longer lies – I’m thankful for that and is sweet and helpful in house but oh you should see her come home!

Her beautiful turquoise jacket and white fur is filthy.  First day she ruined it, I washed it heartbroken (it’s a beauty and expensive) and made her wear old jacket for one week.  Then let her wear it again – same thing – and always blames other children!  I gave up.

Then I bought her a lovely pair of garbardine [sic] beige pants and plaid flannel – 5.00 and I need some myself as I only own levis (one pair).  Yesterday she came home and two holes right through in knees.  I never would’ve treated my clothes like that!

So levis for her!!  And she doesn’t care!  Why try?

Today I’m going to try to get refund on lay-a-way of her clothes to apply to others.  It’s no use – we can’t afford to buy her things to ruin first day.  Maybe when she’s older she’ll care!

Meanwhile oh how I need things.  I don’t even have overshoes yet – whole family is outfitted and I have no winter coat even or wool slacks.  I’m tired of it, believe me and Bill says nothing ‘til I have money.  Meanwhile Linda ruins her clothes! ! ! !

Well, from now on I think more of myself and less for her! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Must close.  Much love Mom and thanks a million for your letters.  Give love to Cahills and next I write to Charlie.  Give HIM my love Please!

P.S.  Forgot to tell you she was crawling on cement on school pretending she was a dog! ?”

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*Age 6 – Mother’s letter – purchase of the turquoise coat

*Age 6 – Jan. 1958 First Grade in Mother’s Letters

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+MY LESSON TODAY FROM THE ROSES: WHY MY LOVE RELATIONSHIPS FAILED

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I have been laying an adobe block ring around the Pomegranate tree today, which has placed me in an area of my yard working closest to the Ballerina Rose that is planted at the center of my walkway circle nearest what will hopefully be the door to my some-day adobe chapel.  Perhaps by spending this time today so nearby the roses, I have learned something new so that I can think about myself in a different way.

The Ballerina Rose grows on its OWN root.  It is not a rose that is grafted onto some other rose’s root not its own.  This means, as I’ve mentioned before, that unlike the grafted roses, the Ballerina can be reproduced from cuttings of itself.

As I pondered this difference between the roses I realized that all four of the ‘major’ love relationships I have had with men in my life were doomed to failure all for the same, single reason.  In relationship with each of these men I tried to graft myself onto THEIR root stock because I had no idea how to grow from my own root.

The first man I fell in love with when I was 18, the father of my firstborn child, was a California golden boy.  He was four years older than I was, brilliant, gorgeous  (beautiful tanned skin, sun-bleached blond hair, tall, well built), a popular playboy who knew how to party and enjoy himself, interact with other people, and came from a family with money.

The second man I met around age 20, the father of my second child, was also popular and well-liked.  He was calm and kind and gentle, dependable and a hard worker.  He had ‘roots’ around Fargo, North Dakota and I was convinced of two things:  He would be a wonderful father and I could stabilize my life by tying myself to him and his family as if he was my personal Rock of Gibraltar.

The third important man in my life I met when I was about 35.  He was Native American, and I thought he was ‘spiritual’.  I believed he was anchored into a heritage on this continent and with the earth that meant we could relate to one another from our souls.  He was ‘psychic’ and gifted in many ways, a Vietnam PTSD war veteran, but seemed to me wise and gifted.

The fourth man I met at the end of my 40s.  He is 17 years older than I am, has worked his same job for 55 years and has never left this small town area where he was born.  He seemed solid, wise and also stable and I counted on his perspective and insights on everything I ever chose to talk with him about.  I am still in love with this man though this relationship was obviously always doomed in terms of lack of commitment.

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I married and divorced the first two men.  None of these men are healthy and happy.  With the exception of the second man, the other three all came from very wounding childhoods.

But the lesson I am paying attention to today from the rose plants is that it wasn’t what I might have shared in common with any of these men that led to failed relationship.  I was looking in each case for a root I could attach and graft myself onto that represented what I felt I lacked within myself.  I was not growing from my own root as does the Ballerina Rose.

