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I don’t care what our background of abuse, neglect and trauma is, there are times when we simply need to make a decision and a choice – to make the decision and choice – to grow as human beings or not to grow.

As survivors, is our ability to grow hampered by the changes that happened to our physiology because of the adjustments our growing body-brain had to make in order for us to stay alive?

I don’t know the answer to this question.  It has to vary from individual to individual.  And yet I suspect it is part of accepting the gift of being alive that automatically gives all of us with the exception of a very few the ability to exercise what it takes to pick up and run with ‘our fighting chance’ of being better that truly matters.

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Through various circumstances in my present life I have been presented with a truth about myself:  I am seriously lacking in patience.

Having an extremely reactionary body-brain makes it (I suspect) difficult for me to be able to STOP when reactions are at full speed (or even before the reactions happen) in order that I can find my own right to CHOOSE to exercise patience or not.

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The issue of choice comes in here.  I wonder, “Did I exercise patience through all the terrible abuse and forced isolation I experienced during the first 18 years of my life?”

Yes, I endured.  But was I PATIENT?

I wonder, “Is ‘being patient’ only a state of being that truly happens with consciousness?”  If this is true, then what I did as a child had nothing to do with patience.  I had no other choice but to get through the traumas of my early life in any other way than the way I did.

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What does ‘being patient’ mean, anyway?

From online Mirriam Webster’s dictionary:

PATIENT

Definition of PATIENT

1: bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint

2: manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain

3: not hasty or impetuous

4: steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity

5a : able or willing to bear —used with of b : susceptible, admitting <patient of one interpretation>

Origin of PATIENT

Middle English pacient, from Anglo-French, from Latinpatient-, patiens, from present participle of pati to suffer; perhaps akin to Greek pēma suffering

First Known Use: 14th century

Related to PATIENT

Synonyms: forbearing, long-suffering, stoic (or stoical),tolerant, uncomplaining

Antonyms: complaining, fed up, impatient, kvetching,kvetchy, protesting

[+]more

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Well, certainly I suffered, but I did not have a choice about this part of my life.  Just as I did not CHOOSE to suffer, I did not CHOOSE how I felt or how I reacted to the abuse and trauma that caused me so much suffering.

Was the fact that I bore “pains or trials calmly or without complaint” any reflection on ME as a unique person?  Again, looking back, I see no sign that I HAD a choice which meant that I COULD NOT make a choice to not be patient.  None of what happened to me involved MY ability to choose.

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I wrote a post a few days ago in which I mentioned that somehow I came out of my childhood in hell with a pervasive, clear and very powerful sense of what a perfect – or much more perfect world – would BE like.  This world we are experiencing at this point in human evolution is NOT that world.

True, vast improvements have been made in many ways and in many places around this world – but so much more COULD be done to improve the world – and to improve each of us individually – which would, of course, create better conditions all the way around.

But as my close friend pointed out to me yesterday, I am EXTEMELY IMPATIENT with the way reality actually is at this point in time.  He says it’s like I was born out-of-synch with this time and place, and that my vision of people and of the world belongs to a point far into the distant future.

As I wrote the other day, I was always told from birth that all problems in my family (which was the only world I really knew) happened because I existed in it.  If I didn’t exist all would be perfect.

During the massive amounts of time I was isolated in corners, in bed, etc. because Mother had removed me from the ongoing life of her family I listened and I heard the life of the rest of my family going on — PERFECTLY.

I cannot say that these powerful and long-enduring conditions didn’t influence how I perceive perfection in the world.  But I am all grown up now – and what do I know, what do I practice, what CAN I practice (and practice better) of PATIENCE with the way I am, the way other people are, the way the human species is behaving – NOW in the REAL world in real time – right now?

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I have to honestly say I don’t actually even understand the word ‘patience’.  I don’t actually comprehend what patience actually is.  I could say that what I have always thought I have known about being patient has been contaminated by my trauma experiences – or I could say what I know has been deeply honed so that perhaps I actually know vast amounts of information about what being patient is.

I mentioned this one small example from my childhood to my friend yesterday – what did patience have to do with this experience?  *Age 15 – FORCED TO WATCH AN ALASKAN SUNRISE

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Patience with standing in a super-slow store line when shopping.  Patience when teaching a child something new.  Patience in listening to someone tell a story when they wander around and never get to their point.  Patience with drivers who need to wake up.  Patient with people who are rude and inconsiderate.  Patient when I don’t get what I want, don’t get it soon enough?

It seems to me that the ‘issue of patience’ and with the choice to be patient involves a consideration of one main element that I DID NOT HAVE as a child:  I did not have a SELF-centered point of view.  I did not have an “I” perspective.  I did not exist.  I had no rights.  I made no conscious choices.

So ‘ego’ has to be involved somewhere in the ‘patience’ equation.  So – now that at 60 I can finally begin to see what a difficult time I am having with patience – I equally must admit that I now have an ego that can and does get in my own way.

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Patience is a spiritual virtue that nurtured and cultured and grown becomes one of the important powers of our soul that we take with us to the next world.

I asked my friend about this:  “If there is ONLY GOODNESS in the next world (because it is God’s world and there is no duality there) – why would we ever need patience?  There would be nothing negative there for us to be patient about!”

My friend’s own opinion:  “Maybe we need to learn how to be patient to enjoy joy!”

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Well, if I wasn’t already lost in considering this idea of patience I sure was after THAT part of the conversation!  I only report all this in passing today – because I don’t understand.  The earth is patient as it bears the burdens of providing life.  I can see that.  But again, is patience patience if there is no option to be exercised otherwise?

Are birds patient as they wait for their fledglings to grow wings?  Are ants patient as they struggle to drag items home that are 50 times their weight?

What is patience for?  What does it accomplish?  When would it best be exercised — and when not?  How do I learn to grow patiently more patient?

I sure have a lot to learn!

When do I feel patient?  When am I being patient?  And when am I not?  What can I do to increase my ability – and willingness – to exercise patience?  Am I able to be patient enough to find out?

