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I am suffering from a contamination of my own suffering with the suffering of others, especially the suffering of other little people – and of their families. Insecure attachment disorders-patterns always interfere with the development and operation of full healthy empathic abilities:
+EARLY ATTACHMENT ORIGINS OF EMPATHY
+GENUINE EMPATHY AND COMPASSION: THE ROLE OF ATTACHMENT AND ‘EFFORTFUL CONTROL’
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One word or two? Webster’s online dictionary says ‘common sense’ is two words. A Dictionary of Sociology (1998) uses the one-word version: commonsense.
Is this sense simply something that we share with all ‘lower life forms’?
“According to Aristotle, the common sense is an actual power of inner sensation (as opposed to the external five senses) whereby the various objects of the external senses (color for sight, sound for hearing, etc.) are united and judged, such that what one senses by this sense is the substance (or existing thing) in which the various attributes inhere (so, for example, a sheep is able to sense a wolf, not just the color of its fur, the sound of its howl, its odor, and other sensible attributes.)
It was not, unlike later developments, considered to be on the level of rationality, which properly did not exist in the lower animals, but only in man; this irrational character was because animals not possessing rationality nevertheless required the use of the common sense in order to sense, for example, the difference between this or that thing….”
Or does ‘common sense – commonsense’ require a social awareness of our selves as being connected to other members of our species on a conscious level?
Is there anything about ‘common sense – commonsense’ that requires of us that we use our higher-specie’s more complex abilities of rational thought and critical thinking?
“”Fluid Intelligence” directly correlates with critical thinking skills. You are able to determine patterns, make connections and solve new problems. When you improve your critical thinking skills you also improve your fluid intelligence which also helps increase your problem solving skills and deep thinking elements. All of these skills relate to one part of the brain, and the more you use them the easier it will be to put your skill to the test.”
According to the Wickipedia entry for Critical thinking, it calls for the ability to:
Oh dear. Sounds like WORK to me! As opposed to critical thinking, commonsense (I will use this one word because I like it better) seems to simply become a part of us by osmosis. We simply grow into adults who have naturally absorbed the ‘common’ understandings about people-in-the-world in alliance with what our culture suggests to us. Questioning either/or our understandings or those of our culture TAKES WORK – and work takes time and committed focus and effort.
In my own thinking if I divide commonsense in half I come up with two other important words: MYTH and DEBUNKING. Unless we choose to think critically using fluid intelligence about matters of grave importance to the well-being of people, we can be contributing to other people’s suffering through perpetration of harmful myths without even knowing it – because we haven’t THOUGHT about the problems using the higher brain functions our species has been gifted with.
When it comes to the well-being of infants and children in our nation, commonsense and cultural mythical thinking appears to have the upper hand. Few wish to examine the actual facts about the increasingly abysmal conditions that REALLY exist for our nation’s little ones so that CREATIVE SOLUTIONS can be found and implemented to improve those conditions.
I am left feeling hopeless, helpless, overwhelmed, and full of sorrow, concern and fear about the lack of well-being for at least half of our nation’s infants, toddlers, children and teens in America whose optimal needs are not being met during the critical growth periods of their development. As our nation’s offspring suffer so too is our nation suffering.
The FACTS of the situation are grim. As long as we deny the facts by sticking to commonsense opinions that are NOT based on facts, we as a nation are going to continue to slide backwards. As a nation we need to take off our ‘rose colored glasses’ and begin to examine what we think we know about the well-being of infant-children by examining HOW we think about the problems they face and the suffering they are enduring. It’s the least we can do – and hopefully it will help us move into the myth debunking stage of our thinking that we – and our nation’s offspring — so desperately need.
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“This refers, unsurprisingly, to routine knowledge we have of our everyday world and activities.
“Different sociological approaches adopt different attitudes to commonsense knowledge… [as it] refers to organized ‘typified’ stocks of taken-for-granted knowledge, upon which our activities are based, and which, in the ‘natural attitude’, we do not question. …, commonsense (or, as it is frequently termed, ‘tacit’) knowledge is a constant achievement, in which people draw on implicit rules of ‘how to carry on’, which produce a sense of organization and coherence…. the central aim of sociology is seen as explicating and elaborating on people’s conceptions of the social world, and sociological analysis must always be rooted in these conceptions.”
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By Elizabeth M. Young
“Sociology is the science of human interaction and social behavior. Common sense is the indigenous knowledge that comes from living and interacting in the real world and coming to conclusions that are passed on orally. Science looks for either evidence or a compelling argument that is supported by serious examination of the evidence or by the best possible theoretical design and testing of hypotheses.
“Sometimes they are the same. Sometimes they are vastly different in the rigors of testing and confirmation of deductions and inferences. Sometimes both deal with very complex matters and sometimes both deal with simple matters.
“Common sense can be indigenous knowledge that has developed and been proven to be successful over long periods of time in dealing with the world, people, society and nature.
“Over time, common sense identifies the productive, defensive and reactive practices that result in success and survival. In some cases, there is no objective, factual support for some practices. In other cases, the predictability of nature provides the factual and logical support for certain practices.
“Generalization is more possible with Sociological conclusions that are made from data that comes from wider sources, is less personalized and is collected in greater detail. Generalization can be less possible with common sense because of the limited, localized and personalized nature of experience, observation and understandings.
“Some taxpayers use common sense to assume that welfare recipients are mostly lazy people who just want to live off of the dole and who do not want to work. The reality is that a majority of welfare recipients are either elderly, disabled, or otherwise unable to work, are only temporary recipients, or are fully employed but making low enough wages to qualify for specific welfare benefits and programs.
“Sociologists can access the databases of the social services agency and make rigorous examination of the detailed welfare information. The average taxpayer usually has access to media reports and very limited data that is filled with non objective opinion, bias and factual error.
“Sociologists might study the economic, political, social and other conditions under disciplines of objectivity, ethics, rigorous methods of quantifying and collecting data, proving causality, modeling and other methods that can be more limited and capricious when developing common sense conclusions.
“The results are always to be tested against common sense that comes from real world, practical applications of ideas, policies and programs. All regional, national or international programs are implemented at peril of being found inadequate to handle localized realities. Thus, common sense, through surveys, notice and comment periods, and even lawsuits, is often taken seriously when large programs are being developed.
“To complicate matters, there may have been more objectivity when the common sense understanding was developed, while the sociological result might have involved less objectivity. Both science and common sense might be supported by factually volatile oral histories, casually completed records, or by detailed records that can are [sic] highly reliable.
“In summary, common sense develops from interacting personally and locally with the world and developing informal understandings and conclusions that explain things to personal and local satisfaction. Sociology uses the scientific method to get to the reality and truth of matters in ways that can be challenged and tested again and again and that generalize to more of the world.
“In reality common sense, indigenous knowledge, and scientific method work together as the backbones of the social sciences.” [all bold type emphasis is mine]
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Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials by Diana Elizabeth Kendall (Dec 2, 2008)
“Sociology promotes understanding and tolerance by enabling each of us to look beyond intuition, commonsense, and our personal experiences. Many of us rely on intuition or common sense gained from personal experience to help us understand our daily lives and other people’s behavior. Commonsense knowledge guides ordinary conduct in everyday life. However, many commonsense notions are actually myths. A myth is a popular but false notion that may be used, either intentionally or unintentionally, to perpetuate certain beliefs of “theories” even in the light of conclusive evidence to the contrary. (page 5)” [bold type for emphasis is mine]
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“Sociology and other social sciences focus on the study of certain aspects of human behavior. Yet human behavior is something with which we all have experience and about which we have at least a bit of knowledge. In our daily lives, we rely on common sense to get us through many unfamiliar situations. However, this knowledge while sometimes accurate is not always reliable because it rests on commonly held beliefs rather than systematic analysis of facts. Sociology and other social sciences focus on the study of certain aspects of human.
“Common sense is knowledge and awareness that is held communally (shared by majority of people). It does not depend on specialist education and in some respects states the obvious…. Many sociologists have responded that common sense is wrong and obvious truths are not so obvious.”
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Common sense, “based on a strict construction of the term, consists of what people in common would agree on : that which they “sense” as their common natural understanding. Some people (such as the authors of Merriam-Webster Online) use the phrase to refer to beliefs or propositions that — in their opinion — most people would consider prudent and of sound judgment, without reliance on esoteric knowledge or study or research, but based upon what they see as knowledge held by people “in common”. Thus “common sense” (in this view) equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have. Another meaning to the phrase is good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.”
