The most important work we can do, individually and globally, is the healing and prevention of traumas so that we don't pass them down to future generations. This blog is a working tool to contribute to this good work.
I don’t think I’m alone in how I feel right now. In fact, I’m quite sure other commenters have talked about this — feeling like we MUST act phony around other people, never truly feeling OK being our authentic (often quite miserable) severe infant-child abuse survivor self.
I spent the day physically active, working hard to concentrate on every screw I placed, every rock I placed, every paint brush stroke, every step I took throughout the day — so I could, if possible, neither THINK or FEEL.
The fact of the matter is that I don’t want to be alive. I wondered about this today in terms of how I felt as a child way before I could ever think in terms of not wanting to be alive. I think it’s something my body knew, my soul knew – but I had no words for anything I felt. I had no thoughts about anything I felt, either.
But for all my suffering for those 18 first years, did I not want to be here? Do I feel the same today as I did back then only now I know what and how I feel? Today I realized it’s not accurate for me to say “My heart is breaking.” My heart is broken. It broke when I was very very very young and small, and I honestly think, except for distractions over the years of my life, that my heart has always been broken and always will be. At 58 I’ve run out of rope waiting for a miracle.
As I’ve written before, being diagnosed with advanced, aggressive breast cancer nearly 3 years ago was most difficult because I KNEW I didn’t want to be here. I can’t say that I went through any of my treatments because I truly wanted to. Authenticity would have me dead by now. I fought it for everyone else, and I am mad as hell I am still here – and that’s the authentic truth.
As one commenter suggested today, no amount of compassion or forgiveness, empathy or understanding, no amount of intellectual fact finding is ever REALLY going to take the pain away of what was done to us.
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One thing I did today was toss every single piece of my mother’s writing I have already transcribed into the compost pile. (For some reason all pictures are included in the slideshow, but below that is the description that goes along with the fence pics!)
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I also finished the fence:
I ran out of recycled rusty steel so yesterday spent $160 for materials to finish these two 8-foot sections (8' tall, some of the rusty stuff is 10', with one piece 12') - stuff today is FLIMSY! and costly!Looking north at the entire fence (that's the neighbor across the street's trailer, my El Camino) - I don't know yet if/how I'm going to close this end off - the tall upright forms, held by rocks in wire, are designed to (anti-wind) stabilize the tall steel pieces I have to way to cut. Now, all I need are 3 climbing rose bushes to plant and train on themI was lucky a couple of years ago - went to our 'dump' area and they actually had some paint there to take, this yellow is from there, watered down, still have a little left to touch up tomorrow - interior paint, but what the heck!3-block form for adobe bricks I made today, it's soaked with motor oil so the mud will slide out - not ideal dirt here, too sandy, will add a little cement and hope it works - plan to level the yard, taking 'extra' and turning it into bricks - I love making adobe, haven't done it since I lived in Taos, New Mexico in 1994-5 (that was perfect mud to mix with sand)
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So, without being able to see the man I love I am miserable. There is no reprieve now. I have to work every second of 24-hours (even when I try to sleep) – yes, it makes me soul weary! I ‘try’ to feel grateful. I ‘try’ to think about how I might ‘help others.’ I ‘try’ to have hope. But most of the time I feel like I am running up hill on empty.
In honor of April as Child Abuse Prevention Month, please remember when the big and little problems of your everyday life pile up to the point where you feel like lashing out, don’t take it out on your kids. Try any or all of these simple alternatives:
1. Stop in your tracks. Step back. Sit down.
2. Take fave deep breaths. Inhale and exhale slowly.
3. Count to 10. Better yet, to 20. Say the alphabet out loud.
4. Phone a friend or relative.
5. Still mad? Punch a pillow. Or munch on an apple.
6. Do some sit-ups. If you have someone to watch your children, take a walk.
7. Flip through a magazine, book, newspaper, or a photo album.
8. Pick up a pencil and write down your thoughts.
9. Take a hot bath or a cold shower.
10. Lie down on the floor or just put your feet up.
11. Listen to the radio or your favorite music.
12. Call the Prevention & Parent Helpline at 1-800-CHILDREN, from anywhere in New York, in English and Spanish. The Parent Helpline can connect you to programs and services where you can get help.
I forced myself to go back and pull this post out of my email trash which is exactly where I immediately dropped it when it appeared in my in-box yesterday. I guess I’m in no mood to even try to figure out why this post even appeared in regard to child abuse.
“If you are witnessing child abuse in a public place: avoid judging, assess the situation, and assess yourself. ” What about reporting abuse? There’s no mention in this entire post which was sent out by Prevent Child Abuse New York’s Blog, a reputable site that I have trusted often in the past as an excellent source of child abuse prevention information.
