++++
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!!
++++
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!
Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »
++++
This blog is a great support group. I do not know where to begin. I knew of RAD ten years ago and did read some blogs. At the time I was not ready to admit to myself that I have little feeling when I am suppose to be dramatic during a life challenge. During my life I have acted out in many ways to fill the black hole of emptiness. Does anyone know of a actual diagnostic tool and criteria list that can be used by a therapist to diagnosis RAD. Thank you. Cathy
Hello and welcome! As far as I know RAD is NOT an adult ‘diagnostic category’ of any kind. Increasing numbers of those of us who suffer from the insecure attachment disorder that can be called ‘disorganized’ – or as I prefer it, ‘disorganized-disoriented’ insecure attachment are identifying that we indeed DO have an adult version of RAD that is of itself only used in reference to children that fit those criteria.
It is important for all therapists to completely familiarize themselves with attachment theory and with the variety of very real insecure attachment disorders that stem from neglect, abuse and trauma in our earliest attachment relationships primarily birth to age one – followed by increasing traumas age one – 2 and beyond.
We have what I call ‘trauma altered development’. This is a very real alteration in the way our body, brain, nervous system, calm-stress response system and our immune system develops under conditions of toxic stress/distress during our earliest critical stages of development.
There is MUCH related information on this blog! You can use ‘stop the storm’ and any related search term in an online search to find specific posts here.
Searching ‘infant abuse’ and/or ‘child abuse’ with ‘attachment’ with ‘brain development’ in combinations will lead you to much related info online, as will a search for ‘adult RAD’.
I hope this helps! Keep up your searching! Knowledge gives us the power we need to understand ourselves in our lives.
Anything published by Dr. Allan Schore, Daniel Siegel, Martin Teicher is great! All the best! Linda – alchemynow
I believed i would be alone for the rest of my life. Friendships, partnerships never being reciprocal i refrained from them. Determined i would heal first, before ever again attempting any sort of relationship. I was wrong. Today in this blog i have met so many people who suffer the same symptoms as i do, it is almost like being normal. Although my oldest son would not agree to that, thinking only his ways are normal, putting an ultimatum to me, that i needed to be normal like that, or be excluded from his family. The totally destroying sadness has passed. I am still there. Through all the fear, the wanting to end it all, i am still here. The sadness will most likely return at times, but not as devastating as those first moments. It is also a relief. A letting go of all the stress trying to fake it all, what my heart could not feel. Alieniated, unseen, hidden. I am alone, but i am also with myself in deep compassionate relationship, where guilttripping does not exist. The innocence of a soul, never incarnated, a child never cared for.
Hello Gertrude — You have said so many vital things here – we all thank you! Yes – as you will read elsewhere on this blog — we were built by and for a different world than “normal.” This makes us different, and very unique, though I don’t believe our life will ever be easy.
I am wondering if your oldest son is married – and has children?
My oldest son seems to not have empathy in his makeup. Yes he is married and he is the one having children. And of course he wants to protect his children. From the moment the oldest was born, i asked myself, whether it was the responsible thing to do to be in their lives. So for years i consciously dissociated as best as i could at family dinners, always risking to be triggered into a traumastate.
A set up an instant support system on my laptop, just in case. Things were improving. You people know all out about failing relationships. or the incapacity of even having one. So after an abusive marriage, in which he was conceived. beaten when just in my womb for 3 months, full fistforce after years and the womens movement i decided to have more children.
It was the pregnancies that triggered my inuterotrauma’s. For years i have been telling several therapists about my symptoms. Though they spoke about dissociation, ptsd and attachment, noone mentioned this RAD disorder. I have built resilience in handling myself, living with it. But in the contact with intimate others it is like speaking a different language.
With strangers, in the outside world i automatically dissociate into this love, joy spreading woman. There have been times that the whole world greeted me as if i were family. She is the part men fall in love with. But always being triggered into a traumastate caught up with me and their incapacity to deal with it.
I am in a place of acceptance right now. For the first time i refused to go back into the cage of faking it for the sake of others. Rather the convenience of others. Possibly for the first time in my life i did not choose responsibility as a mother, but chose to stay loyal, compassionate and loving to this part, she who has never even been born, hidden deep within, needing my protection, my care, my nurture, my allowing her to be as she is.
I am letting the river of life carry me. I have no solutions as to what should happen regarding my place in the family. It is a complicated situation. Life caught up with me. My youngest son sired by a man, who at that time, did not want to be his father, has come back into his life, wants to add him to his family and wants nothing to do with me. Claiming my son is an adult and he should be able to handle that.
Maybe my son can. But i cannot. Too much unsafety, which will never stop being threatening and which would possibly destroy me. Moreover the man now claims he never said he did not want to be his father back then. Sadly i threw away his letter. Wanting to be done with the past, believing hypes one could start anew, i threw away many things, diairies, letters and such, i should have kept.