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Housing Troubles Linked to Increased Child AbusePosted: 02 Aug 2012 12:08 PM PDT Housing insecurity is associated with higher rates of child abuse, according to a new study from researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The study, titledTrends in Physical Abuse and the Relationship with Housing Insecurity, looked at hospital discharge data for 38 freestanding children’s hospitals from January 2000 until December 2009. The findings: Over a ten-year period, hospital admission rates for physical abuse and high-risk traumatic brain injury increased across 38 pediatric hospitals in contrast to the admission rate for all injuries. Within metropolitan areas, 90-day delinquency and foreclosure rates were associated with abuse-related hospital admissions. Within metropolitan areas, the unemployment rate was not associated with abuse-related hospital admissions. These findings stand in contrast to data reported by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), which have shown a steady decline in physical abuse over the same decade. The authors propose that child welfare agencies at the state and local level consider additional methods of tracking child abuse data, including hospital data. They also suggest pediatricians and other professionals working with families be aware that housing insecurity may be adversely affecting families and connect families to the appropriate social services. It is important to be aware of the impact the downturn in the economy has on the health and stability of children. This study illustrates what can happen when the stress of economic hardship collides with the challenges of raising children. Even with the best intentions, parents can be pushed to the breaking point. The best way to prevent this from happening is to provide parents with the support, skills and resources they need to succeed. Our Parent Helpline is a terrific resource for parents looking to ease their burden. Helpline Specialists provide information and referral services for families in New York State struggling with parenting issues, challenging children, the child protective system, housing and basic needs, and more. A trained specialist is available 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. After 10 p.m you can leave your number with our answering service, and we’ll get back to you the following morning. The Parent Helpline is toll free and confidential at 1-800-CHILDREN.

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Ever since writing my last post I have a memory from 30 years ago that keeps popping up for attention.  It is evidently strongly connected to what I wrote about here –

+ACTION, REACTION AND CHOICE

I had known for over a year that I needed to make a decision about my 2nd marriage — to a very good man, but to a man that I could best say I loved as my brother, certainly was not ‘in love’ with as with a mate.

All the thoughts and feelings that had come to me appeared in what seemed to be a random way, and nothing about the pattern in which my ‘in-formation’ came to me happened in a useful, coherent way.  Nothing ‘stuck together’ so that I could begin to see what was my own picture of this marriage, of what was best for me (and hence for my children).  I COULD not make a decision.  I therefore could not make a choice to set change in motion in my life.

This memory contains what seems to be my best self example of how information from my right brain hemisphere trumps information that comes to me through my left one.

One day I was visiting a woman friend I had met a few years earlier in AA. I liked her.  I trusted her.  I resonated with her.  As we sat in her living room discussing the ins and outs and ups and downs and mysteries pertaining to my paralyzed indecision about ‘divorce this man I can’t even stand to sleep with’ versus ‘oh no, I can’t divorce a second time!’ — I saw an image.  It appeared so clearly to me that I could SEE it, HEAR the sound of it — and I still can in my memory.

As this image came to me I was able to describe it to my friend, and by the time the image brought itself fully and clearly into my ‘in-formation’ gathering process, completely consciously — shared with self and other — I had my answer.

As if held in 3-D suspended animation I saw a very large outdoor faucet hanging in the air in one corner of the living room.  (The proper name for this object?  A hose bib, though this has never made any sense to me.)

In the opposite corner of the living room, at the same height from the floor, came the gushing stream of water that SHOULD have been coming out directly from the open faucet.

Instantly I had my ANSWER!

Finally everything made SENSE to me.  This kind of sense involves the senses of the body as they communicate with the self about one’s reality — its experience and meaning — through the right brain hemisphere.  As this image appeared to me my senses of what it looked like, what the water sounded like, what it would have felt like physically to have held my hand under the stream all gave me important information so that this bigger SENSE of what truly made sense to me could finally come clear.  I sensed the sense of the image in every possible way.

My life in my marriage FELT just like that to me.  I was not ‘lined up’ within myself with the life I was living.  I was not living my own truth.  I was ‘off’ center, being pulled further and further away from who I was (though at this time when I was 30 I had no idea what that really meant). My inner core, my inner source of my life was split apart from the life I was living.

I left my friend’s house that day with no doubts about my decision and I have never regretted it.  I knew it was my honest decision and therefore was the right one.

No amount of trying to linearly or logically or rationally THINK my way through making this decision had worked.  I needed to know what I REALLY knew — and this experience was the only way that could happen.

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Perhaps investigating what a person of any age knows about CHOICE would be an extremely useful ‘diagnostic’ assessment tool for Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD).  It might be that the most troublesome and toxic aspect of RAD is that the element of ‘ordinary’ abilities to choose, or to even really know what choice is, are missing.  Looking back on my own life I could certainly say that this has been true for me.

My first encounter (believe it!) with a dawning conscious knowledge of CHOICE did not happen until after my 29th birthday.  I had entered a 7-week in-patient treatment program for alcoholism (and drug use although in 1980 nobody would talk about the addictive nature of marijuana use).

The women-only program I attended in Minnesota was very thorough and very strict.  There were clear rules with clear consequences if the rules were not followed.  One day I CHOSE to break a rule, and here is where perhaps the most important lessons I learned in those seven weeks began (I see as I look back).

I knew virtually NOTHING about myself.  I mean this literally:  I knew virtually nothing about my SELF.  I didn’t even know what a self was.  I didn’t know a lot of things.

This program was housed in one of the many buildings that were part of a very large brick complex that used to be a ‘mental institution’.  All these many buildings were connected by a vast underground network of spooky long narrow tunnels.

I had been created through 18 long years of severe abuse from my mother to be someone designed to do my best to BE GOOD and to please others.  These patterns were so built into me they were both instinctive and reactive.  On this mid-November day, however, my reactivity took me outside the bounds of ‘behaving’.