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“Debunking is a process of questioning actions and ideas that are usually taken for granted. It refers to looking behind the facade of everyday life. It refers to looking at the behind-the-scenes patterns and processes that shape the behavior observed in the social world (Andersen & Taylor, 2001:6).” (Based on the work of Dr. Peter Berger)
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According to Martin Teicher, MD, PhD, director of the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program, “science shows that childhood maltreatment may produce changes in both brain function and structure. These changes are permanent. This is not something people can just get over and get on with their lives.”
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+U.N. REPORT CARD ON CHILD WELL-BEING AMONG GLOBE’S 24 RICHEST COUNTRIES: AMERICA FLUNKS!
+THE UNITED NATION’S REPORT CARD ON AMERICA’S CHILD WELL-BEING – THE WIDE GULF BETWEEN THE HAVES AND THE HAVE-NOTS: AM I IMPASSIONED OR EMBITTERED?
+CLEAR ARTICLE ON LIFELONG INFANT-CHILD TRAUMA CONSEQUENCES
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This is the first time I have encountered the literal text and process of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) Protocol by Mary B. Main (The Berkeley research for this interview also included Herman Hesse.). The site that hosts this information specifically requests that the material not be reproduced without permission of the author. Please click on this active link and take a look for yourself if you have any curiosity at all about how anyone could accurately measure secure or insecure attachment in adults.
As I read this protocol and try to imagine how I would respond to these questions in an Attachment Interview I can immediately see what a terrible scrambled up mess my own narrative-story of my childhood (and adulthood!) would be! I suspect the same reaction would be true for any other severe infant-childhood trauma and abuse survivor.
It’s worth the time to clock on the links above just to confirm for yourself – were your earliest experiences calm and soothing and happy – or not? As I understand it, nobody can fake their responses to the questions such an interviewer would use from this protocol. For all the marvelous information this interview can provide us about our adult attachment patterns, unfortunately for the lay public access to a certified interviewer is all but impossible to achieve. We certainly will never find a therapist who could guide us through the healing of our responses to the questions posed in this protocol, either.
Instead of wading around in and drowning in the sloppy mess of a field that ‘mental illness treatment’ has become, how much more efficient, accurate and effective it would be for all severe early abuse survivors to be given access to our ATTACHMENT history and patterns coupled with therapy about the TRUTH of our lives rather than be given any other diagnosis.
We MUST understand that it isn’t any specific ACTUAL memory that we might recall during the AAI that matters. What matters is HOW we tell our story not the WHAT our story is about.
I think about driving at night with my headlights on. While I am driving I cannot see the actual headlamps — the source of the light. Our earliest experiences operate within us in a similar way.
What happened to us conception to primarily age one in terms of our interactions with our primary caregivers MATTERS MOST. Either we had safe and secure attachment patterns with them as we needed to form our earliest body-brain correctly or we did not.
From conception to age three in fact builds the most important parts of who we are IN OUR PHYSIOLOGY — and THESE attachment experiences that lead us through our most critical brain-body stages of development determine the HOW of telling our story. This interview measures that HOW though we will seldom have conscious memory of these experiences that built us.
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Attachment Theory, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy: The Dynamic-Maturational Approach
Patricia M. Crittenden (2005)
“Attachment theory is the newest major theory of adaptive and maladaptive functioning, but, in the roughly 50 years since its initial formulation by Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973, 1980), it has attracted a great deal of attention and many variants. The approach discussed here is the dynamic-maturational model (DMM) of attachment theory. In the DMM, attachment is a theory about protection from danger and the need to find a reproductive partner (Crittenden, 1995).
As a developmental theory, it is concerned about the interactive effects of genetic inheritance with maturational processes and person-specific experience to produce individual differences in strategies for protecting the self and progeny and for seeking a reproductive partner. These strategies, i.e., the patterns of attachment, provide both a description of interpersonal behavior and also a functional system for diagnosing psychopathology. It is unlike other theories of psychopathology in that its perspective began with infancy studies and progressed forward developmentally, rather than beginning in adult disorder and attempting to reconstruct the developmental precursors of disorder.
As a theory of psychopathology, it is concerned with the effects of exposure to danger and failure to find a satisfying reproductive relationship on psychological and behavioral functioning. Attachment theory is not, however, a theory of treatment. Instead, the dynamic-maturational model of attachment theory can help to redefine the problem, offer new methods of assessment, and suggest when and with whom to use the various existing tools for psychological change.”
**Siegel – Attachment Measurement (kid and adult)
+INSECURE ATTACHMENT BREEDS CHILD ABUSE
+ATTACHMENT – HOW WE ARE WHO WE ARE
+TRAUMA SIGNALS THROUGH ATTACHMENT
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Someone posted this essay to an online group I belong to today. It’s from The Philosophical Society.com and presents a picture of very common patterns that appear frequently in conversations. Reading it made me think again about
Maxim of Quantity:
1. Make your contribution to the conversation as informative as necessary.
2. Do not make your contribution to the conversation more informative than necessary.
Maxim of Quality:
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Maxim of Relevance:
Be relevant (i.e., say things related to the current topic of the conversation).
Maxim of Manner:
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary wordiness).
4. Be orderly.
These maxims are considered to be reflected within rational ‘cooperative discourse’, and have been incorporated into the rating structure of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) used clinically and in research to assess adult attachment.
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This article (below) makes the point that often people are in direct competition with one another for the resource of attention in their conversations. Competition and cooperation seem to me to usually be opposite one another on a continuum of resource availability. The recent reading I have been doing (and posting about) that states human’s essentially cry to elicit attention from SOMEONE who will offer to them assistance and caregiving also reminds me that we often try to elicit this same response from other people with our words.
Conversations happen when there are patterns of rupture and repair between people. The idea of balance comes into play in my mind.
If we are suffering with conditions in our lives that make us feel less than safe and secure, often the activation of our attachment system that these conditions can create greatly diminishes our own ability to ‘care give’ another person – including our ability to truly listen and to pay attention to someone else.
We can easily describe the patterns of rupture and repair – or rupture without repair – that happen between people in social interaction from birth until death in terms of give and take. Taking often happens when someone has a need that has activated their attachment system in response to ‘insecure’ conditions. The call goes out (one way or the other) to someone who can/will respond with caregiving (the giver). The essay below uses the term ‘shift-response’ to identify when these ruptures take place.
We have become a nation in which well over half of our population suffers from some form of an unsafe and insecure attachment disorder and corresponding empathy disorder. These disorders-patterns can be assessed through the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) which is based on Grice’s Maxims and can be used to identify discrepancies in a person’s telling of their life narrative (coherent or incoherent life story).
The end goal of safe and secure attachment-building in infancy (as those patterns build the human body and brain from birth during critical windows of development) is that an adult be created that can most optimally explore in the world. The fullest exploration of life becomes the sign of a healthy safely and securely attached individual (who has had the opportunity to build peace and calm into the center of their body-brain-being as their normal resting state).
As the following essay suggests, the prize that can appear in conversation between two equally matched COOPERATIVE conversationalists (when neither partner is feeling needy (or greedy) with an activated insecure attachment system) would be the exploration of IDEAS.
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“I was saying,” continued the Rocket, “I was saying — what was I saying?”
“You were talking about yourself,” replied the Roman Candle.
“Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I was so rudely interrupted…”
— Oscar Wilde, “The Remarkable Rocket”
“Without attention being exchanged and distributed, there is no social life,” the sociologist Charles Derber wrote in his influential study The Pursuit of Attention. “A unique social resource, attention is created anew in each encounter and allocated in ways deeply affecting interactions.”
“Derber observed that the social support system in America is relatively weak, and this leads people to compete mightily for attention. In social situations, they tend to steer the conversation away from others and toward themselves. “Conversational narcissism is the key manifestation of the dominant attention-getting psychology in America,” he wrote. “It occurs in informal conversations among friends, family and coworkers. The profusion of popular literature about listening and the etiquette of managing those who talk constantly about themselves suggests its pervasiveness in everyday life…”
What Derber describes as “conversational narcissism” often occurs subtly rather than overtly, because even the dim-witted among us know that it’s rude not to show interest in others, and prudent to avoid being judged an egotist.
Derber distinguishes the “shift-response” from the “support-response.” The difference between the two is evident in these examples:
“John: I’m feeling really starved.
Mary: Oh, I just ate. (shift-response)
John: I’m feeling really starved.
Mary: When was the last time you ate? (support-response)
John: God, I’m feeling so angry at Bob.
Mary: Yeah, I’ve been feeling the same way toward him. (shift-response)
John: God, I’m feeling so angry at Bob.
