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I am thinking about friendships, something I knew nothing about the first 18 years of my life.  In the world of my mentally ill, severely abusive mother all I was ‘good’ for was ‘punishment’, certainly not for friendships with anyone.

My mother worked hard to control access that anyone had to me.  She moved the family from Los Angeles where her mother, my grandmother lived shortly before my 6^th birthday.  That move – no matter what my mother ever told anyone – HAD to happen in mother’s universe so that her abuse of me could continue without interference.

It worked.  Certainly my father never interfered.  Certainly my siblings were powerless to interfere.  Certainly I could not interfere.  Most of the time mother even prevented me from access to my own siblings.  I was banished, isolated, kept in solitary confinement – left to stand in corners, left in my bed – anything mother could do to make sure I remained in HER HELL – Mother was effective at what she did nearly beyond belief.

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Like so many other things about being a person, once I left home at 18 I had to watch other people as I guessed at what being human was, what being or having a friend was.  There have been many years in my life when I floated through years believing I had friendships.  In fact, I suppose I DID have friends – but as I age (I am 60 now) I understand more and more about myself as a trauma-changed person.  I understand from the inside out what my extreme insecure attachment disorder does to distort my ability to relate to people.

Sure – I can fake it.  All the rest of this is a very long story.

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I wish to mention the following video.  As I watched this tender reunion of two spectacular animals I found myself wishing I had with a friend the kind of closeness these animals are showing me.  What would this feel like, to be able to be this free to express affection?

This is one of the most tender series of interactions I have ever watched.  I never (like many of this blog’s readers) EVER received this kind of touch from my mother – or from my father.  Not once.  Not one single time was I shown that I was loved.

Because I was NOT loved.

This video is about love.  The purest kind of love.  Can anyone watch this and not WANT SOME?

I will never say I am not loved – but with an insecure attachment disorder as severe as mine is – I cannot FEEL this kind of love.  Tragedy.

And yet viewing this video gives me an experience outside of human time in being able to witness what I hope some human beings ARE able to feel, express, and share with other people.  I had this ability robbed from me by 18 years of insane, brutal abuse.

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Elephants reunited after 20 years

I cannot explain with reasoning what I am conveying in this post.  Yet I also know there are readers who know exactly what I am talking about.

I also believe that no matter how well people think they can love and receive love — that it might only be with the purity of young childhood that THIS caliber of love exists in the human world.

Am I jaded?  I might be.  Maybe it’s a consequence of my insecure attachment disorder that I cannot really SEE the kind of love these two elephants are expressing happen between people (and I am so NOT speaking of any kind of sexual interaction).

The exception in my life has been my witnessing of the love my daughter and her little son share with one another.  I just wish we didn’t live 1700 miles apart!

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This is fascinating!!

More on elephant emotions!

and

Whatever happened to Shirley and Jenny? 

“In 2000, The Urban Elephant brought viewers the touching story of Shirley and Jenny, two elephants reunited at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee after a 22-year separation. The bonding was immediate, intense and unforgettable between the two former circus elephants. But long after the cameras were turned off, the wondrous moments would continue.

“The two were inseparable. Shirley quickly assumed the role of surrogate mother to Jenny, who though now an adult — had been a baby when they first met at the circus. Their bond was so intense; it would forever change life at the sanctuary. As Carol Buckley, Executive Director of the Sanctuary describes it, ‘that was the love that started our elephant family.’ “After Shirley’s arrival, elephants who had previously been companions and friends were now sisters and aunts in the mother and daughter relationship of Shirley and Jenny. They gave the sanctuary its future,” says Carol. These strong bonds would soon be needed. Sadly, on October 17, 2006, ten years after arriving at the sanctuary, Jenny died.

“Jenny came to the sanctuary quite ill. She had scars and other traces of misuse and abuse from her past as a circus elephant. She had been exposed to tuberculosis. And due to an attack by a bull elephant before coming to the sanctuary, Jenny had a crippled back leg. Her caregivers suspect the leg harbored a hidden bacterial infection that flared up last year.