I didn’t know I was missing social right-brain interaction abilities due to terrible unsafe and insecure attachment relationships when this part of my brain was forming birth to age one.  I COULD NOT bond with peers in anything like a ‘normal’ way.  I didn’t know what a want was, what a need was, and I certainly did not have the awareness that it was possible to ponder decisions, to weigh outcomes, and to make choices.  Therefore, I had no ability to take responsibility for choices that I made.

On this day I did make a choice — which of course I was confronted with by my therapist later.

On this day I broke away from ‘the group’ which was against the rules and CHOSE to walk to lunch alone and above ground in the brisk, open fresh air.  I hated the tunnels!  They were scary for many reasons.  I did not like being enclosed as part of a group in the first place.  I did not like being confined within dimly lit mazes of tunnels.  After my experience with the 3-minute long 9.2 Alaskan earthquake when I was 12, I sure didn’t like being underground!

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My therapist confronted me with the choice I had made – and this was the first time this word – CHOICE – entered my conscious awareness.  I had absolutely NO IDEA what she was talking about!!  None!  It took several intense sessions with my therapist about my infraction before I could begin to understand (1) what a choice even WAS, and (2) that I had made one.

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EVERYTHING I had done in my life up until this confrontation had been – yes – an action I had taken, but never had I recognized this fact.  In my universe as a severely abused child and as an adult survivor everything I had done was an instinctive REACTION to the conditions within which I lived.

Yes, looking back of course I had made ‘choices’ of some kind all of my life.  Every crayon I had picked out as a child to add to every picture I ever drew involved a choice.  But did I really have the ability to CHOOSE if I didn’t even know what the concept involved?

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I again refer readers to this most important information:

+Dr. Teicher’s ARTICLE ON TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT

*Notes on Teicher

The human higher cortex planning and decision-making region of an abused, neglected and traumatized infant-child is most likely NOT ABLE TO form in a ‘normal’ way.

As you read Teicher’s article notice where he mentions that ‘our’ brains never finish forming this most important part of our brain.  Rather, it ‘atrophies early’.  This is a tragedy beyond description – and Teicher’s description warrants some serious considerations.

At the end of this article as Teicher describes a survivor’s ‘evolutionarily altered brain’ – and writes about how people built in, by, and for a malevolent world never adapt completely to a benevolent world once they are ‘free’ from their early traumatic environment — part of what he is describing involves the diminishment of our ability to make informed choice.

BUT WAIT A MINUTE HERE!

As one of these survivors I do have another take on this ‘informed choice’ thing.  Looking at it this way — IN-FORMED — I understand that the way I way I make choices is DIFFERENT from ‘normal’, as are the TIMES I make decisions, what I make decisions about, the kinds of choices I make….

To me, “in-formed” means that what I do mostly when I make choices – even the rapid-fire reactionary ones — is use in-formation of which I am in-formed WITHIN MY BODY-SELF.  The form (formation) of my choices comes MOSTLY through my right brain.  Part of how I know this is because researchers describe how ALL the important information we receive from our BODY comes to us through our right brain.

Being a ‘reactionary’ I know that my choices and decisions will most often be in response to stimulations/challenges in my environment that I detect and ‘act’ upon from my body first – instinctively, RAPIDLY and automatically.  It is my job to become as aware as I can be about when these rapid ‘un-conscious’ choices are being made — and here is a clincher.

Am I ONLY making a choice if I take action in the slower fashion that runs the whole process of deliberation-before-action through my higher cortex (trauma-altered as it is)?  Am I actually making a decision if what I do has run through my BODY so fast I am ‘reacting’ without conscious awareness?

Because I now know I have a differently-formed brain all the way around because of early severe trauma – which certainly includes my higher cortex — I HAVE to understand that what ‘ordinary’ people know about CHOICE is NOT what I have known, do know, or will EVER KNOW!

In other words, as with so many other aspects of being a trauma changed person, I have to attempt to TRANSLATE what well-intended people say about choice and choice making.

I have to translate what they say about determining consequences BEFORE HAND in order to make ‘informed’ decisions and choices.  (What’s known as the ability for ‘future thought’ happens best in a well-formed, non-traumatized higher cortex.)

My way of being in the world — as I use the ‘in formed’ method of gathering information from my hyper-survival prepared body-self means that I know ALL KINDS of things — very very quickly — I am a supersized detection wizard!

Every single reaction I had for the first 18 years of my life kept me alive.  That these patterns were built into me deeply and thoroughly enough to BE — not WHO I am in the world but HOW I am in the world — is a critically important fact I need to understand.

When it comes to translation of information back and forth between survivors and ‘the rest of the world’, we also have to understand that only early-in-life severely traumatized survivors will know what we know.

We therefore are in danger of sabotaging our self if we denigrate and demean what we know because what we know, how we know it and how we ACT based on all of this is different from normal.  Nobody is WRONG here!  We are DIFFERENT!

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Again, as I have said many times before on this blog, researchers like Dr. Teicher can describe the technical aspects of how trauma changed us.  But they do NOT describe what it is actually like for survivors to be alive in the world living WITH these changes.

As we hone our abilities to KNOW what we know as survivors we will at the same time actually be coming up with our own language, our own vocabulary of terms and words that DO HAVE TO BE TRANSLATED by someone who has not been trauma-changed if they truly care enough to wish to know HOW we are in the world.

My 1980 therapist gave me my boost up onto the steed of learning-about-myself-in the world.  That was over half my lifetime ago.  I am very much still learning — but like being blindfolded, turned in circles and being left in the dark to pin a tail on a paper donkey or hit a wildly moving pinata target — somebody has to point us in the right direction.

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Now, I consider this a FIND – so I want to share it!!

Why Are We Wired for Story?

By Lisa Cron on Jul 30 2012

Here is part of THAT story…..

“What would you say if I told you that what the brain craves, hunts for and responds to in every story it hears has nothing to do with what most writers are taught to strive for?”