So, is this following piece simply ABOUT PREVENTION? I just can’t eliminate the idea of ‘judging’ from any abuse toward a child! How do you readers react to this piece? I am just too tired to think about this, other than to say nothing like this (below) was remotely possible in my mother’s home, and none of these simplistic (nice) suggestions would have helped me or my siblings even one single tiny bit.
We’ve all been there—in the grocery store or some other public place bearing witness to a small child throwing a tantrum and a parent who, unable to cope with the stress, lashes out. People often ask us what to do in these situations. The following information, courtesy of Prevent Child Abuse Minnesota’s Wakanheza Project, provides some direction on this issue.
The Wakanheza Project provides simple, usable tools and strategies that allow individuals, businesses, and communities to provide more welcoming, respectful environments for children, young people, adults and families. If you are witnessing child abuse in a public place: avoid judging, assess the situation, and assess yourself. If you are ready, then . . .
1. Offer assurance through a smile or a positive comment.
2. Show empathy—imagine yourself in the other person’s shoes.
3. Offer encouragement—say something positive that you see about the child or adult.
4. Distract and redirect their attention away from the stressful situation.
The Wakanheza Project is built around the power of the Dakota word for child—Wakanhez—which translates in English as “Sacred Being” and six principles that can change the way people regard and treat one another. The Wakanheza Project principles provide a lens for people to understand and effectively respond to stressful situations in order to create more welcoming environments.
Judgment: We make judgments every day to help us make decisions. When we see a person who is struggling and we make assumptions and judgments about who they are and why they are behaving as they are, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see ways to be helpful; it is difficult to see then as fellow, worthy human beings. It’s important to move those judgments out of the way in order to help out in situations.
Culture: The power and impacts of showing kindness and understanding through simple gestures including smiles and offers of assistance crosses cultural and language barriers. We all bring culture to the world in many ways. The Wakanheza Project offers the universal experience of empathizing with fellow humans and respectfully reaches across perceived cultural barriers (race, ethnicity, poverty, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, etc.) to lend a hand.
Powerlessness: Violence typically arises from a sense of powerlessness. We may witness people acting violently, misusing their power, but it is generally in response to a feeling of powerlessness.
Empathy: Empathy is defined as “the capacity for participating in the feelings or ideas of others.” We all have this capacity, and when we practice it, place ourselves in the shoes of another, it becomes simple to show understanding and offer a helping hand.
Environment: People tend to respond very well to welcoming environments. Parents and children can immediately sense whether a public environment is welcoming, and this sense will have a great impact on their behaviors within the building.
The Moment: The Wakanheza Project is all about suspending judgment, understanding the impacts of powerlessness and environment, rejoicing in culture, and practicing empathy. We all have the ability, and the obligation, to show caring, kindness and respect in the moment. We do not know what happened before or what will happen next, but we can practice The Wakanheza Project in the moment and greatly increase the likelihood of peaceful, positive interactions in our communities.
For some reason I skipped this year months ago when I transcribed many, many of my mother’s other letters for other years. The first day of 1958 coincided with the start of our 6th month in Alaska. We lived in the rented log house whose lease was up on July 1.
During April and May my father hiked back into the Eagle River Valley and found the land he staked claim to as our 160 acre homestead. In June my grandmother arrived for her first visit (a month) to the territory.
The cabin (shack) we moved into July 1958 and left October
By the end of July we had moved into a primitive rented cabin. By mid-October we moved into an apartment in Anchorage.
The Jeep truck my parents named "The Monster" and the apartments we moved into in 1958 for my 2nd grade year
If you read little else of these letters, read the one written December 29, 1958 — it’s a classic mother letter! It describes what happened – from my mother’s point of view – when my mother took the only outside job with a boss that I ever knew her to have during my childhood. It was a part-time evening job that she held for a little over a month. My guess is that her true Borderline colors were flying, and others reacted to her (heaven forbid!). She could not control her work environment the way she controlled her home and children. The result was a natural disaster.
After working many hours today on transcription, I am tired and sick of my mother! Now, I have to decide what I am going to do about the rest of the 1957 letters that I have left until the very last.
I feel like I have spent the day in a place without any light at all, in the complete darkness of my scrambled, devastating childhood — little of which, of course, shows up in my mother’s bizarrely surreal letters.
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Borderline Personality Disorder People with BPD, and their family members, sometimes wonder why certain people get the disorder and others don’t. Sometimes there is a clear environmental cause (e.g., a history of psychological trauma), but research suggest that there are also biological factors.
Genetic Links to BPD
Studies of BPD in families show that first degree relatives (siblings, children, parents) of people treated for BPD are 10 times more likely to have been treated for BPD themselves than the relatives of people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Will My Kids Get BPD Too?
If you have BPD, your kids are at greater risk of having BPD themselves. But, there is also a good chance that they will not have BPD. And, there are things you can do to reduce their risk.
Can BPD Be Prevented?
If the causes of BPD are in part biological, is there anything that can be done to decrease your risk for BPD?
