Tag: child abuse prevention

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART THREE): ‘GROUPTHINK’ and ‘GROUPFEEL’

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Day two of the ‘frozen pipes’ saga.  As most readers know, I live in southeastern Arizona with the Mexican-American border wall (actually two fences here) in my back yard.  This is about as far south as I can go and still remain in the Western U.S.  Having been mostly raised on an Alaskan mountain homestead, and having spent much of my adult life around Fargo, North Dakota, I know ‘life in the north’.  But here?

As I mentioned, most of us in this rural area have no insulation in our houses and only the flimsiest of single-pane windows.  Last night our temperatures dropped to 5 degrees above with a windchill of minus 20.  Because of the lessons I thought I learned yesterday (as I mentioned in Part One) I was all geared up last night before I went to bed to do things RIGHT.

I thought about it and decided that rather than tax the hot water heater (and its corresponding gas bill) that it would probably be ‘good enough’ if I just left my cold water faucets running enough to keep them from freezing.  OK, but then comes the part I didn’t anticipate — along with some more DUMB LUCK.

My cold water was still running out of my faucets this morning — but!!!  I’m not sure how my luck allowed this to happen, but both of my sinks were filled within a quarter inch of their brim as the sewer lines appear to be frozen.

I did not anticipate THAT, and boy am I glad I didn’t wake up to completely flooded floors!

So, where is the problem?  In thinking about it, I really don’t know.  I don’t know if these frozen lines are ONLY MINE or if they are frozen just in this trailer court my house sits in the middle of or if they are frozen in this entire unincorporated little town of 700 people.  I COULD ask someone, but I am much more aligned personally with the ‘wait and see’ solution.

Meanwhile I notice the town itself is eerily quiet this morning.  Because over 98% of the town has connections in Mexico, I imagine that many families (if they are having problems in their homes similar to mine) simply packed up and headed south to their family there.

I know the poverty on THAT side of the border is far worse than it is on this side, but I also understand that even if all of the town’s water and sewer lines are frozen ‘down south’ that wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference to these people.  I have watched these families over the 11 years I have lived among them and know that BEING TOGETHER is their best solution to everything — good or bad.

And here I am, Ms. White Chick (not sure at 59 that I’m still a chick, but??) alone in my house wondering — thinking — about all of this.

Of course my children living in Fargo know cold (as I well remember it) far worse than ours here.  But they EXPECT the cold up there and are far better prepared in every way to cope with the problems it does and can create.  At this point in my life  ‘down south’ is where I choose to be — alone or not!

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This all has me thinking about how likely it seems to me that bonds that connect members of our social species evolved within environments where we directly and immediately NEEDED ONE ANOTHER.  Most importantly, WE KNEW THIS FACT!

In today’s very urban America it seems that perhaps many of us do not live lives where our need for one another IN THE BIG PICTURE remains on our mental ‘front burner’.  In thinking about the growing gaps in the world between those that HAVE more than they need materially in contrast to those that DO NOT HAVE enough of what they need, I also think (wonder about) the fact that what is true in the United States is equally true around the globe.

For the most part the wealth-gap planet wide exists between those in the NORTH versus those in the SOUTH.  This is demographically very true in the United States at the same time it is true around the globe with the economic well-being and lack of well-being split that exists between humans who live in the Northern hemisphere versus those that live in the Southern hemisphere.

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I am not a Scholar so I am not mentally prepared to contemplate the answers to the many questions I find myself asking about ‘life’ — particularly human life.  Due to the way my body-brain was changed in its physiological development due to severe, extreme, chronic terrible abuse and trauma from the time of my birth, I already DO KNOW that the way my OWN right and left brain hemispheres do not collect, process, store or contemplate any information in a ‘normal or ordinary’ way (like it is meant to and does with people who benefited from safe and secure attachment relationships in their earliest body-brain formative years).

I mention this because I can FEEL my own questioning in MY BODY.  My questioning exists probably primarily in my right brain hemisphere, fed by my feelings that my body feeds to my right brain — but my questions seem to lie mostly in some unseen vast deep ocean ‘over there’ where my rational, logical, linear, sequential, verbal language-based LEFT brain hemisphere can’t get to them!

Even this experience of WONDERING can be an extremely intense and difficult to regulate emotional state.  WONDERING — connected to HOPE on the one end and to FEAR and awareness of the unknown on the other.

I don’t expect that our species made huge progress toward survival by being stuck very often in the state of simply WONDERING.  WONDERING when the next big animal was going to pounce, or when the next rival tribe was going to appear for a competitive slaughter, or wondering where the herbs needed to heal MIGHT be — or wondering how to stay warm in the north, or wondering how to even care for a newborn — NOPE!  Minimal survival benefit to being stuck in the wondering stage UNLESS it can stimulate thinking toward a positive solution.

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BUT, for our species thinking ALONE probably had little to do with our mutual survival as a species unless the thoughts of the ONE were shared with the MANY.  I believe we are designed for this GROUPTHINK.  If I add here a fact that is primarily left out of the Western worldview way of thinking, and that is that FEELINGS are also a form of thinking without words, I would also say that GROUPFEEL is just as important as GROUPTHINK.  In fact, if feelings are left out of the equation for survival, we suffer from our own LEFT-RIGHT brain hemisphere split that in itself creates a form of poverty for humans individually and collectively.

When I feel-think this morning about the probable evacuation of many of my neighbors over the southern border as they seek to be among those closest to them right now in this rare cold spell and the problems it is causing, I am the one out-of-place in being alone.  As I think about the global economic North-South split I think about the cultural worldview differences that seem to mean that so many in the north are alienated from feeling-thinking unity in their own body as they are split off from feeling-thinking in GROUP.

That means to me that the true values that matter most are abundant within the economic poverty of the Southern arm of the human species, while these most important GROUPTHINK (groupfeel) connections are far more likely to be shattered into tiny fragments in the North.

If I think about HUMANS being HUMANS’ most important resource, it isn’t the isolated materialistic disconnected (even in one’s own body between feelings and ‘thoughts’ — body and mind) Northern (European-rooted-‘Western’-thinking) arm of our species that has kept this resource at the center of their lives, their value systems and their civilization.  If I connect my feeling thoughts with my word thoughts I know that being ‘a part’ (which is the foundational assumption in the mechanistic Western worldview) leaves us being apart from one another in profound ways that do not happen among members of our species who have NEVER truly adopted the Western worldview.