Mary: Why, what’s been going on between the two of you? (support-response)”
“Conversational narcissism involves preferential use of the shift-response and underutilization of the support-response,” Derber notes. Excessive use of the shift-response is actually not common because it is patently egocentric and disruptive. According to Derber, a “more acceptable — and more pervasive — approach is one where a conversationalist makes temporary responsive concessions to others’ topics before intervening to turn the focus back to himself. The self-oriented conversationalist mixes shift-responses with support-responses, leaving the impression that he has interest in others as well as himself.”
The example Derber gives below is a fine illustration of this point:
“Jim: You know, I’ve been wanting to get a car for so long.
Bill: Yeah. (support-response)
Jim: Maybe when I get the job this summer, I’ll finally buy one. But they’re so expensive.
Bill: I was just thinking about how much I spend on my car. I think over $1500 a year. You know I had to lay out over $750 for insurance. And $250 for that fender job. (shift-response)
Jim: Yeah, it’s absurd. (support-response)
Bill: I’m sick of cars. I’ve been thinking of getting a bicycle and getting around in a healthy way…
Jim: I love bikes. But I’m just really feeling a need for a car now. I want to be able to drive up the coast whenever I want. (shift-response)
Bill: Uh huh…(support-response)
Jim: I could really get into a convertible.
Bill: Oh, you can go anywhere on a bike. I’m going to borrow John’s bike and go way up north next weekend. You know, a couple of weekends ago Sue and I rented bikes and rode down toward the Cape… (shift-response)”
At first glance such a discussion might appear to be reciprocal, but in fact both conversationalists at different points try to steer the conversation back into the orbit of self.
The dynamic of conversational narcissism is of course more complex than these few examples suggest. Derber sees class and gender influencing people’s propensity to gab or to listen. An influential or powerful person will naturally demand a captive audience (unlike, say, the lowly philosopher, to whom no one need pay any attention). Even today, a “good,” “feminine” woman is expected to be generous with support-responses, and listen to assertive men, even if they have nothing particularly illuminating to say. The therapist-client relationship is built on the tacit understanding that the therapist will listen empathetically and keenly to the patient, offering only support-responses, while the patient is given free rein to discuss any aspect of his life.
The ideal conversation would occur when neither party seeks to monopolize it, and when the direction is governed not by individual will or emotional neediness but by the flow of ideas. In such a circumstance, people would only speak to up the intellectual ante — not in any competitive or adversarial way, but in a spirit of wanting to nourish the intellectual rigor of the conversation.
As Derber points out, the ideal is very hard to attain, because people often enter into conversations seeking to receive attention rather than to give it. This norm is unlikely ever to change in a society that is increasingly impersonal and atomistic, and conditioned to award attention to those with status rather to those who might actually have something interesting to say.”
http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Archives/Conversational%20Narcissism.htm
Further Reading
Nancy Chodorow, The Social Reproduction of Mothering (1977)
R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (1967)
Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (1978)
David Reisman et al., The Lonely Crowd (1950)
Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (1977)
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I suspect that knowledge of the threat of death, even if existing only on a cellular level within our DNA, must accompany a newborn infant into this world. Why else would a person’s life force naturally accomplish all that is possible to remain alive? Is safe and secure attachment to caregivers designed to somehow banish this awareness of the threat of death? Is this part of the mechanics of change that severe infant abuse/trauma (especially) maltreated survivors never lose when we never had those attachments?
When the caregivers are NOT the source of protection but are rather the transmitters of harm and great violence, what THEN happens to this awareness of the threat of death?
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It seems almost strange to me that as I wait this morning for the HUD housing inspector to park in my yard this afternoon it is the awareness of the continuity throughout my entire life since my birthing of this awareness of the threat of death that is being fed into my thinking directly from the way my body is feeling right now.
As I pay attention I understand that ‘being walked right through’ is a big part of what I am sensing in my body connected to its memory. Yes, this inspector will ‘walk right through’ this entire personal, sacred, precious space of my home that is so much a part of ME right now.
The ‘being walked right through’ feels both extremely threatening to me right now and extremely familiar. It brings to mind my memory of being 21, walking around the northern town I lived in alone late at night in a snowstorm as I stood with my bare hands out in front of me, looked at my palms and heard a ‘voice’ say to me from within: “I am a wraith.”
At that time I didn’t even ‘logically’ know what the word wraith meant. Searching online I find that it is used mostly this way:
1 –an apparition of a living person supposed to portend his or her death.
2 — a visible spirit.
The origins of the word appear to be unclear though either Scottish or Celtic origins are suspected. Most of my genetic heritage is linked to these cultures.
For all the thousands of physical attacks I endured during the 18 years of my childhood, never – not one single time – did I experience of a sense that I as a person-self existed in the body that was being pummeled. I didn’t have that sense because I DIDN’T exist. And it wasn’t until that instant in that snowstorm that the first vague and distant clue arrived that I, in fact, did exist.
Until that instant there had never been a connection for me between my BODY and a ME-SELF capable of realizing anything about my own existence.
The two pieces of information had simply never built themselves into the associational networks in my brain. For this connection between body and awareness of self to come to me, and then for a connection to be made between the self as being connected to that body to happen SO LATE in my life would be nearly unbelievable to me if I didn’t know my own life story.
MY SELF-self HAD always been ‘walked right through’. My self, as existing not connected to my body, did not receive the physical blows that would have let it know it existed in time and space. My body obviously knew this information. It had suffered greatly.
My invisible self, my wraith self – contrary to definition in the dictionary – appeared for the first time when I was 21 not because I was on the verge of DYING but because I was on the verge of COMING ALIVE.
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Today I struggle with staying in and with my body as I go through this distress-provoking experience related to my well-being. My body, with its in-built ancient DNA instinctual wisdom DID endure, DID persevere. But this SELF I am with my awareness of my SELF existence remains only tenuously connected. The two can very easily become disassociated rather than associated with one another.
My SELF does not want to become nonexistent. I am very aware that in my case, given my unique history, that the fight to self-preserve happened IN MY BODY, but not in any way with this SELF I work to identify with today.
It is this self, who recognized herself for the first time when I was 21 in those words, “I am a wraith,” who knows what it was like to have no existence so that it could be ‘walked right through’ for my first 18 long years of torture.
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This is not an easy day……
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I live in and with an over-sensitized, over-sensitive, anxiety-trauma-built body. Among the changes that happened in my physiological development is that ALL of me was changed in adaptation to severe abuse and violent trauma from the moment I was born and during the following 18 years I could not escape my mother. This includes how my brain was structured from the beginning of life so that NOW it operates differently from ‘ordinary’.
These facts of course affect not only my thinking, but my writing as well. I FORCE myself to think in words, which is an essential process that I do not obscure in my writing.
Although I am not ‘autistic’ my patterns of thinking can be as disconcerting to follow verbally as an autistic person’s can be. I do not – because I really cannot – attempt to obscure from my writing how my brain (hence, I) move forward in time within the realm of words.
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Blogging has comfortingly allowed me to write in loops and circles. What my body knows (as with everyone’s) provides information through my right brain that must then be handed over to my left brain for linear-logical-verbal exposure to consciousness. In order for this process to happen, all this back-and-forth has to involve the ‘bridge’ between my two brain hemispheres – my corpus callosum. As is well known and is much written about today, the development of both brains and the bridge between them is greatly affected by severe abuse, neglect, trauma, violence and malevolent treatment during the brain’s most critical early stages of growth.
I suffer from these consequences. But I am determined and courageous. It is my intent to make the most good possible come out of my disastrous early beginnings, and as is my prayer every day of my life, to at least offer something that might help someone else.
When I began this blog in April of 2009 I could not go back and reread or edit in any way anything that I wrote. Whatever state I was in when I wrote was not one I could return to even in the immediate future. I had no tolerance for my own words as if I was deadly allergic to them. What I wrote about had been deadly toxic to me – and remained so.
I have made SOME progress, although most of the time I have to ‘look the other way’ as the words come out. Having entirely lacked any concept of ‘being a self’ or of ‘having a self’ for the first 18 years of my life has left me with that all too familiar dissociational condition of being ‘depersonalized’ so that once a single instant of time has passed by in my life it becomes the ‘dereal’ past – not directly connected to me in any way unless I consciously, logically FORCE an awareness of a connection.
