Tag: trauma

+MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS — ECONOMIC VAMPIRES WORLDWIDE

alchemynow1 Comment

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Why does abuse continue?  Because it can.  Well, here I go – forward HO!  What is THIS about the United States of America that I am frightened to know?  More from the book, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina., who states the following about:

Multinational Corporations

“A cursory review of the literature pertaining to global capitalism quickly reveals that multinational corporations are at the epicenter of many of the problems that we are currently experiencing both in the United States and throughout the world.  Possibly because of this, the Baha’I writings envisage that corporations (trusts) will no longer exist in the future:  “No more trusts will remain in the future.  The question of the trusts will be wiped away entirely.”  [The Secret of Divine Civilization, page 24]  Many multinational corporations, as they currently exist, are manifestations of a Cartesian-Newtonian value system that places the maximization of profits ahead of all other goals – often to the exclusion of even ethical and moral considerations.  Along these lines, history professor Howard Zinn, author of the highly acclaimed A People’s History of the United States, notes that the prevailing unscrupulous activities of multinational corporations are built upon a long history of corporate abuse in the Third World:

“The relationship of these global corporations with the poorer count4ries had long been an exploiting one….  Whereas U.S. corporations in Europe between 1950 and 1965 invested $8.1 billion and made $5.5 billion in profits, In Latin America they invested $3.8 billion and made $11.2 billion in profits, and in Africa they invested $5.2 billion and made $14.3 billion in profits.”  [page 29]

“Corporations wield incredible power, and indeed, are beyond the control of any one government.  Of the world’s 100 largest economies, fifty-one are not multinational corporations while only forty-nine are nations [bold type is mine].  Currently, there is no body of national or international law to deal effectively with such corporate “states.”  Corporations are not democratic institutions, and they often make it clear that their only obligation is to deliver profits to shareholders.  In the United States, corporate lawyers have used the courts to carve out an entire body of case law including language that declares that corporations (also known as trusts) are legal persons entitled to First Amendment free speech rights and also to the protection of life, liberty, and property.  Moreover, case law grants corporations legal immunity, which means that corporate executives cannot be held fully accountable for their activities.  As such, corporations enjoy the rights of individuals without having to assume the responsibilities of individuals.  Along these lines, Noreena Herz, a Cambridge University economist and author of The Silent Takeover:  Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, contends that multinational corporations pose a grave threat to democracy itself because of their ever growing capacity to manipulate governments with legal and illegal methods.  She maintains that corporations, almost by design, do not currently serve the world’s political and social needs, but rather, mostly serve the interests of profit-motivating investors.

“In contrast to the prevailing laissez-faire [describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies] global capitalism model, the Baha’I teachings stipulate that all business enterprises should be well regulated by international codes of law that set effective, fair, and just guidelines pertaining to global wages, working conditions, environmental protections, property issues, capital-labor relationships, restrictions on the concentration of wealth, and the sharing of natural resources.  Furthermore, according to the Baha’I teachings, businesses should be democratically run with workers and owners mutually participating in the decision-making process at all levels and workers also enjoying a percentage of the profits.  All people, including the disabled, should be employed in some capacity.  Moreover, in order to avoid the harmful speculation in currencies that currently exists, Baha’is believe that there should be one uniform worldwide monetary currency.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha wrote, “When the law3s He [Baha’u’llah] has instituted are carried out there will be no millionaires possible in the community and likewise no extremely poor.”  [The Promulgation of Universal Peace (2007), page 217]

“In their perpetual efforts to find, control, and exploit natural resources, corporations have caused much damage to the environment and have also cased much harm to indigenous communities with close ties with the land.  The Baha’i Faith recognizes that the constant struggle to seize and dominate natural resources has often resulted in major wars and conflicts between nations, groups, and enterprises.  In light of this, the Baha’i writings envisage that, in the future, all of the earth’s natural resources will be placed under public control, under the auspices of a world super-state (a world federation of nations).  According to the Baha’i writings, the world super-state will exercise full authority over the planet’s resources including oceans, forests, oil deposits, copper, silver, gold and other metals, diamonds, minerals, natural gas, coal, and so forth.  It is believed that the super-state will protect, coordinate, and organize the planet’s resources so that all peoples and countries may benefit equitably from these natural riches.”  [The World Order of Baha’u’llah (1991), page 204]  (pages 186-188)

Western-Style Development in the Third World

“An overwhelming body of evidence now shows that Western-style economic development, the kind that is promoted by multinational corporations, has led to highly destructive outcomes in the Third World.  Indeed, a common theme among critics of globalization is that the multinational corporations and the wealthy First World nations (especially the United States) have been using international financial and trade institutions – such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) – to their advantage and to the detriment of poor Third World nations.  For instance, Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics and author of Globalization and Its Discontents, contends that the IMF has consistently placed the interests of the United States and the rich industrialized countries above the interests of the impoverished developing countries.  Similarly, economist Biplab DasGupta, author of Structural Adjustment, Global Trade, and the New Political Economic Development, asserts that the global economic policies of the IMF and the WTO are harmful to poor countries and primarily reflect the interests of the wealthy countries of the Northern Hemisphere.