It felt that if i accepted that path there would only be death for me. As like now there is still HOPE. I have always believed healing is possible. But it is not a switch that can simply be turned on or off. Building resilience, new neuropathways takes a very long time. Discipline, having to forsake much in life, is at times just something one wants to throw in the garbage can. Am so glad to have found some people, speaking my language.
this could as well be written by me. I just learned about the term RAD. Describing all the symptoms no expert/professional therapist ever came up with the term. Like you it is a daytime job for me. I am now 62 years. My family, the one i single parented, recently exploded/blew up again.
I am tired of explaining/defending myself. My family, my children neglecting me just like i was inutero and from then on. They say they love me and i believe them. But recently my oldest son put an ultimatum to me to be normal and to make up with my youngest son.
I cannot explain there is no conflict between my youngest and me, that him making the choice to enter in a relationship with the man who sired him, but who stated not to want to be his father, but now wants to add him to his family, is a situation so unsafe, that i am just incapable of living that. cannot be comprehended by them.
Sometimes it feels like having Lepra. People avoiding the real you. Is that even the real you. They love the highfunctioning Soulwoman. But i always get triggered into a traumastate and thus i always get kicked to the curb, by all those supposedly loving me.
So i guess now i am a mother, grandmother without children/grandchildren. Somehow besides the deep sadness, there is also relief.
The terrible stress from attempting to keep the alieniating status quo, so i will be tolerated, so my intend that they would keep their mother in their lives, where mine never wanted to be, can be let go of. It is not a satisfactory solution. But possibly they are better of without me in their lives.
Somewhere googling i read how hard it is to live with adult people suffering from RAD, Any idea how hard it is living it?
The constant fight to heal a body geared for death from the age of 2, when all i wanted was to return to the spiritrealm is exhausting. The expense when not even having a proper income for supplements, just to survive, is a heavy burden to juggle. But my determination to find healing or to die in trying to find it is unwavering.
Any living system seeks homeostasis. So why would i not fall under that saying. Having been at it for almost 40 years now, it is taking a while. So if you have any good suggestions, on top of all that i am already doing, it would be welcome.
My belief that there must be purpose, a deeper meaning in all this has at times become distant, but never totally lost.
Wishing you well, balanced, tranquil.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/connecticut-shooter-adam-lanza-quiet-bright-troubled/comments?type=story&id=17984172#.UM0psfW9uSo
More insight..parents were ordered into parenting classes, neighbors and former classmates aren’t surprised
The info at this link doesn’t mention your insight – but not surprising. Just sad beyond words
thanks, Helen
You are right about far more adults having RAD than realized. RAD was only officially accepted as a legitimate behavioral disorder since 1980s. Today there are over 800,000 children diagnosed with RAD. This number does not include the adults who were also RAD children prior to 1980s.
I’ll have a thesis published in two months. Check it out at
http://www.myredemption47.com/
I believe you will find it informative and it will give you resources to get help if you haven’t already done that.
Thanks!!
Amazing…thanks
This is a great read! I have been married for 26 years to my husband who was recently diagnosed with residual symptoms of RAD and a schizoid personality disorder. When we received the diagnosis I was relieved, but i also experience days of hopelessness. I admire all of you who have the courage to admit you have this disorder, and I admire the encouragement you have for one another. Along with these personality disorders my husband also struggles with learning disabilities. I read many articles regarding RAD and SPD and the effects they have on relationships, especially marriages, but there are very few forums and support groups. I just want you to know that I also am very lonely, but feel honored that God has picked me to be my husbands wife.
I really believe that information heals – the RIGHT information, of course – but we have so much new information and access to it – it’s amazing!
Diana, love is precious!
by the way, you might find the info at these links I just posted today on adult attachment in relationships helpful!!
+WHEN WE CAN’T STOP NEEDING
at
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/when-we-cant-stop-needing/
Considering that only about half of our population got what we needed in safe and secure attachment relationships especially with our mother birth to age one — (later attachments also important, of course)
this means that the other half of us have some version of degrees of an insecure attachment disorder/patterns
my guess is that you being attracted to your hubby in the first place — you probably have one of your own! This is not a bad thing by itself, but what we need is information!
search/Google – any term related to attachment using ‘stop the storm’ and then your terms – and you might find more good stuff here!
Welcome welcome! And take time for YOURSELF!!! xo Hope to see you here again!
OOPS! I was sidetracked over here talking with you – and nearly blew up my foamy-coffee-machine-thingie!!
Made a account…( it’s Helen)
hum – where?? xo
did you start a blog?? !!!
No, I haven’t yet…I made an account so you and I could pass info back and forth.
Not sure how this works?? You mean other than email – or via this email address I can see here on my end – that’s probably what you mean – me = not very techy!!! lol
We’ll figure it out..lol Look at all my disorganized writing, I pity you…you have to try to sort out what I’ve said!! Can u tell that I’m not contained? What a mess…lol
lol!! I like it that all your writing is CONTAINED right here!!!! After 1st book is rolling off the epress – there will be more time to work with this all
meanwhile – we can write away – and contain right here!!