In my adult life I’ve never been able to ‘get away with’ anything or very long.  I don’t seem to have any kind of ‘luxury’ to fool myself, or wander very far down a ‘wrong road’.  It has been very difficult for me to realize that the abuse of my childhood meant that not only could I not grow my own branches out into the world, but I also had great difficulty growing my own healthy roots – MY OWN roots so that I would not have been misled into thinking I could ‘borrow’ from these men some part of THEIR life and being because I could not find what I needed in any other way.

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+FALSE STARTS AND BLIND INNER PROMISES

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There must be a post that needs to be written this morning that goes along with this title that is resounding within my mind this morning:  ‘False starts and blind inner promises’.  In thinking about the comment made to yesterday’s post about the beauty of tree burls and how as severe early abuse survivors we cannot grow our first early twigs out into the world because we are in continual danger of being attacked, and about how tree burls ARE formed in response to threats in the environment so that the growing tree must form scar tissue into itself – I am also thinking about how I feel ‘at dead center’ here in my home now, and in my yard.  I can only venture out once in a great while and when I do returning home within two or three hours seems to be essential for me to regain any calm equilibrium inside of myself.

I haven’t met my first grandchild yet who was born last March 11th.  I have three grown children all living in Fargo, North Dakota.  They want me to come up to visit them this summer, but the truth is that I cannot find a Linda who can make that journey.  I am not strong enough.  I don’t feel well enough.  Now they are talking about flying down to see me.

This all leads me to thinking about how at 58 years old, as a direct result of all the trauma I survived during the first 18 formative years of my life, I don’t so much not ‘have a leg to stand on’ as I ‘don’t have a limb to go out on’.  Yes, this also brings to mind ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’ and what happens ‘when the bough breaks’.

I knew about all of the rest of my ‘knowing’ about the implications contained in yesterday’s tree burl post, but I didn’t want to think about it and I didn’t want to write it.  I didn’t want to ‘be negative’ at the same time I didn’t want to be realistic.  I just wanted to END with the beautiful part and not acknowledge the serious ramifications and implications of growing a body-brain-mind-self in such a malevolent environment that most of who I had the potential to become was never able to branch out into the world and grow strong and true.

Being all bound up with my gifts, talents, strengths and abilities, with most of my potential hidden within the inside of me – rather than being expressed and formed and extended out into the ‘bigger world’ is a reflection of the physiological changes that happened to me as I tried to grow and development within the horribly toxic, threatening and truly dangerous world my mother created for me in my infant-childhood.

BUT I went off into that ‘bigger world’ at age 18 without having one single clue about what I had been through or about what had happened to me.  This is where the title for this post appears.  I have lived a life of ‘false starts’ and ‘blind inner promises’ because I had determination, a powerful will to do what it took to survive, to always move forward, to always do the best that I could as I organized my whole life on my most fundamental levels around trying to provide the best care I could for my children.

I was running blind.

I need to go outside this morning and trim the suckers that are growing in great masses at the base of my Pomegranate tree.  When my brother was here in April we completely decked the suckers, but they only came back as fast as they possibly could.  They grow thick and green like a thicket from the underground roots, but they are weak and wild and will not be productive as they crowd out the fruit-bearing branches and suck water and nutrients from the rest of the tree.

I had the thought in contrast to the tree burl image that in so many ways, being as blind as I was when I left home, that I simply set off into whatever direction I saw in front of me as I made decisions about my life and went off and ‘did things’.  Things could certainly have been far worse then they were, but now at age 58 most of what I have done appears to me now to be little more than a ‘false start’ like these tree’s suckers.

I had ‘blind hopes’ because I had no idea about who I was or what I wanted in my life.  I didn’t know what was possible, what was realistic, what motivated me, what I was searching for.  I could not miraculously form good strong fruit-bearing branches upon the tree-that-is-me at age 18.  I did not know about dissociation.  I did not understand that I could create branches in my life by going off in disconnected directions, spending the time of my life and my life force while I THOUGHT I knew what I was doing — but didn’t.

I don’t have a life history now of having continued to build a strong foundation of roots in my life, connected to a good strong self-trunk with wide healthy branches out there soaking in sunlight so I can celebrate my participation in my OWN ongoing life.