But I do not FEEL connected to myself as a ‘past entity’ or as a ‘future entity’. All perception of time was built into my body-brain in the midst of ongoing severe trauma, and I now believe that if there is NEVER a sense of safety or security (as expressed in human attachment relationships), when there is no safe and secure time to REST between experiences of trauma, the acute trauma stage with its altered sense of time becomes permanent.
This also affects me as I think in written words. I am ‘mind blind’ to words that are going to follow one another. I have to, again, ‘look the other way’ rather than anticipate where my thoughts are going. I believe when Dr. Daniel Siegel speaks of ‘Mind Sight’ he is referring to consequences such as I suffer from. In my courage and determination I do not let these alterations stop me.
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Sometimes my posts must seem redundant to this blog’s faithful readers. Every post I write has to have enough inner integrity that it can be found through someone’s future online search, read, and understood in context. This is an example of this process in motion over time:
Posted yesterday in comment to a post: +A LONG, THOUGHTFUL LOOK AT VERBAL ABUSE AS MALIGNANT TEASING
Word Count: 5876
“I googled “teasing as verbal abuse” because i wanted to read something exactly like this.”
This post is a long one. Yet somehow within its structure of words it held something of helpful meaning to this reader – and I am glad it did!
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Because of my brain being built in the midst of severe trauma my emotional right limbic brain and the body that feeds it information IS overly sensitive-sensitized. I will struggle with ‘failure’ on a primal level within me for the rest of my life, so when a comment comes in like this one, I struggle directly with the ‘rejection’ that it triggered:
Posted yesterday in a comment to post: +INSECURE INFANT ATTACHMENT, DAY CARE AND EMOTIONAL NEGLECT
Word Count: 1234
“I’ve been skimming your recent posts (sorry, they’re a little long)”
And this post was a relatively short one. Of course I welcome all comments. My discomfort has nothing to do with the words of the commenter – nearly everything about being alive in my body is a trauma trigger to me, so pervasive was the malevolent trauma that built me!
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Now, THIS post is a very long one and I thought about perhaps figuring out a way to impose some structure on it at the time it was posted. And yet dividing one of my thought stream writing processes into segments, like chapters, doesn’t work well in this blog’s format. Although it easily contains enough words for 4-5 posts, it needs to remain a ‘stand alone’ piece for someone to discover sometime in the future as a ‘whole thing’ with its context intact.
January 16, 2011 post: +TO BE OR NOT TO BE — HUMAN OR OBJECT: EARLY ATTACHMENT PATTERNS DECIDE AS THEY BUILD OUR ANS
Word count: 4095
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Computerized reading is nicely designed to allow for scanning and skimming. Any post can also be read in parts over time – put down and picked up again like a book.
Somehow, to me, the nature of my writing-thinking process is integral to the purpose of this blog. Nothing comes easily. Nothing comes without effort. When a severe infant-child abuse survivor attempts to accomplish a lifespan in a body-brain that was altered and changed in its development by trauma, nothing about our life happens in a simple straightforward way. This can be especially true with our patterns of processing words that match our experience.
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NOTE: It is always best to come directly to the blog post as it exists in real time because I DO now often go back after the post is published and make changes — exactly as I am at this moment.
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This will not be an easy day for me, nor did the event I anticipate happening today let me have much sleep last night. Because I try as hard as I can to learn something useful out of every difficulty I encounter, the experience I am having right now must have a pearl at the center of it somewhere.
Being quite low income (fixed disability) I put my name on the local HUD Section 8 Rental Assistance program waiting list over three years ago. My name came up. Fortunately my kind, supportive, caring, helpful, loving and very clear-thinking daughter was willing to take care of the first level of paperwork when she came down to visit earlier this month. This afternoon the housing inspector comes over to take a look around.
There is no way that I can escape the anxiety this entire scenario creates for me. And this level of anxiety, because it threatens the entire safety and security of my life, disorganizes and disorients me. In short, it hurts.
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Older houses in this border region were never built by rich people. They don’t match anyone’s ‘building code’. In the four plus years I’ve been renting this one I, and my loving brother when he comes to visit, have made every improvement that my limited budget could afford.
I have been cleaning and painting – and rearranging – and waiting – and stressing in my own unique distressed way for weeks. Knowing the wiring in this house is really inadequate, and that my usual string of extension cords would be a dead give-a-way to that fact, I have worked to eliminate them. Then there’s heating the inspector won’t like. There’s all kinds of things about this house the inspector might not like.
Will he, can he make exceptions to his rules? Will he overlook things in this poor house so its poor tenant can continue to live here?
Not knowing. The unknown. The helplessness and powerlessness and vulnerability and fear – no terror – I feel. Dare I hope?
This is my home. This and my gardens. This spot on the earth I have found. I do not want to move. I cannot imagine moving. Moving would be a malevolent traumatization to me that I can not imagine enduring or surviving.
If this house does not pass inspection, will my landlord alter-fix what needs to be done to make it pass?
I don’t know that, either.
If it comes to having to move from here to keep my valuable rental assistance voucher – what will I decide to do?
I do not know.
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Vulnerability is not good for me. Being of low resources is not good for me, but it is the way my life is and I am grateful for all the programs I receive help from – at the same time I feel guilty, and feel sad for all those much needier than me, those with young children, all those who struggle – and I think I should have let my expiration date pass when my cancer came instead of fighting it, enduring, remaining alive, consuming resources that I cannot earn or pay for on my own.
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There’s a lot at risk. There’s a lot at stake. This strange man will come into my house, do his job, prowl around with his critical and meticulous eye, doing his job. Will he look into every crack and crevice, every cupboard, every closet, peer here and there asking his questions, and will I be able to remain calm enough – not panic – not dissolve into the too-familiar tears that often come now when my anxiety erupts into escalated disaster-based emotions?
My home is my solace. My infant-childhood abuse and trauma-related disabilities keep me mostly HERE in this place of my safety, security and comfort – such as I can wrest now from this world I abide in. I do not leave here often, and do not go very far. I can’t.
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Yesterday as I forced myself through the final stages of preparation for what FEELS LIKE an attack on my hard won well-being in my tiny corner of the world, I became very aware of my heightened depression and of its connection to one critically important state of existence.
In part because of my recent readings and study about how ALL attachment relationships are about PROTECTION first and foremost – protection of the BODY that holds the SELF – I realized that what triggers my deepest sadness (and it was triggered yesterday and certainly here it is today) – is the most ancient pervasive overwhelming state that I spent the first 18 years of my life in:
NOBODY is here to help me. NOBODY is here to protect me. NOBODY cares if I live or die (as an infant-child I was very aware they wanted me dead). I am IN THIS ALONE. I am desperate. I am threatened. My extinction is imminent.
I have to pause here and wait through my disorganized-disoriented storm, searching for words, for a pattern of thinking in words that I can reach for, grab onto, and follow as if dragged forward through time from this moment into the next one and the next one.
What?
I know I know it. I know I know what I want to say. I know that I am a self and that this self knows. I know this scrambling is directly connected to how trauma formed my brain – my right brain, my left brain, the middle of the two – all changed by trauma so that thinking in words can be impossible at the same time emotions consume my body.
What?
I go back to the beginning. No protection. AHH! That’s the word: Self-preservation.
From the instant I was born if I was going to stay alive in the midst of violent trauma and abuse, if I was going to stay alive it was up to me to preserve my own self.
NOBODY as a tiny infant-toddler-child born tiny and helpless and needy and vulnerable and dependent SHOULD EVER HAVE TO KNOW THIS FEELING.
This is what I felt so strongly yesterday as I dragged my great depression and growing sadness about this inspection and all that hangs weighted in the balance. This terrible sadness I drag around through my life as a ball-and-chain.
Being deprived by violent trauma and abuse without having a safe and secure attachment to ANYONE for 18 years – and surviving that IN SPITE of this fact – I self-preserved. I persevered in my self-preservation – but there was and is a high, high cost.
That cost is sadness.
That cost is hurt.
When I read in the article posted yesterday about child abuse consequences that Substance P IS INVOLVED – as I know it is – I can now hang my sadness on that hook. Being not only deprived for 18 years of ANY protection because I was deprived of ANY attachment – at the same time I was continually attacked by those same people nature had designated to be my caregivers – self-preservation grew and grew and took the place of what I needed and was SUPPOSED to have at the same time great pain and sadness grew within me at the same time.
Facing this inspection today with all the threat to my safety and security it entails, threatens also to overwhelm me with this sadness. My abilities to self-preserve are coupled with this pain.