I can sit here alone, heating large pans of water to pour down my drain in hopes I can thaw frozen sewer lines IF they are frozen only at MY source, my house, all I want to.  At the same time my heart-of-hearts would much rather be ‘over the border’ in a different land so that I could be ‘a part’ of a much larger connected community.  I would rather be sitting in a tiny adobe house crammed with all ages of people from babies to old people joshing around in a sea of warmth, humor and community as we together pass time while a mutual solution is found to all problems one moment to the next using GROUPTHINK that INCLUDES GROUPFEEL

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART ONE): WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART TWO): FIRST, SELF-RECOGNITION

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+DISORGANIZED-DISORIENTED INSECURE ATTACHMENT – 2 ARTICLE LINKS

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This article provides an excellent, clear and informative description of the purpose of attachment systems and of the variations that can be noted in the attachment patterns of infants:

Explaining Disorganized Attachment:  Clues from Research on Mild-to-Moderately Undernourished Children in Chile

By Everett Waters and Marta Valenzuela — in J. Solomon & C. George (Eds). Attachment Disorganization. (1999) New York: Guilford Press  [See Table of Contents for this book]

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And – and interesting study on the early research toward the ‘disorganized/disoriented’ insecure attachment category:

“This study reanalyzed the attachment relationships of a sample of 12-month-old maltreated and nonmaltreated infants using the Main and Solomon (in press) classification system for disorganized/disoriented (Type D) attachments. As predicted, we found a preponderance of disorganized/disoriented attachments in the maltreatment group (82%). In contrast, only 19% of the demographically matched Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) comparison group exhibited such Type D relationships.”

Disorganized/disoriented attachment relationships in maltreated infants.

Carlson, Vicki; Cicchetti, Dante; Barnett, Douglas; Braunwald, Karen

Developmental Psychology, Vol 25(4), Jul 1989, 525-531.

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+24 HOURS LATER – MORE BAD NEWS FOR VULNERABLE CHILDREN

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I just wrote a post on about the wonderful results the Healthy Families project has been generating for at risk children in New York: +NEW YORK’S ‘HEALTHY FAMILIES’ PROGRAM — GREAT FINDINGS! However a day later this distressing news comes through from the Prevent Child Abuse New York blog:

Governor Cuomo’s Budget Proposal Eliminates Funding for Healthy Families New York

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed state budget eliminates funding for one of New York’s most cost-effective and cost-savings programs, Healthy Families New York home visiting. This proposal would dismantle a program that has a proven record of preventing child abuse and also would make New York ineligible for federal grants that would improve the lives of more of our states’ most vulnerable children and families.

Healthy Families New York (HFNY) serves at-risk pregnant and new mothers in 38 of the state’s highest need communities. Cost savings begin immediately with healthier babies delivered, and continue for years with fewer incidents of child abuse, lower child welfare costs, and greater success in school leading to less need for special education services.

“We are dismayed that the Governor proposes ending the Healthy Families New York program, given the proven outcomes for children and the potential for significant additional federal funding for the state,” said Christine Deyss, Executive Director of Prevent Child Abuse New York. “This action would undo 16 years of work to develop one of the best state systems for early childhood home visiting in the country.”

A seven-year randomized trial evaluation of HFNY demonstrates:

  • Low birth weight deliveries are reduced.
  • Children’s preventive health care is improved.
  • Physical abuse is reduced and parents’ use of non-violent discipline increased.
  • Parents at the highest risk have fewer founded cases of abuse and neglect.
  • Fewer children need special education or repeat a grade.
  • More children do well on standardized test and are in gifted programs.

The average annual cost to provide HFNY services to a family is about $4,600. For low birth weight babies, additional medical costs in the first year of life range from $25,000 to $90,000, primarily paid by Medicaid and state sponsored insurance plans. The average annual cost to the state for foster care for a child who has been abused is more than $24,000; total federal, state and local expenditures on child welfare services in our state are approximately $2.7 billion. Special education services more than double the cost of a child’s education.

For families who had prior histories of child abuse or neglect, the program generated a return of more than $3 for every dollar spent in seven years, due to reduced involvement with the child welfare system and other government programs.

Prevent Child Abuse New York brought Healthy Families New York to the state, and we’ll continue to fight to keep the program going. We need all the help we can get! Please join our movement to reinstate funding for HFNY. You can start by signing up for our e-newsletters and action alerts so you can stay up-to-date on the latest developments in what will surely be a long and difficult struggle on behalf of New York’s most vulnerable children.

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This is exactly what I have been posting about!  As if we should EVER have to beg for help for our nation’s children by assigning a dollar value to their lives — as if they are objects with price tags attached!!

See series:

WE the U.S. and the WORLD

AND – OH OUR POOR BABIES!!!

Veteran Suicides Outnumber US Military Deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan

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+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART TWO): FIRST, SELF-RECOGNITION

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My good guess is that we must have a SELF to be able to THINK. What are some of the identifiable developmental processes involved that allow the thinking self to appear?  We know that degrees of secure versus insecure attachment can be clearly measured by the time an infant is one year old.  The next stage of infant development that can be identified when it ‘comes online’ is what is called ‘self-recognition’ – which happens for our close primate relatives just as it does for human infants.

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— SELF RECOGNITION IN APES (video) [Especially note the point where the ‘little guy’ returns to his mother for the safe-secure attachment HUG!  At about at the 2:50 mark]

“Scientists believe self-recognition is essential for our survival.  We can live in large groups because we recognize similar features of our own in others.  We can tell friend from foe.  But is self-recognition uniquely human?  Show a monkey a mirror and it thinks its another monkey.  It attacks.  But how will our closer relatives, the great apes, react when faced with their own image?

“This three-year-old Chimpanzee has never seen a mirror before.  He’s not sure what to make of it.  Erect fur is usually a sign of fear or anger.  But his fear is soon replaced by curiosity.

“When chimps see themselves in mirrors the first time they naturally assume it’s another chimp the way a human being who has never seen their self before does, and begin to play with mirror image.”

“Soon this chimp will know it’s looking at it’s self, just like these older chimps.  They know exactly what mirrors do.

“This chimp appears to know that’s her tongue and those are her teeth.

“Chimpanzees seem to have a concept of a bodily self that allows them to look into a mirror and say, “THAT image is equivalent to THIS body.

“But how can we prove that humans and chimpanzees really identify the figure in the mirror as themselves?  Psychologists set a Wellman Test for this.  It’s called the Mark Test.  A researcher marks a child’s cheek.  The child then looks in a mirror.  He moves his hand up to the mark.  He recognizes himself.  By age two, half of all children can recognize their self.  Soon, they all do.

“So, can our ape cousins pass this test?  A keeper places a mark on a female orangutan.  Next, they put her in front of a mirror.  She has seen her reflection before, but this time she recognizes that something has changed.  Her hand goes to the mark.  All the great apes, gorillas, orangutans, chimps and bonobos, pass the mark test by a certain age.”