“Third World debt has become a major driving force in international relations.  During the 1970s and 1980s, First World banks found that it was profitable to lend money to Third World governments.  Indeed, such banks have managed to collect exorbitant interest on the longterm debt.  As it has become evident that some countries might default on their loans, the IMF (ultimately funded by public taxpayers) has stepped in to save the private banks by assuming some of the Third World debt.  The IMF and the World Bank, however, have increasingly pressured impoverished nations to enact economic austerity measures or face penalties.  These measures are formally known as structural adjustment programs, and they typically require countries to:  devalue their currency, which results in a dramatic reduction in the purchasing power of the poor; sell state-run enterprises to private parties (usually corporations); sell state-owned communally held lands to private parties (usually wealthy landowners or agribusiness corporations); severely cut state spending on social programs such as education, health care, and food subsidies for the poor; radically reduce the employment of civil servants in the government sector, which results in massive government layoffs; remove subsidies and price supports for small farmers who consequently can no longer compete with agribusiness corporations; stop producing food crops (such as corn and beans) for the hungry local population and start producing cash crops (like coffee, cotton, and tobacco) for export and sale to wealthy countries; deregulate economic activity (repeal minimum wage laws, gut environmental protection laws, etc.); and other changes.  The measures described above have had the overall effect of transferring wealth and power from the public sphere (governments and the people) to private entities (rich elites and multinational corporations).  [see:  “Michel Chossudovsky:  The Globalization of Poverty:  Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms,”]

“Loans have done almost nothing to alleviate the distress of Third World populations.  To the contrary, they have done much to increase this distress while at the same time augmenting the coffers of multinational corporations and First World banks.  Amazingly, poor countries now spend over twenty-five dollars on debt repayment for every one dollar in aid that they receive from wealthy nations.  Dennis Brutus, a professor of Africana Studies and the University of Pittsburgh, states,

“One of the central mechanisms by which this recolonization [of Africa]…is carried out is the loan system through structural adjustment programs….  [M]any of the countries that received loans…have not seen their economies improve.  Quite the opposite.  Some are in a far worse economic position and more indebted than they were prior to taking the loans…more bankrupt…more impoverished….  It is hardly imaginable that anyone could knowingly devise such a ruthless, heartless system that is entirely devoted to increasing profit and largely indifferent to its human cost.  This, however, is the system that is shaping life in Africa today, and it is the system that we must challenge.”  [see source HERE]

Next post:

Taking Water Away From the Bolivian Indians

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See recent posts::

+HERE’S A TAKE ON THE RICH RICH RICH RICH AND THE POOR POOR POOR POOR

+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

+WHERE THE BAD PEOPLE HIDE: ‘AMERICA FAR WORSE THAN A BULLY’

+CRITICISM NOT ALLOWED IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD

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+CRITICISM NOT ALLOWED IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I never once had the thought during my 18-year abusive infant-childhood that there was any other kind of parent different than mine were.  I was sequestered within a total environment of trauma that had never allowed me to learn to think either subjectively or objectively about my own experience in relation to anybody else’s different kind of experience.  There was only ONE WAY to see the world, and that was my abusive mother’s way.  She held control over every inlet and outlet of my life, and her control of me was absolute and unswerving.

In my mother’s black-and-white world I was the all-black-one and everyone else was all-white.  Because there was never any break in the trauma I experienced, and because no deviation from my mother’s dictates was ever allowed, I never knew anything like GREY actually existed.  And perhaps because I know so intimately what it feels like (and IS like) to be completely ‘demonized’, I tend to make every possible allowance I can find not to ‘criticize’ anyone else.

There was no balance of any kind in the environment that built me.  Conceiving of a world where very real malevolence exists AT THE SAME TIME that true benevolence ALSO exists at the same time, in the same place is very hard for me to do.  I believe that being raised in a completely abusive Borderline universe makes the Borderline’s inability to tolerate either ambiguity or paradox seem like a fact of reality that everyone accepts.

Trying to live in a different kind of world that accepts the reality that good and bad exist together along with a zillion degrees of mixtures of the two in between often makes me feel as if I am walking completely blind through human-influenced experiences of all kinds that I do not understand.

DARING to criticize my own nation makes me feel like a traitor who will be exposed at any moment – and punished for both my daring and for my criticism.  My severe trauma-built body-brain makes sure that I remember one thing – and it tells me this is the truth whether I ever would have dared to criticize my mother or if I dare to criticize America:  “The bigger they are they harder the hit!”

I was completely setup to shutup.  There never was a middle ground, not even enough for me to be able to identify my own feelings or to have my own thoughts about my experience growing up.  Being entombed absolutely alone in a living tomb of silence is VERY SCARY.  Daring to criticize ‘my nation’ now is stimulating everything I know about threat-to-life if I challenge the status quo.

It was obvious to me that the entire world was on the side of my mother, including my father, my siblings, my teachers, any neighbors we ever had, even my grandmother who was ‘forced’ to give up trying to intercede against my mother on my behalf.  Because my mother was always RIGHT, and because I have accepted the cultural dictate in this nation that America is also always RIGHT – who do I think I am to dare to question otherwise?