I never knew this disorder existed until last Friday. I have been deep in the midst of an affair with a married man..the 2nd one in the past 9 years of my second marriage. I had cheated on my 1st husband at least 4 times, with the last time being a full-blown affair (with a married man) that lasted 6 months. I left my 1st husband after it blew up in my face..he promised to leave his wife, but when it was discovered, he stayed with her. This time, it was ALSO discovered and the married man did the same thing, BUT told me it was only temporary and he still wanted to be with me..it was just going to take time. My husband discovered an email I sent to him yesterday and things got blown apart again. I told my husband about RAD and he said I most definitely show most of the traits.
I have been in and out of therapy my entire life — I’ll be 51 on Sunday. No one has ever diagnosed me with this! I had already made an appt to see one counselor I saw 3 years ago, but can’t get in until the end of October. I plan on showing her the info on this disorder and seeing if she can help me. I have 2 grown sons and rarely feel connected to them either…it’s like I just cannot understand love and empathy. My husband is beside himself with grief over my repeated cheating, but says he’ll be there for me through counseling. In my mind, all I want to do is run from him — but I know that’s probably not the most healthy. I know whats right and wrong, but continue to choose “wrong” because I feel unworthy of what’s “right”.
Oh, I understand what you are saying – !!
I am currently helping my daughter as she returns to work after having her second son – who is 8 weeks old – and am 1700 miles away from home – so am very ‘distracted’!! I apologize that I am not ‘with it’ here – I return home 9-26th – but do not want to leave comments hanging around in limbo until then!!!
If you Google search ‘stop the storm trauma altered development’ I hope you will be able to find other posts here that can help you!
I don’t believe it’s how we label ourselves that matters so much as it is discovering how the traumas, neglect and/or abuse of our earliest months and years of life so stressed our developing body-brain that our physiology took a different turn in response. We are DIFFERENT people who process ourselves in different ways in the world — and there is so much to learn about how this happens and what this means.
Another way to ‘name this’ is ‘disorganized-disoriented’ insecure attachment disorder – and I think a Google search for ‘stop the storm’ with these words will also bring you to lots of info.
Again, toward the end of the month I will be back home again – and more able to respond to comments. Please feel free to add your thoughts and feelings anywhere on the blog you end up!! Sounds like the ‘trauma drama’ aspects of how we end up living as adults are in full swing for you. Calming our LIFE down, and our SELF down (including our body) is VERY important!!!!! Looking forward to hearing from you again!!
It’s taken me 55 years to realize that I have this attachment disorder. I haven’t been in a relationship for 20 years and have no idea how to deal with this and the sadness it entails. I wish even one of the useless therapists I’ve wasted money and energy on over the years could have been on the ball enough to understand the results of a traumatic and violent childhood with no bonding. It does help to know others experience such things. After much spiritual work and not being able to establish relationships, it was through the show Intervention that I finally came to an accurate self-diagnosis. It is quite a relief to know that I am not alone in these feelings. Where does one go from here? I’ve ordered a couple of books, but would like someone to relate to, I hope I can do that here. Whenever I hear troubled people say, ‘my spouse,’ or ‘my children,’ I do not feel I can relate to them, they have managed something that seems impossible to me. I would like to have intimacy and love and hope that I will not be spending the next 20 years in sadness and isolation.
Good morning and hello! Welcome!! I apologize for the delay in my response – I have traveled 1700 miles to spend some time with my daughters and grandchildren. I hear exactly what you are saying, and while our journey is difficult (an understatement) we are really like miraculous works of art!! The more we learn, the more we can understand this fact. We are EXTRAORDINARY – and while we will never be ordinary, we can learn more and moe and more about how what happened to us changed our physiology — and about what this means!!
Take a look through these two links to start off:
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/a-book-being-born/dr-teichers-article-on-trauma-altered-development/
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/about-stop-the-stor/our-earliest-start/notes-on-teicher/
I also believe that a Google search of work by Dr. Allan Schore and Dr. Daniel Siegel will be of great help. Any Google search for ‘stop the storm trauma altered development’ should bring up posts that can help.
Finally knowing the truth about ourselves allows us to begin to ask the right questions and find the right answers!
My deep deep sadness permeates my existence with every breath I take – but I will NOT let this fact stop me from applying efforts to find solutions. I also know that I will live alone the rest of my life (I turned 61 last week). I am making peace with the vital necessity – for myself – of having as uncomplicated life emotionally as I can create.
I often talk to God (as I understand Him) about why I am still on this earth – always being as open as I can to the fact that there must be important reasons for my being here – that I have important things to offer to others in this very complicated world.
Please comment again anywhere you find yourself reading on this blog! Thank you very much for your words – you inspire me!!!!! We have endured, survived — and bring to the palette of human existence our unique perspective on being alive!!!!! Welcome!! Linda – alchemynow
hi dear friend.i had d same issues too, would u liked to add me ?
