Tag: child abuse

+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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+THE HUMAN RACE IS GROWING UP – WE CAN’T IGNORE OUR GROWING PAINS

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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:

Moving Toward a Holistic View of Reality

“When one considers the egregious [conspicuous, flagrant] level of abuse, corruption, and exploitation prevalent in the world today, it becomes quite clear that it is impossible to build a well-functioning world order on the defective foundation of global capitalism.  As stated in the Baha’i publication, Century of Light, Western civilization has erected a capitalist-based global system that is “morally and intellectually bankrupt.” [page 135]  Fortunately, the Baha’i Faith is not alone in recognizing this.  Indeed, as detailed in my first book, Faith, Physics, and Psychology:  Rethinking Society and the Human Spirit, a diversity of movements from various fields of study (including economics, psychology, physics, religious studies, history, medicine, education, sociology, political science, and others) have started to challenge the underlying ideologies, theories, and philosophies of Western civilization.  Within this context, capitalism itself, the golden idol of many modern people, has come under intense scrutiny and criticism.

“The various movements that are challenging the Western paradigm are based on worldviews that are radically different from the Cartesian-Newtonian worldview.  Like the Baha’i perspective, these movements maintain that, before we can resolve the major social, economic, political, and environmental problems facing us, we must leave behind the false, materialistic, Cartesian-Newtonian view of reality.  Also, like the Baha’i Faith, such movements assert that we need to adopt a holistic view of reality that is capable of recognizing the oneness of humanity and the oneness of the cosmos and of integrating science and religion, as well as acknowledging the unity of mind, body, and spirit.  Along these lines, Theodore Roszak, a well-known advocate of the holistic paradigm, asserts,

“It is as [Ernst Friedrich] Schumacher [a Rhodes Scholar in economics, and a highly respected holistic advocate] tells us:  “When the available ‘spiritual space’ is not filled by some higher motivations, then it will necessarily be filled by something lower – by the small, mean, calculating attitude to life which is rationalized in the economic calculus.”  If that is so, then we need a nobler economics that is not afraid to discuss spirit and conscience, moral purpose and the meaning of life, an economics that aims to educate and elevate people, not merely to measure their low-grade behavior.”  [see:  Small is Beautiful:  Economics as if People Mattered, page 9.]

“In short, any global order that aspires to honor the exalted nature of the human soul must be able to integrate the spiritual and the sacred with the material and the secular.  This is something that the capitalist paradigm, almost by definition, cannot achieve.  Thus, it has planted the seeds of its own ultimate destruction because it is virtually incapable of truly edifying and inspiring the human soul – the real source of power for any sustainable economic system.  [bold type is mine]

“Since spiritual transformation and material transformation must go together, it is essential for individuals to remain cognizant of the economic, political, social, and environmental state of the world.  People of faith must also be directly engaged in helping to transform the world rather than retreating into comfortable “spiritual enclaves.”  Baha’u’llah states, “Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”  [see:  Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, (2005) no 106.1]

“In essence, a faith without physical deeds is dead.  According to the Baha’i Faith, some of the noblest of all human beings are those who have been educated, trained, and spiritually inspired for a life of service to humanity.  Along these lines, ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s following statement regarding the importance of service is highly pertinent to the discussion in this chapter regarding the plight of many who are currently being held in the claws of tyranny and oppression:

“Without action nothing in the material world can be accomplished….  It is not through lip-service only that the elect of God have attained to holiness, but by patient lives of active service they have brought light into the world….  Therefore strive that your actions day by day may be beautiful prayers.  Turn towards God, and seek always to do that which is right and noble.  Enrich the poor, raise the fallen, comfort the sorrowful, bring healing to the sick, reassure the fearful, rescue the oppressed, bring hope to the hopeless, shelter the destitute!…  If we strive to do all this, then are we true Baha’is, but if we neglect it, we are not followers of the Light, and we have no right to the name.”  [see:  Paris Talks, (2006) no. 26.5]

“Related to the discussion above, the Baha’i teachings assert that humanity is involved in an evolutionary process that is inevitably moving humankind toward maturity and away from destructive ways of thinking and acting.  This, however, does not mean that individuals should sit idly by and just wait for the process to take its natural evolutionary course.  Indeed, this process seems to be an interactive, mutually reinforcing, synergistic progression – the more that individuals strive for spiritual transformation and the more that individuals strive to implement spiritual virtues and deeds in the material world, the grater the evolutionary shifts for the overall society.  Conversely, any positive shifts in the overall society help people to make further internal changes as individuals.