And yet it seems to be my concern for the millions of infants, children and their families that are suffering in very real ways within our nation today that is giving me the permission I need to ask in my compassion for THEM, “What is WRONG here?”  Along with the ideas I presented in my earlier post today about ‘betrayal trauma’ comes my own conflicts about daring to notice something is wrong, daring to ask the question, and about daring to look at the ugly side of the history and ongoing practice our nation displays in allowing some people to thrive while others needlessly suffer and perish – both within our own boundaries and around the globe.

Am I betraying my own nation by entertaining the idea that America is far from perfect?

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Previous posts in the last 24 hours:

+HERE’S A TAKE ON THE RICH RICH RICH RICH AND THE POOR POOR POOR POOR

+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

+WHERE THE BAD PEOPLE HIDE: ‘AMERICA FAR WORSE THAN A BULLY’

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+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

alchemynowLeave a comment

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As difficult as it is for me to challenge my own ‘betrayal bond’ with the United States of America, I am posting here further excerpts from the book I introduced in last evening’s post, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina.

Medina writes:

The Extremes of Wealth and Poverty as an Impediment to Peace and Spiritual Growth

“Ironically, as mentioned above [see last evening’s post] in the face of widespread rising poverty in the United States and throughout the globe, astonishing levels of wealth are nonetheless being amassed and increasingly concentrated in the hands of a very small cadre [a nucleus or core group] of super-rich, powerful individuals.  In the United States, the gap in wealth distribution is currently greater than at any other time since 1929, the year of the Great Depression.  Similarly, practically every Third World country has a small cadre of rich elites (obligarchs) [a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people] who live lavish lifestyles amidst the abject debilitating poverty of their fellow citizens.  Related to this, the Universal House of Justice warns that the widening gap between the rich and the poor throughout the world is a major impediment to peace:  “The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war. (The Promise of World Peace, pages 10-11)” Along similar lines, ‘Abdu’l-Baha states the following regarding wealth:

“If a judicious and resourceful individual should initiate measures which would universally enrich the masses of the people, there could be no undertaking greater than this….  Wealth is most commendable, provided the entire population is wealthy.  If, however, a few have inordinate riches while the rest are impoverished, and no fruit or benefit accrues from that wealth, then it is only a liability to its possessor.  If, on the other hand, it is expended for the promotion of knowledge, the founding of elementary and other schools, the encouragement of art and industry, the training of orphans and the poor – in brief, if it is dedicated to the welfare of society – its possessor will stand out before God and man as the most excellent of all who live on earth and will be accounted as one of the people of paradise.  (The Secret of Divine Civilization, page 24)”

“It would be accurate to say that one of the defining features of capitalism is that it encourages individuals to concentrate wealth.  Capitalism also lacks any moral constraints that admonish and encourage individuals to expend such wealth for the benefit of others.  This alone practically guarantees that ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s above admonition will remain unheeded within the current economic paradigm.  He asserts that wealth that is not utilized for the benefit of the overall society is actually “a liability to its possessor.”  I believe that this is a reference to the spiritual deficits (deficits in the virtues of generosity, compassion, justice, humility, and love) that likely multiply in the souls of any individuals who devote their time and energy to selfishly amassing physical treasures while, at the same time, showing little concern for the general welfare of the community.  It is probably the case that such individuals may outwardly appear prosperous, and yet, they may actually be experiencing spiritual starvation and a poverty of the soul.  (pages 179-181)”

Keeping the World Safe for Capitalism

“Such poverty of the soul is clearly evident in the corrupt social, political, and economic arrangements of the global order.  These prevailing arrangements are based on blatant physical power and control and are not mediated in any sense by moral or spiritual constraints.  Indeed, physical wealth is the chief mediating force in global politics and economics.  Wealthy elites are able to exercise tremendous power not only within their own nations, but also beyond their respective nations’ borders.  Elites may live in different countries, but they often collaborate with one another to exert extreme control over the resources and governmental institutions of the planet in order to maintain the prevailing unjust global order.  Within the United States, big business interests (American multinational corporations, huge investment banks, and rich owners/investors) hold a powerful sway over the government.  Through the instrumentality of the U.S. government as well as through American-dominated international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, big business entities project their power onto the global stage where they consistently promote economic, political, and military policies and actions that make the world safe for capitalism (actually, safe for the easy exploitation of the masses).  Such U.S.-led policies and actions effectively preserve the privileged position of American big business interests throughout the planet as well as protect the positions of elites within impoverished countries where ruthless oppression is often used to maintain the gap between the rich and the poor.

“The control of agitated hungry populations typically requires the use of military force.  Not surprisingly, in order to maintain the global arrangements described above, the Unites States has been, and continues to be, the leading supplier of weap0ns on the planet.  [bold type is mine]  By the end of the 1990s, the United States accounted for seventy percent of the commerce in weapons to the Third World.  Significantly, even after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1989, the United States continued to flood the world with weapons.  For instance, it provided arms or military technology to belligerent parties in ninety percent of the fifty most significant conflicts that occurred between 1993 and 1994.  [See HERE]  In November 13, 2006, The Boston Globe reported the following:

“…it is the United States that by far remains the top purveyor of high-tech arms to areas where…the likelihood of armed conflict remains highest.  A study last year by the progressive World Policy Institute found that the United States transferred weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in an ongoing war….  [M]ore than half of the countries buying U.S. arms…were defined as undemocratic….  “The U.S. would be significantly affected if there was an arms treaty that took into account human rights abuses and conflict areas,” added William Hartung [World Policy Institute]….  “The U.S. government still wants to be able to do convert and semi-covert arms transfers.”  [rest HERE]”

“The findings above are very significant considering the fact that many contemporary outbreaks of famine are related to armed struggles and devil wars such as the recent conflict in Somalia.  Thus, arms transfers and U.S. military aid to the Third World contributes considerably to world hunger because they help keep famine-inducing armed conflicts alive.