I have been burning up my inner resources all of my life and never knew it until now.  The amount of inner resources it took to endure and survive my childhood alone were probably equal to what a safe and securely attached person would use over the span of their entire lifetime.  When I tell my children now that I am ‘too tired to travel’ I know I mean exactly that:  I am resource-less rather than resource-full like my inner bank account is empty.

This, to me, is the long-term consequence that appears in so-called clinical terms as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that has all its own ‘suckers’ within me (depression, dissociation) that siphon off my strength.

Nobody stopped me at the threshold where I left my ‘childhood’ and crossed into my ‘adulthood’ and helped me take inventory of where I was coming from, how I had been formed, what I had endured, what had done to me, what I had to take with me and what I had left over after surviving hell itself.  Nobody then helped me to realize where and how I had to heal before I could move forward.

The major branches that I SHOULD have formed as a growing and developing self in a body were nearly ALL turned within.  I entered adulthood chasing after what I thought was a life as the life that had formed me chased after me – because it was all still inside of me.

While I am thankful I found resources to raise my children so that they are stable and able to continue to grow good, strong branches of self into their world and into their future, I have to say that my ability to take care of myself has been very limited.  Today even the chirping of birds can ‘irritate my nerves’ as I live and breath too close to the edge of continual sensory overload.  The world seems too busy, too fast, too loud, too noisy, too demanding, too stimulating — and far more than I can easily handle.

I live in a rural area.  Yet knowing that even the sound of a crinkling plastic bag irritates my senses as I remove a slice of bread lets me know that the body I formed growing up from birth in an environment of continual threat of harm and of harm itself is very real and has its own very real limitations that I was able to somehow ‘outrun’ during most of my adult life.  But I cannot do it now.

When we think about stopping child abuse, awareness of this kind of damage that child abuse often causes is what needs to motivate us.  There is long term physiological cost to surviving malevolent childhoods.  Yes, we are beautiful — but our ability to form a body-self that can grow our beauty out into the world with joy and wellness has been greatly injured by all the early wounds we have received.

No, I don’t want to have to say this.  No, I don’t want to have to know this.  No, I don’t want to have to live with these long term consequences that changed the physiology of this body I have to live in for my entire life.  But when any of us think that ‘infant-child abuse is a serious matter’, these changes, along with the difficulties and life-loss they create, are a great part of what we HAVE TO consider.

At the same time survivors of severe abuse deserve to know the degree of harm that was done to them so that they can more fully understand how their development and their entire life has been affected.  There is no magic band-aid to FIX the changes that happened to our body.  But there is information about these changes, how they affect us and how we can live better with the help of this wisdom.

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+SURVIVING MY MOTHER’S HATE – HER WORDS AND MINE

alchemynow2 Comments

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What can I possibly say in response to or in rebuttal against my mother’s words as posted earlier in +ANOTHER ‘NASTY GRAM’ FROM MY MOTHER TO HER MOTHER RE: 6 YEAR OLD ME:

November 26, 1957 Tuesday

“Dear Mother,

I am glad I wrote my recent letter and hope you fully understand so I won’t have to repeat myself in the future.  You’ve always been far overly concerned with LINDA’S actions anyways.  I am not nearly as concerned with ‘tom boyishness’ which is not as prevalent now anyways as with poor behavior in school and traits and personality.  It takes far more anyways than ‘a pretty dress and a pretty face’ to be nice. ”

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Because I actually FOUND these words written in my mother’s handwriting across a 50+ year old piece of paper the other night, they are now visibly lodged in my waking mind rather than ONLY being carved into my ‘invisible being’.

What these words reflect is my mother’s HATE for me.  They reflect the fact that I was born DOOMED as her daughter to a life in hell.  What these words reflect is the fact that my grandmother was the ONLY person in the universe who knew that fact.  Our move to Alaska effectively removed my grandmother’s influence from my life as I have mentioned before, yet his letter my mother wrote  even further banished Grandmother into the remotest distance away from me.