Not sure what you mean ‘add me’ – but you can click on ‘follow’ on the front page of the blog if you would like. Otherwise, you are also added certainly to all of our hearts with BEST wishes!!!!!
You have been in a relationship with yourself. We just need to become much more compassionate with ourselves. I have children. My family just exploded recently again. Having them is not something to be jealous of. I felt neglected by them, they have no time. Which in my mind just equals they do not love me. They say they do love me and i believe them. They have never taken the trouble to gain any knowledge about my traumatic disorders or insight. Having no contact in a way is a relief. Stress has lifted from me, trying to fake being a mother/grandmother when not feeling it in my heart. Very complicated, impossible to explain to others. I have been alone all my life. Today that has changed, feeling i finally meet up with people who speak the same language and understand.
Wishing you well.
im so happy that others are feeling the same way i am – im a 22 year old woman, and was starting to feel like i was losing my mind. im still confused and a little upset because i feel like therapy wont do anything for me..seeing as how my whole childhood was spent in a therapists room.. but im sure thats just my “r.a.d” talking. i just wont allow myself anything because my brain is constantly telling me that im right and everyone else is wrong. does anyone else feel that way? i wont even allow myself to enjoy the company of anyone anymore.. its really hard.
Hi! Your statement is interesting to me: “…my brain is constantly telling me that im right and everyone else is wrong.”
I sure experienced a lot of this in the early years of my ‘recovery’ – and after all those years I have learned that nearly all of the time I WAS RIGHT while ‘everyone else’ was wrong.
When early neglect, deprivation, abuse and trauma is chronic and severe enough – and when there are no stable and long term safe and secure attachment people in such a little one’s life, the ‘rules’ are changed during our development — and as you will read in lots of places on this blog our very brain and body are forced to develop differently from those who did not have the extreme traumas that we did.
I hope you find some of my ‘trauma altered development’ posts – you can even use those terms with ‘stop the storm’ in an online search and find this info.
Until the very basic and most important facts are widely known about how early trauma changes us from the inside out on the molecular, DNA level, the rest of the ‘self help’ info simply does not fit us correctly. That we know this in our core amazes me – because we ARE RIGHT!!!
Hope to hear from you again!!! Stick with it – and believe yourself!!! Eventually you will find the balance point where you can become more clear about what fits, what doesn’t, and WHY!!
I have tears in my eyes as I read this because this is so true of me. Being orphan twice before the age of six and being sexual abused. My story is fulled with physical, emotional, sexual abused through out my first eighteen years of life. Was placed in foster homes and never in the same place for very long.
I am a twin and been blessed with being able to be together through out our whole life. Even tho we experience some of the same things our personality are different. She is out going and seeks attention and I hide behind her and was the fixer upper. I never knew how different we really was till the age of fifty. I never could make friends and depended on her for security even if I felt what she did was wrong.
I seek to know all the rules so no one can hurt me and people won’t be disappointed in me. I too have two children and after being married for twenty something years I divorced because I was tired of being fake in our relationship . I never felt his love for me was there and being treated with little respect I had to either leave or end my life. I love my children and have work very hard to make their life as wonderful as possible. But like you I can’t feel their love for me. My mind tells me that they do but my heart debates if that really true.
I crave for love but so afraid of it. I too struggle to keep on living and wondering will this ever get easier. Why am I so unlovable. Reading your blog makes me feel that maybe I”m not so crazy but a product of my pass. I struggle with the Why’s in life, There is so much more to say but struggle how to express . I’m seeking therapy and my hope is to love the person I am.
Greetings Twin – It warms my heart to know you are visiting here today. Thank you for your comment.
We are affirming one another in what we have experienced, how those experiences changed our body and brain as we developed without safe and secure attachments, many of us without love of any kind, many with severe abuse — and affirming one another that we ARE different people as surely as if we were born and formed in one universe while non-traumatized people come from another one.
They will never be like we are — and we will never be like they are.
I think the most important steps we take are in becoming able to make these connections in our thoughts so we stop expecting the impossible from our self. I just recently even wrote a post about ‘self-love’ – perhaps you follow this blog and read this already —
+GIVING MYSELF PERMISSION TO QUIT LOOKING FOR MY SELF-LOVE DIAMOND
click here to read this one: http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/giving-myself-permission-to-quit-looking-for-my-self-love-diamond/
Learning not only WHO I am but equally importantly HOW I am in the world is finally calming me down in some ways that matter — so that I don’t TRY TRY TRY TRY…… to be BETTER — which always meant that I try to be like other people seem to be.
I hope to hear your words in other comments around the blog. The posts are listed in the months they were written in the archives at the side of the home page. You are doing GREAT!! You are ALIVE — and that’s a miracle!! All the best!!!!!
As a 33 year old mother of two biological children and one adopted I always understood, even from my own child hood years, that I was “different” from others in the way I felt (or did not feel) emotions ; safety, security, belonging, family, er sonar identity: all learned and mimicked but never “felt”.