“It is ironic that the United States has often touted itself as the prime promoter of worldwide democracy when, as noted above, a myriad of undemocratic governments have received military aid and weapons from the United States.  Some of these governments have essentially acted as American-influenced puppets that have served to maintain political and economic conditions that are favorable to the Untied States and to American-based multinational corporations.  During the 1800s and 1900s, the United States established such governmental arrangements throughout the world in a variety of countries in Central and South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific region.  Indeed, these arrangements were cultivated especially in Third World countries where profits could be made through exploitation of cheap labor and/or the exploitation of minerals, and so forth.  Along these lines, sociologist James Loewen states, “From 1815 on, instead of spreading democracy…we [Americans] sought hegemony [domination] over Mexico, the Philippines, much of the Caribbean basin, and other nations.”  In many instances, the U.S. government blatantly worked hand in hand with wealthy Third World oligarchs to actually create puppet regimes.  (pages 181-183)”

The author’s next section:

Overthrowing Democracy in the Name of Capitalism

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SEE:

— US is top purveyor on weapons sales list — Shipments grow to unstable areas

By Bryan Bender – The Boston Globe Staff / November 13, 2006

— SOURCEWATCH – Arms Control – June 4, 2008

— Interesting collection of current foreign aid statistics by nation HERE

Also see:  Third World Traveler –

THIRD WORLD TRAVELER  is an archive of articles and book excerpts
that seek to tell the truth about American democracy, media, and foreign policy,  and about the impact of the actions of the United States government, transnational corporations, global trade and financial institutions, and the corporate media,  on democracy, social and economic justice, human rights, and war and peace,  in the Third World, and in the developed world.

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+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

alchemynowLeave a comment

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For all the severe trauma, neglect, abuse and malevolent treatment I endured during the first 18 years of my life, I have yet to thoroughly explore the topic of the book I am highlighting here today as it applies to my own life.  I have known for many years that I had no relationship with my mother or father that was outside the range of what is described as a ‘trauma bond’ or as a ‘betrayal bond’.  I had no safe and secure attachment relationship with ANYONE during those 18 years.  I have evidently taken that fact so fore granted that it is only now as I continue to explore the CONTEXT of the Bigger Picture in which the trauma that happened to me within that I am NOW directly faced with either paying some attention to what these kinds of bonds actually are – or not.

From a rather detached point of view I find it intriguing to learn this about myself:  I did not move to the point where I could directly consider these damaged-damaging kinds of bonds UNTIL I reached a point where my interest and concern became focused not on my own story, but rather on the suffering of OTHER infants and children CURRENTLY trying to grow up in our nation as they suffer from all kinds of deprivations and traumas within malevolent environments.

As I noted in some of my recent posts, it is within the CONTEXT and within the Bigger Picture that I share the overwhelming suffering of my abusive-traumatic infant-childhood with LOTS of other people.  These ‘other people’ are NOT only grownups.  They are ALSO infants, toddlers, childrens and teens who are suffering NOW – in real-time.  As I have pursued my own understandings about what happened to me from the PAST on into the present real-time moment, all boundaries and distinctions I might have had about ‘my suffering’ and the suffering of others have vanished.

In this dissolution of distinctions about suffering I am left taking a closer look at the conditions within our American nation that are not only allowing growing numbers of our offspring to suffer, but that are contributing to this suffering.  I realized a long time ago that especially in regard to infant abuse our culture has built into itself such a taboo against harming little ones that we don’t even want to THINK about let alone TALK about the fact that infant abuse does happen!

Now I feel like I am broaching yet another taboo subject – what is wrong with America.  As I take a look at this subject I feel I am wandering around alone in a very dark bramble thicket – but I will not change my direction.  Forward I go, no matter how uncomfortable this stage of my journey is.

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I will be continuing to post further excerpts from the book I introduced in last evening’s post, America’s Sacred Calling: Building a New Spiritual Reality (2010) by John Fitzgerald Medina.   At the same time I admit to myself I am reaching WAY OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE as I tackle the information Medina presents.  My realization is that I am unable to make any further progress toward understanding suffering in the context of the nation I am a part of if I don’t at the same time understand that I have a BETRAYAL BOND with America.

As members of a social species we are programmed in our DNA to seek protection by being with others of our kind.  We are most comfortable being a part of the larger group at the same time that our innate physiological attachment ‘wiring’ makes certain that if we move too far out of our ‘group comfort zone’ – we will FEEL IT as discomforting, threatening and downright scary!  We will feel this threat in terms of lack of safety and security at the same time our attachment systems go into full play.