“Many holistic advocates believe that we are already beginning to experience a paradigm shift toward holism and away from the Cartesian-Newtonian worldview (and its capitalistic system).  Similar to the Baha’i perspective, such holistic advocates believe that humanity is presently undergoing an evolutionary jump toward holism as a result of major leaps in human spiritual consciousness.  Indeed, Baha’is and holistic advocates both believe that the paradigm shift toward a holistic view of reality is not coerced, but rather, it is a natural process of spiritual transformation that is moving humanity from its adolescent stage of development to its stage of maturity (the coming of age of humanity).  Along these lines, The Baha’i publication Century of Light states:

“And for a Baha’i the ultimate issues are spiritual.  The Cause [Baha’i Faith]is not a political party nor an ideology, much less an engine for political agitation against this or that social wrong.  The process of transformation it has set in motion advances by inducing a fundamental change of consciousness, and the challenge it poses to everyone who would serve it is to free oneself from attachment to inherited assumptions and preferences that are irreconcilable with the Will of God for humanity’s coming of age.  Paradoxically, even the distress caused by prevailing conditions that violate one’s conscience aids in this process of spiritual liberation.  In the final analysis, such disillusionment drives a Baha’i to confront a truth emphasized over and over again in the Writings of the Faith:  “He hath chosen out of the whole world the hearts of His servants and made them each a seat for the revelation of His glory.  Wherefore, sanctify them from every defilement, that the things for which they were created may be engraven upon them.”  [see:  Century of Light, page 136]

“Thus as agents of spiritual and material transformation we all have the responsibility to purify ourselves from “every defilement” and “to free” ourselves “from attachment to inherited assumptions and preferences that are irreconcilable with the Will of God for humanity’s coming of age.”  The sentiments expressed in the quote above bring us full circle to the concept of responsibility that we discussed at the beginning of this chapter – according to the Baha’i writings, the American Baha’is in particular have a “staggering responsibility” to cleanse themselves from the “faults, habits, and tendencies which they have inherited from their own nation” and then to help eradicate “such evil tendencies” from the lives of their fellow American citizens.  Indeed, the Baha’i writings emphasize that America will not manifest its exalted destiny until this “staggering responsibility” is fulfilled.  It is my hope that this chapter has made it plainly evident that, capitalism, a manifestation of the materialistic Cartesian-Newtonian worldview, is an “evil tendency” that must be acknowledged and properly redressed so that America can assume its exalted destiny as the nation that “will lead all nations spiritually” as prophesied by ‘Abdu’l-Baha.”  [see:  in Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, (1965) page 35] (all of the above from pages 202-205 of Medina’s book)

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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

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

+WHEN LITTLE MATTERS MOST — WE NEED A BETTER WORLD FOR OUR GLOBE’S CHILDREN

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+WHEN LITTLE MATTERS MOST — WE NEED A BETTER WORLD FOR OUR GLOBE’S CHILDREN

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In my ongoing mental travels to try to gain a workable perspective about why so many of our nation’s offspring are suffering such a lack of well-being – as are their families – I am gaining at least a little bit of clarity.  The ‘problem’ IS tied to the reality that poverty exists in our nation – and severe extremes of it exist around our globe with nearly one billion members of our human family starving to death.  Poverty hurts.  Yet also knowing that such vast amounts of our nation’s and our globe’s wealth is concentrated in the possession of so few (as my work on recent posts is describing) seems to make the whole global picture worse.

As I work to untangle my own thinking and feelings related to these topics, I wanted to mention a book that sadly I have yet to read!  Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, a Rhodes Scholar in economics and a highly respected holistic advocate, stated,

Simplicity and non-violence are obviously closely related. The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunction of Buddhist teaching: ‘Cease to do evil; try to do good.‘

In his book, Small Is Beautiful:  Economics As If People Mattered, Schumacher directly approaches the reality that Western economics are causing damage and that within the Western capitalistic-materialist worldview no workable solution can ever be found to solve the globe’s major problems.  It will be necessary for our species to adapt on all levels to a sustainable holistic worldview and practice if we are going to survive.

On the website WorldInc is this description of Small Is Beautiful:  Economics As If People Mattered:

“One of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that ‘the problem of production’ has been solved.” So begins this classic of commonsense economics, a book that The New Republic called “Enormously broad in scope, pithily weaving together threads from Galbraith and Gandhi, capitalism and Buddhism, science and psychology.”