“”The day before she died, Jenny had been down and she wouldn’t get up. Shirley stood by her and insisted that Jenny get up. Jenny just couldn’t get up. Then Jenny stood up but she had to lean on Shirley to keep up. If you looked at Shirley’s face, you could see that she knew that Jenny was dying. Jenny dropped to the ground and Shirley walked into the woods.”

“Jenny was on her deathbed when Shirley walked to the woods but she would give Carol and the sanctuary caregivers the privilege of one last incredible glimpse into the world of elephants before she died. “After Shirley left, Jenny started to make this rumbling noise. With each exhalation, she would rumble. It was almost like a singing. As Jenny did this, Bunny and Tara (two sanctuary elephants) came running over. We thought that was it and she was going to die. And then Bunny and Tara started trumpeting and rumbling. At a certain point, I turned to Scott (Director of The Elephant Sanctuary) and I asked him how long this was going on. He said 58 minutes! Well, she continued for another two hours. Jenny lived through the night and was even perky and silly. She passed in the morning. And when she died, she did a vocalization that I had never heard. It was like a trumpet. It was very low and got quieter and quieter. She passed very peacefully without straining or exerting herself. To experience this ritual was amazing. I had never seen anything like it.” Shirley stayed in the woods until Jenny passed. She didn’t eat for two days. “It was very hard and especially hard on Shirley. Shirley’s whole life was about taking care of baby Jenny. It was like a mom losing her baby.””

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The Urban Elephant

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Highlight of my morning was being able to watch the birth of tiny Praying Mantis babies who spent all winter developing in their rock-hard cocoon attached to one of the top header boards of my adobe chicken coop’s window.  About 1/3″ long, they evidently chew their way out attached to a gossamer thread thinner than a hair.  Then they wiggle their head, tail and tiny legs free, climb up the thread and disperse.

And — some plants —

Some vegetable work….

Lots more work to do – corn and butternut squash next, still need to check and repair drip lines, etc.

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History of garden building here:

LINDA’S ADOBE PEACE GARDEN

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It has been days since I have written a post, days pulling myself back from the brink I found myself far too close to this past Good Friday (scroll down for related posts).  I learned there are more things I do not want to remember, be reminded of or discover about my own self (history) than I could have possibly guessed.  I learned that what I know about myself ‘above ground’ is only a tiny fraction of who I really might be.  I learned it is best that I keep things this way.

I suspect that what I have learned in these past years through my research about what terrible stress and trauma does to change the physiological development of infants and children is very useful information to me.  I no longer feel I have to dig-dig-dig to turn up unknowns from my 18 year abusive childhood.

I understand that it is not and never will be the specifics of what was DONE to me that matters.  What matters is how my body-nervous systems-brain are different – very, very different – in consequence of my having endured my insanely abusive infancy and childhood than they would have been if I had not been forced to survive and grow in a toxic, malevolent environment.

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I have put my efforts these past days into finding ways to connect with people in the community in which I live.  I have fought my way back (for the most part) to an inner state of relative calmness that was so shaken and crushed when my neighbor girl showed up at my house in absolute meltdown-crisis on Good Friday.  I have not given myself time to THINK about anything except what belongs to the present only.  There is a lot to do, a lot to pay attention to in the present……..

There are also many people involved in very real troubling dramas — I see.  All kinds of difficulties that require friendships, stamina, determination, good intent, courage, creativity and faith to resolve.  Troubles troubles troubles abound — and these past days I have ‘put myself out there’ where I could witness how life is for others – and at times be of some small assistance.

I am not free to write about other people’s stories for the most part, and I am in many ways quite tired at present and in need of some R and R – and in need of paying attention to things I need to take care of in my own home and garden.My thoughts, my feelings, my heart — full of that special kind of tenderness that comes with caring about how people’s dramas progress, unfold, resolve themselves — or don’t seem to.