BPD Family Resources
Sometimes it may seem like there is help available for the person with BPD, but not for his or her loved ones. Fortunately, there is a growing appreciation for the need of BPD families to have their own sources of information, treatment, and support.
All children in New York deserve a healthy, happy and safe childhood. This April, it’s your turn to make a difference for the kids in your neighborhood!
To raise awareness of April as Child Abuse Prevention Month, Prevent Chid Abuse New York (PCANY) and its sister chapters around the nation mobilize Pinwheels for Prevention campaigns. As part of these campaigns, New Yorkers make a promise to prevention by distributing pinwheels and hosting educational events throughout the state. Pinwheels are a symbol of a happy, carefree childhood and the belief that getting it right for kids early on is less costly than trying to fix problems after things have gone wrong. Doesn’t every child deserve this opportunity?
Everyone has a role to play in preventing child abuse and supporting families. You can get involved by planting pinwheel gardens in a public place, wearing pinwheel label pins, displaying car and storefront window clings, hosting events for families, and signing a promise to prevention. Businesses, schools, community-based organizations, civic groups, educators, volunteers, decision-makers and families participate.
PCANY offers you the tools to be an active part of Child Abuse Prevention Month. Please contact us to learn more about how to mobilize a campaign in your community. It’s your turn to make a difference for a child!
For more information about mobilizing a Pinwheels for Prevention campaign event near you, please visit our web site or call 1-800-CHILDREN.
Although I know I had dreamed what had happened first, it is only the end of the dream I had last night that I can remember now.
I knew who the visitors were when I heard them coming down the road from the distance. I lifted my head at the first sound of them, and plugged the tip of my shovel into the earth. It stood there as I left the work I was doing preparing an irrigation ditch for the upcoming planting.
Dressed in flowing garb of every color, texture and fabric I could imagine, this group of men and women angled off across the wide field. Laughing, talking to one another gaily, they stepped so lightly in all the right places as they moved they nearly danced their way toward me. Tiny puffs of dust lifted from their footsteps, but never once did one of the twenty trample in what would soon be a planted row.
Some wore straw hats. Some wore dark amber gilded turbans, and some wore lavender and sea green veils. Some wore boots. Some dainty slippers. And some wore plain old shoes.
“We have come for her today,” their lilting voices sang. “We have come for the one who sees today. We have come for the Seer today.”
I next remember the banquet in the farm house. Platters heaped with sumptuous food in all its true color filled the long table. In the seats of honor, side-by-side sat the young woman and the man the Troupe had brought with them, for he had been found and brought forth some time ago.
It was this Seeker who now sat beside the radiant Seer, who had finally found her. Both of them together had more patience than the stars.
I observed what was happening here as some passed plates, some sipped soup, others were teaching the Seer and the Seeker how to remember the stories of the generations.
I watched their hand motions that looked to me like a secret and specialized sign language. I especially remember one particular gesture. With palm of the left hand raised and held facing the face, the fingertips very lightly tap back and forth, quickly and gently, along a line of forehead just higher than the eyebrows.
This Troupe, these Troubadours, intended only to instruct the Chosen two. Once taught, these two would become the intermediaries between those who have no formal corporeal form and those that do.
Maybe I think about things too much, but I am not sure I know what compassion is. Sometimes I think I ‘have it’ and then I find myself looking around at other people and judging them for NOT having it!
I am thinking in specific about a man a little over 55 who worked a Title V job at our local thrift store and quit two weeks ago. This man had a shady past, true. He had shady behaviors while working at the store that probably would have gotten him soon fired if he had stayed.
The workers, all friendly acquaintances of mine over these past 10 years, strongly suspected that this man kept out the best of the donations to the store and figured out ways to steal them. It was suspected that he was using a fraudulent identity. He was known to concoct intricate stories about his life that were not true. Someone in town had seen him selling drugs to young people. Nearly everyone believed that after a few years clean from using drugs himself, that he had returned to his old habits.
A week ago today he walked in the back door of his girlfriend’s house where he also lived, grabbed a gun, and blew his brains out. His girlfriend, who I’ve never met, was in the front room at the time this happened. Over this past week I have listened to everyone I know who knew him talk about his death but only one spoke about him with compassion. The rest seem to both judge him and want to hold him somehow accountable for the questionable way he lived his life.
I have someone whom I love very much in my life, a family member, who was able twenty years ago to kick the chronic and destructive use of alcohol, heroin and meth. I spent time with him at the end of his active disease simply loving him because I could see how terribly sick he was and there was nothing else I could do for him. I saw how the meth created the incredible web of lies, a complex, sinister and unfortunately almost believable arrangement of his life that he spun with his words that I eventually found out had absolutely zero basis in reality.
I see the death of this ex-thrift store employee in this light. He died from a terrible disease. His disease affected his living and it led directly to his death.