“What does the brain crave? Beginning with the very first sentence, the brain craves a sense of urgency that instantly makes us want to know what happens next. It’s a visceral feeling that seduces us into leaving the real world behind and surrendering to the world of the story.

Which brings us to the real question: Why? What are we really looking for in every story we read? What is that sense of urgency all about?

Thanks to recent advances in neuroscience, these are questions that we can now begin to answer with the kind clarity that sheds light on the genuine purpose of story, and elevates writers to the most powerful people on earth. Because story, as it turns out, has a much deeper and more meaningful purpose than simply to entertain and delight.

Story is how we make sense of the world. Let me explain . . .

It’s long been known that the brain has one goal: survival. It evaluates everything we encounter based on a very simple question: Is this going to help me or hurt me? Not just physically, but emotionally as well.

The brain’s goal is to then predict what might happen, so we can figure out what the hell to do about it before it does. That’s where story comes in. By letting us vicariously experience difficult situations and problems we haven’t actually lived through, story bestows upon us, risk free, a treasure trove of useful intel, just in case. And so back in the Stone Age, even though those shiny red berries looked delicious, we remembered the story of the Neanderthal next door who gobbled ‘em down and promptly keeled over, and made do with a couple of stale old beetles instead.

Story was so crucial to our survival that the brain evolved specifically to respond to it, especially once we realized that banding together in social groups makes surviving a whole lot easier.

Suddenly it wasn’t just about figuring out the physical world, it was about something far trickier: navigating the social realm.

In short, we’re wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world and give us insight into what makes people tick, the better to discern whether the cute guy in the next cubicle really is single like he says, and to plan the perfect comeuppance if he’s not.

The sense of urgency we feel when a good story grabs us is nature’s way of making sure we pay attention to it. It turns out that intoxicating sensation is not arbitrary, ephemeral or “magic,” even though it sure feels like magic. It’s physical. It’s a rush of the neural pleasure transmitter, dopamine. And it has a very specific purpose. Want to know what triggers it?”

Click HERE TO READ THE REST!

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And here is the BOOK!

Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron 

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And – on this blog – the connection between degrees of safe and secure attachment and our ability to tell our own life story coherently —

+NEEDY PEOPLE AND BUMPY CONVERSATIONS (GRICE’S MAXIMS, AGAIN!)

+LINK TO A WHOPPER OF A TALE ABOUT TELLING OUR TALE

*THE MEANING OF MENDING OUR LIFE STORY

+FREEDOM: HEALING SELF, HEALING OUR LIFE STORY, SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

+SIEGEL – ANTICIPATION, TIME AND COHERENCE OF MIND

And there are more posts a’plenty here about the connection between attachment and our ability or non-ability to tell our own coherent life story.  Simply Google or otherwise online search these terms and click and read:

“stop the storm coherent life story “

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I am thinking about my 28-month-old grandson whose life has changed dramatically now that he has a one-week-old baby brother.  Nobody can possibly determine how this change is affecting him.  He isn’t old enough to be able to articulate in word or thought how he feels or how he sees the world.  Add into the mixture the fact that nearly everyone commonly uses the phrase “the terrible twos’ to describe in general the stage that little people of his age group seem to transition through no matter what else might be going on in their lives.

These ponderings of mine flow from this tributary of thought into one that concerns all of us:  “Who helped us grow the body-nervous system-brain pathways and circuits on every level during our early development that we needed to move through transitions of life as calmly and orderly as possible?”

My grandson has all of the safe and secure attachment patterns built into him already that he needs to further build his patterns of processing change of all kinds throughout his lifetime.  He is unequivocally loved and cherished.  He has two wise and informed parents as well as a super-professional daycare staff to assist him – every step of the way through his growth and development.

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Transitions are as much a part of life as are changes.  These two states of ‘being in the world’ (for everything) are not two sides of the same coin.  They are ONE side — inextricably interwoven in their connection with one another.

I realize as I ponder this morning that I most often think of trauma in term of the ACTIONS that are its components.  Yet the truth is that the radical disturbances that are created by these actions to a previously ongoing state INTO a different one are so radical that a smooth transition from one state to the other cannot happen smoothly.  The WAY traumatic change happens is just as traumatic as WHAT actually happens as these changes take place.

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My abusive infancy and childhood was nothing BUT unpredictable, unforeseeable, unanticipated, uncontrollable, unprepared for RADICAL CHANGE from MY current-ongoing state of being a little person in my own reality into and through a traumatic transition/change state that was instrumented by my psychotic very mentally ill supremely abusive mother.

Without giving an account here of all the times I know of when the shifts between my own states of being into those initiated by abuse I can simply say that each and every one of these FELT like an ATTACK to me on every level of my being — because they WERE attacks.  These attacks came out-of-the-blue and so greatly disturbed my ongoing experience of being alive that I had no possible way to transition smoothly through them.  And obviously there certainly was NOBODY there to assist me.

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I see an image in my mind’s eye.  There I was even from the tiniest of my ages on my own ‘solid ground’.  Seeking ‘solid ground’ is as natural a part of being alive as – well, as LIFE is a part of being alive.  Every living creature must be able to return to some place of ‘safety and security’ within the body to reestablish and maintain ongoing existence or it will die.

There I am on my ‘solid ground’ — and BOOM!  ATTACK by Mother!  Suddenly inside of myself I am falling into a bottomless abyss.  There is no rope to grab, nobody to throw the rope — just falling falling falling until the ATTACK stops.  I went through such frequent attacks sometimes several times a day, sometimes all day, sometimes for weeks — and the conditions of continual threat of attack were such that my body had to find a way to make conscious continual awareness of my danger fade into the background so that I could continue to remain alive at all.

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But today instead of thinking one bit about what Mother actually DID to me during these attacks — I am thinking about the very split-second INSTANT her attacks took place.

The fact that I could not transition from my own pre-attack state smoothly into the trauma of her actual attack was as traumatic for me as any action she actually did to me.