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Although I am nothing like a ‘scientific expert’ on the topics I present on this blog, I sure can recognize comprehensive outside support articles on what exposure to passive and active malevolent treatment including violent trauma (including emotional and verbal abuse), emotional neglect, physical neglect and unsafe and insecure early caregiver attachments do to change the physiological and psychological development of infants, toddler, children and teens.
This article by Dr. McCollum that I present here today presents the topic of what I call Trauma Altered Development (TAD) in a clear, lay-readable format. For all the times that I have mentioned that I believe that TAD directly affects the human developing immune system, I find the material in this article supportive of my belief.
The term being used here, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) comes from our nation’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) and is working to standardize the measurement across scientific fields of study related to suffering in infant-childhood caused by trauma in a little one’s earliest environment.
One of my strongest suggestions for standardizing all research about infant-child abuse and its lifelong consequences would be implementation of a federal-state mandate that would require that every American receiving any kind of health care services fill out a CDC ACE study questionnaire and that the results of these reports be accumulated in a federal (confidential) databank.
The article that follows gives us convincing reasons for believing that making the connection between the overall well-being of our nation’s offspring is of critical national interest. If the subject of infant-child lack of well-being, neglect and abuse ever crosses a person’s mind, the following is the kind of information that needs to inform their thinking. (I believe many forms of arthritis and cancer belong to the ‘health consequence list’. We also can no longer ignore the epigenetic changes that child abuse often creates that can also be passed down the generations.)
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I located this March 2006 article today on the Minnesota Medicine website, and have copied it over onto my blog for educational purposes only (please click on article title to find the list of references):
Clinical and Health Affairs — Child Maltreatment and Brain Development
By David McCollum, M.D.
Abstract
“A growing body of research has linked childhood experiences of maltreatment with a host of physical conditions that manifest in adulthood. In addition, newer neuroimaging techniques have documented structural changes that occur in the brains of individuals who suffer early maltreatment. This article briefly reviews the literature on these topics and outlines the connection between abuse in childhood and health problems in adulthood.
It has long been observed that some children raised in violent, abusive, or neglectful settings grow up to express violence, anger, depression, or to be engaged in drug use, alcoholism, or criminal activity. The thinking has been that children copy what they see and hear. When anti-social behavior is the norm and when it is reinforced by adults in the environment, children repeat it. During the past 15 years, scientific and clinical research has begun to document that more is at work. Anatomical and functional alterations occur in the brains of children who are exposed to adverse events.1 Research has also shed light on the less obvious link between childhood abuse and lifetime physical and mental health outcomes.2,3 This article reviews some of the research showing the neurobiological, neuroanatomical, and physiological effects of early life stressors and how they might relate to ongoing medical problems later in life.
The Connection between Abuse and Disease
Repeated exposure to adverse or harmful events in childhood has been linked to many adult health consequences. The adverse experiences that have been studied most are sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. Anda et al. identified additional experiences that influence health behavior and outcomes, including mother treated violently, mental illness, substance abuse, incarcerated household member, and parental separation or divorce.4 Because at least 30% of children in this country experience some form of child abuse prior to age 18, we can expect adverse childhood experiences to have a significant impact on the health care system.5
New technologies such as functional MRI, PET, and MRI/T2 relaxometry (T2-RT) have enabled scientists to identify the chemical and structural differences between the central nervous systems of abused and nonabused individuals.6,7 This research shows that many health problems—including panic disorder/post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, depression, some auto-immune disorders, suicidal tendencies, abnormal fear responses, preterm labor, chronic pain syndromes, and ovarian dysfunction—can be understood, in some cases, as manifestations of childhood maltreatment.8-13
Brain Development
An infant’s brain is equipped with an overabundance of neurons, synaptic potential, and dendrites. DNA is responsible for early brain development. But after birth, experience helps to determine which neurons will persist, which synapses will develop and become permanent, and which connections will take prominence or be subdued. Myelination, formation of the protective sheath surrounding nerve fibers, continues throughout childhood and, in some areas of the brain, into the third decade of life. This process establishes final, permanent linkages within the brain structures.14
The limbic system is the part of the brain most vulnerable to adverse childhood experiences. The system is made up of the amygdala, hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, thalamus, hypothalamus, and putamen. Related structures include the cerebellar vermis, prefrontal cortex, and visual and parietal cortex. The limbic system is responsible for the generation and control or inhibition of emotions. It is also involved in interpreting facial expressions and evaluating danger, is responsible for the fight-or-flight response to stress, and integrates emotional reactions and connects them with the physical response. Various components are also involved in memory, both implicit and explicit, and in learning (Table).
Brain Sequelae
Stress initiates a series of hormonal responses in the limbic system. The initial response to stress or danger is activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary- adrenal (HPA) axis. This occurs in the locus coeruleus and the sympathetic nervous system, causing a release of the hormones norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. The amygdala reacts to this hormone release and, in turn, stimulates the hypothalamus to release corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF). CRF, itself, acts as both a hormone, to stimulate adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH) secretion, and as a neurotransmitter, affecting areas of the cortex that are involved in executive functioning (eg, motivation, planning, and logic).15 Increasing ACTH secretion then leads to elevated glucocorticoids (cortisol). High levels of glucocorticoids have been shown to negatively affect the hippocampus, resulting in decreased dendritic branching, changes in synaptic terminal structure, and neuronal loss.16 A feedback mechanism in the hypothalamus and the hippocampus normally brings these levels back to their resting state.
If this process occurs repeatedly, CRF and glucocorticoids remain elevated, which eventually causes structural changes in the brain and impedes the feedback mechanism, leading to an imbalance in hormones and dysregulation of the HPA axis.17
Signs of Stress in the Brain
Several studies have shown a measurable reduction in the size of the amygdala, hippocampus (primarily the left side), corpus callosum, and the cerebellar vermis, and an increase in size of the putamen and lateral ventricles in both children and adults who experienced repeated childhood trauma.18-20 These changes are thought to be an effect of elevated glucocorticoid levels inhibiting myelination in these structures.14 Because most areas of the limbic system are high in glucocorticoid receptors, they are susceptible to the effects of early childhood abuse.
Functional changes have also been noted in the anterior cingulate gyrus and the visual and parietal cortex. Elevated resting levels of CRF have been found in the spinal fluid of abuse victims.21 Elevated T3 levels have also been found in patients with a history of childhood abuse.22
Dopamine, which is released during the stress response, stimulates areas of the prefrontal cortex, probably resulting in heightened attention and improved cognitive capacity. Chronic stress, however, appears to cause an overproduction of dopamine, which can result in reduced attention, increased overall vigilance, as well as a diminished capacity to learn new material and increased paranoid and psychotic behavior.23
Serotonin stimulates both anxiogenic and anxiolytic circuits, which create and reduce anxiety. Decreased serotonin levels in the prefrontal cortex have been found as a result of chronic stress. Suicidal behavior, depression, and aggression have been shown to result from low serotonin levels.
Substance P, a neuropeptide found throughout the body that participates in the pain response and inflammation, has been found at much higher levels in the spinal fluid of those with significant abuse history. Studies in rats showed that injecting high levels of substance P in the spinal fluid caused a significantly exaggerated pain response to a noxious stimulus.24
Related Health Problems
The health problems associated with these changes in the brain are significant. According to Anda et al., atrophy of the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex, and the subsequent dysfunction is related to anxiety, panic, depressed affect, hallucinations, and substance abuse. Increased locus coeruleus and norepinephrine activity have been related to tobacco use, alcoholism, illicit drug use, and injectable drug use. Defects in the amygdala and related deficits in oxytocin result in sexual aggression, sexual dissatisfaction, perpetration of intimate partner violence, and impaired pair bonding.4
Anderson et al. used a novel technology called static functional MRI T2 relaxometry (T2-RT) on a population that had experienced childhood sexual trauma and found evidence of significant changes in the cerebellar vermis in abused individuals compared with nonabused individuals.6 The vermis has been shown to play a role in suppressing excitability within the limbic system. The most consistent anatomical finding in children with ADHD is a reduction in the size of the cerebellar vermis. Other studies show similarities in hormonal changes in children with ADHD. Famularo showed a high correlation between traumatic family environments and ADHD comorbidity.25,26
Allsworth showed that dysfunction in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, common in people who have been abused, leads to ovarian dysfunction and early menopause.13 This is likely to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in these women because estrogen is reduced prematurely and, therefore, its protective function is lost earlier, increasing risk for cardiovascular disorders. Another interesting finding is that early stress may lead to premature involution of the thymus gland. Anti-nuclear antibodies, which attack the body’s own tissues instead of foreign toxins and are frequently present in people with systemic lupus erythematosus, also have been found at higher levels in girls who have been sexually abused compared with those who have never experienced abuse.9
The link between fibromyalgia and sexual abuse has been extensively studied.27 Dysregulation of the HPA axis has been found in most patients with fibromyalgia.28 Substance P is found in high levels in this population. Irritable bowel syndrome has also been shown to be correlated with childhood sexual abuse, and higher levels of substance P have been found in the colonic mucosa of individuals who were maltreated as children. Also, increased glucocorticoid has been shown to act on the intra-abdominal adipocytes leading to increased fat storage.4 Findings that memory pathways are adversely affected by exposure to abuse may explain some amnesia, delayed recall of abuse, and dissociative disorders.29 Some authors consider conversion reactions and pseudoseizures a form of dissociative disorder.30 [bold type is mine]
Conclusion
For years, we have ignored the potential influence of childhood traumatic experiences on adult disease, preferring to look for genetic causes of disease and pure biochemical factors without considering experiential influences. Given new evidence that trauma in childhood alters the physiology of the brain, it is time for all physicians to be educated about the full health impact of violence and abuse and be trained to explore these issues as the true etiology of or an underlying potentiating factor that contributes to their patients’ maladies.”