I have been researching to find my place (I dislike diagnosis as I do not have an”illness” so much as I am a biproduct of dis function ). I went to therapy for years in my late teens and early twenties but found that the labels and drugs only made me feel all the more lost in myself and the world. This was one of many pages I found that spoke to me-I am different, but not alone. Knowing there are others like me makes me feel more human. I have learned to empathize and to mimick the expected responses to others around me, and perhaps it is more of a focus in my interactions as overcompensation for any real connection. I feel love for my children in the way I would protect them fiercely and without remorse. I feel love for my spouse as I respect him as a person, value him as an intelligent and (flawed) but good hearted man, and hold our vows in the highest regard: he thinks I am a deeply emotional woman who hides behind logic and sarcasm, no matter how many times I try to explain to him how he is not entirely right. Emotions are all the same initially : a mixture of fear and anger, when heightened it is terror and rage. I have learned thru years of self study how to organize these initial “emotions” appropriately to allow myself to properly respond and process the source of the “emotion”: it can be exhausting till you get the hang of it, as there is often no one who truly relates. I am thankful that others are willing to reach out and connect with our “unconnected” peers: we are not broken, we are rebuilt.
Bless you each in your personal journey; I hope you wish me the same.
Well, something just went bonkers here — and the reply I wrote to you vanished!!!
Yes, blessed journeys for us all!
I was mentioning the state-of-the-art research available for the finding at the PubMed database at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
Also that 28 years ago without internet — along with the fact that so much of the research that pertains to what WE survivors NEED was not available when I was your age — I feel a little envious of how much you KNOW of the RIGHT STUFF!! Of course, that’s my marginal response – the BIG response is GLADNESS – and admiration that you and so many of this blog’s readers are so highly motivated and so brilliant in finding all the pieces that FIT –
And with PRIDE and CONFIDENCE and unquestioning trust in self – this thrills me at my old age of 61-next-month!!!
Thank you so much for visiting the blog, for reading, for commenting – ! Oh, before my first reply vanished I was going to use your word ‘sonar’!! I made it a long way with instinctual understanding of how to ‘comply’ to fit in – until I wore out!! I still believe the shock of the breast cancer and treatment 5 years ago, the along with some other powerful factors — simply erased for me what I learned to do to ‘get along’ since I was a little tiny girl. Now I FORGOT all that ‘superficial’ learning……
Anyway, I sure don’t feel too articulate right now — I so enjoy when other readers such as yourself pick up the ball here on these important topics and RUN with it! All the best!!!! Hope to hear from you again!! Linda – alchemynow
So much recognition in all people on this site are saying. I believed i would never meet anyone who would truely be capable of understanding me.
Thanks for your blog, I’m gaining some valuable insight. I happened upon this after years of trying to understand why I am the way I am. I have such a hard time relating to others and “fake it” all of the time. I really appreciate your description of these internal “seizures” which overwhelm me constantly. I find myself unable to process my thoughts, feelings and experience and struggle so much in relating to people.
Finding kinship in others with a similar experiences is comforting and such a relief!
I feel so glad you have found this blog and are gaining insight from my writings – and so very very sad that most most likely what happened to you when you were very young was so traumatic, harmful and just plain WRONG!!
If you click on the ‘home’ tab at the top of the blog you will find some of my current writings – which speak of my ongoing struggles – in perhaps a simplistic way I have found – especially after watching the Temple Grandin movie which I so highly recommend, that although I was not born autistic – the stress and distress and trauma during my developmental years created in me a body-nervous system-brain that is far more like an autistic one than an ‘ordinary’ one.
If you get the chance, please watch the movie, Temple Grandin. It might also open many doorways and windows into how our body operates.
Thank you so much for visiting, and for commenting!! We have such a rough road!!!!!! with love for us all – Linda – alchemynow
Hi. Jus saw your post. Im an adult with severe effects of childhood emotional abuse by my mother. Im unable to cope with life of lonelines, emptiness, hopelessnes and inability to bond. How do you cope and are you better now?
I am now at 60 on full social security disability for the lifelong consequences of those 18 years of terrible abuse. Getting breast cancer 5 years ago, fighting and surviving that seemed to exhaust whatever resources I had left. I have to live a very very quiet life. I just re-watched the movie, ‘Temple Grandin’ – and highly recommend it. Even though I do not have autism, many of the stress-related developmental changes I experienced due to such trauma from birth have created many very similar conditions in my body-brain-nervous system.
In that movie when Temple’s ‘attacks’ are shown, she externalized them. Mine are equally intense but on the inside. The lack of social connectedness that Temple has – people like me, probably you, experience that kind of remoteness and ‘strangeness’ of being a member of the human species, as well.
Some days I am much better than others. For no reason that I can track today, I feel very sad and very close to tears. No idea why – but know it is directly connected to that abuse.