I suspect that most people instinctively align themselves with their own nation in the same way that infants and children align themselves with the caregivers they are dependent on for protection-need fulfillment.  Dependency based on NEED can be a powerful force that keeps us even as adults from asking questions and surveying factual information that MIGHT BURST OUR BUBBLE about anyone we are reliant on for protection-need fulfillment – including facts about our own nation.

In this context of examining context I present the following information on ‘betrayal bonds’.  This information comes from this book:

The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships (1997) by Patrick J. Carnes

Product Description

Patrick Carnes presents an in-depth study of exploitive relationships: why they form, who is most susceptible, and how they become so powerful. He explains to readers how to recognize when traumatic bonding has occurred and provides a checklist so they can examine their own relationships. Included are steps readers can take to safely extricate themselves or their loved ones from these situations.

In Carnes’ introduction to his book he states:

“Betrayal.  A breach of trust.  Fear.  What you thought was true – counted on to be true – was not.  It was just smoke and mirrors, outright deceit and lies.  Sometimes it was hard to tell because there was just enough truth to make everything seem right.  Even a little truth with just the right spin can cover the outrageous.  Worse, there are the sincerity and care that obscure what you have lost.  You can see the outlines of it now.  It was exploitation.  You were used.  Everything in you wants to believe you weren’t. Please make it not so, you pray.  Yet enough has emerged.  Facts.  Undeniable.  You sizzle with anger.

Betrayal.  You can’t explain it away anymore.  A pattern exists.  You know that now.  You can no longer return to the way it was (which was never really as it seemed).  That would be unbearable.  But to move forward means certain pain.  No escape.  No in-between.  Choices have to be made today, not tomorrow.  The usual ways you numb yourself will not work.  The reality is too great, too relentless.

Betrayal.  A form of abandonment.  Often the abandonment is difficult to see because the betrayer can be still close, even intimate, or may be intruding in your life.  Yet your interests, your well-being is continually sacrificed.

Abandonment is at the core of addictions.  Abandonment causes deep shame.  Abandonment by betrayal is worse than mindless neglect.  Betrayal is purposeful and self-serving.  If severe enough, it is traumatic.  What moves betrayal into the real of trauma is fear and terror. [my note:  I would add here that trauma is ALSO about overwhelming helplessness, hopelessness and great pain and suffering!] If the wound is deep enough, and the terror big enough [and great pain and suffering], your bodily systems shift to an alarm state.  You never feel safe.  You’re always on full-alert, just waiting for the hurt to begin again.  In that state of readiness, you’re unaware that part of you has died.  You are grieving.  Like everyone who has loss, you have shock and disbelief, fear, loneliness and sadness.  Yet you are unaware of these feelings because your guard is up.  In your readiness, you abandon yourself. Yes, another abandonment.

But that is not the worst.  The worst is a mind-numbing, highly addictive attachment to the people who have hurt you. [my note:  Addictive physiological patterns use the same chemicals and body-brain routes that human attachment does.  When our earliest caregiver attachments hurt us, our body-brain had no choice in the beginning of our life to alter the way our attachment patterns built us and built themselves into us in our early unsafe and insecure human environment.] You may even try to explain and help them understand what they are doing – convert them into non-abusers.  You may even blame yourself, your defects, your failed efforts.  You strive to do better as your life slips away in the swirl of the intensity.  These attachments cause you to distrust your own judgment, distort your own realities and place yourself at even greater risk.  The great irony?  You are bracing yourself against further hurt.  The result?  A guarantee of more pain.  These attachments have a name.  They are called betrayal bonds.

Exploitive relationships create betrayal bonds.  These occur when a victim bonds with someone who is destructive to him or her.  Thus the hostage becomes the champion of the hostage taker, the incest victim covers for the parent and the exploited employee fails to expose the wrongdoing of the boss. {my note:  I am also becoming very clear that, against all our nation’s social taboos about ‘thinking this way’, that our nation itself is allowing an abusive exploitive relationship to continue to grow between ‘the rich and the poor’.  I have a betrayal bond-attachment (as I suspect most of us do) to my own nation!] Sexual exploitation by professionals – such as in the Father Porter case, the Pied Piper phenomenon at Jonestown, and the kidnapping of the children from the school bus at Chowchilla – grab national attention.  Yet the bonds formed in those situations have much in common with the experiences most of us have.

We typically think of bonding as something good.  We use phrases like male bonding and marital bonds, referring to something positive. [my note:  and ‘the mother-infant bond’ – the following bold type is mine] Yet bonds are neutral.  They can be good or bad.  Consider destructive marriages as in War of the Roses in which the attachment results in a mutually destructive bond that cannot be broken.  Partners cannot leave each other the bond is so strong, even when they clearly know the risks.  Similarly, adult survivors of abusive and dysfunctional families struggle with bonds that are rooted in their own betrayal experiences.  Loyalty to that which does not work, or worse, to a person who is toxic, exploitive or destructive to you, is a form of insanity.

A number of signs indicate the presence of a betrayal bond:

1.  When everyone around you has strong negative reactions, yet you continue covering up, defending or explaining a relationship.

2.  When there is a constant pattern of nonperformance and yet you continue to believe false promises.

3.  When there are repetitive, destructive fights that nobody wins.

4.  When others are horrified by something that has happened to you and you are not.

5.  When you obsess over showing someone that he or she is wrong about you, your relationship or the person’s treatment of you.