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I woke up this morning to find my mind raring to GO like a team of healthy horses all hitched up, prancing around and chomping at their bits. “WHOA!” I have to say to myself. “I can see you have something important to say but I have no idea where I’m going with this!”
“Sadly,” I might add. Sadly I have to remain poised at the beginning of writing something I know about infant-human development as I put myself on ‘pause’. “How do I begin to write about something that is so critically important to the creation of a human being at the same time that the most accurate information about the topic lies only within the most densely-packed, difficult to read, most unnatural form that any lay readers could find it — ensconced in the tombs of writing created by the best-of-the-best developmental neuroscientists?”
I ask, “Who am I to assume that I might be the one to translate this critically important information into words that make perfect, clear, digestible and usable form for regular people? Who am I to be the one that believes I can make logical connections between bits of scientific information that so-far mostly remain within the vernacular realm of ‘open to debate’ or ‘not remotely related’ to what people need to know about being alive in a human body in a culture that really doesn’t seem to care what being a human being MEANS, anyway?”
And I — simple I. “Why me?”
“Why should I be the one trying to make these important connections about being born a tiny human being in a body that has so far to go before it can even grasp the reins of its own great potential to be a separate person among billions of others on the planet today?”
“Why — I — who had removed from me (through unbelievable trauma, torture, neglect and abuse from the time of my birth) perhaps as effectively as is humanly possible nearly ever single chance, nearly every single possibility of being the ME I was born as, of having a chance to grow that ME into a self in a healthy body so that I could have gone off in completely different directions with my life so that I would have ended up a different person in a different body living a different life than I am today?”
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I am not an ‘acadamian’. I don’t have, and never will have a doctorate or a string of impressive degree titles strung after my name to prove to anyone that I know what I’m talking about.
I don’t even know what I’m talking about. The only strength I possess is my determination to FIND OUT what I know — inside my own body — as I work as hard as I can at being TRUE to what I know and try to communicate that information as it matches what the developmental neuroscientists know.
NOT AN EASY TASK. None of this is. And the two intimately connected subjects I WANT to write about, that I WANT to understand, that I believe are so important for ALL OF US to understand surround me at this very instant as they threaten to do what they do BEST — obliterate ME.
Those two subjects are DISSOCIATION and SHAME as they both utilize the same human physiological pathways within our body that, when they exist in a person’s body, lie within our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).
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Part of what keeps me sitting here this morning on complete ‘pause’ is that I am realizing how profoundly I have been guilty of allowing an obstacle to sit in my own pathway that has continued to limit what I understand about how the malevolent trauma of my earliest physiological developing moments, days, weeks, months and years not ONLY changed how my brain developed, and not ONLY changed the development of this collection of living tissue referred to as my BODY — the pervasive traumas that happened to me ALSO changed how my BRAIN and my BODY communicate with one another.
Dissociation and shame, both happening as BRAKES on experience a person has as they operate within a human’s ANS, can shatter the continuity of one’s experience of being alive at the same time they disrupt and destroy the formation of those physiological routes WITHIN THE BODY that a person MUST HAVE to become and to remain a healthy, whole SELF.
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It is at this point, as I sit reins in hand with my prancing, chomping, raring-to-go team of horses ahead of this too-flimsy cart I sit perched on that I realize I have no clear idea about which direction to go in.
At the same time I recognize that I know that eventually ‘all roads lead to Rome’ and that it doesn’t matter which direction I head off to. In the end, ALL OF WHAT I KNOW from the 18-year infant-childhood of horrific abuse, trauma and malevolent treatment that I survived — coupled with every shred of neuroscientific information I have sought for and attempted to comprehend about human infant-child development and about how neglect, abuse and trauma changes the development of our BODY itself — means the same thing.
If a human infant is not given as nearly as possible EXACTLY what it needs — safe and secure early attachment interactions with its earliest primary caregivers most essentially with its mother — OPTIMAL development on every single level of its developing body will NOT happen as a consequence.
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Perhaps for the first time in the 59 years of my life I am finding myself as the severely abused infant-child I was, falling-drifting into place among all the other members of my species. As horrifically an exception to the ‘norm’ that my severely abusive-traumatizing infant-childhood consistently was, there is NOTHING about what happened to me that was in any way an exception to the rule of ‘human is, human does’.
The more I understand that any form of interference with or neglect of providing (especially for a human being ages 0-3) OPTIMAL conditions to develop RIGHT results in negative changes to the development of the BODY and of all its components, the more I understand that our culture is creating a nation of people who do NOT have an optimal body at the same time they do not have AN OPTIMAL SELF.
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As I sit upon my flimsy cart of ‘trying to figure out how all the FACTS fit together into a whole’, I realize that in some ways all the color is draining out of my view of the world. As I make the inner agreement with myself to just relax and let this color-draining happen so that I can come a little bit closer to KNOWING WHAT I KNOW inside my body-self, I am beginning to see that when it comes to forming OPTIMAL people from the moment of their conception, there really doesn’t appear to be much GRAY in this world at all!
It is into this very black and white world that I can see myself slipping-sliding-drifting-falling as just one more person among no doubt millions of others whose earliest most critical stages of development deprived me of the chance to become an OPTIMAL human being.
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Black OR white world: Either an infant-child is born into an environment that provides (as exactly as possible = ‘good enough’) what it needs to recognize its own self at the same time it is given what it needs to GROW that self into a BODY that forms with this SELF front-stage-and-center — or it isn’t.
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I don’t WANT to write this post. I don’t WANT to think about ANYTHING I seem now-destined to think about. I would much rather have been immediately whisked away forever at the instant of my birth from my severely abusive mother into a DIFFERENT world, one in which I would have been raised OPTIMALLY so that right now I would be a DIFFERENT me living a different life in an entirely different body.
It is a tragedy beyond measure that I am sitting here being who I AM, not because I am flawed as a SELF, but because my development of my SELF included the development of this body on all its levels that my SELF has to live in/with. THIS IS NOT THE SAME BODY that I would have had if the whisked-away had happened. THIS BODY was permanently changed in its development ON ALL ITS LEVELS in response to the deprivations and trauma I was formed in and by.
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Not being a computer literate person I can’t truly begin to understand the analogy that is stuck in my thoughts today. I will loosen the brakes on this wagon I am perched on and gently shake the reins and speak to my team of horses in a quiet, gentle voice. “Inch forward a little tiny bit,” I tell them. And then SLAM, back on go the brakes.
I would say at this point that building a human being from conception forward might involve on the molecular level a process similar to booting a computer.
As I understand it, I push a button (baby conceived) and then let the computer proceed through whatever stages it invisibly accomplishes all on its own until VOILA! I can use the computer for my intended purposes.
I don’t begin to understand what my computer is ACTUALLY doing as it goes through its necessary stages to make itself operational. Nor do I tamper with, attempt to rearrange, or in any other way interfere with my computer’s ‘developmental stages’ to reach its operational abilities.
I simply let all that happen on its own.
NOW – enter a MOTHER of a human infant into the picture (and I intentionally say MOTHER because, by hook or by crook, it is MOTHERS who bring these new human beings out into the world). Of course MOTHERS exist within environments that hopefully contain other people who can assist her in her job of ‘booting up’ the full operating potential of her infant-toddler-child.