I am very open with my children who all live a long ways from me – though I never abused them and we are close. I know I will never in this lifetime really know what feeling loved feels like, any more than Temple really could/can. I think we ‘act as if’ much of our lives. My soul feels very very tired now. I was thinking of that today. My soul is tired!!
I think I accept things about myself better now that I understand how the terrible stress of trauma affected how my body-brain developed. Google ‘stop the storm trauma altered development’ and many pages of this info should appear. Also with ‘stop the storm insecure attachment’ –
Thanks so much for stopping by and for commenting. Knowing we are not alone, that others know exactly what we know about suffering through a lifetime from the terrible trauma and abuse of our childhoods. Please drop a line at the end of any post you might find here. We are all doing the best that we can – tho there is NOTHING EASY or simple about our experiences in life. All the best! Linda – alchemynow
Lack of friendships, a rejecting family, an abusive relationship, never had any employment, disconnected, chronic insomnia, chronic anxiety, IBS, headaches, DID,constant raging……*Sigh*, my mother should have ended my pregnancy.My quality of life is EXTREMELY POOR!!My mother told me she was emotionally empty when she had us.She was detached, anxious, and just going through the motions of being human.I have unresolved RAD,everyday is a struggle.Christine,the loneliness and emptiness will never go away.
Oh do I understand what you are saying!! Such tragedy and I am so sorry for all of us! No doubt your mother suffered a very similar early life to what she dished out – I believe we can carve out a life in between what our BODY is doing to us!!!! It is the effect of what the deprivations and continual lack of love, safety, PLAY – well you well know — that created these changes in our physiology —
You will understand me when I mention the extreme conflict I felt 5 years ago about today when I received the diagnosis of advanced, aggressive breast cancer — I have 3 fantastic grown children who love me very much (and understand that due to the consequences of severe trauma in my early years I cannot FEEL their love tho I can feel love for THEM) – and I knew I would have to fight that battle to WANT to remain alive – it was a terrific struggle for me to fight that cancer – and thus far win – ’cause I will NEVER have the quality of life I DESERVED!!!
Every day is a struggle – and as I recognize what my body does – the anxiety, IBS, insomnia (tho I have found homeopathic aids that work pretty well – my inability to tolerate any noise, difficulty being in the presence of humans while being chronically lonely, etc. — I look always to try to stay connected with my essential self – I call my eternal soul – that was NEVER touched by the abuse — but also did not get to ‘grow into the world’ as I should have – (the remoteness, dissociation DID, feeling unreal, etc.
I am happy to hear your voice. You are NOT ALONE in this!!!! The chronic deed sadness is enough to probably knock most people flat on the ground so they’d never get back up – and yet here we are. We are STRONG! We are GOOD PEOPLE!!!!!!
My wife just learned of RAD. Because of her birth 50 years ago by a prison inmate, the foster care system that kept her moving and fianlly a stepmother who committeed suicide when my wife was about ten, she is a textbook case for this diagnosis. As a spouse it is difficult because you never know what will trigger and epidsode or how long it will last. Because I am the closest person to her I am usually the target of her anger and retaliation. I feel so bad for my wife because she normally realizes the truth and then has to deal with the guilt of displacing her anger towards me. We have been married 14 wonderful years. There are days I am very weary any suggestions for the spouse so we can stay healthy and support our loved ones?
Wow – how clear you speak – with love, compassion and devotion! Also with wisdom – !!
I can FEEL the reactivity now when it happens – many do not believe that adults can ‘have’ RAD – ha! Is very real.
I live alone. I cannot imagine living with a partner – if so, my guess is we would need a duplex!!
Personally, I need a LOT of time alone – I am very very busy on my insides all of the time – and I think absolute DOWN time is essential for us – none of the reactivity has anything to do with anyone else – but it is very hard not to spew it in somebody else’s direction when the reactivity is going on.
But there is no reason why a loving couple can’t learn learn learn about what is happening. A kind of kindling as I describe – is happening, a kind of body seizure, really….
(an example – in the body – at http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/about-stop-the-stor/amygdala/)
In truth, personally again, I do not name the reactivity-kindling ANGER – even though it can appear to be exactly that – or at best, irritation (like hot water over a bad skin burn).
You can learn about yourself as far as how you allow your mate’s reactivity to involve you. All couples, I imagine (not having been in a relationship for 26 1/2 years myself), have irritable times. But being in a partnership is (to me) about supporting and loving one another – and by all means possible I would think partners would wish to learn how to be peaceful with one another.
There is a LOT written on this blog that applies –
see also: http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/survivors-of-bpd-mothers-our-deepest-need-for-peaceful-calm/
Thank you so much for your comments and for your visit here. Those of us who did not get to build a body from our earliest beginnings with peaceful calm at the center of our nervous system need to especially understand what this means – what it feels like inside our skin – how HOW we are affects others around us – how to truly find peaceful calm – so we even know what it feels like!
All the best to you both!! Do not allow yourself to be abused – certainly happens even when the intention of someone is nowhere near that aim!!!!