There is no place far enough away in the universe that I can run to or hide in to make these words go away, as much as I might wish to or think I SHOULD be able to escape them now.  It is the echo of these words within every fiber of my being that bothers me now.  I want to ignore them.  I want to pretend that things were somehow ‘different’ for me from the time I was born – but 18 years in hell, as I tried to grow and develop my body-brain-mind-self is a long, long, long time.

Every time during those 18 years that I tried to grow even the tiniest part of who Linda is – into my self and into the world – SHE was there to bash me, to crash me, to smash me.  HATE is a destructive power nearly beyond imagination, especially when an infant-child is hated by its own mother (and father, in my case).

The fact that I was at least able to access a little tiny bit of my Grandmother’s concern and affection (even though she must have had a major influence on creating the monster my mother was from the start) before I turned six when we left Los Angeles and moved to Alaska was the only life preserver I ever had except for the love my 14-month-older than me brother radiated upon me.

My body-brain internalized my grandmother’s influence on my behalf, but it clear as day that my mother HATED the fact that my grandmother loved me.  How could she NOT, given the fact that much of my mother’s demise was rooted in the ways and times that her mother despised her as she grew and formed.

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I don’t feel like I am standing at the gates of hell gazing at the devouring inferno’s flames as I try to write something in response to these words of my mother’s I just found in her letter.  I feel like I am standing in hell’s inferno itself, and there is nothing I can do to stop that fact because I have the first years’ of my life experience being exactly in that place.

But what about today?  I have a thought about burls growing on some trees in some forests.  I remember seeing those burls carved into bowls.  Those burls hold the most interesting and beautiful patterns of wandering wood grain within them.  I didn’t know as a child what formed those burls.  I guess I don’t really even know now.  But at least I have a glimmer of a grasp on the process.

As some trees grow in the forest, and send out their tiny new branches, sometimes something happens that causes the branch to turn around so that instead of it growing freely in its extension out into the air freely, it turns around and begins to grow back into itself.  That’s where those wandering lines of grain within the burls come from.

I feel like one of those burls this morning.  I can see that the resiliency of who I am and how I am in the world (and have been since I ‘got made’) – coupled with what little support I could glean from my brother and my grandmother – kept me alive so that I could endure and survive my mother.  But I had to grow my branches inward where my mother could not get to them-me – as best as I could.

Knowing that fact, and knowing my growing process was probably very similar to any other severe infant-child abuse survivor’s – I can see that within us is held the most beautiful patterns and lines, colors and swirls, the most spectacular wonder in the tracks of our survival that appear in the ‘burl’ that is us – that anyone could imagine.

A tree branch that turns around and grows into itself cannot be as easily seen as a fully stretched and reaching branch.  It is compact, and less vulnerable.  We (survivors) grew closest to the trunk that contains our very life force within it.  We grew closest to the root source that fed us life then and feeds us life now.  We must ACTUALLY have the very shortest route to take to find out who we truly as are separate, unique and wonderful individuals because we did not get to grow ourselves in any extended far reach into ‘that world out there’.

We perhaps did not lose ourselves in that outside world the way others who could romp and play, grow and thrive while being loved, cherished, supported, encouraged from the time they were born.  We are tough.  The wood grain of a burl is dense and hard, being close to a rock than any vegetable matter.  We had to be that strong, that tough, that endurable, that unbreakable, that self- and inwardly-protected – – and THIS special, unique and beautiful.

Which brings me back in my thoughts to my mother’s few brief words in her letter to her mother about me and my relationship both to my mother and to my grandmother.  There is an unbelievable universe of terrible abuse contained in those few words – as if they contain the terrible dark and destructive seed that was my mother’s hatred.  At the same time I read them, at the same time I can feel all the echoing and resonance within this body-brain-mind-self that formed itself within THAT hell, I also know that nothing my mother ever did to me – or ever could possibly do – could in any way remove from me ANY portion of who I AM as a human being.

My mother’s treatment of me DID change HOW I am in my lifetime because her treatment of me changed the way I physiologically grew and developed.  But she did not change ME.  I just grew into a different kind of branch, one with most of its health and beauty held close within me on the inside – exactly where she could never actually reach me.

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