In this black and white world of ‘do it right’ or ‘do it wrong’ that I am thinking within at this moment, we humans are not only fully capable of interfering with a human being’s ‘booting up’ process, we can so disturb it that we essentially RUIN it.
Then we blame and shame, wring our hands, whine, complain and in other ways HATE that the human beings that emerge at the end of a thwarted ‘booting up’ interactive developmental process are LESS THAN OPTIMAL or nearly completely BROKEN as a direct consequence of not accomplishing what NATURE requires for the ‘booting up’ to happen right.
True, human infant-children are malleable. True, resiliency and risk factors that exist within their body and within the environment their body is growing itself within seem to give us certain additional options that a booting computer doesn’t possess.
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At this instant I am going to close my proverbial mind’s eye and then open it again — a sort of slow blink. Now I see a wide open straight smooth track ahead of me as it disappears into the horizon. I look to my right and see all of my favorite developmental neuroscientists, developmental pediatricians, human attachment experts beside me in a row.
“Ah-ha!” I experience a split second of elation because I know that I am NOT alone in my considerations about how HUMAN development happens in direct interaction with existing infant-caregiver interactions in the earliest of human environments.
But wait! I look at myself. Here I am in my thrift store clothing, holding reins and a harness made of twisted, braided ducktape. My pathetic little cart has been built and rebuilt using scraps of wood and metal I found tossed into the growing pile of trash behind my neighbor’s fence. Not only are my wheels missing spokes, but as I look ahead of me I see that the only source of energy I have to move me forward into new understanding about what I in fact SHARE with other human beings is a tired old gray mare — and I mean THE old gray mare.
To the side of me sit the others on their fabulous rigs, their well-heeled horses ahead of them in equal health and splendor. Off we go! Or, I should say, off THEY go!
Pounding hooves toss up clouds of dust but the stunning racers stretch out way ahead of it. Here I am, having barely moved ahead by a fraction of an inch watching all those ‘professionals’ eat up the miles and disappear into the distance.
I do what any sane lay person would do. I get out and walk. But because this old gray mare has been such a good and loyal friend to me, I will not leave her behind. I unhitch her from this shabby contraption of a cart, reach into my pocket and pull our a carrot and give it to her. As she munches it happily I wrap my fingertips into her soft warm mane and together we saunter along after the others.
At the same time I think about the words I have heard to be attributed to Gandhi: “There go my people. I must follow. I am their leader.”
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This post is a collection of my thoughts that are connected to the horrific experiences my just-turned-10-month old grandson had in his new day care last week. It’s enough to say that this VERY safely and securely attached infant experience a radical breach in his reality in that experience directly related to his mismatch between his OPTIMAL attachment at his developmental stage and the NOT optimal attachment environment that his day care provider considered ‘normal’.
After three days my grandson was ‘expelled’ as the provider told my daughter and her husband that they better go get some ‘behavioral health’ counseling for their baby.
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The other collection of thoughts that lies behind this post today has to do with my thinking about two articles that I have recently read and am heavily pondering:
One of them was referenced in this recent post: +A START ON THE TOPIC OF TEARS, CRYING, WEEPING, THE ANS AND ATTACHMENT….
and refers to this article:
THE MEANING OF CRYING BASED ON ATTACHMENT THEORY
In it the author describes that the bottom-line purpose of the human attachment system is for protection. That makes sense to me on one level. Why else would we talk about human attachment in terms of being safe and secure — or not?
But I, with my lay-rig-thinking ALSO know that because we are HUMAN the bottom-line below this bottom-line is that our attachment needs are not ONLY about protecting the existence of our body itself, but are fundamentally about PROTECTING AN INDIVIDUAL’S SELF both as it forms at the beginning of our life and as it continues to exist as long as the body that contains this self remains alive.
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The other article of immediate importance to me in my pondering is this one:
Shattered Shame States and their Repair
The John Bowlby Memorial Lecture
Saturday March 10, 2007
Judith Lewis Herman, M.D.
This is the article I mentioned in my recent post that asserts that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may well be a shame-based disorder.
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Yet at the same time I am considering the information presented in these two articles I understand that I am reading second-hand what the developmental neuroscientists say about human infant development as they describe what needs to happen during the initial 0-3 ‘booting up’ time of human development for things to go OPTIMALLY WELL and what happens when OPTIMAL doesn’t happen.
I am dismayed to realize that I have to AGAIN go back to the source of the information all the other writers are speaking about second-hand. Believe me, this will entail yet another long, difficult and arduous effort on my part to present this first-hand information to my blog readers.
But that is what my WORK truly is — WORK!
If what is now known about human development actually was in fact a perfect grapefruit sitting in the middle of a Round Table, and if all the ‘experts’ were sitting around the table using the terminology of what they KNOW about that fruit, they would all approach its description differently.
Some might say “It is certainly round.” Others might say “It is certainly yellow.” Others, “It is certainly a fruit” or “It’s certainly edible” or “It’s certainly yellow on the outside, but I bet it’s pink on the inside.”
My point being, I have yet to see all of these divisions of knowledge ABOUT WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT unify their thinking into a single whole that can be presented WITH MEANING to those of us not sitting at that table.
Nor is what we infant-child severe trauma survivors KNOW about this entire area of study INCLUDED equally in intelligent discussion.
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Back to the proverbial drawing board I will have to go now. When I encounter something new I have to go back and straighten out my own thinking about what I have already studied so that my INNER understanding within my body can match the increasingly simple yet increasingly BIGGER picture about what all of this means.
Right now — at this single solitary moment in time — I am coming to the conclusion that as we follow all of the ‘scientific’ information back and back and back to the beginning of human infant development at birth, all of it is about MAKING A HUMAN BEING versus creating an entity that DOES NOT HAVE A HEALTHY SELF.
Without a healthy self, a human being is NOT fully human.
I sense that this statement approaches heresy.
Without having a healthy self — which includes any degree of interruption in the development of an infant’s BODY that HAS to happen for a healthy self to recognize and express itself (healthy in my mind meaning the same thing as WHOLE) — an individual cannot possibly tell itself apart from AN OBJECT.
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While I might bemoan the fact that I will never be able to understand all the physiological connections within the human brain and body that connect to one another and than come ‘online’ in the human ‘booting up’ early developmental process, at the same time I can trust my sense from my own experience about what all the research is probably saying.
Everything within us IS connected in critical ways, and I suspect that the connections between our brain and our visceral body happen within our Autonomic Nervous System in some critically important way so that non-optimal early experiences change our ANS development. Traumatic non-optimal early experiences that happen to us before our ANS has developed an optimal safe and secure attachment system by the age of one (or, in cases like mine when safe and secure attachments are left entirely out of the picture for an entire childhood) dissociational patterns somehow contaminate the development of what is supposed to be healthy and normal shame reactions.
As far as I can tell dissociation and shame are physiologically THE SAME.
My guess is that early relational trauma distorts the healthy optimal development of the ANS in such a way that dissociation rather than a healthy shame reaction form themselves into a body that will henceforth be deprived of the development of a healthy WHOLE self that has been enabled (in its ‘booting up’ process) to separate itself entirely from any contamination with ‘being an object’. (This level of trauma-caused developmental damage, by the way, creates butcher-killers and severe psychotic child abusers like my mother was.)
Because we are members of a social species, this entire ‘coming online booting up process’ 0-3 fundamentally affects all of our interactions not only with our OWN self, but with the selves of others. If in our own development we were not enabled to cross the invisible line between being an object and being a separate HUMAN entity, we cannot possibly know what any other person truly is, either.
All the intricate information feedback and feedforward loops that exist in our body make sure that WHAT we know about WHO we are and about HOW we are in the world is known at all levels of our physiology. What information we have gained about being a whole self or a partial self-partial object permeates our existence in the same way that our DNA does. My guess is that every caregiver-interactional experience we had within our earliest environment literally left its footprint in the development of our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and its corresponding attachment-experience related stress-calm response patterns.
It would then seem entirely possible to me that the more I can identify the dissociation-shame reactions being expressed within my ANS the more I can wrest away from my unconscious automatic ANS responses my own conscious SELF. This is not a meaningless process for me of objectively finding ways to describe the grapefruit in the middle of the table. If I liken that unique grapefruit to being a unique individual human being — well — my mother blew up my grapefruit BEFORE I WAS BORN.
The psychotic break that my mother evidently experienced while birthing (breach) me in which she was convinced that the devil sent me to kill her while I was being born meant that from that point onward I was not only not a SELF, I was not even a human being but rather was the child-tool of the devil.
