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+HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL POST FOR VERBAL ABUSE – CANCER-CELL-WORD-THOUGHTS – DUMP ‘EM HERE!
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This page is dedicated to this blog’s readers. Feel free to write any trauma related response in the comment section below:
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I tried to post this under the Resilliency and Daring post but not sure if it went through.
Maybe its better if it goes here.
Today (21st March) is Human Rights day here in South Africa and I woke up thinking about abuse, trauma and the cycle of abuse.
If only, in our societies we would become more aware of shame – toxic shame and how this takes root in human beings, preventing
Us from embracing our true selves and finding healing. Just now I googles Complex PTSD and found a really helpful website –
Just google ‘Emotional Flashback Management in the treatment of Complex PTSD’. This article is by Pete Walker who has 30 years of
Experience with the topic. I found my feelings and reactions expressed here – and in a very readable, compassionate way. He also give
Steps to assist people to deal with a flashback.
I think that tho we have experienced different levels of abuse and thus have more complicated flashbacks – there is something here to
Apply. Perhaps someone will be able to use Walker’s tips or benefit just from the affirmation gained that their experience was real, traumatic
And their responses and reactions are not to blame but are in fact right reactions in the context of that abuse! I hope that as more people become
Aware of the terrible nature of abuse that they will think about how to help themselves and others.
Walker also has a personal website with more information – pete-walker.com.
X
I found this blog a few weeks ago. I think it has really been helpful. Keep writing. You are far more eloquent than I can be at this point. Even the gardening and astrology stuff I find useful.
Been abused by both parents. Father beat and verbally abused me. Mother abandoned me for a while at age 2, then came back. She allowed our stepfather who tried to molest my sibling and myself to come back. I was 8 or 9 then. I was so terrified then I hid in a bedroom for a while. Mom did not physically abuse us, but there was neglect and abandonment. I remember missing her so much, before the stepfather ordeal.
This has resulted in social phobia and I have been alone all my life. Never married or had kids. This is really coming back to bite me in middle age. On the outside I appear normal. Never arrested or obvious mental health symptoms. I just keep it all inside.
Your blog has inspired me because I have read elsewhere that damage at such a young age can be insurmountable according to some mental health professionals.
I did have fantasies about running away as a child though I was too afraid to act on them.
It is so easy for me to lose track of any value my writing might have for other people — it means so much to me to hear from readers like yourself that there is something here that has meaning!!
Thank you for visiting, and thank you for commenting!! “Insurmountable” – that word sure popped out to me!
As you probably know, I am in the middle of writing my childhood story — in a line — for the first time in my life. I can see that I was ALWAYS THERE — no matter what my mother did to me, as I look back now — I WAS THERE!!!!!
And I am STILL HERE! That seems so amazing to me! Only child abuse survivors probably ever have that amazing sense of the miracle they are to have endured and survived through such early hell — and come out of it as a strong, beautiful, wonderful INTACT human being!!
Inside our childhood stories of abuse, no matter who did the abuse to us, no matter what the abuse was that they did — INSIDE THE STORY is where WE are — and we were PERFECT children!!!
I have accumulated lots of info on this blog — and I am so happy you are visiting!! Please write again here any time you wish!! You are an honored guest in this verbal house from my heart!!!!
If there are special ‘ideas’ that interest you you can always Google search the terms putting “stop the storm” and then your terms – like vagus nerve, autonomic nervous system, verbal abuse, trauma altered development, dissociation…..anything that comes to mind. Just hook the terms to ‘stop the storm….” and pages on the blog will show up! Strange to say “happy reading” – but learning is a positive experience! all the best, Linda – alchemynow
I am an adult, willing to relocate anywhere, looking for a GOOD therapist who knows how to help adults who were not bonded with. Anybody know of anything? Please e mail me at amys15217@yahoo.com. Thanks. I’ve been networking very hard.
Dear One: I hope exactly the right person reads your words and responds with the info you are looking for. I sure don’t know of such a therapist. You need one who is trained in Adult Attachment Disorders — and is light years ahead of other ‘professionals’ in the so-called ‘mental health’ field.
Please post again if there is anything on this blog that strikes you! As a woman who knows what you are asking, my heart goes out to you with love! Linda – alchemynow
Memories of Mom
My mother was a witch. Not a Wicca witch. Growing up my two younger brothers called her that. She used to laugh when they called her a witch. Once they even bought a four inch Halloween doll-witch which she proudly hung from the dining room candelabra. It even had a big sharp pointed nose like hers.
They started calling her that whenever she started to yell at them and found that that defused her rage and she would start laughing. She never got upset with them for saying, “You are such a witch” and in fact it became an “endearing” way of talking to her; almost like a nickname.
My mother did not take kindly to my calling her a witch. For some reason, she interpreted my calling her that as being disrespectful. I was confused. How could my brothers “get away with” calling her that but I got spanked with a belt whenever I said the same thing? Maybe it was my delivery. Anyway, I never learned how to defuse her rage the way they did. I stood there frozen until she was done yelling or finished with a “whack whack” of the belt.