I find myself right now confused about arrogance (ignorance?), self-righteousness, judgment and criticism. At the same time that I evidently recognize a whole other level to the demise of this man that many others don’t seem able to, perhaps I really am not exercising compassion because at the same time I have to fight with myself not to judge ‘the others’.
I don’t see this man as a ‘bad man’, and yet from other people’s accounts maybe he was. I think he was sick and ACTED bad at times, but he’s dead now. I want to say, “Give the man a break! He suffered the ultimate crisis and he paid with his life.”
I want ME — and THEM — to be able to pray for him. I believe he deserves to be blessed out of this life now by everyone who knew him and held gently and kindly in thought and in word, if some continue to be spoken about him. I feel disappointed with these people I know and like — while at the same time I am, myself, judging them — and then judging myself.
I guess sometimes life can seem so tragic and complicated. Then I remember what I believe – though I can’t say that I understand this either: There is a God so much bigger than I can ever imagine and that God is, as my son told me emphatically when he was four years old, “the boss of all of us.”
Many times today I have thought about this wisdom.
Oh, and here’s a mothering note. One of the nurses caring for my grandson told my daughter that studies have shown that unlike men, mother’s bodies automatically adjust their temperature to stabilize the temperature of their newborns! My daughter had noticed this as she cuddled and nursed her premie. She happily told the nurse, “Yes, that’s what my mother always tells me, that mother’s are physiologically specially designed to care for newborns and young infants in ways that men ARE NOT!”
Survivors of severe trauma and abuse know sadness, I believe in a way that non-survivors never really can. Where is our comfort?
A few days ago someone commented in response to a response I made to one of her blog posts about my perpetual sadness: “It sounds like what they call Weltschmerz, Linda. That’s a condition where you are melancholy because of the suffering in the world.”
Some days I feel like I am on the bottom of a very large body of water, and though I feel fortunate that I can see light on the surface, it can be extremely difficult if not impossible for me to ‘get up there’. I also find that I have emotion invested in many things that I don’t believe most people even notice. Destruction of the natural world as plants, animals and the soil is torn up for never ending so-called progress and development is a big one for me. I suspect this happens to me to a large extent because of my attachment and bonding to the pristine universe of the Alaskan wilderness I grew up with on our homestead.
I haven’t been writing much lately because my relationship with words is very weak right now. Words seem mostly to belong to that surface place of light and not to the darker places deep within the large bodies of water or deep within the earth where my sadness seems to take me.
But there is a story I discovered over a month ago that I want to post. I am going to share this story with you, written by someone else, because it is a story that resonated with two important states of my being.
The one state, as I mentioned, is the sad one related to the places in my heart and soul that have been stretched and exercised by nearly unbelievable sadness from the 18 years of abuse I suffered from my mother and within my home of origin. This sadness is touched by suffering of others, and greatly by the silent suffering of the wondrous life of our planet that is so vulnerable to human caused destruction.
The other state I want to mention must run a parallel course for me with this first one, but in some way it is its opposite. This second state is unfortunately often remote from me. Yet when this state is activated, I feel I have found something so beautiful that if I can find ways to keep this state close to me it helps me carry on in spite of the sad one. At this moment I don’t have a name, a word, for this second state, but perhaps by the end of this post I will.
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With minor editing, here is the story I found in one of the first year’s editions of our local weekly paper which began in 1985. I will post the obituary for this author at the end of this post. Grace McCool was published in The Bisbee Observer with a column she titled ‘Out of the Past’ for seven years:
“The first Christmas known to be celebrated in Cochise County was on Dec 23, 1697 when Fr. Eusebio Francisco Kino, came north across the desert from Mexico and presented Coro, the chief of the Sobaipuri [soh-BY-per-ee or soh-by-poorh-ee] tribe of Indians who were then farming along our San Pedro River, a gift of 10 blue, grey, and black, needle-hoofed Andulusian breeding cattle. These tribesmen had long heard of the cattle the Spaniards had brought to the New World and they were so delighted with this gift they presented the priest with corn, dried squash, and epary beans from their gardens.
On Christmas Day, Fr. Kino recorded in his diary, he said mass in the mud-walled village called Quiburi. Within a few months he had baptized all of the 1,850 Indians living in 390 houses within the area and farther south along the river. He re-named the town San Pablo de Quiburi. [Quiburi — or “Many Houses” in the O’odham language of the Sobaipuri — The Sobaipuri Indians were an Upper Piman group who occupied southern Arizona and northern Sonora (the Pimera Alta) in the 1400-1800s. They were a subgroup of the O’odham or Pima, surviving members of which include the Tohono O’odham, the Akimel O’odham, and the Wa’k O’odham. They were one of several O’odham groups present and the O’odham were one of several indigenous groups present.]
These peaceful Indians (whose chief, Coro, wore three egret feathers in his headband as his badge of office) made a living from gardens cultivated with stone hoes and watered by small irrigation ditches from the SanPedroRiver. They wore homespun garments laboriously spun and woven from the wild cotton which still grows in this area.