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— Sense of self and the “mark test” – infant and chimpanzee results (video)

– SELF RECOGNITION DEVELOPMENT (video)

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Here are some reading links to very early research that sought to clarify any link between infant maltreatment as it impacts the security or insecurity of infant attachment and an infant’s ability to first self-recognize.   After scanning through this information and other related research I quickly came to understand that researchers didn’t find that the quality of secure versus insecure attachment determines the developmental-maturational timeline along which any infant comes to self-recognize itself in the various mirror image ‘Mark Tests’, but it does effect the quality and nature of this first visual self-recognition by an infant.

Importantly, researchers did discover that the quality of attachment and degrees of maltreatment an infant has received DOES affect the emotional reaction an infant experiences and displays in response to its recognition of its own self in a mirror.

My next post will also present research that shows two other factors that ALSO appear to affect an infant’s emotional reaction to its first self-recognition that happens for all but a very few infants between the age 15 months and 2 years.  I believe both of these factors can be directly influenced by an infant’s experience of maltreatment that happen in CONJUNCTION with unsafe and insecure early infant-caregiver interactions.

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“…[This empirical study]  considered the interaction between affect and cognition, focusing on both security of attachment and the emergence of visual self-recognition (Schneider-Rosen and Cicchetti, 1984).  The sample consisted of 37 infants, all from families of low SES [socioeconomic status].  Of the infants, 18 had been maltreated while living in their natural homes, while 19 infants comprised the comparison group.  The infants ranged in age from 18 months to 20 months.  The mother-infant dyads were observed in the Strange Situation procedure, and infants were administered the standard mirror-and-rouge paradigm (Lewis and Brooks-Gunn, 1979) to assess visual self-recognition.

“It was found that 12 (67%) of the maltreated infants were classified as insecure…whereas 6 (33%) were classified as secure.  In contrast, 5 (26%) of the 19 matched comparison infants were classified as insecure…whereas 14 (74%) were classified as secure….

“An interesting pattern of findings emerged with regard to the interaction between maltreatment, quality of attachment, and visual self-recognition.  There were no differences in the number of maltreated and comparison infants who were able to recognize themselves.  For the group as a whole, infants who manifested visual self-recognition were significantly more likely to be securely attached to their caregivers.  A different pattern of results was revealed, however, when the maltreated and comparison infant groups wee analyzed separately.  Of the comparison infants who recognized themselves, 90% were classified as secure…  In contrast, there was no significant relationship between visual self-recognition and security of attachment for the maltreated infants.  Of those maltreated infants who recognized themselves (N=5), three were insecurely attached and two were securely attached to their caregivers.  These findings suggest that the effects of maltreatment may be sufficiently potent to disrupt the expected relationship between quality of attachment and visual self-recognition. The process by which maltreatment might have such an effect, however, has yet to be determined.”

— Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions (Foundations of Human Behavior) by Richard J. Gelles and Jane Lancaster (Dec 31, 1987) — (above is from pages 288-289)

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“Examined the association among child maltreatment, socioeconomic status (SES), visual self-recognition, and emotional responses to mirror images. Children were assessed cross-sectionally at 18, 24, and 30 mo. The nonmaltreated children spanned 2 SES groups (lower and middle), and the maltreated children came from the lower SES. Maltreated children did not differ from the lower- or middle-SES comparison children in the development of visual self-recognition. Differences between the samples were observed in the quality of affective reactions to mirror self-images. Hierarchical loglinear modeling was used to test for associations among the variables of self-recognition, age, SES, maltreatment, and affective reactions to mirror images (positive, negative, and neutral, as well as coy affective responses). Results are discussed in terms of the complex interactions among these variables, indicating that the ontogenesis of self-knowledge is determined by multiple interrelated influences.”  (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)  [bold type and underline added]

Early self-knowledge and emotional development: Visual self-recognition and affective reactions to mirror self-images in maltreated and non-maltreated toddlers.

Schneider-Rosen, Karen; Cicchetti, Dante

Developmental Psychology, Vol 27(3), May 1991, 471-478.

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+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART ONE): WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

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+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART ONE): WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

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I readily admit this:  My thinking today is happening in wide circles and loops, not unlike the course a high-flying kite might take as it sours, dips and changes directions erratically as it’s caught in strong and unstable wind currents.  This matters especially today because the trail I am trying to follow is exactly about HOW I THINK!

While at this moment I WANT to think about what I WANTED to think about, at the same time I am distracted by the fact that even though I live down south here in the U.S. on the Mexican border line, I also live at nearly a 5000 foot elevation.  This simply means that when the temperature drastically drops here at night – because I and many others in this region have NO insulation in our houses – our water pipes are at great risk of freezing.

Mine are frozen!

As I think about thinking about thinking I understand that I am the only one to blame for my frozen pipes.  I am the only person who lives in this house.  I looked online yesterday and saw our forecast for night temps down to 11°.  But I ‘forgot’ to pay attention to what I needed to do last night:  Leave my faucets open to allow water to move through my pipes all night.  I doubt they would be frozen now if I had NOT neglected to take that precaution.

Will my pipes burst?  A fear.  I don’t know.  Where are they blocked by ice?  I don’t know.  It’s hard not to fear the worst!

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My thinking is following an overall direction of trying to ‘get a handle’ on the fact that so many of our nation’s little ones and their families are increasingly suffering from deprivations and traumas while it appears that so few are noticing – let alone taking action to help them.

Did we as a nation – DO WE as a nation – notice this problem?  Do we anticipate what the far-reaching harmful consequences will be if the suffering of our offspring is not alleviated?  Do we know (as I did with my pipes!) what a solution would be?  How is it that so many in our nation seem perfectly capable of denying and/or ignoring the growing problems not only within our own nation, but across the globe?

When I ask myself how it was that I completely ‘forgot’ what I knew I had to do to protect my house’s water pipes, I can’t really find an answer!  I just plain ‘let it go’ and here I am with trouble!  How BIG a trouble I don’t know yet.

So, I am hanging in the balance between fear of the worst consequences and hope for the best.  My hope is that even though our day temperature today isn’t supposed to be very high, that at least the stream of sunshine will somehow (magically?) unthaw those pipes without any damage occurring.

I am at the “wait and see” point.

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But, WAIT!  I just discovered that in my bathroom on the east side of my house where the sun has been shining for hours already my pipes in THERE are flowing.  WHEW!  What a grateful sigh of relief!

Now, what about the pipes on the west kitchen side of the house?  Back to the waiting…..

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Which makes me think that given the economic troubles that are so contributing especially to the problems of increasing numbers of our nation’s little ones, and given the troubles that so many millions of other people around our globe have been and are facing, how long will our species have to wait before we see the full-blown potential of GREAT HARM to show that lets us all know we denied and ignored all the warning signs while there was still time for us to avert what might amount to global disaster?