Developmental neuroscientists speak of ‘state shifts’.  Yes, we often experience these shifts between one ongoing experience into another one emotionally — but often, as severe early trauma survivors, our emotions come in the aftermath.  Our BODY and our brain react of their OWN well-honed extremely-rapid intelligence about how to transition through anything that hints of threat as quickly and as effectively as possible.  Our conscious self is dragged along by our physiological self’s reaction which had to dominate our development so that we could remain alive.

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(I went outside into the glorious beauty of this new day after recent monsoons rain have stimulated such new growth around me in this high desert to write what follows….)

Given the unsafe, insecure, unpredictable, threatening, dangerous and traumatic, malevolent conditions of a little person’s universe of abuse (and I include all neglect of basic important needs here) there is no possible way such a person’s body-brain could develop “AS IF” conditions were the opposite.

Yet within the OVERALL environment of malevolence every little person will find, will discover, will create times-places-spaces (inside and outside of itself) where all the trauma does not exist — because trauma CANNOT ALWAYS EXIST if the little person is going to remain alive.

Even on the level of physiology alone there HAS TO BE down-time from the ongoing experience and reality of trauma.  The human self has this same need.

And yet there is a very high price paid both for being FORCED to find these down-times AND for actually finding a way to do so.

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Chaos theorists describe something known as ‘The Butterfly Effect.”  According to Wickipedia, “In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane’s formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.”

Some say the wing flap can be on one side of the planet causing the hurricane on the other side of the planet.  How are visible realities tied and connected by invisible ones?  What is the tie and the connection between what we currently understand and what we do not?

Early trauma survivors do not get to connect their down-time realities together.  These realities seem to be as far apart as the butterfly wing and the hurricane described above.  Not being allowed in the BODY to transition smoothly between ‘states of reality’ due to continual traumatic interruptions leaves us living the experience of our lives as if we are in disconnected pieces.  The traumas we lived through were too overwhelming to manage in any other way.

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As I stop to consider the words I have just written this morning I see the image in my mind of a lake so big it’s shores are so far away they are invisible and might as well not exist at all.  We entered this world in such a big splash of trauma that the ripples moving out from the epicenter of our earliest unsafe and insecure beginnings continue to roll out around us — affecting every aspect of our existence — for our entire lifespan.

OK.  So exactly where and how do I find something helpful and hopeful to say here without it sounding useless and trite?

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Just at the moment I ask this question one single word comes into my thoughts:  CONTRIBUTION.

The world itself seems to be a doorway.  As I peek through it I see what appears at first glimpse to be —– an infinity of beauty!

I know should I choose to move through this doorway evidently represented by this seemingly oddly presenting word — CONTRIBUTION — that I could spend an infinity of time describing what I find.

The simple words that come to me next are, “Do not forget that there are infinite ways to look at and to understand every aspect of life.”

Yes, what I think I know is such a tiny fragment that it limits me — until I allow myself to begin to see all the goodness and beauty that has CONTRIBUTED to my even being alive at this moment.

Do I allow, even encourage myself to also see the brilliant sparkles from sunlight and moonbeams that are a part of this lake of my life?  Do I see the colors in the prisms of each tiny drop?  Do I imagine the purity of this water that is me, the life teeming in its depths, the cycles of the water’s movements over the courses of time?

Do I consider the spring thaws in distant places that send water here, the cycles of clouds giving rain, the evaporation of moisture as lake water changes form and rises to move off to give life somewhere else?

Do I consider the miracles?

Oh.  I see.  No matter what else has happened this part is up to me.

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This post follows

+”NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!”

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I am thinking about credibility – how severe early neglect, abuse and trauma survivors are in many ways geared physiologically to appreciate the perspective of ‘their people’ who know first hand what I don’t think any non-survivor of early trauma can.  I think we resonate with one another.  We believe one another.

It is an honor to be believed.  No matter how horrible my first 18 years of life were – and no matter the very real and very serious consequences I bear because of that abuse — having this honor is a great gift to me.  Heck!  Sometimes I even believe myself!

Seriously though – I find myself wanting to go back and add whole new thoughts to the post above that I just wrote awhile ago.  I better not because people who have already read that post will not read what I add to it now!

I am thinking about depression and that kind of deep, deep sadness that brings the state of being where NOTHING new and positive seems possible.

I can believe myself about this.  I have felt this sadness ALL OF MY LIFE, all the way back into my earliest infancy and childhood.

I think this is why my rather new discovery for myself that I CAN feel positive emotions and have a ‘good day’ AT THE SAME TIME my sadness (and related feelings) are running along inside of me at the same time.

There is power in this discovery for me.  There is also a recognition of the reality of my existence.

Over and over again in my childhood my mother commented on how SLOW Linda was.  I found references to this in her letters I transcribed after her death that were written to her mother.

I have had flashes of anger about this – but it doesn’t help me – knowing how sick my mother was – to ask questions like, “How could she do to me the terrible things that she did and expect me to NOT be sad – and hence slow?”

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Often I find myself moving in what feels like slow motion – as if I am moving deep deep under water.

I always do MOVE, though.  I always find something positive to do in one day even if nobody in the world will know what I did.  Somehow finding some little positive solution to accomplish to something helps me to feel I am contributing something to the betterment of the world.

My garden is about this, too.  Maybe only the butterflies and bees and hummingbirds benefit – but I know I am creating beauty and moving forward while I do this work.

LINDA’S ADOBE PEACE GARDEN

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If I could handle the hyper-stimulation that being around public creates in me I could find some volunteer work to do.  I might have to be really creative to come up with something — but I am going to try.

Sometimes I donate books I’ve read to the public library, or food to the food bank, or school supplies to the school.  I have very little money – but doing anything that might have a positive impact on the world, for others, helps me a lot.

This is part of contributing to the SOLUTIONS in the much bigger picture.  Sometimes maybe we don’t see that we are making any real progress ‘on our own problems’ – ANYTHING we do in the direction of compassion, generosity, caring about the world in any way, HELPS!!

I believe myself when I say this!  I really, really do.