E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977) was a Rhodes Scholar and respected economist who throughout his long career worked with the likes of J.M. Keynes and J.K. Galbraith. From 1950 to 1970 he served as Chief Economic Advisor to the British Coal Board — with over 800,000 employees, one of the largest organizations in the world.

An early proponent of the idea of “sustainable development,” he opposed neo-classical economics by declaring that single-minded concentration on output and technology was dehumanizing. Furthermore, he asserted that one’s workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second.

In 1955, while traveling in Burma, he first developed the principles of what he called “Buddhist economics,” based on the notion that good work was essential for proper human development and that “production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life.”

First published in 1973, Small Is Beautiful is a collection of essays that brought Schumacher’s ideas to a wider audience at a time when an energy crisis was shaking the world and people had begun to realize that petroleum and other natural resources are finite (that is, such resources should be treated as nonrenewable capital rather than as expendable income, to be exploited and used up without thought for the future). Widely translated into many languages, Small Is Beautiful was named among the 100 most influential books published since World War II by The Times Literary Supplement.

His work also dealt with various other emerging trends, such as the environmental movement and economic globalization. In his view, for a large organization to function properly, it must behave like a group of related smaller organizations. Schumacher’s attitude toward nature reflects his theories on business and the workplace:

Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.”

To learn more about this forward-looking and prophetic thinker, visit:

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+MALEVOLENT INTENT AND THE ABUSES OF THE POWER OF WEALTH

alchemynow1 Comment

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It is becoming increasingly clear to me as I read the book, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina., that the growing disparity in economic well-being along with all other well-being measures – especially for growing numbers of our nation’s infant-children that is happening within the boundaries of our American nation  — is directly tied to the economic conditions of all members of our species the world over.

We are increasingly experiencing within America’s boundaries what appears to be a backwash of the same economic conditions that are approaching global plague proportions worldwide, and that will soon not be able to be ignored by anyone.  At the same time, the consumption patterns within the Globe’s richest First World nations continues to contribute to the major global problems Medina’s book is highlighting.

Medina next presents

Taking Water Away From the Bolivian Indians

“In January 2000, the city of Cochabamba, the third largest city in the country of Bolivia with a population of 500,000, became the scene of a crisis that attracted worldwide attention and that, to this day, serves as a quintessential example of the destructive policies of “survival of the fittest” Darwinian capitalism.  The crisis in Cochabamba was first sparked when the IMF [the International Monetary Fund ] approved a loan for Bolivia and then proceeded to pressure Bolivian government officials to privatize (to sell off) all state owned enterprises including public oil refineries and Cochabamba’s municipal water system.  In September, 1999, in closed door negotiations that involved only one bidder, Bolivia signed a forty-year contract that handed over Cochabamba’s water system to Aguas del Tunari (a company managed by International Water Limited, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Bechtel corporation).  Within a few months of taking over, without having made any appreciable investments in the system, Aguas del Tunari dramatically hiked up water rates.  As a result of these rate hikes, the water bills of the residents doubled and tripled.  This sparked almost immediate protests from the residents who united together in peaceful demonstrations and marches beginning in January of 2000.  A grassroots organization of concerned Bolivians (mostly Indians), The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life (La Coordinadora), began to coordinate some of the rallies.  [see:  Timeline: Cochabamba Water Revolt” by Sheraz Sadiq]

“To understand the true dimensions of this crisis it is necessary to recognize that Bolivia is the most impoverished nation in Latin America (based on per capita GNP) and the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti.  American Indians make up between sixty and seventy percent of Bolivia’s population….  For these impoverished indigenous people, access to affordable water is a top priority.  Water and food are absolute necessities.  Steep increases in the price of either of these represent a mortal threat.  More money spent on water means that less money is available for other necessities, including food.

“Eventually, demonstrations spread from Cochabamba to La Paz and to other cities and outlying rural villages.  In April 2000, the Bolivian government declared a “state of siege.”  The “state of siege” (like martial law) allowed police to arrest and detain many people and to impose curfews and travel restrictions.  Unfortunately, the April demonstrations became violent, leaving six people dead and many injured.  On April 10, 2000, the government signed an agreement with the leader of The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life.  This agreement revoked the contract with the Bechtel corporation subsidiary and granted control of the Cochabamba municipal water system to the grassroots coalition.  It also repealed water privatization legislation as well as provisions that would have charged people for drawing water from local wells.