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Given that I live in  the richest country on earth – and given that I have never traveled to see the suffering that billions of other people in other places on this globe endure – I ask myself, “What part do I play in contributing to problems in our nation and around our globe and what part might I be able to play in solving these problems?”

Because this is a two-part question, I am finding I have to look at the first part before I can move forward to consider the second part.  This seems to be an important process I feel I need to undertake because I don’t believe much in DUMB LUCK!  It’s only dumb luck that my house’s east pipes seem to be OK.  I would feel much better about myself if I had done my own responsible part in preventing my pipe problems in the first place!

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In response to the work I have been doing these past days with my posts (HERE) I am coming to understand that at this point that our national and global troubles are not without solution.  Yet what appears to be needed for us all to get busy on the plus-side of solving our problems might on the one hand be the SIMPLEST thing we can do AT THE SAME TIME it might be the HARDEST!

I say this because from my own ‘point of view’, from my own ‘worldview’, what all of us need to do – is, well – DO-ABLE!  What I am learning is that we, especially in America and in the richest global nations in Europe, evidently follow a societal-cultural WESTERN worldview pattern of thought (and corresponding pattern of actions) that we CAN examine, understand, evaluate – and CHANGE!

The other part of this picture is that we certainly aren’t going to do this if we see absolutely no reason to do so!

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Thinking about the frozen water pipes I imagine that it wasn’t ‘my job’ to go door-to-door last evening and warn my neighbors about the impending problems – or to tell them about the preventative solution.

My job was within my own boundaries.

Why would I CARE if my neighbors’ pipes froze?

What if I imagine that every individual dwelling near me was actually a nation?  If I take care of my nation and let others take care of theirs – where’s the problem?

What if taking care of my own pipes somehow meant that I had to harm my neighbors’?

Without repeating any of the information presented in my recent posts, I will just say that in fact what the rich nations of this globe are doing IS harming on BIG LEVELS!

Perhaps it will only be when the harm we are doing ‘to our neighbors’ pipes’ as we ‘take care of our own’ comes around in a boomerang-effect to spill the troubles, problems and damage right back inside our own nation’s boundaries that we give a real HOOT – enough to examine our own contribution to the whole mess worldwide and to help find a solution.

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I believe this is exactly what is beginning to happen.  Ask those on the poor end of our nation’s wealth-poverty dichotomy and they will say they’ve known all along.  Ask those on the richest end, and they are most likely to deny any responsibility for anything that troubles anyone else – anywhere.

For my part, I THINK I need to understand how I THINK about all of this.  Because I am bound up in a society that so profoundly influences my THINKING, I have to THINK about those influences, too.

But for the moment I will think about changing my mind.  Maybe there is such a thing as Dumb Luck!  All my pipes are thawed out now, and I didn’t say any flood of water spewing out from under my house, so I think I escaped the consequences of my lack of taking appropriate preventive action last night that tonight I vow I will.

Next post:

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART TWO): FIRST, SELF-RECOGNITION

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+CONTINUED HUMAN EVOLUTION: WE MUST LOSE THE BAD AND IMPROVE ON THE GOOD

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This series is a “for educational purposes only” presentation of information from the book, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina.  Medina writes:

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

“A few words should be said regarding the Baha’i idea of civilization.  Baha’u’llah wrote, “All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.  [Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, no. 104.2]”  Obviously, the civilization that is intended here is not the kind of civilization that was first conceived by Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, and other Western intellectuals who promulgated an anti-spiritual mentality.  Indeed, in the following passage, Baha’u’llah uses the words “infernal engine” in reference to Western civilization:

“In all matters moderation is desirable.  If a thing is carried to excess, it will prove a source of evil.  Consider the civilization of the West, how it hath agitated and alarmed the peoples of the world.  An infernal engine hath been devised, and hath proved so cruel a weapon of destruction that its like none hath ever witnessed or heard.  The purging of such deeply rooted and overwhelming corruptions cannot be effected unless the peoples of the world unite in pursuit of one common aim and embrace one universal faith.”  [Tablets of Baha’u’llah, page 69]

“In relation to the quote above, it is significant to note that capitalism, if anything, actually encourages immoderation.  For instance, it encourages the ideas of unbridled competition, insatiable desires, unrestricted individualism, boundless accumulation of wealth, and absolute freedom (laissez-faire).  It also promotes the cynical assumption that self-interest and profit motivation are the primary forces between individuals in society.  This ultimately leads to self-indulgence and greed.

“Fortunately, some Christians have begun to recognize that, in order to maintain a biblical perspective, they must challenge and transcend, in thoughts and actions, the existing socioeconomic materialistic paradigm.  For instance, Ron Sider, a professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, states,

“We need to ask, “Are we really biblical?”…  Cheap grace results when we reduce the gospel to forgiveness of sins only…when we embrace the individualism and materialism and relativism of our current culture….  [E]mbracing Jesus…means embracing [Him] as Lord as well as Savior….  [I]t means beginning to live as a part of his new community where everything is being transformed….  [T]he mission of the church is both to do evangelism and to do social ministry….  That means…a concern for justice for the poor.  It will mean concern for creation care [care for the environment], for human rights, and for peacemaking.”  [Ron Sider as cited by Stan Guthrie in “The Evangelical Scandal,” Christianity Today, April 13, 2005]

“In his recent book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience:  Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?, Sider maintains that many Christians have conformed their thinking and actions to the prevailing un-biblical materialistic paradigm.  This, he asserts, has seriously compromised their worldview and has crippled their ability to transform the society around them based on the Word of Christ.  Indeed, Sider cites a plethora [excess, abundance] of studies, polls, and statistics showing that many Christians live very much like the general American population in terms of materialism, hedonism, racism, sexual immorality, and other traits.  For instance, he shows that, even though today’s American Christians are the wealthiest generation of Christians in world history, their charitable giving, as a percentage of income, has gone down.  Sider also asserts that, as a group, they do not take care of the poor.  He points out that, in particular, the tithing of Christian Evangelicals (the group most likely to attend church regularly) has gone down every year for several decades.  He argues that these negative conditions will persist so long as mammon (money) remains on the throne as the idol of worship.  [See:  Ron Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience:  Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?]