Outside of conflicts with the Apaches, who in the end wiped out the Sobaipuris, there seems to have been no meanness in these Indians at all. Strangely enough, they had some idea of the Christian faith and they told Fr. Kino the legend of La Senorieta Azul, one of the prettiest stories of the Southwest.
[I have tried to discover where McCool acquired her information for this story, and cannot. Nowhere does there seem to be recorded fact that the Apaches “wiped out the Sobaipuris.” True, Apache aggression seems to have forced these peaceful farmers to leave their grounds along the San Pedro river, but forced migration is not the same thing as annihilation. Nor does it seem clear exactly who the Sobaipuris were the ancestors of – possibly the O’odham (the tribe’s name for themselves rather than Pima. The Apache people were very recent newcomers to the Southwest, arriving not much sooner than the Spaniards.]
A beautiful woman, dressed in a blue nun’s habit, came walking barefoot across the desert to them some 50 years before. She carried neither food nor water. She told the Indians of the Christian God and good luck always followed her several visits. The Indians said she told them about the precious Baby in the Manger who was born to bring peace into the world. At this time these people had never seen any Europeans.
This Legend of the Lady in Blue was known and believed by other tribes of Pima Indians. Some whisper she still comes at Christmastime to bring blessings to lonely and desperate Indian women and children. So widely known was this legend that nearly 200 years later Mangas Colorado, a feared and frightening Apache chief, had complained to Tom Jeffords, “Why does the Lady in Blue never visit our Apache camps?”
The only explanation ever given of the legend was made by Marie Coronel de Agdreda of Spain, head of a blue-robed order. Although believed to have never left Spain, she said she spent much of her time visiting the New Spain Indians who she was able to describe in minute detail. And on these supernatural visits she ministered to their spiritual needs.
Fr. Kino, the missionary to the Indians, was not a Spaniard. He was an Italian, born in the Tyrolean Alps near Trent in 1644. He was not only a great missionary, but he was also responsible for introducing stock-raising to our area with his Christmas gift of cattle to the Indians. He was also a great explorer and cartographer.
When he was 21 years old, he became a novitiate in the Society of Jesus, following a bout with plague when he believed his life was spared by divine intervention. He studied at Frieburg and Ingolstadt and became a distinguished scholar.”
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Obituary for Sarah Grace McCool published in The Bisbee Observer on January 30, 1992:
Sarah Grace Edgerton Bakarich McCool, 88, died Saturday, January 25, 1992 at her home, the Lazy Y-5 Ranch on Moson Road near Sierra Vista.
Her weekly column, “Out of the Pat,” has appeared in The Bisbee Observer for nearly seven years.
Mrs. McCool was born March 16, 1903 in Waterloo, Iowa to Frank and Etta Page. She came West in 1929 with her husband, Michael Bakarich, and three children to settle in Bisbee. They later filed the last homestead claim in Cochise County – in Horsethief Draw, next to the Clanton Ranch.
Much of the home building and daily chores at the Quarter Circle B Ranch, as it was known then, was done by her and the children since her husband worked in the mines. During those early years, she gave birth to five more children and taught school.
In 1948 Michael Bakarich was killed in a mining accident, leaving her to raise eight children alone. At about that time, she began her career as a writer. Her interest in history and the pioneers had been fueled by her search for her great uncle Al “The Kansas Kid” George, who came west in 1878 with a cattle drive and mysteriously disappeared.
She questioned many of the oldtimers and was rewarded with many tales worthy of recording. Her research led her to write her first western history article for the Chicago Tribune. She continued to write articles for the Bisbee Review, Douglas Dispatch, Tombstone Epitaph, Arizona Republic, Arizona Daily Star, and The Bisbee Observer. She eventually found her uncle buried in Boot Hill, Tombstone. He had been killed by Indians at the Black Diamond Mine.
Mrs. McCool met her second husband, Dr. M.M. McCool while writing an article on his work as a soils analyst. They were married in 1950. Dr. McCool died in 1954. She continued to write and has published four books about the history of Cochise County and has had more than 1,500 articles printed in 16 different publications. She was also a licensed local preacher in the Methodist Church.
At the time of her death she lived in the ranch house she helped build in 1935, but today the ranch is called the Lazy Y-5 and has expanded to 6,000 acres and incorporates the old Clanton Ranch. Three of her children live on the ranch and most of the family lives in the area. [The rest of the obituary lists survivors including seven of her children, 33 grandchildren, 38 great grandchildren and 10 great great grandchildren.]
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I located the telephone number of one of her sons who still lives on the ranch and left several telephone messages about my interest in digitalizing his mother’s writings which are currently contained in two fat three-ring binders at the local Bisbee museum. My calls were never returned.
I realize that what I strongly knew once I encountered a few of McCool’s stories in the 1985 editions of The Bisbee Observer is that she writes in the oral tradition. She is a storyteller. My sense of her writing style was confirmed when I read her obituary.