Thanks for you response. Marriage was not my wife’s first preference 14 years ago. Since our marriage it has been a long journey of counselors. Some had very close diagnosis others were way off. To add to the mis-diagnosis of some, the professional counselor or psychologist would start treatment and, after starting to open doors of healing, would leave to take a teaching position or move to another state…just reinforcing the rejection and abondonment issues all over again. If there are professionals reading this blog, please consider your patients before entering this field or making life altering (for the patient and family) decisions.
It is the commitment my wife and I have made to the Lord and to each other that keep us on this journey together. It’s not always pretty, the good times are great and the bad times are hard. However, it’s the hard times that shape us. Thanks for this blog that helps me interact and process.
There is nothing that can match commitment to provide the kind of staying power any relationship needs to remain vital, alive and wholesome! Hope to hear from you again as you read around the blog! Your points are great!!!!!
Hi – I just found and re-posted the info at this link – VERY IMPORTANT and I think may be of great interest and assistance to you two!!
+ATTACHMENT-CAREGIVING INTERACTIONS IN ADULT AND CHILD RELATIONSHIPS
at
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/attachment-caregiving-interactions-in-adult-and-child-relationships/
Thanks! I am in the airport heading out of the country for a week on business. I look forward to reading the article when I return.
((hugs)) to Chip for being compassionate and ever so patient with his trauma altered wife..Chip, you’re wonderful, it’s hard to connect and grow with us ( Bpd sufferers),,congrats for being dedicated and strong in your dedication to the Lord and your commitment to your wife
Lol, I’m in my sanctuary!! Here it is! Right here with you Linda! I’m running a support group on Facebook and…..WOW, the manipulation, emotional immaturity and drama…sigh, so glad it’s only Facebook.Today I felt like a overwhelmed parent trying to discipline 200 screaming toddlers :/
I leave the predators for the night…going to abandon my flock for awhile
Nice to hear from you today, Helen! You see the bigger picture – love the analogy! That’s a LOT of screaming toddlers!!! A rest sounds like a most wonderful excursion!!! Have at it!!
For familydinners, when my adult children, grandchildren visited, i created a supportsystem on my laptop. Heartmath, brainwavemeditations,
Qi Gong, are systems that can help me regain my balance, when triggered into the traumastate. Anger, rage, freezeresponse etc. are not very efficient ways to make any progress in the disorder. The above methods are not very difficult to learn. To take responsibility for my triggered traumastate felt empowering. You are an adult. So hope you can support your wife with this. With my children it was not enough. My family recently exploded. Possibly they are better of then having me in their lives. Rhodiola, asghawanda, maca are good supplements/foods, to balance chronic stress. And do eat a very healthy diet. For the chronic stress wreaks havoc on the physical body.Heartmath may be good for you too. Learning to stay calm and coherent when she goes into the uncontrollable traumastate. Guilt is just a useless emotion, i feel. Compassion for that hurt part inside is what she deserves and needs. We got hurt. I always believed there was a divine purpose for this. And good things came from it too. Being a superempath is something i value about myself. Caring deeply about people like your wife is too. Wishing you the courage and strength to keep going.
Now that the light has gone on for me, finally, about how I am in my body in the world as a consequence of the kind of trauma you know, also — I am understanding the so-many ways that I process information of all kinds about being in a body in the world differently from ordinary. I find that I have to be as careful as I can be to avoid triggers and trauma drama. I am sorry for ALL your pain, dear woman. Nobody EVER deserved what happened to us!
My first sense is that for your children to recognize that there is some kind of difference between trauma-trigger RAD people and “not that way” people means to me that there must have been a whole lot that went right for your children — or they would not know this difference even exists. My tendency is ALWAYS to back off when there is any sign of conflict — to get a kind of “second sight” on things.
We cannot put the pressure on other people in our life to meet our needs for love. We might have a really hard time trusting that we are loved — but that is OUR burden. BELIEVE your children love you!!!! The doubt is not theirs, nor is it theirs to ever need to heal us. They are our CHILDREN – not our parents. I don’t mean to lecture in any way – I tell myself this as I tell you!!
I HIGHLY recommend the material at this link:
+CAREGIVING IN ADULT ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIPS
at
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/caregiving-in-adult-attachment-relationships/
This is the kind of material that saves my life!!
I hope to hear from you again, Gertrude! It is an honor to have you visiting, and thank you!!
I raised my children from a very high soullevel, with recurring bouts of deep suicidal depression. Only found out about PTSD when my youngest was already 4 years old. They want the soullevel woman and they are sick to death of the suicidal mother who sometimes exploded in uncontrollable rages. My mothering is done. They are all in a good place. They have a much better chance at life, then i ever did, yet i would never change my life for anyone elses. It is like a story i want to see to completion now. The lasting for ages deep suididal depressions have not visited me for quite a while now. So i am back at daily meditations, heartmath etc. Being in the freezemode there are many things i cannot do. My christmastree is still standing fully decorated in an upstairs room. Yet now that the deep sadness has gone, i almost feel at peace with myself. Almost because of recognizing the other part that is always there, hidden. But that is ok. It is so good to speak. Always feeling forced to hide, to fake some kind of adaptive normalcy.