“It is also troubling to note that considerable numbers of Christians now subscribe to a point of view that merges their religious beliefs with a staunchly nationalistic, capitalistic ideology that often promotes and defends the American-dominated global economic order even at the expense of other nations and peoples.  Regarding this, S.R. Shearer, an Evangelical Christian who runs his own ministry, points out that it is truly disturbing and ironic that capitalist ideology enjoys a significant amount of support from Christian Americans.  He maintains that it is virtually impossible for Christians to justify the immorality of the American-dominated capitalist global order [he calls it the “American New World Order System”], especially in light of the following passages from the Bible:

Lay not up for yourselves measures upon the earth….  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven….  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also…  Matthew 6:19-21

[I]f thou wilt be perfect, go sell (all) that thou hast, and give it to the poor,…and come and follow me [Christ]. Matthew 19:21

No servant can serve two masters:  for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.  Ye cannot serve God and mammon [material wealth or possessions]. Luke 16:13

“Many Americans, including many religious believers, may believe that our cultural paradigm is fundamentally sound and that we can resolve our global problems simply by implementing an assortment of reforms, adjustments, and tweeks to the system here and there.  Such attempts to reform the system, however, without confronting the underlying destructive materialistic worldview are tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Solutions to our global problems cannot be found within the same despiritualized system that created these problems.

“Based on information provided in this chapter [see links below to previous posts], it should be evident that some of the people who have been most negatively impacted by the immoderation of Western civilization have been the indigenous peoples of the Americas.  Indeed, countless indigenous cultures have been decimated by the relentless wayward march of the West.  This destructive process has continued even into modern times.  For instance, the genocide against the Guatemalan Mayan Indians and the “water wars” against the Indian people of Bolivia (both of these situations were described earlier) are good examples of this destructive process.

“It is important to note that man Latin American nations have very large populations of American Indians, and in fact, in some countries, Indians make up the majority of the population.  Unfortunately, Indians throughout Latin America continue to face deeply ingrained racism on the part of Whites (people of European descent) who still wield disproportionate levels of economic, political, and social power.

“In light of the information above, it is truly fascinating that, as noted earlier, ‘Abdu’l-Baha prophesied that if the Indians become “educated and guided” in the teachings of Baha’u’llah, “there can be no doubt that they will become so illumined as to enlighten the whole world.”  [see:  ‘Abdu’l-Baha, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, (1965) page 16]  Considering the fact that the indigenous people of the Americas are now some of the most impoverished and marginalized peoples in the world, this prophetic passage seems truly remarkable.  This may be a case of God using the downtrodden and dispossessed to show the true power of spirituality to positively transform the material world.

“In 1977, a group of Indian people presented three papers to some of the nongovernmental organizations of the United Nations located in Geneva, Switzerland.  In these documents, the American Indian authors raised “a call for a consciousness of the Sacred Web of Life in the Universe.”  The passage below is an excerpt from one of these documents.  Please note the similarity between the sentiments expressed by Baha’u’llah in the quote above and the sentiments expressed by the indigenous authors of the statement below:

“Today the species of Man is facing a question of the very survival of the species.  The way of life known as Western Civilization is on a death path on which their own culture has no viable answers.  When faced with the reality of their own destructiveness, they can only go forward into areas of more efficient destruction.  The appearance of Plutonium [nuclear technology] on this planet is the clearest of signals that our species is in trouble.  It is a signal which most Westerners have chosen to ignore….  The air is foul, the waters poisoned, the trees are dying, the animals are disappearing.  We think even the systems of weather are changing.  Our ancient teachings warned us that if Man interfered with the Natural Laws, these things would come to be.  When the last of the Natural Way of Life [traditional Native way of life] is gone, all hope for human survival will be gone with it.  And our Way of Life is fast disappearing, a victim of the destructive processes….  Our essential message to the world is a basic call to consciousness.  The destruction of the Native cultures and people is the same process which has destroyed and is destroying life on this planet.  The technologies and social systems which have destroyed the animal and the plant life are also destroying the Native people.  And that process is Western Civilization which old the promise of unimaginable future suffering and destruction.  Spiritualism is the highest form of…consciousness.  And we, the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, are among the world’s surviving proprietors of that kind of consciousness.  We are here to impart that message.”  [see:  Akwesasne Notes, ed., Basic Call to Consciousness (1978), pages 77-78]

“True solutions will have to be based upon perspectives, ideas, values, and assumptions that lie outside the confines of the prevailing Western view of reality.  In this regard, Baha’is believe that the teachings of Baha’u’llah are intended to create an entirely new peaceful, just, and unified global order that will wipe away, at their very root, the maladies of the current age.  The following passage from the Baha’i writings eloquently enunciates this concept of renewal:

“The call of Baha’u’llah is primarily directed against all forms of provincialism, all insularities and prejudices.  If long-cherished ideals and time-honored institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines.  Why should these, in a world subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution?  For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.”  [see:  Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u’llah, (1991) page 42]  (above from Medina’s book, pages 196-202)

Next post:  Moving Toward a Holistic View of Reality

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Recent related posts:

+HERE’S A TAKE ON THE RICH RICH RICH RICH AND THE POOR POOR POOR POOR

+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

+WHERE THE BAD PEOPLE HIDE: ‘AMERICA FAR WORSE THAN A BULLY’

+CRITICISM NOT ALLOWED IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD

+MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS — ECONOMIC VAMPIRES WORLDWIDE

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+CRITICISM NOT ALLOWED IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I never once had the thought during my 18-year abusive infant-childhood that there was any other kind of parent different than mine were.  I was sequestered within a total environment of trauma that had never allowed me to learn to think either subjectively or objectively about my own experience in relation to anybody else’s different kind of experience.  There was only ONE WAY to see the world, and that was my abusive mother’s way.  She held control over every inlet and outlet of my life, and her control of me was absolute and unswerving.

In my mother’s black-and-white world I was the all-black-one and everyone else was all-white.  Because there was never any break in the trauma I experienced, and because no deviation from my mother’s dictates was ever allowed, I never knew anything like GREY actually existed.  And perhaps because I know so intimately what it feels like (and IS like) to be completely ‘demonized’, I tend to make every possible allowance I can find not to ‘criticize’ anyone else.

There was no balance of any kind in the environment that built me.  Conceiving of a world where very real malevolence exists AT THE SAME TIME that true benevolence ALSO exists at the same time, in the same place is very hard for me to do.  I believe that being raised in a completely abusive Borderline universe makes the Borderline’s inability to tolerate either ambiguity or paradox seem like a fact of reality that everyone accepts.

Trying to live in a different kind of world that accepts the reality that good and bad exist together along with a zillion degrees of mixtures of the two in between often makes me feel as if I am walking completely blind through human-influenced experiences of all kinds that I do not understand.

DARING to criticize my own nation makes me feel like a traitor who will be exposed at any moment – and punished for both my daring and for my criticism.  My severe trauma-built body-brain makes sure that I remember one thing – and it tells me this is the truth whether I ever would have dared to criticize my mother or if I dare to criticize America:  “The bigger they are they harder the hit!”

I was completely setup to shutup.  There never was a middle ground, not even enough for me to be able to identify my own feelings or to have my own thoughts about my experience growing up.  Being entombed absolutely alone in a living tomb of silence is VERY SCARY.  Daring to criticize ‘my nation’ now is stimulating everything I know about threat-to-life if I challenge the status quo.