6.  When you feel stuck because you know what the other person is doing is destructive but believe you cannot do anything about it.

7.  When you feel loyal to someone even though you harbor secrets that are damaging to others.

8.  When you move closer to someone you know is destructive to you with the desire of converting them to a non-abuser.

9.  When someone’s talents, charisma or contributions cause you to overlook destructive, exploitive or degrading acts. [my note:  Alas, I am also ‘reading’ patterns here that describe the nation I am a part of]

10.  When you cannot detach from someone even though you do not trust, like or care for the person.

11.  When you find yourself missing a relationship, even to the point of nostalgia and longing, that was so awful it almost destroyed you.

12.  When extraordinary demands are placed upon you to measure up as a way to cover up that you’ve been exploited.

13.  When you keep secret someone’s destructive behavior toward you [my note:  and I would add in the case of our nation ‘against others’] because of all the good they have done or the importance of their position or career.

14.  When the history of your relationship is about contracts or promises that have been broken and that you are asked to overlook.

Divorce, employee relations, litigation of any type, incest, child abuse, family and marital systems, domestic violence, hostage negotiation, kidnapping, professional exploitation and religious abuse all are areas that reference and describe the pattern of betrayal bonding.  They have in common situations of incredible intensity, or importance, or both. [my note:  I place our ‘national allegiance’ in this same category when the wealth and interests of the few causes great harm to the desperate many] They all can result in a bond with a person who is dangerous and exploitive.  Signs of betrayal bonding include misplaced loyalty, inability to detach and self-destructive denial. [bold type is mine]

If you are reading this book, a clear betrayal has probably happened in your life.  Chances are that you have also bonded with the person or persons who have let you down.  Now here is the important part:  you will never mend the would without dealing with the betrayal bond.  Like gravity, you may defy it for a while, but ultimately it will pull you back.  You cannot walk away from it.  Time will not heal it.  Burying yourself in compulsive and addictive behaviors will bring no relief, just more pain….

You can click on this title and go to Amazon.com to explore the Table of Contents and other pages, as well.  I haven’t read the book yet as I just discovered it in my searching today.  I will either locate a copy through my local library or buy one for myself.  The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships (1997) by Patrick J. Carnes

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+FOUND A GREAT USER-FRIENDLY ABUSE-TRAUMA RECOVERY WEBSITE!

alchemynowLeave a comment

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I found this excellent website this morning that has lots of clear accurate information-packed pages related to abuse and trauma — HELPGUIDE.org

Healing Emotional and Psychological Trauma — Symptoms, Treatment, and Recovery

What is emotional and psychological trauma?

Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless and vulnerable in a dangerous world.

Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and alone can be traumatic, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized.

A stressful event is most likely to be traumatic if:

  • It happened unexpectedly.
  • You were unprepared for it.
  • You felt powerless to prevent it.
  • It happened repeatedly.
  • Someone was intentionally cruel.
  • It happened in childhood.

Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by single-blow, one-time events, such as a horrible accident, a natural disaster, or a violent attack. Trauma can also stem from ongoing, relentless stress, such as living in a crime-ridden neighborhood or struggling with cancer.

Risk factors that increase your vulnerability to trauma

People are also more likely to be traumatized by a new situation if they’ve been traumatized before – especially if the earlier trauma occurred in childhood.

Childhood trauma increases the risk of future trauma

Traumatic experiences in childhood can have a severe and long-lasting effect. Children who have been traumatized see the world as a frightening and dangerous place. When childhood trauma is not resolved, this fundamental sense of fear and helplessness carries over into adulthood, setting the stage for further trauma.

Childhood trauma results from anything that disrupts a child’s sense of safety and security, including:

* An unstable or unsafe environment

* Separation from a parent

* Serious illness

* Intrusive medical procedures

* Sexual, physical, or verbal abuse

* Domestic violence

* Neglect

* Bullying

Symptoms of emotional and psychological trauma

Following a traumatic event, most people experience a wide range of physical and emotional reactions. These are NORMAL reactions to ABNORMAL events. The symptoms may last for days, weeks, or even months after the trauma ended.

Emotional symptoms of trauma:

* Shock, denial, or disbelief

* Anger, irritability, mood swings

* Guilt, shame, self-blame

* Feeling sad or hopeless

* Confusion, difficulty concentrating

* Anxiety and fear

* Withdrawing from others

* Feeling disconnected or numb

Physical symptoms of trauma:

* Insomnia or nightmares

* Being startled easily

* Racing heartbeat

* Aches and pains

* Fatigue

* Difficulty concentrating

* Edginess and agitation

* Muscle tension

These symptoms and feelings typically last from a few days to a few months, gradually fading as you process the trauma. But even when you’re feeling better, you may be troubled from time to time by painful memories or emotions—especially in response to triggers such as an anniversary of the event or an image, sound, or situation that reminds you of the traumatic experience.

This appears to be a very user-friendly site.  I found a host of informative articles HERE.  Great site!