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A serious reminder to subscribers of this blog – I edit a lot!  Just the way I write, I guess.  Please remember to click on the title of a post that appears to you in your email so you will see the latest updates for the post.  Thanks!

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The title of this post is one of my all-time favorite quotes!  It comes from the 1999 absolutely DELIGHTFUL movie, “Galaxy Quest,” which I consider one of the greatest feel-good movies of all time!!

A blog commenter asked me yesterday if now that I know the truth about how the severe early trauma from abuse (birth to age 18) affected my physiological development (leading to Reactive Attachment Disorder, PTSD, depression, high anxiety, etc.) – have I ever felt like GIVING UP?

First of all, I doubt there is an adult the globe over who hasn’t at one time or another ‘felt like giving up’.  However, those of us who are survivors of early relationship traumas – ESPECIALLY WITH OUR MOTHERS FROM BIRTH FORWARD – have a star role to play in the ‘give up or not to give up’ tragedy-drama.

SO WHAT???????

I am not glib with this sentiment.  I am ‘deadly-lively’ serious!!

Of COURSE there have been times I have felt like giving up.  Being in this state is NORMAL at times!

AT TIMES!!  This does not mean ALL OF THE TIME!!

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I told the commenter yesterday that I needed to think before I could respond to her question.  Here is my response:

I was born with the capacity to be STUBBORN!!

I was born with the capacity to be DETERMINED!!

I was born with the capacity to be able to LEARN!!

Combining these qualities so that I could/can ‘go on being’ (a statement developmental neuroscientists use to describe an infant faced with the ‘unsolvable paradox’ of having to remain alive when there is nobody to help it but rather caregivers who harm it) is how I survived – and how I SURVIVE now.

I am motivated to LEARN how to be STUBBORNLY DETERMINED!!

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The most clear example of the fight I fought and have so far won regarding ‘to give up or not to give up’ happened five years ago right about now when I received the grim diagnosis of having advanced aggressive breast cancer.

I often say that for those people who have NOT experienced severe relationship trauma/abuse, it is most certainly that moment when a person receives a cancer diagnosis that the EXPERIENCE of trauma is made REAL for them – for anyone – for all of us – and it was real for me (even though I have known from the moment of my birth what trauma is).

HOWEVER…..

THE DIFFERENCE for me?

At the moment I received this diagnosis I was faced with one of my deepest reality states:  “I am now forced to make the decision to live when I DO NOT WANT TO BE ALIVE in the first place!”

This was a terror-able day.

I have three dear, dear adult children.  I will not know in this lifetime if I decided to go through the treatments and surgery so that I am still here for myself – or for my children.  I believe it was for the latter.

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Going back to the start of ‘the story’ – oh, which reminds me of a thought I want to include here – so please consider this a sidebar for newer blog readers……

What ALL of us severe early neglect, abuse and relationship trauma survivors are after that reflects our deepest healing is this –

Insecure and unsafe early attachments to caregivers – ESPECIALLY when there is NOBODY else available to whom we can bond to or form a safe and secure attachment with – takes from us the ability to LIVE or to TELL what is called in adult attachment research – A COHERENT LIFE STORY.

As I describe below what I wish to say next, please keep this is mind.  Learning about the reality of our entire life and being willing to dare to begin to make sense of OUR OWN PLACE in OUR OWN LIFE – creates healing at our core!

This is a task only we can do – and there is absolutely NO REASON not to do this work!!

Researchers know that the inability to tell a ‘coherent life story’ is the NUMBER ONE SYMPTOM of adult insecure attachment disorders – any and all of them!!

We can make ourselves competent to do the task of straightening out our trauma-infested life – and it is of paramount importance that we do so even when we can only take baby baby steps toward this goal.

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Giving up.  Back to this idea – and my stubborn determination!

I look back as far into my abusive infancy and childhood as I can safely see and I know that I NEVER let my abusive sick mother WIN.

She was psychotic.  Much of her terrible abuse of me happened over things she perceived in her psychosis that DID NOT HAPPEN.

I never GAVE IN!  I am not crazy.  I have always known the truth.  This was because inside of myself I NEVER bought mother’s twisted perceptions as real.  I COULD NOT.  It was not in me to do so.

I also NEVER cried – no matter how hard or how long or how often she beat me!  NEVER cried.   My siblings used to say to me, “If you cry when she hits you she will stop.”

Nope.  Again, not  in me.

Mother could NOT control my tears.  She had control over what she did to my body as far as how she could hurt me – but my TEARS were my own – as were my perceptions of what happened and what did not happen as those things involved me.

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Now, there’s more……

What is commonly known as the ‘stress response’ system is actually different than how it is described to us.

Our stress response system has two ends:  One is as we conceive of it – the obvious fight/flight/freeze stuff.  The OTHER and more important end is about CALM connection to self, others and the world around us.

As I have written many times on this blog, an infant who was healthy in the womb and is born to a healthy mother in a healthy (NOT TOXIC) environment is given what it needs to build at the exact center of its body-brain – in its nervous system, in its immune system, in every biochemical system it has – a center point that is where its balanced equilibrium lies (and where once stressed it can return to easily) – of PEACEFUL CALM.

Early abuse, neglect, trauma survivors who had no safe and secure attachments could not POSSIBLY build peaceful calm into the center of their being.  This is what developmental neuroscientists refer to as our SET POINT.

Survivors end up being like blown up balloons that someone has let go of the end of – flying at high speed willy nilly through a life we do not comprehend and are not equipped to deal with.

We are also like helium balloons that someone has let go of.  Up into the air we are sucked drifting helplessly according to what currents of air in the environment capture us.

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When it comes to our stress-calm response system (as I have said before) – the purpose of safe and secure early attachment is to build for people a body whose powers throughout their lifetime allow that person to be – AUTONOMOUS!!

What a concept.  This is NOT a reactionary state of being.  This is a state of considered choice on all possible levels.  This is a state where there is MAXIMUM ability to respond to an ever-changing world with competence and confidence – successfully.