It was obvious to me that the entire world was on the side of my mother, including my father, my siblings, my teachers, any neighbors we ever had, even my grandmother who was ‘forced’ to give up trying to intercede against my mother on my behalf.  Because my mother was always RIGHT, and because I have accepted the cultural dictate in this nation that America is also always RIGHT – who do I think I am to dare to question otherwise?

And yet it seems to be my concern for the millions of infants, children and their families that are suffering in very real ways within our nation today that is giving me the permission I need to ask in my compassion for THEM, “What is WRONG here?”  Along with the ideas I presented in my earlier post today about ‘betrayal trauma’ comes my own conflicts about daring to notice something is wrong, daring to ask the question, and about daring to look at the ugly side of the history and ongoing practice our nation displays in allowing some people to thrive while others needlessly suffer and perish – both within our own boundaries and around the globe.

Am I betraying my own nation by entertaining the idea that America is far from perfect?

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Previous posts in the last 24 hours:

+HERE’S A TAKE ON THE RICH RICH RICH RICH AND THE POOR POOR POOR POOR

+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

+WHERE THE BAD PEOPLE HIDE: ‘AMERICA FAR WORSE THAN A BULLY’

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+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

alchemynowLeave a comment

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For all the severe trauma, neglect, abuse and malevolent treatment I endured during the first 18 years of my life, I have yet to thoroughly explore the topic of the book I am highlighting here today as it applies to my own life.  I have known for many years that I had no relationship with my mother or father that was outside the range of what is described as a ‘trauma bond’ or as a ‘betrayal bond’.  I had no safe and secure attachment relationship with ANYONE during those 18 years.  I have evidently taken that fact so fore granted that it is only now as I continue to explore the CONTEXT of the Bigger Picture in which the trauma that happened to me within that I am NOW directly faced with either paying some attention to what these kinds of bonds actually are – or not.

From a rather detached point of view I find it intriguing to learn this about myself:  I did not move to the point where I could directly consider these damaged-damaging kinds of bonds UNTIL I reached a point where my interest and concern became focused not on my own story, but rather on the suffering of OTHER infants and children CURRENTLY trying to grow up in our nation as they suffer from all kinds of deprivations and traumas within malevolent environments.

As I noted in some of my recent posts, it is within the CONTEXT and within the Bigger Picture that I share the overwhelming suffering of my abusive-traumatic infant-childhood with LOTS of other people.  These ‘other people’ are NOT only grownups.  They are ALSO infants, toddlers, childrens and teens who are suffering NOW – in real-time.  As I have pursued my own understandings about what happened to me from the PAST on into the present real-time moment, all boundaries and distinctions I might have had about ‘my suffering’ and the suffering of others have vanished.

In this dissolution of distinctions about suffering I am left taking a closer look at the conditions within our American nation that are not only allowing growing numbers of our offspring to suffer, but that are contributing to this suffering.  I realized a long time ago that especially in regard to infant abuse our culture has built into itself such a taboo against harming little ones that we don’t even want to THINK about let alone TALK about the fact that infant abuse does happen!

Now I feel like I am broaching yet another taboo subject – what is wrong with America.  As I take a look at this subject I feel I am wandering around alone in a very dark bramble thicket – but I will not change my direction.  Forward I go, no matter how uncomfortable this stage of my journey is.

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I will be continuing to post further excerpts from the book I introduced in last evening’s post, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina.   At the same time I admit to myself I am reaching WAY OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE as I tackle the information Medina presents.  My realization is that I am unable to make any further progress toward understanding suffering in the context of the nation I am a part of if I don’t at the same time understand that I have a BETRAYAL BOND with America.

As members of a social species we are programmed in our DNA to seek protection by being with others of our kind.  We are most comfortable being a part of the larger group at the same time that our innate physiological attachment ‘wiring’ makes certain that if we move too far out of our ‘group comfort zone’ – we will FEEL IT as discomforting, threatening and downright scary!  We will feel this threat in terms of lack of safety and security at the same time our attachment systems go into full play.

I suspect that most people instinctively align themselves with their own nation in the same way that infants and children align themselves with the caregivers they are dependent on for protection-need fulfillment.  Dependency based on NEED can be a powerful force that keeps us even as adults from asking questions and surveying factual information that MIGHT BURST OUR BUBBLE about anyone we are reliant on for protection-need fulfillment – including facts about our own nation.

In this context of examining context I present the following information on ‘betrayal bonds’.  This information comes from this book:

The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships (1997) by Patrick J. Carnes

Product Description

Patrick Carnes presents an in-depth study of exploitive relationships: why they form, who is most susceptible, and how they become so powerful. He explains to readers how to recognize when traumatic bonding has occurred and provides a checklist so they can examine their own relationships. Included are steps readers can take to safely extricate themselves or their loved ones from these situations.

In Carnes’ introduction to his book he states:

“Betrayal.  A breach of trust.  Fear.  What you thought was true – counted on to be true – was not.  It was just smoke and mirrors, outright deceit and lies.  Sometimes it was hard to tell because there was just enough truth to make everything seem right.  Even a little truth with just the right spin can cover the outrageous.  Worse, there are the sincerity and care that obscure what you have lost.  You can see the outlines of it now.  It was exploitation.  You were used.  Everything in you wants to believe you weren’t. Please make it not so, you pray.  Yet enough has emerged.  Facts.  Undeniable.  You sizzle with anger.

Betrayal.  You can’t explain it away anymore.  A pattern exists.  You know that now.  You can no longer return to the way it was (which was never really as it seemed).  That would be unbearable.  But to move forward means certain pain.  No escape.  No in-between.  Choices have to be made today, not tomorrow.  The usual ways you numb yourself will not work.  The reality is too great, too relentless.

Betrayal.  A form of abandonment.  Often the abandonment is difficult to see because the betrayer can be still close, even intimate, or may be intruding in your life.  Yet your interests, your well-being is continually sacrificed.

Abandonment is at the core of addictions.  Abandonment causes deep shame.  Abandonment by betrayal is worse than mindless neglect.  Betrayal is purposeful and self-serving.  If severe enough, it is traumatic.  What moves betrayal into the real of trauma is fear and terror. [my note:  I would add here that trauma is ALSO about overwhelming helplessness, hopelessness and great pain and suffering!] If the wound is deep enough, and the terror big enough [and great pain and suffering], your bodily systems shift to an alarm state.  You never feel safe.  You’re always on full-alert, just waiting for the hurt to begin again.  In that state of readiness, you’re unaware that part of you has died.  You are grieving.  Like everyone who has loss, you have shock and disbelief, fear, loneliness and sadness.  Yet you are unaware of these feelings because your guard is up.  In your readiness, you abandon yourself. Yes, another abandonment.