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+INTERNET ARCHAEOLOGISTS OF THE FUTURE — WHEN THEY DIG UP OUR WORDS

alchemynow2 Comments

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Part of what I learned yesterday is that my dissociational difficulties with verbal language happen not only when my stress response system is accelerated when I am in the presence of other people and THEIR words disappear.  It also happens within my own body as it did yesterday so that MY OWN access to words disappears.

This discovery just serves to answer some of my own questions about HOW I experienced my 18 years of severe abuse and trauma as an infant-child.  Mostly I had no ability to assign words to my experience, which served to bar me from being able to THINK in words about anything I went through.  This reality also means that ‘returning to my childhood’ to remember myself as I went through that hell doesn’t happen in words, either.

Sum of the matter:  For those of us who were deprived of protection in a safe and secure early caregiver-infant attachment environment our ability to USE words, including our ability to THINK in words was altered.  Because all the PREVERBAL interactions that are supposed to happen between infants and their caregivers didn’t happen correctly, our communication platforms built into our developing body-brain regions, circuits, and pathways were changed.

These changes affected how we process and store memory.  They also affected how we remember our own SELF in relationship to/with our ongoing experiences.  Even though developmental neuroscientists (and others) can now describe what infant-child abuse looks like in the ‘changed brain’, nobody describes what the experience of living with a trauma-altered body-brain FEELS like and IS like from the inside out.

It seems to me that only survivors of early neglect, deprivation, trauma and severe malevolent abuse actually KNOW this insider information.  It is our important job, then, to describe and document our own experience of living in a trauma-changed body.  Sometimes as I do this in my writing I feel like I am in effect writing messages to put into bottles to toss into the vast internet sea.

Will anyone find them?  Are all survivors waiting for some future time, long past most of our lifetimes, for ‘science’ to catch up with the living reality of what the longterm consequences especially of malevolence 0-3 actually MEANS to the people who survive it?

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That gives me the image of some far-distant-future internet archaeologists who have skills to dig around in the invisible world of then-ancient internet archives for bits of information those of us alive today are sending out into internet ‘space and time’ right now.

These archaeologist web-hackers in the future will probably accomplish their work via programming computer systems that act as ‘crawlers’ and ‘probes’, sent into our invisible past to find out who we were – ‘we’ being the then ancient ancestors of the still-surviving members of our species.  I think about what it would be like now if we had a verbal record of the experience of OUR ancestors.  Spoken stories, stories carved in symbols on stone, words written and printed on paper, and then there’s NOW where our history is transferring itself into digital formats that exist as long as the computers of our planet continue to hold them.

And in the digital world OUR words, our lay words, our ‘common folk’ words, our survivor words are really as equal as the ‘educated’ people’s words, as the ‘wealthy’ people’s words, as the words of those who hold the power.

So in the future when our internet world of words is ‘dug up’ what we are saying now as survivors of severe early trauma will be equally as TRUE as what everyone else is saying.  But in our words will be reflected a reality about being super-tough and super-strong and super-resilient because we endured from infancy what humans are NOT meant to ever experience in the first place.

Nature did not design infants to be abused, hated and traumatized by their caregivers.  That our stories tell the story in words about what enduring the unendurable is like means that whatever it is that WE HAVE and that WE KNOW will be directly connected to whatever it will be that carries our specie’s survival into the distant future.

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+PLEASE CHECK OUT THIS REPORT ON AMERICA’S CHILDREN IN RECESSION TIMES

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This report appears with a link included in my previous post, down near the bottom.  It is TOO IMPORTANT to overlook.  The information included at this link is critical to ALL OF OUR WELL-BEING!

Effect of State Budget Cuts:  America’s Kids Pay the Price
This is a report NACCRRA released In January 2010 with Every Child Matters and Voices for America’s Children. To read a copy of the report, click on the title above.

“At least 42 states have cut public health, programs for children with disabilities, K-12 and early education, and higher education.”

Children During the Recession

“American children will be required to pay a substantial price in lost opportunities to address a problem they did nothing to create.”

—About one in four children under

18 is living in poverty; 21.3

percent of children under 6 live

in poverty

—Over half (53.3 percent) of

children growing up alone with

their mother are living in poverty

—More than one in five children

(22.5 percent) live in families

who are food insecure – meaning

they struggle against hunger and

report not having enough to eat

—Nearly 10 percent of children

lack health insurance—over

7 million children

—Only one out of every seven

eligible children receives child

care assistance and the care

that children have access to is of

dubious quality

Read what this report recommends to help improve conditions within our nation that are so negatively impacting our children.

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+SCREW THE DRUGS – I AM SEEKING HEALTHY REWARDS TO HEAL MY DOPAMINE SYSTEM

alchemynow2 Comments

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I have been thinking a lot lately about my so-called (treatment resistant) ‘major depressive disorder’ that I know was directly created because of continual severe abuse and trauma I could not escape from my birth until I left home at 18.  Yesterday (as I mentioned) I continued to try to think of one instance during those 18 years when my ‘reward’ (dopamine-related) system was allowed to fully operate within my growing and developing body-brain normally.  Didn’t happen.

I have been thinking about addictions and their known connection to a thwarted reward system due to early infant-childhood malevolent treatment.  I think about the continual pain I was in for those 18 years.  At the same time I have been thinking about NO REWARD experiences = ZIP I also realize that the complete inability to escape the pain combined to create within me physiological patterns of so-called ‘depression’ that nobody is going to help me untangle but myself.