This is a FLUID rather than rigid state of being.  It is maximally adaptable.

Survivors have all kinds of successful ways to adapt to trauma.  But those ways have built our body.  They lie in the FAST response arena, the automatic response arena.  They do not often lie in the arena of CHOICE on a conscious, self-aware level.

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So, briefly:

STARTLE response – something unusual, good or bad has happened that has changed our normal state of peaceful calm into alert/warning

We assess the ‘change’ – let’s say it is harmful/threatening

We can act from our informed competence and confidence with coping abilities that solve the problem so that we can immediately return to our peaceful calm center set point of balanced equilibrium

OR NOT!

“Aw, shucks!”

But we do NOT GIVE UP!

Next comes what is commonly called an ‘anger’ state – which I see as a high energy determined fighter/doer state.  We search harder for a solution – and we try to apply it to solve the problem.

Doesn’t work?

Then comes a surge of FEAR!!!  We search HARDER – through every known possible response to solve this problem that we can possibly FIND!

STILL DOESN’T WORK?

Enter grief and sadness.  NOT A BAD THING!

Actually, from my informed vantage point of being nearly 61 – I can CELEBRATE sadness.  I have to in lots of ways because it is the perpetual bottom-line of my existence.  THIS is where my set point was put from the time I was born.

OK, knowing that, understanding that – what are the beautiful bounties present in this state of GRIEF AND SADNESS?

“Ah-HA!”

Now, we DO determine what happens next here – no matter how we got into this state!!

We can CHOOSE what we are going to do because we can CHANGE what we understand and accept about ourselves and about this very natural stage on the stress-calm response circle of being alive.

THIS is the most important state of human existence!  Why?  How?

This is the state in which we are FINALLY willing to admit that all we know from solving problems in the past DOES NOT WORK with our current problem.  WE NEED TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW!!

Our species would sure not be here if we lacked the capacity to learn something new when new problems appeared that we did not have the solutions to!  We have to honor and CELEBRATE this stage/state.

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So the not-too-short response to the comment I mention is that I am too STUBBORNLY DETERMINED TO LEARN something new to give up!!

Thinking about it, remaining perpetually sad at my core does not stop me from learning at least something new every moment of my life.  I can chip away at making the sadness smaller – and even at times feel joy and relief in the process.  (Alas, a temporary experience for many early trauma survivors – and often one that happens at the same time we are feeling some other ‘negative survival based feeling – but so what?)

Personally, I know this life is temporary.  I know my soul can grow here as it should according to what I choose to ‘feed’ myself.  I can always try to learn more, to be kinder to myself and to others, to ask God for assistance and forgiveness – etc.

Learning something new and good and better is the destiny of the human race.  That some of us actually got to build a peaceful calm center set point where our balanced equilibrium can return us to once we solve a problem is marvelous.

That some of us were born into a life of nearly insurmountable PROBLEMS given to us by our early caregivers means that for us – we will ALWAYS be faced with unique challenges.

I would say – no matter how we FEEL at times – we are up to moving forward with our superhuman courage – with every breath we take!

We will not find solutions if we are not open to the search!  Perhaps sadness is the humblest state humans know.  In this state all new possibilities are open.  It is our job to go after them.

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If I were a more-healed person I would today be able to upgrade what concerns me.  However, what I am experiencing right now is first and foremost evidently of a deeply personal nature.  (Darn it!)

I do not know exactly what the triggers are and have been that are contributing to this very high anxiety ‘state’ that I am in.  The birth of my 2nd grandson?  I don’t know.  The changes in what will so entirely occupy the energies of my daughter after this birth — and with a husband, full time demanding occupation from which she has only 6 weeks off, the combining of her needs with mothering a 2-year-old?

And I as her mother, and grandmother?  I WANT to be nothing but affirming and supporting to my daughter.  I want to ‘caregive’ to her – but I know enough about what the research says, that those of us severely traumatized, abused, neglected – so unsafely and insecurely attached to ANYONE during our early years have insecure attachment patterns in our body-brain that mean our own attachment system — demanding that our own attachment needs FEEL unmet — does not turn itself off in ordinary ways.  And when an insecure attachment pattern cannot turn OFF appropriately — neither — then — can our caregiving system be turned ON.

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I am in the middle of completely cleaning my house before I travel north in a month to see my family.  I am moving things around, changing things – shifting all the patterns inside the dwelling that I live in.  This is very hard work for me.  There is nobody here to help me move the furniture.  There is nobody here but ME to do this job — period.  It’s a job I am not enjoying!

Yet at the same time it seems that something MAJOR is changing itself around inside of my SELF.  This is the HARD WORK!

I feel blind.  I cannot see what it is that needs changing.  I cannot tell how I am carrying this task out.  I can’t find what inner resources I could find and use in myself to make this job easier — or in the end more successful.

So – I am left now carrying on this house cleaning — literally inside and outside of myself — one teensy weensy step at a time.  I have to trust that what I am doing will all come together in the end and ‘things’ will be more beautiful, more perfect.

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Ah.  That word.  PERFECT.  There is HUGE TROUBLE brewing, no BOILING and turning into stormy steam inside of me around the concept of a ‘perfect world’.

Connected to PERFECT are two other words that I need to deeply explore within myself:  JUSTICE and FAIRNESS.

This triad — I cannot pull these three concepts apart from one another at the same time I cannot even say on what level I have any idea what any of these words actually MEAN.

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All I know now is that from the start of my life as an abused infant and child I was ALWAYS told that all problems in my mother’s life, in my father’s life, in the life of my entire family were MY FAULT.

In essence this message was always tied to the fact (to Mother) that my being born ‘spoiled her life’, spoiled everything.

I was TOLD in every conceivable way that what was WRONG in the world (which in our sick family consisted ONLY of what happened within our sick family) – was my fault.

Somehow – as I start with the knowns as tools for this deep cleaning and sorting I am doing — I grew up ALWAYS believing this because I had no possible way to get any kind of idea that this was not TRUTH.