But that is not the worst.  The worst is a mind-numbing, highly addictive attachment to the people who have hurt you. [my note:  Addictive physiological patterns use the same chemicals and body-brain routes that human attachment does.  When our earliest caregiver attachments hurt us, our body-brain had no choice in the beginning of our life to alter the way our attachment patterns built us and built themselves into us in our early unsafe and insecure human environment.] You may even try to explain and help them understand what they are doing – convert them into non-abusers.  You may even blame yourself, your defects, your failed efforts.  You strive to do better as your life slips away in the swirl of the intensity.  These attachments cause you to distrust your own judgment, distort your own realities and place yourself at even greater risk.  The great irony?  You are bracing yourself against further hurt.  The result?  A guarantee of more pain.  These attachments have a name.  They are called betrayal bonds.

Exploitive relationships create betrayal bonds.  These occur when a victim bonds with someone who is destructive to him or her.  Thus the hostage becomes the champion of the hostage taker, the incest victim covers for the parent and the exploited employee fails to expose the wrongdoing of the boss. {my note:  I am also becoming very clear that, against all our nation’s social taboos about ‘thinking this way’, that our nation itself is allowing an abusive exploitive relationship to continue to grow between ‘the rich and the poor’.  I have a betrayal bond-attachment (as I suspect most of us do) to my own nation!] Sexual exploitation by professionals – such as in the Father Porter case, the Pied Piper phenomenon at Jonestown, and the kidnapping of the children from the school bus at Chowchilla – grab national attention.  Yet the bonds formed in those situations have much in common with the experiences most of us have.

We typically think of bonding as something good.  We use phrases like male bonding and marital bonds, referring to something positive. [my note:  and ‘the mother-infant bond’ – the following bold type is mine] Yet bonds are neutral.  They can be good or bad.  Consider destructive marriages as in War of the Roses in which the attachment results in a mutually destructive bond that cannot be broken.  Partners cannot leave each other the bond is so strong, even when they clearly know the risks.  Similarly, adult survivors of abusive and dysfunctional families struggle with bonds that are rooted in their own betrayal experiences.  Loyalty to that which does not work, or worse, to a person who is toxic, exploitive or destructive to you, is a form of insanity.

A number of signs indicate the presence of a betrayal bond:

1.  When everyone around you has strong negative reactions, yet you continue covering up, defending or explaining a relationship.

2.  When there is a constant pattern of nonperformance and yet you continue to believe false promises.

3.  When there are repetitive, destructive fights that nobody wins.

4.  When others are horrified by something that has happened to you and you are not.

5.  When you obsess over showing someone that he or she is wrong about you, your relationship or the person’s treatment of you.

6.  When you feel stuck because you know what the other person is doing is destructive but believe you cannot do anything about it.

7.  When you feel loyal to someone even though you harbor secrets that are damaging to others.

8.  When you move closer to someone you know is destructive to you with the desire of converting them to a non-abuser.

9.  When someone’s talents, charisma or contributions cause you to overlook destructive, exploitive or degrading acts. [my note:  Alas, I am also ‘reading’ patterns here that describe the nation I am a part of]

10.  When you cannot detach from someone even though you do not trust, like or care for the person.

11.  When you find yourself missing a relationship, even to the point of nostalgia and longing, that was so awful it almost destroyed you.

12.  When extraordinary demands are placed upon you to measure up as a way to cover up that you’ve been exploited.

13.  When you keep secret someone’s destructive behavior toward you [my note:  and I would add in the case of our nation ‘against others’] because of all the good they have done or the importance of their position or career.

14.  When the history of your relationship is about contracts or promises that have been broken and that you are asked to overlook.

Divorce, employee relations, litigation of any type, incest, child abuse, family and marital systems, domestic violence, hostage negotiation, kidnapping, professional exploitation and religious abuse all are areas that reference and describe the pattern of betrayal bonding.  They have in common situations of incredible intensity, or importance, or both. [my note:  I place our ‘national allegiance’ in this same category when the wealth and interests of the few causes great harm to the desperate many] They all can result in a bond with a person who is dangerous and exploitive.  Signs of betrayal bonding include misplaced loyalty, inability to detach and self-destructive denial. [bold type is mine]

If you are reading this book, a clear betrayal has probably happened in your life.  Chances are that you have also bonded with the person or persons who have let you down.  Now here is the important part:  you will never mend the would without dealing with the betrayal bond.  Like gravity, you may defy it for a while, but ultimately it will pull you back.  You cannot walk away from it.  Time will not heal it.  Burying yourself in compulsive and addictive behaviors will bring no relief, just more pain….

You can click on this title and go to Amazon.com to explore the Table of Contents and other pages, as well.  I haven’t read the book yet as I just discovered it in my searching today.  I will either locate a copy through my local library or buy one for myself.  The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships (1997) by Patrick J. Carnes

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+FOUND A GREAT USER-FRIENDLY ABUSE-TRAUMA RECOVERY WEBSITE!

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I found this excellent website this morning that has lots of clear accurate information-packed pages related to abuse and trauma — HELPGUIDE.org

Healing Emotional and Psychological Trauma — Symptoms, Treatment, and Recovery

What is emotional and psychological trauma?

Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless and vulnerable in a dangerous world.

Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and alone can be traumatic, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized.

A stressful event is most likely to be traumatic if:

  • It happened unexpectedly.
  • You were unprepared for it.
  • You felt powerless to prevent it.
  • It happened repeatedly.
  • Someone was intentionally cruel.
  • It happened in childhood.

Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by single-blow, one-time events, such as a horrible accident, a natural disaster, or a violent attack. Trauma can also stem from ongoing, relentless stress, such as living in a crime-ridden neighborhood or struggling with cancer.

Risk factors that increase your vulnerability to trauma

People are also more likely to be traumatized by a new situation if they’ve been traumatized before – especially if the earlier trauma occurred in childhood.

Childhood trauma increases the risk of future trauma

Traumatic experiences in childhood can have a severe and long-lasting effect. Children who have been traumatized see the world as a frightening and dangerous place. When childhood trauma is not resolved, this fundamental sense of fear and helplessness carries over into adulthood, setting the stage for further trauma.

Childhood trauma results from anything that disrupts a child’s sense of safety and security, including:

* An unstable or unsafe environment

* Separation from a parent

* Serious illness

* Intrusive medical procedures

* Sexual, physical, or verbal abuse

* Domestic violence

* Neglect

* Bullying

Symptoms of emotional and psychological trauma

Following a traumatic event, most people experience a wide range of physical and emotional reactions. These are NORMAL reactions to ABNORMAL events. The symptoms may last for days, weeks, or even months after the trauma ended.