I am recognizing that I MUST discover some things in my current life that feel rewarding to me – no matter how small the activity or goal might be.  I even found these super-fun videos last night in my search for reward – and they made me giggle when I tried to follow him!

I call them THE ORANGE SHIRT GUY moves – I am learning Salsa dancing in my living room alone with my favorite broom.  Since the moment I left home I have loved to DANCE – and by golly I am going to DANCE NOW!

I am thinking back as far as I can think in search of what rewarded me INTRINSICALLY (inside my self) – those qualities of ME my mother did not touch because she was too busy projecting her darkness on to me and then trying to abuse it out of me.  My SELF held seeds of a love of beauty, a love of movement, a love of the outdoors, of flowers, of gardening, of making things with my hands – and I need to find ways to build THOSE REWARDS into my days somehow so that I won’t sink out of sight into the quicksand of the great (unbearable) sadness inside of me that is always on the near-verge of consuming me.

It also struck me yesterday what a miracle it was that I found MOTHERING-caregiving my children ABSOLUTELY REWARDING!

I think about my own physiology (because my body-brain was built in trauma) in terms of overloaded Substance P (pain) coupled with underloaded reward (including problems with all my safe-secure attachment-reward circuits – CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE ON THE ‘DRUGS’ and depression).

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In my searching today I found this fascinating article!  Well worth a read!  It also includes info on ‘learned helplessness’ – something severe early abuse concretizes in our little trauma-altered-development body!!  We need to understand that all our seeking and reward systems begin to be built as our earliest seek-reward attachment behavior either protects us — or does not (causing cascades of Trauma Altered Development).

The Brain’s SEEKING system

By S. N. Koch

“Although the details of human hopes are surely beyond the imagination of other creatures,” writes Jaak Panksepp in Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (1998), “the evidence now clearly indicates that certain intrinsic aspirations of all mammalian minds, those of mice as well as men, are driven by the same ancient neurochemistries.” Regarding what he has labeled the SEEKING system, Panksepp explains that the mesolimbic and mesocortical dopamine pathways….”

“Panksepp suggests that the SEEKING system “responds not simply to positive incentives but also to many other emotional challenges where animals must seek solutions.” In “The Involvement of Nucleus Accumbens Dopamine in Appetitive and Aversive Motivation” (1994), J.D. Salamone explains that dopamine release and metabolism within the nucleus accumbens “is activated by a wide variety of stressful conditions.” Salamone points out that blocking dopamine transmission or otherwise interfering with nucleus accumbens dopamine transmission “has been shown to disrupt active avoidance behavior.” In other words, when dopamine is decreased, animals cease trying to escape aversive stimulation. Instead of trying to cope with stress, they give up.”

NOTE:  I write about MY OWN PATHWAY, not yours.  Your medical needs belong to you and your professional provider.

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+DISORDERED EMPATHY = BLURRED BOUNDARIES = TRAUMA DRAMA = COMBINED CRIES FOR HELP

alchemynow2 Comments

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Like writing a revised weather forecast there is something I need to say.  Nature does not make mistakes.  If severe early trauma (in unsafe and insecure attachment environments) builds ‘disordered’ empathic abilities into a little suffering one’s body-brain, this happens for a USEFUL reason.

It strikes me that when I wrote that empathic contamination results when one person’s suffering is directly COMPOUNDED by another person’s suffering this can be considered as the operation of ‘unhealthy boundaries’ between the two.

It also strikes me that if ten people are trapped in a burning building they are sharing trauma.  The chances of being rescued improve if all ten shout for help as loudly as the can together and at the same time.

So as I experience an increase in my own experience of suffering at the same time I contemplate the current suffering of probably half of our nation’s infant-children, I see that this means my body has been built by my own early trauma to KNOW the suffering of those little ones as if I am in the burning building right along with them.

I suspect this is, in fact, what happens with ALL TRAUMA DRAMA.  Everyone entrapped within the trauma drama is suffering together as the dramatic reenactments of unresolved traumas that have traveled on down the generations actually represents A COMBINED SCREAM FOR HELP.

Suffering of the one is suffering to the whole while in the middle of trauma.  Those that can give care, that can rescue, that can save, that can solve the problems the trauma has and is creating ARE ON THE OUTSIDE of the actual trauma happening — not within it.

Nature has no doubt created the ability within humans to ‘blur individual boundaries into a combined whole’ for exactly this reason.  Like the image of the combined flames of individually held candles being brighter to light up the night, those of us who have disordered empathy can amplify the cries of ‘save me’ by adding our voice to the call of all the suffering others who are crying the same thing.  The cry then becomes louder and louder, “SAVE US!”

The question in my mind then becomes, “Who is it on the outside who can hear the cries of the suffering?  Will they hear?  Will they respond?  Do they care enough to have the empathy coupled with compassion coupled with desire coupled with intent coupled with resources to HELP?”

And my own conflict within myself right now has to do with WISHING I was on the outside looking in on the trauma rather than being on the inside crying out.

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+INSECURE ATTACHMENT = DISORDERED EMPATHY

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+INSECURE ATTACHMENT = DISORDERED EMPATHY

alchemynowLeave a comment

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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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