I traveled to the amazing and beautiful Amarind Foundation’s museum last week when my brother was visiting, seeking to discover if McCool had utilized their resources for this article. I don’t think she did. I have asked around locally and cannot find a single person who knew her or anyone who seems even remotely interested in putting a collection of her stories into a format that will help insure they continue to be preserved – and appreciated. I am considering contacting the University of Arizona to see if they have any interest in this project.
McCool’s writings are not necessarily historically accurate. She wrote stories based on history of the southwest whose facts may or may not have validity. The oral tradition is actually a preliterate (not nonliterate) skill and gift more highly developed among some members of our species even today. Accuracy is not required for a story to be worth preserving, and this story of the Blue Robed Nun has survived – one way or another, one teller after another in the southwest desert regions for 350 years.
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This story captured my imagination and touched my heart. At first I thought about posting the story in connection to a topic on denial. I realize that as I read the story, as each word of the story unfolded to my eyes, I believed it absolutely, unequivocally, and without any tiny shred of doubt. I FELT the truth of it. I can’t say why that is true for me. I understand that no matter how profoundly true the entire story is to ME, it could also be as profoundly and entirely NOT TRUE for some other people.
I think denial does operate in some similar way. Some people know something to be true while others know the opposite to be true.
But this story is far too important to me personally to subject it to so limiting a topic as denial. This story is about me.
When my brother was here last week I convinced him to take a drive to find an approximate location along the San Pedro River not far from Tombstone that was a settlement over many hundreds of years to assorted and various groups of people. The San Pedro is protected as a National Riparian Area.
This picture doesn't show the high banks from the 'old' river - this is taken further south
Ancient groups and cultures found their homes along the shores of this north flowing river. How long ago the Sobaipuri lived there nobody actually knows for sure. But when my brother and I walked upon the rich soft soil that used to be the river’s bottom before the earthquake of 1887 drove the river mostly underground I could feel, through hundreds and hundreds of years of time, that ‘my people’ were near by.
I felt comforted, so I guess this is the word I can use for my other (infrequent) state of being. Somehow knowing very clearly that these ancient people existed, that they lived peacefully and well growing food, weaving cloth, telling stories, working and walking along what are now high banks above the nearly vanished river, I felt connected because if I could miraculously be transported backward in time, well before the ravishes and violence that the Apaches brought with their raids and attacks and butchering, back to that place before these people were driven away so that I could live among them as one of them, I know I would be home in a way I NEVER am in this world around me today.
I felt comforted because for those few minutes I wandered among the tall grasses and between the bare dark branches of wizened desert trees not yet touched by the true warmth of spring, I actually felt that the problem, the trouble, is NOT ME. The problem is that I feel I have lost my people. My people, those people, lived too long ago and I live too recently.
If I could go back to them, somehow travel back through 500 years so that I could pick the wild cotton with my sisters and spin it and weave strong soft cloth, if I could dig the sharp point of my ancient hoe into the fertile soil, care tenderly for irrigation channels so they could carry the mountain snow pure water runoff from the south into our gardens, I would not feel this sadness. I know this for myself just as surely as I know the story about the Blue Robed Nun is true.
Unfortunately I have lost my mobility. My income is very low. My car is very old and wearing out. I cannot afford any extra costs for gas that might let me traverse this land in the protected places like I got to do last week with my brother. I know nobody to take me, nobody to go with me. But having placed my feet upon that soft soil and having walked silently where these ancient ones once lived I carry that memory now within me as closely as I do my own blood.
I spent the entire day outside working on the far southeast section of the fence I am building. All the face boards were in this section previously — really in a big heap! It felt good to work so hard today. Every emotion was circumvented in my focused determination to complete this project by sundown.
Which I did – and here are the series of pictures from this project. Again, those two walls behind me are the American-Mexican border wall.
Garbage thrown and leftBorder wall looking eastGetting startedI put old boards on the ground behind my fence and covered with dirt - hopefully to prevent critters from digging into the yard. I planted Ice Plant, I can water it and it spreads as a blooming very succulent ground cover.
Fence done by sunset. All recycled boards are very old and very dry. I evened off their tops and drilled holes and used screws rather than nails so the wood wouldn't split. In the spaces between boards are some sticks to fill the gaps.See the angel up there on post? The furthest post has a smashed salvaged pinwheel on it (no longer spins).Here she is. Flattened cookie cutter rescued from buried garbage.
I am feeling neglectful of my blog — because I have been. My oldest brother was here last week for a visit and left today. He got me started on a boundary-fence building project in my back yard so I can claim my positive space away from a very negative neighbor (and his piles and piles of stinking garbage). Budget is extremely limited, so am tearing apart a broken down shed in the back and reusing every scrap of material for the fence.