Emotional symptoms of trauma:

* Shock, denial, or disbelief

* Anger, irritability, mood swings

* Guilt, shame, self-blame

* Feeling sad or hopeless

* Confusion, difficulty concentrating

* Anxiety and fear

* Withdrawing from others

* Feeling disconnected or numb

Physical symptoms of trauma:

* Insomnia or nightmares

* Being startled easily

* Racing heartbeat

* Aches and pains

* Fatigue

* Difficulty concentrating

* Edginess and agitation

* Muscle tension

These symptoms and feelings typically last from a few days to a few months, gradually fading as you process the trauma. But even when you’re feeling better, you may be troubled from time to time by painful memories or emotions—especially in response to triggers such as an anniversary of the event or an image, sound, or situation that reminds you of the traumatic experience.

This appears to be a very user-friendly site.  I found a host of informative articles HERE.  Great site!

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+AGAINST ALL ODDS — HERE I AM!

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I know I share with others my great difficulty in understanding much adult so-called humor.  I know part of the reason for this comes from my own traumatic very inadequate and scrambled-up early experiences with preverbal and verbal language.  Most words I heard directed at me from birth were contained in the context of severe emotional, psychological, verbal and physical violence and abuse.  That I grew up hearing other people in my family talking to one another in an entirely DIFFERENT context was of only vicarious use to me.

Along with the consequence of trauma and malevolent treatment in our very earliest months and years of life that doesn’t built our right limbic emotional regulation areas of our brain RIGHT comes built-in confusion that doesn’t allow us to understand or to ‘read’ other people’s SOCIAL cues, either.  REAL humor in humans is a signal of optimal environmental conditions.  Humor that is NOT truly funny, that does NOT connect itself to the happy center in the left brain that’s built birth to age one, is NOT really funny!

Many of us who cannot easily (or ever) come up with an instantaneous ‘witty’ comeback for other people’s supposed humor are often the same people who suffered greatly in our earliest years where very little was EVER funny.  Being the subject or brunt of someone’s ‘jokes’ can often be a victimizing experience for us in a war that is far too familiar to us.

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Infant-child abuse survivors were victims of bullying usually by the same people who were SUPPOSED to protect and care for us.  I know I have mentioned the following before on my blog, but I am going to describe this one more time – and then move past this ugly segment of my life forever.

When I was diagnosed with advanced aggressive breast cancer in July 2007 I began chemotherapy treatment with a local oncologist.  I went through the chemotherapy which were completed prior to surgery in December 2007 (which showed that there was a second cancer in the same breast).  I had HER positive cancer, so also went through a year of Herceptin treatments which ended July 2008.  At that time my ‘treatments’ were completed, and I saw my oncologist one last time.

By this time I was completely worn down at the same time all of my infant-child abuse-related ‘disabilities’ were in high gear (major treatment resistant lifelong depression, dissociation and PTSD).  What I received as a ‘parting gift’ from my oncologist was this:

He left the examining room while I dressed, and when I stepped out the door into the hallway there was the doc standing there like a predator waiting to attack me and to crush any hopes I might have had that this past year had thwarted my cancer.  He said – and these are his exact words – “I wouldn’t bother having breast reconstruction if I were you.  You won’t live long enough to enjoy them.  And besides, we will just have to cut them off again when the cancer comes back.”

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I have lived under the dark shadow and burden of that bullying, verbally and emotionally abusive cloud ever since.  I had NOTHING to say back to that man.  Finally in late December 2010 I choose to find a decent doctor – which I did in Tucson – and to request a scan that would let me know NOW if there is any cancer detectable in my body.

The scan was last Thursday.  The results came through yesterday, and there is NO SIGN, absolutely NO SIGN of ANY cancer in my body.

My eyes opened this morning as I looked at my clock.  4:16 a.m.  My first thought was, “I am cancer free.”

The relief I feel is beyond my words to describe.  I felt like a character in the movie, “Ground Hog Day.”  My life can move forward into the future from this moment on.

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My life was dependent upon that mean doctor.  I have no way to comprehend inside of myself WHY he did what he did or WHY he said what he did.  That kind of action toward another human being is EVIL as far as I can tell – and those who read my blog know I NEVER use that word lightly.

That I could take no action to defend or to protect myself from his words OR to respond to them is NOT a reflection on me personally.  Yet I do believe it is a reflection of the way my body-brain was built in response to horrific, unbelievable trauma and abuse from my birth and for the next 18 years.

My body-brain was built while I was continually suspended between life and death.  My mother made sure of that.  What I DID was endure – and I survived all she had to heave against me.

I have done the same thing these past three years post-evil-doctor’s condemning words.  But not any more.  I woke today in a different world, a world in which at least for now I am assured that my body isn’t being attacked from the inside-out – nor am I being attacked from the outside-in.

Like many, many early trauma and abuse survivors I HATE seeking medical care.  I did not begin receiving mammograms when I should have.  Because I now know that early abuse and trauma is one of the LEADING RISK FACTORS for breast cancer, I especially urge all women to GET THEIR MAMMOGRAMS.

My cancer had been growing approximately three years before it was found.  It was found ONLY because I did an aerobic workout after which my left arm swelled instantly to three times its size.  My sister INSISTED I go to a doctor.  This swelling was from lymphodema caused by cancer blocking my lymph nodes.

The cancer began at the same time the last of my children left home.  Within a short period of time I lost my business and my home.  I also had NO CLUE about all of the things I now understand about insecure attachment and infant-child abuse and how it changes our physiological development.

I am MUCH wiser now – but that will (to me) NEVER mean that I can fight back against mean people.  Abilities to know the difference between who to trust and who not to, to know who is safe and who isn’t, to have hope – are all abilities that begin to form themselves into an infants growing body-brain by two months of age.  If our earliest attachment environments and PEOPLE in them are/were AWFUL, none of these circuits and pathways build themselves into us in a PRIMARY way.

We are as a consequence ALWAYS at risk for being targets of abuse in our life.  I DO NOT take this to mean in the usual way that we are ‘victims’.  We need to understand that the way our physiological development changed in response to early abuse and trauma means that we do not have OPTIMALLY-built ways to detect the difference between who/what is safe and who/what is not.

Not to be able to trust an oncologist who’s expertise carried me through a very real threat-to-life cancer treatment regime is nearly as hard to believe as it is to believe that my mother (and all others who did not STOP her) could do to me what was done to me from the time I was born.

I endured again.  Here I am.  HERE I AM and I will continue to be HERE hopefully against all odds.  I never did care about getting breast reconstruction.  What I wanted to know NOW is whether or not I can invest in more roses, if I can invest in building a chicken coop so I can get a couple of chickens and maybe a rabbit, if I can take piano lessons…..

YOU BET I CAN!

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