I learned to behave and keep my distance from her as much as possible. I played outside a lot and as I got older played sports and dated. But that only worked for awhile since my Dad interfered. He would say, “Your mother misses you and doesn’t like you being gone so much.”
Guilt is like a belt on the butt too.
Years later, as a psychotherapist, I learned what this behavior was about. It is called a double bind: two opposite statements both of which are to be obeyed. Her rage said, “I’ll spank you if you think you’re going to get away with calling me a witch”.
But when I left and went out on my own her attitude was, “You don’t love me. Don’t abandon me. I’m a good witch Come here and give me a hug.” When she hugged me, she whispered an insult into my ear. “Come close/ Get away” was the name of the game.
Deeply ingrained messages like that don’t go away easily. Even with my own therapy and personal growth I still am mistrustful of someone wanting to get “close”. I’m afraid they will yell or worse.
My mother died fifteen years ago. Today I can tell my wife when I’m starting to go into my fear of closeness and punishment for being close. Amazingly, that helps. I have watched her for signs of double bind (mind?) messages for decades and there are none. My wife is not a witch.
Wow, so clearly and well put – I appreciate this post so much because it really shows me yet again that we are not being ‘silly’ or ‘crazy’ to think and feel the way we do as a result of trauma. This is how my mother behaves too and tho I was not physically abused, the ‘come close/get away’ message and the swamping my boundaries had the same effect of fear of closeness and punishment for being close. That punishment for being close, is to me the absolute demolishment of my boundaries, the using of me as an object for her comfort/gratification and then at times ‘toyed’ with as an object to ‘tease’. Double bind – absolutely! So much clearer to me.
Richard, if you still read this, thanks and thanks for that point about telling your wife about your fears. How brave and helpful for others who are struggling with the same things.
Memories of Mom
My mother was a witch. Not a Wicca witch. Growing up my two younger brothers called her that. She used to laugh when they called her a witch. Once they even bought a four inch Halloween doll-witch which she proudly hung from the dining room candelabra. It even had a big sharp pointed nose like hers.
They started calling her that whenever she started to yell at them and found that that defused her rage and she would start laughing. She never got upset with them for saying, “You are such a witch” and in fact it became an “endearing” way of talking to her; almost like a nickname.
My mother did not take kindly to my calling her a witch. For some reason, she interpreted my calling her that as being disrespectful. I was confused. How could my brothers “get away with” calling her that but I got spanked with a belt whenever I said the same thing? Maybe it was my delivery. Anyway, I never learned how to defuse her rage the way they did. I stood there frozen until she was done yelling or finished with a “whack whack” of the belt.
I learned to behave and keep my distance from her as much as possible. I played outside a lot and as I got older played sports and dated. But that only worked for awhile since my Dad interfered. He would say, “Your mother misses you and doesn’t like you being gone so much.”
Guilt is like a belt on the butt too.
Years later, as a psychotherapist, I learned what this behavior was about. It is called a double bind: two opposite statements both of which are to be obeyed. Her rage said, “I’ll spank you if you think you’re going to get away with calling me a witch”.
But when I left and went out on my own her attitude was, “You don’t love me. Don’t abandon me. I’m a good witch Come here and give me a hug.” When she hugged me, she whispered an insult into my ear. “Come close/ Get away” was the name of the game.
Deeply ingrained messages like that don’t go away easily. Even with my own therapy and personal growth I still am mistrustful of someone wanting to get “close”. I’m afraid they will yell or worse.
My mother died fifteen years ago. Today I can tell my wife when I’m starting to go into my fear of closeness and punishment for being close. Amazingly, that helps. I have watched her for signs of double mind messages for decades and there are none. My wife is not a witch.
I wanted to talk to someone who had been through what Dr. Daniel J. Siegel said in “The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are” about windows of tolerance and an INTERNAL SENSE OF EXPLOSION. This happened to me so I want to talk to someone who has had the same experience. Your blog has illuminated my life THANK YOU! I don’t want to miss the answer if it is a post on this site (checked the notification box below) because I don’t know how to navigate blogs, I’m a newbie. If they have a blog or something, please tell me how to connect to their site. You can send them my email address or if they will allow it I can email them. Thanks for all of your help!
Good Morning! This might sound strange, but I also want to say “Congratulations!” and that I am proud of you!
The kind of information Dr. Siegel and other researchers are shedding on the subject of the human experience is finally the truth that those of us with ‘unfortunate’ beginnings in our lives absolutely NEED TO KNOW!
If you are reading Siegel’s book you mention, I hope you are highlighting and underlining, writing in all margins, and have your own notebook at your side to write in as you read. You can do a Google search any time you find something like “Windows of Tolerance” and begin to follow the links that pop up.
Dr. Siegel’s website is THE MINDSIGHT INSTITUTE at http://www.mindsightinstitute.com/
If you Google ‘Siegel mindsight’ you will find many links to follow, and among them might be a blog – I don’t know.