It’s good to be outside in this warm spring weather. I’ll be able to sit in my back yard now and gaze at the sky as the brilliant moon glides westward. I plan to make some adobe blocks to add to my building project, and hope to create some garden space.
Truth be told, I am battling sadness and sorrow. I refuse to call it ‘depression’ though I know that it is. I have been watching my dreaming time, and true to my post, +DEPRESSION EVEN GETS OUR DREAMING TIME, my dreaming and my sleeping are not ‘right’ — or at least not like ten years ago. That fact is hitting me pretty ‘close to the bone’, and is not something I can tell myself I am imagining.
If, somehow, my dreaming-sleeping can improve, I will know it. I am hoping that I can find ways to be more peaceful with myself, more gentle, more accepting. I am working in that direction, anyway.
So, I just wanted to make the effort to write something here, even something small. I’ll include a picture of what I am ‘walling off’ as I set my back yard boundaries, claiming some private, peaceful space for myself where I can be outside, which is good for me and healing. I’ll post more pictures as the job progresses!
My east neighbor (family of seven) piles weeks' worth of stinky garbage until it falls through this shabby fence, and over it, into my back yard.My brother showed me how to set up the 8' sections to cover with rusted corrugated roofing the wind blew off of my (quite poor) shed. But getting this wall started is giving me HOPE for something better - HOPE is something I am struggling with lately BIG TIME (That's the Mexico border there with 2 fences now and a Border Patrol road between them. I'm listening to drug enforcement choppers fly over my house as I write this - but no matter what, I love it here and it is my home. I am grateful.) The American-Mexico border fence is visible - actually those are 2 parallel fences running alongside one another there.Well, my fence won't be fancy, but it's a 'step up' and will give privacy. My brother says Texas BBQ places love the rusted tin look! We priced new and it will be $200 to do 16 feet. I have enough rusted stuff to do 32 feet. Not to complain, but being poor is hard on projects - I am glad to have a large yard, and look forward to growing some food.Laying out the line for holes to continue my own border wall - time for some clear boundaries here! Lots left to do, but even with my brother back at home in Illinois, I have confidence that I can do the rest even if it takes time to do it step by step as I can afford lumber and STUFF!
I have known that what is called Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is related to dreaming. I didn’t know until now that those of us who suffer from depression HAVE TOO MUCH REM sleep and not enough Non-REM sleep (NREM). Because I woke up at 2:30 this morning and cannot go back to sleep, I thought perhaps this might be the time to take a look at this topic.
I have been thinking about this information regarding the link between depression and disturbances in dreaming from a ‘streaming’ Netflix film I watched. I found this synopsis of the program which describes another blogger’s reaction to the movie.
“For anybody who watches Netflix, on instant view there is a documentary about sleep called “What Are Dreams?”. It’s a NOVA special. I watched it last night and heard this interesting tidbit. If you watch it the part I’m about to mention starts roughly about 12:30.
Researchers used to think that dreaming happened in REM sleep only (where your eyes are darting about under your eyelids.) It turns out that is not true, that we all also dream in non-REM sleep. They know this from waking dream study participants up during both REM and non-REM sleep and asking them if they had been dreaming, and if so, what they had been dreaming about.
Here’s the interesting part – when asked to describe their feelings coming out of both types of sleep, the words used to describe how they felt after non-REM sleep were positive. The words used to describe their feelings after REM sleep were negative.
The researcher describing this says that these results are surprisingly reliable and consistent among a variety of participants. He mentions that the amygdala, a part of the brain, is highly activated during REM sleep, and the amygdala specializes in processing negative emotions.
Now, here’s where I sort of sat up a little bit – he goes on to note that normally people fall asleep through non-REM sleep. But people with serious depression and depressive disorders – they invariably go right into REM. And “they stay in REM and they spend too much time in REM.”
I have no idea of the connections between the potato/serotonin and any sleep science. But I do know the difference between a potato-night and a non-potato night for me. On a non-potato night I feel like I fall like a heavy rock into a dark place. I feel like I’ve had a heavy sleep, but not necessarily a deep or a sound sleep. More like something has descended on me and I can’t move. But a potato night for me feels almost like I’ve been out running errands mentally, and for the first few minutes after I’m up I feel slightly, barely disoriented. Then I feel strong and vibrant.
Again, no idea if and how any of the stuff we talk about here fits together with any of this. I just thought it was a fascinating tidbit of research and wanted to share it.”
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Then, of course, I wanted to take a look at some research about this interruption in the sleep cycle related to depression and located the following:
“Sleep is an essential human function. Although the functionof sleep has generally been regarded to be restorative, recentdata indicate that it also plays an important role in cognition.The neurobiology of human sleep is most effectively analyzedwith functional imaging, and PET studies have contributed substantiallyto our understanding of both rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapideye movement (NREM) sleep. In this study, PET [measures levels of brain activity] was used to determinepatterns of regional glucose metabolism in NREM sleep comparedwith waking.