Death and dying, sickness, deterioration of the body, teens in trouble with the law, relationship breakups in attempt to end abuses, poverty leading to no food in the house, aging without caregivers, court battles, failed parenting, loving parenting, struggles of all kinds.

I witness many many people who are struggling as adults with the lifelong consequences of living with a trauma-altered body-brain that neglect and abuse created in their childhoods.  I see how the tragedies tumble down the generations.  And I see the heroes and heroines who are working as hard as they can to change things for the better – anyway – for their self and often for their children – one moment at a time.

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As I look back at myself as a child, as far back as I can remember I have always been a seeker of beauty.  I have often thought of my spiritual journey as one in which I have sought for truth, for goodness, for what is right.  Because I know of myself as a severely abused child who always recognized the beauty around me no matter how terrible my life was, I think today that it was my search for beauty itself that led me to survive – and led me to answers that mean a great deal to me today.

These words I read today encapsulate my search, my goal, my belief, my desire.  I am not in this search alone.  This is the destiny of the entire human race.

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• Author:  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris Talks, Addresses Given by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in 1911, 12^th edition 1995, pages 43-46

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This is an excerpt from a letter I just wrote to a friend – one who lived at the bottom of the mountain below our Alaskan homestead as I grew up —

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Update note to this post, January 4, 2016:  PLEASE read through the incredible comments to this post.  They keep coming in.  PLEASE also be sure if you leave a most welcomed comment that you be sure to click the box in order to receive notifications of new comments!!!!

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While I am nothing like ‘an expert’ in anything related to diagnostic categories commonly used – and accepted – in mainstream America today, at age 60, having been involved in my own healing from severe child abuse from birth (until I was age 18) for half of my lifetime, I am an expert on myself.

I just read this online page —

Reactive Attachment Disorder in Adults

I believe there are far more people with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) than any ‘professional’ would care to accept.  While this might not be an ‘official diagnosis’ – for me it is an accurate one.  True, I ‘have’ Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – probably could add the ‘complex’ part to the front of that, for whatever purpose that serves – along with ‘depression’, ‘dissociation’ and all the etc. etc. that could be included.

But when push comes to shove and I am triggered in my life, it is the RAD that most accurately covers my experience.  Nobody can talk me out of this awareness, no matter what their experience, education, research, (etc.) might be.

So I am writing this post just to support and encourage any severe infant-child abuse and neglect people who have come up with this ‘category’ for their self as being an accurate one.  If you suspect this, in my opinion and experience, honor what you know enough to accept that you are right.

Everything else that is a part of my body and my experience of myself in my life can be included under the RAD umbrella.

When something in my life is a major trigger, and when ‘kindling’ begins (See:  +MY MOSAIC OF REACTION TO BEING FACED WITH……..) it is true that what could be called my ‘Disorganized-Disoriented Insecure Attachment Disorder’ becomes activated in serious and pervasive ways.

But on the level of my experience when this happens about what is needed to diminish the difficulties all of the ‘damage’ (through Trauma Altered Development) my insanely abusive BPD mother caused me, it is the RAD awareness that helps me calm myself down.

Because of the intense triggering that being confronted with my despairing abused neighbor girl last Friday caused me (see recent posts), it is taking days for me to do this ‘calming myself down’.  It is hard work.  It is my life.  I understand nearly all of it now – why I am this way, what happened to make me this way, what I react to and how, and what I can do to reestablish the best-state of peaceful calm that I can manage to find.

No, this is not fun.  In fact, it really really sucks!  But this body is all I have to get me through my life.  The terrible traumatic stress of my severely abusive infancy and childhood did this to me.  The complete lack of any safe and secure attachment with another person did this to me.  The forced isolation during my 18 year childhood did this to me.

I KNOW now.  I KNOW!  And anyone who has searched the internet on this topic and has landed upon this post, congratulations!  Trust yourself!!

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NOTE to blog subscribers – please always click on a post title so that you can come directly to the blog to read – I am a queen of edits after a post is first published!

Thanks for reading!

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