I can’t imagine a scenario more guaranteed to completely obliterate the development of a human self. To be born as a non-human devil-child intent on murdering my mother meant that ‘SHAME on YOU’ was all I ever knew from before my first breath. If shame and dissociation are the same physiological response, I was BORN dissociated at the same time I was born being the epitome of shame.
(The premature introduction of shame into an infant’s experience before its ANS has developed physiologically to the point where it is has advanced enough that it can process this abrupt ANS-STOP reaction at about the age of one is extremely damaging (creating dissociational circuitry and pathways in body-brain that will be reused over a lifetime). In addition, nature’s intent in giving humans the ANS-STOP reaction related to the experience of shame was that it be entirely connected not ONLY to the rupture in attachment relationships that shame causes and represents, but to the REPAIR of these shame disruptions-ruptures. Shame is meant to bind humans together in appropriate social interaction — not to destroy the movement of the creation of SELF out of the murky fog of being an object into the realm of being fully human.)
Because I was born into and formed by this far, far extreme away from an optimal infant development environment perhaps I can come closer to describing ‘the grapefruit’ not from the OUTSIDE of it, but from the inside. My entire being from my first breath was nothing but a stress response to the trauma of my mother.
It is from this extreme vantage point that I make my guess that any serious breach in optimal safe and secure 0-3 infant-toddler attachment directly damages the infant’s developing body-self connection by interfering with the human need to differentiate being human from being an object. These changes directly appear in the operation of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)/stress-calm connection response system on a continuum of healthy versus not healthy human dissociation-shame.
(i.e. Our degrees of safe and secure attachment or degrees of NOT safe and secure attachment are directly connected to the operation of our ANS and its stress-calm connection response system.)
The more an infant is not enabled through safe and secure optimal attachment to develop its SELF as separate from being an object the more associated it will be with patterns of dissociation-shame within its ANS that prevent its body from responding within the environment in optimal human ways. Because we are members of a social species, these changes will ALWAYS be reflected in impediments related to social interactions — with self, with other people, and with the world.
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Note: I am using a simplistic division between ‘object’ and ‘human’. Actually, I believe it is true that an infant’s developing brain learns quite early that there is a category in between the two: that of animal. Evidently the single most useful piece of information the early brain uses to distinguish between ‘object’ and ‘animal’ is that the latter has the inherent ability to move in erratic ways all by itself while the former does not.
For simplicity I am not arguing the point that humans might evolve as fully individual human selves more directly from the level of being ‘animal’ rather than from being ‘object’.
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In a world of perfect strangers a baby’s gotta do what a baby’s gotta do. There’s a time in an infant’s pattern of physiological development where its attachment patterns appear clearly and unequivocally, and certainly around a year of age is the time nature has intended that this should happen. That’s why attachment experts can measure infant attachment at this developmental stage. (Scoring the Mary Ainsworth Strange Situation assessment of infant attachment.)
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When I read information – or rather MISinformation about infant attachment such as I discovered on the About.com website in its article entitled, Attachment Styles
By Kendra Cherry, About.com Guide I not only cringe, but I want to scream and shake somebody!
The author states (on page 3):
“Before you start blaming relationship problems on your parents, it is important to note that attachment styles formed in infancy are not necessarily identical to those demonstrated in adult romantic-attachment.”
‘Attachment styles formed in infancy’ are directly in response to the quality of early infant-caregiver interactions, and the nature and quality of these attachment interactions DO matter MOST. These earliest attachment ‘styles’ in infancy BUILD THE BODY an infant will live in/with for the rest of its life. Never again will those earliest body-brain-nervous system attachment interactions with caregivers have THIS KIND OF IMPACT or THIS KIND OF POWER to change the developmental physiology of a human being exactly in response to the nature of the caregiving environment the body is forming in interaction with.
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We CANNOT lump together ‘attachment experiences over a lifespan’ as being equal. They are NOT equal.
Our earliest attachment experiences with our infant-toddler caregivers BUILD us from the ground up. Sorry folks. That foundational body-brain building only happens ONCE in a lifetime – for all of us. There are no exceptions. Once our earliest developmental Critical Windows of development have closed especially 0-3, whatever nature accomplished for us in response to the quality of our attachment environment is set within us for life. Nobody can return down the road to a little developing body and get a ‘do over’.
To use computer-related imagery, these attachment-caregiver experiences 0-3 hardwire our body, nervous system, stress-calm response system, vagus nerve system, immune system, and set the combination of our genetic-expression into motion in response to either a benevolent or malevolent environment as our operating system is put into place that will run within us for the rest of our life.
No, dear Kendra Cherry, all lifespan attachment experiences ARE NOT EQUAL!
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This blog is packed with information about the kinds of physiological alterations that happen as a young infant-child grows a body-brain in response to a malevolent environment of unsafe and insecure attachment relationships. There is a growing body of thought that these adaptations ALONE do not create the lifetime of suffering a survivor of early severe violent trauma, neglect and abuse will experience.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that it is the CONFLICT or the MISMATCH that happens when a person formed in a malevolent environment later enters a benevolent environment that creates ‘the problems’. As Dr. Martin Teicher and his research group describe it, those raised from the start of their life form an ‘evolutionarily altered’ body-brain that makes perfect sense in ‘that kind of a world’. But ‘that kind of body’ cannot LATER adapt to a malevolent world.
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What does it say about our society that we have evolved an individual segment that aligns itself with ATTACHMENT PARENTING – versus what? Those that believe there is ANY OTHER SAFE and SANE way to parent infants and children?
Any infant-toddler parenting environment that does NOT put the attachment needs of the little one FIRST and PRIMARY is a malevolent one.
Sure, based on my severe abuse history as an infant-child this blog is devoted to describing the worst of the worst in terms of early caregiver-offspring harm. But there is a continuum that we need to NEVER lose sight of between a truly optimal and benevolent early caregiving environment and a truly traumatic malevolent one.
My fear is that we are creating a nation of insecurely attached members, most of them who will suffer from an insecure dismissive-avoidant attachment pattern – built DIRECTLY into all levels of their body-brain development – from a lack of optimal early attachment experiences.
I believe it has already happened in America that insecure dismissive-avoidant LACK of optimal early attachment has become the NORM. TRAGIC! ANY insecure attachment pattern reflects adaptations to some degree of malevolence and neglect AWAY from optimal.
Once dismissive-avoidant insecurely attached people take over the primary DAY CARE experiences that infants and toddlers experience, the human beings that are being raised ALSO by dismissive-avoidant insecurely attached parents will GUARANTEE that the generations following these patterns on down the line will be SPLIT between so-called ‘logic’ and ‘emotion’ in such a way that emotional intelligence will exit from our culture along with the full optimal development of healthy human beings. The consequence of the denial of the emotional component of humanity will be a destruction of abilities to experience true empathy, altruism, compassion, whole-human caregiving, increases in diseases of all kinds, and a spiraling destruction of participation in ‘community’.
If we want to raise generations of remote-controllable robots, of zombies who are dead to their own emotions and who are physiologically unable to access them, who are incapable of responding optimally to the emotions of others, who have no clue what true human empathy and the caregiving response it is meant to engender even is, then we are well on our way to accomplishing our mission.
Never mind that we are slipping toward creating a malevolent insecure dismissive-avoidant world. The citizens we are raising without adequate and optimal safe and secure attachment to their earliest primary caregivers will never even know it.
Those infants being raised within optimal early safe and secure attachment environments are becoming the exception. As we head toward our own demise it will soon be the fully safe and securely attached individual who has to REVERSE adapt from a benevolent early world to the malevolent world they are going to find outside of their home of origin.
When degrees of malevolence in infant-children’s earliest environment (including emotional neglect that creates a dismissive-avoidant insecure attachment-built body-brain) – become the norm it will be the benevolently, optimally formed safe and securely attached human beings that are going to be the outsiders.
Is this what we want, to create a nation where the healthiest most safely and securely attached individuals don’t fit in because THEY ARE TOO HEALTHY?
Babies have the human right to safely and securely attach to their primary earliest caregiver – their MOTHER. This is their human right because without this primary safe and secure attachment 0 to primarily age one an infant cannot possibly grow an optimal body-brain. Day care providers as well as parents need to be educated about how optimal primary safe and secure attachment creates the healthiest human being possible so that these infants who DO attend day care can be given what they need to transition into an environment that cannot possibly put any one single infant’s attachment needs at the top of the priority list.
To deny that an infant has essential attachment needs and to create an environment where these needs are not recognized and met is malevolent emotional neglect whether it happens within the home or within a day care setting.
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Stop the Storm 
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