Part of what so thoroughly impacted how I grew to see the world and my not-place in it was that Mother frequently removed me from her ongoing life and the life of my family by isolating me, by banishing me, by confining me, by vanishing me.

This aspect of Mother’s insane abuse of me began when I was born and I ‘disappeared’ inside a bedroom within my crib behind a closed door.  It progressed into days running into weeks of being stood in corners, confined to my bed — progressing to being locked in a shed, stuffed for a night bent over under our car’s steering wheel in my teens – BIG ETC. here!

My only concern at the moment with any of this is that I always knew a PERFECT LIFE was going on while I WAS NOT IN IT.  I can see this in the family pictures — everyone else having a wonderful time doing this, doing that — I am not in the pictures.  Often if I do appear in the pictures I am way off to the side, physically separated by distance, by clear body language, from the body of my family.

So, my absolute deepest desire to have the world be a perfect place — is it only because THEN I COULD LIVE IN IT MYSELF?  If the world were perfect – Linda would then be ALLOWED to live in it?

I don’t want to admit that this small and self-centered ‘motive’ is behind the frequent reactionary anger/rage/irritation I feel when I am confronted  with ‘things’ in our society that seem WRONG to me and that seem illogical, that do not seem RIGHT and do not make sense.

I could make a long list of what I consider to be unjust in the world.  I see the world deteriorating on so many, many IMPORTANT and trivial levels.

But I do NOT wish to feel disharmony, resentment, self-righteousness, condemning, judgmental, or any other ‘negative’ feeling inside of ME when I detect injustice and/or unfairness in the world.  I cannot be a part of the solution at the same time I am carrying negativity that is a part of the problem within me.

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People talk about ‘trauma triggers’ as if they are items one could list on paper like making a shopping list — that clearly.  When severe abuse starts at birth and things never get any better as a child/teen — and in my case — being ALIVE, just BEING HERE — is a trauma trigger!

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I guess the neat and clean and tidy and organized, etc. patterns that I am working to create here as I (as my friend calls it) ‘reconfigure’ my outer dwelling place is being mirrored on my insides.  I have not made any significant progress on either task yet — but I am determined.  I am willing.  I will be hopeful and patient.  I will pray for assistance and for forgiveness for the flaws inside of me — no matter how they GOT there — find a way to disappear.

I do not underestimate the difficulty of my task – especially my inner one. I don’t have a firm foundation of balance inside of me from my beginning of life that set me off in the right direction.

I do understand that there is some kind of miracle that I live with — that I could go through such unbelievable hell for 18 years — and still even begin to think that there COULD be such a thing as a perfect world!  Why do I care so much that beauty and goodness, truth, justice, fairness prevail over chaos, stupidity, sickness and darkness?

At present I cannot separate what I know, what I feel, what I believe, what I need to change — all the complex inner states inside of me — enough to simply, instantly magic-wand-CHANGE how I feel and how I react.  I don’t know the easy way to become different than how I am right now.

All I know is that I have work to do.  So I will go do it.  I don’t want to live feeling and reacting the way I am now.  I want to be BETTER!!  NEVER perfect – just better.

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I have what feels to me to be an important post to write.  It feels too important, so important that even thoughts about trying to write this post feel too intense for me to find what I need inside of me to write it.

As I sit outside penning on paper these words (a process I rarely use these days of computer keyboard speed) I realize I have lines of words to say that are not tangled up with one another but rather seem to coexist in a kind of hierarchy in time and space.

In other words

What I wish to say is alive in me, a living part of me.  Multi-faceted.  Multi-dimensional.  All are a “one thing” as a whole.

It seems that to write I would have to break this whole apart.  Crumble it into pieces in my hands so I could then find a way to pull what IS whole — through into a different world — this world — where the pieces would take the shape of words.

Mere words.

Inconsequential — words.

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In some ways I would rather just know this wholeness exists in me — just the way it is.  Do I fear that if I tamper with it I will break it?

I tell myself, “Linda, if this is whole and right and true, you cannot break it.”

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I wrote two emails to my daughter this morning about breastfeeding.  She gave birth to a beautiful healthy son last Friday.  Today — right about now — they are leaving the hospital and going home.

(They live 1,700 miles away.  I will travel there in about a month to visit.)

I wrote to her about a perfect world where the best possible actually exists for a newly born human being.  My daughter and her son are in that world right now.  From here everything in that newborn’s life moves forward as he interacts with the world outside his mother’s womb — the only world he has ever known — until three days ago.

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It is here as I write that words disappear.  I exist in this body with a feeling I don’t want to try to describe to myself — or to anyone else.

Time seems to stretch backward to the beginnings of our species.  Time reaches forward far, far, far into the future of how we will become.

At every single point along this line a baby is being born to its mother.

In this world that I wish only to be aware of at this moment, every perfect baby is being born to a mother who takes care of her child perfectly.

At this moment I know this is possible.  It has always been possible.  If we look at the best of our past, the best of our present as we anticipate the best of our future we know that within our nature we exactly know what best is.  We have been designed this way.

All that impedes, interferes with and interrupts the best that we are designed to experience from the moment we are conceived — and born — means that some form of trauma is present.

Humans are designed to be flexible, to respond to minor disturbances that always happen to us in this material world, and to adapt.  Change is life.

There is a range of wisdom for us here where what is truly ‘not best’ can be easily recognized so that in a world where best is accepted as real, ‘not best’ can be prevented.

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As soon as I contemplate what ‘not best’ can do to us I see what really is “a fall from grace.”

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A newborn held close in its healthy mother’s loving arms — yes — perfectly — is in a state of perfect contentment that exists beyond time, yet in it.  It exists in a world beyond words.

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Every human being deserves to know what this feels like because we need to.  I personally never experienced anything close to this with my very sick Borderline Personality Disorder (abusive) mother.  Yet I find in these moments I know what this state is because I know my grandson feels this with his mother.  Nothing I could think of would make me feel more deeply happy.

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