I really like this: “It is like a story i want to see to completion now.” A wonderful way to put it, this discovery process, making it through our life!
When I look back on my adult life (I’m 62) it seems I have lived MANY entirely different and separate lives. Exhausting! I knew no other way to go but forward. Was I ever my “true self?”
That remark really hits home. Our true self! Is the self, the dissociation, that we have build to survive less our true self. Or me who often lives on a soullevel, not even incarnated, is that less true. Or even the traumatriggered lost part, is she less true.
It is like juggling, I have come to honor and value them all. They force me to go with the flow, a flow i cannot control. Inconvenient at times, But ultimately so far it has moved me forwards as if carried on a river steered by unseen hands. The uncontrollable rages i suffered in the past, that just seemed to take over, were terrible. For that was never the mother i wanted or intended to be. The extreme suicidal moments were no walk in the park either. But these last years, i am 62 now, i have had moments, when i thought i have almost got it. I am making the full transition into a functional human being. Then again something major happens in my life, that is simply beyond my capacity or willingness to deal with.
But recognizing the total devastation, knowing even trusting it will pass and i now got many tools to regain a sort of baseline, where i can handle ME, has build a resilience i have come to rely on. I cannot change others. Cannot chose for others whether they want me in their lives or not. But i notice after the last incident i am no longer willing to go back into the cage as to be more convenient for them.
A lot of it is just observing. Goals or intending certain things have never worked for me. Neither have affirmations. Learning that NLP advices to stay away from difficult people, who are not good role models, taught me to stay far away from NLP.
I wish i could find a way to access the hidden hurt part in a way i could help her make progress in becoming more safe, feeling more loved, at ease, etc. She isn’t as deeply hidden in a cave anymore, as she used to be. She feels close to the surface now. I can see the progress, But the interpretations of others, who cannot, tend to lock me into oudmoded attitudes from a long lost and dealt with past.
This child, who never belonged, was denied all right of existence, yet belongs to me. I have come to find any relationship is impossible when the other cannot acknowledge her, give her right of existence. Accepting how easily she gets hurt, confused, or triggered into trauma, in the past into rage. Knowing those emotions just to be symptoms and no expressing of any true self.
Just a matter of never having been socialized, never having learned to regulate one’s emotions. There are really bad people in this world. Yet it seems that i just continue to recreate the original denial of my conception/ birth etc. in every encounter, as if i am the worst criminal, when i am not being perfect.
I have studied enough of developmental neuroscience – much of the references are buried in the thousands of posts on this blog but read anything you google either with “stop the storm schore” or just google “attachment mother infant schore” or “attachment mother infant” to find related info — that in my studies I have learned now that it is through mother-infant interactions before the age of one that build either emotional regulation or dysregulation into the rapid forming right limbic social-emotional brain. We don’t “learn” the wiring in that brain region – mother’s download their own right brain into their infant. Just the ice berg’s tip….
Also google “stop the storm teicher article” and take a look through my scan of that article and my notes…..
If you would like.
Also – on soul. Our soul is our “true self” – but is supposed to “grow into the world” — which can’t happen “right” for those of us so abused from birth and before
By the time I was 15 this was my reality
*Age 15 – MY ‘VISION’ – ALONE NAKED IN THE WOODS SINGING
at
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/the-devils-child-my-childhood/vignettes-from-my-abusive-childhood/my-vison-alone-naked-in-the-woods-singing/
I am in the process of book writing – my own story – not done yet!!!
I listen to the NICABM teleseminars and one of them was Alan Schore. Have trouble getting into real studybooks the last few years. Will dive into your material the coming days. Success with writing your book. Thanks.
Wow! I loved reading your article – thanks so much for sharing. I am 65 and can so relate to your self-therapy, the PTSD and RAD. I also had a hideous childhood – but consider myself lucky that I was able to use my experiences to help others as I come to understand myself, more and more.
Joy
Love your name – Joy!! Thanks for the upbeat note – very much appreciated! I love spring! Am out gardening – my best therapy! I was able to create a wonderful native plant flower garden these past two days for an AIDS dear friend of mine – who also has heart troubles. I am so blessed with much unbounded energy when I can override my depression!! Now my friend can tend and enjoy – I so do not want to lose him – and I am hoping that having his much-wished for garden will help him bypass his often-depression, as well!
I seem to be able to find a kind of determination to MOVE FORWARD in good ways – a true gift – and sounds like you have this gift as well! As I write these words I am reminded of something I too often forget – that I am blessed with still being alive – while many from these kinds of terrible, terrible childhoods have disappeared into the next world so often so prematurely.
Blessings and joy to us all! thanks again! Linda – alchemynow