“It is amazing to note that, after losing its contract, Bechtel Corporation sued the nation of Bolivia for $25 million in damages and an additional $25 million in lost potential profits (money the corporation argues that it could have earned if it had been able to keep the water system).  It must be recognized here that, in 2000, Bechtel’s revenues were more than $14 billion while the entire national budget of Bolivia was merely $2.7 billion.  Oscar Olivera, the leader of The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life stated, “With the $25 million [in damages] they are seeking, 125,000 people could have access to water.”

“Fortunately, in January 2006, Bechtel finally decided to drop its suit after being subjected to four years of sustained international pressure.  Organizations and citizens groups from throughout the world coordinated their efforts to apply pressure on Bechtel to drop its case.  The company was bombarded with emails, and concerned groups used the international media to bring attention to Bechtel’s attempts to profiteer at the expense of the poor people in Bolivia.  Oscar Olivera declared, “Multinational corporations want to turn everything into a market….  For indigenous people water is not a commodity, it is a common good.  For Bolivia this retreat by Bechtel means that the rights of the people are undeniable.””  (pages 190-192)

Shipping Toxic Waste to the Third World

“The issue of Third World toxic waste lays bare a picture of callous inhumanity and blatant cruelty that is truly shocking in its scope.  It has now been widely reported that the First World is exporting its toxic waste to impoverished developing nations.  Not only is such waste being shipped to the Third World, some corporations have actually found a way to profit from this deadly transaction.

“The “ship breaking business” is a case in point of corporate behavior that can be characterized as nothing short of criminal.  Ten shipping corporations dominate the global merchant cargo trade.  When these corporations want to dispose of an old vessel, they send it to a ship breaking yard where it is dismantled from scrap metal.  Probably the largest ship breaking yard in the world is in Bangladesh (a hunger-ravaged nation) where massive tanker ships, some as long as three football fields and as tall as twenty stories high, have been run agound in the Bay of Bengal.  Workers (cutters) use blow torches to cut ships to pieces.  From high above, gigantic plates of metal, some weighing several tons, are cut from ships and then fall dangerously to the ground.  Crews of workers then carry the plates on their shoulders as they step in unison to the rhythm of a leader’s chant.  The National Labor Committee (NLC), a U.S.-based worker rights organization, investigated the industrial atrocities at the Bengal shipyard.  An NLC article titled “Where Ships and Workers Go to Die ,” states,

“The kids usually help the cutters or remove asbestos [a known carcinogen].  They smash the asbestos with a hammer, shovel it into a plastic bag and remove it from the ship….  Dismantled ships are toxic to workers and the environment.  Each ship contains an average of 15,000 pounds of asbestos and ten to 100 tons of lead paint.  Besides asbestos and lead [which can cause kidney damage and brain impairment in children], workers are exposed to mercury, arsenic, dioxins, solvents, toxic oil residues and carcinogenic fumes from melting metal and paint.  Environmental damage to beaches, ocean and fishing villages is extensive.”

“Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, calls the Bengal ship breaking yard “hell on earth.”  Thirty thousand workers, some as young as ten years old, dismantle ships at a nonstop pace for twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for the equivalent of twenty-two to thirty-six cents an hour with no sick days or holidays.  Workers live in utter squalor in stifling hot rooms without windows and without refrigerators.  Each tiny room is packed with four people who sleep on the floor with only old sheets and rags for bedding.  While doing their incredibly dangerous tasks, the workers are not given any safety gear by the ship-owners.  Baseball caps serve as hard hats, and in the absence of steel-toed shoes, young workers are seen handling heavy sheets of metal wearing only flip-flops.  Filthy bandanas serve as respiratory masks, and when using dangerous blow torches, sunglasses are used in place of safety visors.  Kernaghan states, “Last year, a 13-year old child his very first day on the job was hit in the head with a heavy piece of metal and he just died immediately.”  Kernaghan eerily adds, “the ship-owners don’t document anything, they don’t investigate the killings and the injuries, they just throw the people back into their villages and in some cases, we’ve heard that they throw the dead bodies into the water.”

“The heinous disregard for human life and the environment that is described above is the end result of an insidiously reckless capitalist order that has thrown away all moral restraint.  In a Law Review article titled, “Beyond Eco-Imperialism:  An Environmental Justice Critique of Free Trade,” Carmen Gonzalez, a law professor, provides a highly detailed and well-researched view of the environmental justice issues that have emerged as a result of globalization.  Her article states,

“[I]nternational trade promotes environmental degradation in developing countries and threatens the physical health, cultural integrity and economic well being of the Southern [Third World] poor….  [T]he North [First World] reaps the benefits of liberalized trade while exporting the environmental costs to the South….  [This] article…identifies the North’s resource-intensive, consumption-oriented lifestyle as the primary cause of global environmental degradation….  This lifestyle can only be maintained through the ongoing appropriation of the natural resources of the South.”