“Whole-brain glucose metabolism declinedsignificantly from waking to NREM sleep. …The reductions in relative metabolism in NREM sleep comparedwith waking are consistent with prior findings from blood flowstudies. The relative increases in glucose utilization in thebasal forebrain, hypothalamus, ventral striatum, amygdala, hippocampusand pontine reticular formation are new observations that arein accordance with the view that NREM sleep is important tobrain plasticity in homeostatic regulation and mnemonic [memory] processing.”
This 2009 study used mice that were genetically modified in regard to production of a hormone that is involved in sleep cycles and dreaming states:
“Impaired sleep and enhanced stress hormone secretion are the hallmarks of stress-related disorders, including major depression. The central neuropeptide, corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), is a key hormone that regulates humoral and behavioral adaptation to stress. Its prolonged hypersecretion is believed to play a key role in the development and course of depressive symptoms, and is associated with sleep impairment.
“To investigate the specific effects of central CRH overexpression on sleep, we used conditional mouse mutants that overexpress CRH in the entire central nervous system … or only in the forebrain, including limbic structures ….CRH hypersecretion in the forebrain seems to drive REM sleep, supporting the notion that enhanced REM sleep may serve as biomarker for clinical conditions associated with enhanced CRH secretion.”
Depression deprives us of our Non-REM positive sleep stages and drops us into the highly negatively charged amygdala-driven (fear and stress response brain region) REM dream state for most of our sleeping time:
Post by Jen Robinson — “Oct 27, 2009 … Not only do most of our dreams occur in this stage, but REM dreams are also more vivid and emotionally wrought than non–REM dreams. … studies conducted during REM sleep also show increased activation of the amygdala…”
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Are trauma and abuse survivors continually called to TRY to process overwhelming emotional memories?
“Recent studies indicated a selective activation during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep of the amygdala known to play a decisive role in the processing of emotional stimuli.
“[Study] Results are consonant with a supportive function of REM sleep predominating late sleep for the formation of emotional memory in humans.”
“It is now well known that the visual-emotional hallucinatory aspects of dreaming occur during REM, whereas more thought-like and verbal ideational patterns are produced during NREM.”
“One night of total sleep deprivation (TSD) or partial sleep deprivation (PSD) produces temporary remission in 40–60% of patients with major depression….”
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{I still believe that so-called depression is an immune system response to stressors.]
“Major depression (MD) is a severe, life-threatening, and widespread psychiatric disorder having an incidence of about 340 million cases worldwide. MD ranks fifth among leading causes of global disease burden including developing countries, and by year 2030 it is predicted to represent one of the three leading causes of burden of disease worldwide [1], [2]. MD is also a risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and a major risk factor for suicide [3]. Despite extensive investigations, the exact mechanisms responsible for MD have not been identified…”
“Stress is usually defined as a state of disturbed homeostasis inducing somatic and mental adaptive reactions, globally defined as “stress response,” aiming to reconstitute the initial homeostasis or a new level of homeostasis after successful adaptation, i.e., allostasis [31]–[34]. There is wide consensus and support from preclinical and clinical data that stress exposure conceivably plays a causal role in the etiology of MD and depression-like disorders [11], [27], [31], [34]. However, no specific mechanism linking stress exposure and stress response to the occurrence of MD has yet been fully elucidated. Growing evidence indicates several classical candidates, including neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, as well as conceptually novel immune and inflammatory mediators, as likely intermediate links between stress exposure, depressive symptoms, and MD [9], [21], [34]–[38]. ….
“One of the hallmarks of the stress response has long been considered the activation of the HPA axis. Hypothalamic CRH activation is a pivotal signaling molecule in the regulation of the HPA axis in particular and of the stress response in general. Therefore, comprehension of the mechanism responsible for the negative feedback regulation of CRH is of paramount importance…..”
“Knowledge on the functioning of the HPA axis under acute or chronic challenge is also a key to understanding the intimate link between stress response and the pathogenesis of depression [40]. Indeed, in all MD syndromes, a certain degree of HPA-axis disturbance is often present, visible either at the baseline or with functional tests. Despite the fact that observed changes of HPA regulation are so far not specific for the diagnosis of depression or for any of its clinical syndromes [8], altered HPA-axis parameters are considered important biomarkers, particularly in preclinical studies. Increased circulating hormones such as adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol/corticosterone or increased adrenal gland weight are considered biomarkers of stress response in preclinical models [41], including in several papers in this Collection[19], [29], [42]–[46]. Despite the bulk of data available, surprisingly current knowledge has not yet been developed to a point where HPA-axis reactivity can be rationally exploited for targeted drug treatment, as opposed to the major achievements of drugs targeting the CRH receptors [47]….”
“The link between stress and depression is not novel, and several authors have aimed at identifying new subtypes of depression based on their functional link with stress exposure (e.g., [70]–[72]).”
Stop the Storm 
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