“Earlier in this chapter a section titled “Widespread Rising Poverty Amidst Incredible Concentrations of Wealth,” provided statistics that show that the people living in the wealthy developed nations (only about twenty percent of the world’s population) consume a disproportionate share of the globe’s food, resources, and goods.  Indeed, the United States has the highest consumption levels per capita in the globe with Japan and Western Europe not being far behind.  Gonzalez uses similar statistics in her article to support her thesis (as expressed in the quote above).  A group of researchers in the Center for Sustainability Studies in Xalapa, Mexico, created a concept known as the “ecological footprint” in order to study the amount of resources, “natural capital,” that a country must have (or must appropriate from others) in order to maintain its level of consumption.  The researchers discovered that “the Netherlands, United States, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Japan, and Israel were among the highest per capita importers of natural capital.”  This means that these countries, in particular, are using many more resources than they actually possess, and that the First World “is living far beyond its ecological means,” and the developing nations cannot catch up “without exceeding the limits of the global ecosystem.”  Indeed, if everyone in the world adopted and tried to maintain a Western level of consumption, then, instead of just one world, it would actually be necessary to have ten worlds to satisfy everyone’s needs.  Gonzalez contends that there is a great need for legal scholarship in the area of researching and creating international laws that address the problem of over-consumption.  [see:  Beyond Eco-Imperialism:  An Environmental Justice Critique of Free Trade,” Carmen Gonzalez]

“Gonzalez further asserts that, for many years, the U.S. environmental movement has been perceived to be a middle class, White, suburban phenomenon that has been primarily interested in the protection of endangered species, wilderness areas, and parks, but it has not shown sufficient interesting environmental justice issues related to racism, poverty, and societal antidemocratic processes and policies.  She cites a variety of studies that show that “poor people and racial and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately high levels of exposure to toxic substances while whites residing in more pristine suburban neighborhoods reap the benefits of environmental protection.”  This unjust dynamic within the United States shows up in the choice of location for hazardous waste facilities and also in the selective enforcement of laws and standards pertaining to water and air pollution, as well as waste disposal.

“Similar to the dynamic described above, Gonzalez maintains that, when it comes to the international arena, environmentalists from the Northern wealthy nations have been mainly concerned with protecting global natural areas.  As such, they have been slow to recognize that socioeconomic justice issues are a direct cause of global pollution and resource depletion.  In contrast, environmentalists from the poor Southern nations are increasingly asserting that international environmental degradation is directly linked to justice issues related to international inequality and to the struggle for democracy, self-determination, economic sufficiency, and cultural rights.  Along these lines, the Southern environmentalists contend that the primary causes of international pollution and resource depletion are the excessive consumption patterns of wealthy nations as well as “the world economic order” that “has institutionalized Southern poverty, which places additional stress on the environment. [see source link above, page 988]”  Along these lines, Gonzalez states,

“Indeed, one prominent Southern environmentalist has argued that the South is bearing a disproportionate share of the environmental consequences of globalization, and has described this phenomenon as environmental apartheid….  The allegations of Southern environmentalists have been supported by studies commissioned by the United Nations Development Program, [specifically related to] the export of hazardous wastes and deforestation.  [see source link above, page 989]”

“Gonzalez points out that there is a need for the development of international human rights laws that “link the environmental struggle with the struggle for social justice.”

“Unfortunately, the hazardous waste trade is flourishing.  Illegal shipments destined from the United States to other nations (Mexico, Ecuador, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and others) have continued to be intercepted.  Even recycling efforts that seem innocent on the surface can actually be deadly in Third World environments where there are not appropriate safeguards.  A prime example of this is the shipment of used car batteries to poor countries in order to recover and recycle the lead.  Lead is extremely hazardous and typically causes all forms of problems for the poor.  Along similar lines, the Bangladesh ship breaking yard described above is extremely toxic to the people and to the environment, and yet the ship-owners would likely try to defend it as a good venture that recovers and recycles scrap metal.  Gonzalez sates, “Environmentalists have rightfully denounced: such practices “as ‘toxic colonialism’.  [see source link above, page 993]”  (Medina’s book pages 192-196)

Next post:  Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

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See recent 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!

alchemynowLeave a comment

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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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