I can tell from your question that something went wrong during the first two years of your life. Siegel has written another book in which he has done his best to simplify the information he presents in “The Developing Mind,” and if you haven’t come across it, here’s the link on Amazon for it:
Parenting From the Inside Out by Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell (Paperback – Apr 22, 2004) at
Amazon.com: Parenting From the Inside Out (9781585422951): Daniel Siegel, Mary Hartzell: Books
Siegel has also authored a series of extremely informative books that can be found on this Amazon.com link, though I haven’t read them all I would recommend anything he has written:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=siegel+parenting&x=0&y=0&ih=14_1_0_0_1_0_0_0_0_1.97_110&fsc=-1
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In the smallest nutshell I can put this vital information into, I would say that when the interactions between a newborn infant and its primary caregiver (nature has dictated MOTHER – though most often there are multiple earliest caregivers) cannot happen in the most safe and secure environment possible, so that the caregiver can exactly and appropriately respond to the signals the infant is sending out and resonate with the infant, mirror the infant’s state back to it appropriately and correctly, the infant cannot possibly develop itself in the best way possible.
An infant’s primary caregiver is literally ‘downloading’ its brain into its infant. As all these books describe, it is the RIGHT brain that develops first through these interactions. Our right brain, according to how these early interactions actually went, either can regulate and control emotions ‘properly’ or will be built in ‘traumatic’ infancies NOT to regulate and control emotions. Then we have problems with emotional DYSREGULATION, which is where the description of windows of tolerance fits in (along with a whole lot of other things: ability to smoothly transition between emotional-mental states, the ability to self-sooth or ‘down-regulate’ emotional intensity (yes, like a car’s gas pedal and brake system) — etc.)
This entire right brain development is NOT ONLY about emotional regulation abilities. This same right brain develops through SOCIAL interactions and is, in fact, our SOCIAL brain as well as our emotional one. All these complexities are tied through our earliest experiences with our primary caregivers into the development of our entire nervous system (of which the brain is a part of), our autonomic nervous system (and vagus nerve system) which is our STOP and GO part of our body that governs our stress-anxiety (fight flight, freeze) response AND our calm and connection system, as well as the development of our entire immune system and the development of how our very DNA manifests itself (which changes in early stressful environments).
Because you have found Siegel’s work, I strongly suspect you (as I am) fit into the category of less-than-best earliest caregiver interactions. This has affected how we grew and developed — and who we are today.
I am going to give you here a link to an article written by Dr. Allan N. Schore. His books can be found also on Amazon.com, but believe me, he is NOT easy to read though his work contains the absolute truth about how this entire human development process is affected by early caregiver-infant interactions:
On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=schore+self&x=0&y=0&ih=9_0_2_0_0_0_0_0_0_1.102_525&fsc=-1
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AND HERE IS Dr. SCHORE’S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ONLINE ARTICLE – which I recommend you read ASAP:
http://www.allanschore.com/pdf/SchoreDP97.pdf
This article is absolutely fascinating, and provides the foundational information (including drawings) that all the other developmental neuroscientists are ultimately referring to.
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As if this isn’t already a BUNCH of information, here’s what a search of this blog for “Teicher” leads to:
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/?s=teicher
His work, (search Google for Martin Teicher child abuse) concludes that given enough ‘trouble’ during early developmental years, it is possible that an entirely different brain forms from the one that would have formed in a safe and secure “good enough” early attachment environment — and he and his Harvard researchers call these trauma altered development brains, “evolutionarily altered.” I extend his thoughts to include an entirely different BODY as a whole.
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To address your mention of “an INTERNAL SENSE OF EXPLOSION” I would say that an experience of this nature, and one that led you to this blog and to Dr. Siegel’s work, is a piece of the puzzle whose bigger picture is included in all this information I have provided you links for. This ‘sense of explosion’ is probably NOT happening in a body-brain-mind-self whose earliest body-brain (especially right brain) needs were met ESPECIALLY birth to age one. It is an experience of emotional-physiological intensity that (in my thinking) missed its chance to be regulated BEFORE it reached this state because those abilities were NOT built into the body-brain adequately in the first place – as all these researchers describe. AGAIN, read the Schore online article!!
When an infant’s earliest caregiver interactions do NOT build the right brain and its related physiology within an OPTIMAL infant developmental environment, the SET POINT for the entire body-brain will not be set at CALM. That is the GOAL, and any of us who did not get what we needed for this to happen have the center point for our entire physiology SET somewhere else — like the timing on a car, perhaps. Homeostasis, or a state of ‘balanced equilibrium’ is supposed to be where our nervous system-stress response system comes to rest. That point is CALM — not over or under amped! If we didn’t get our internal balance point set at CALM before we were one year old, we will struggle the rest of our lives to balance-regulate our emotional-physiological state.
Lots of info. Include ‘child abuse’ even if you do not believe you suffered it in your Google searches for information along with ‘brain development’. As you read what comes up I think you will be amazed at how this ‘new picture’ describes the basis of our adult difficulties all the way around! Please stop by here again with any comments you would like to make, and have a wonderful new learning experience! Linda
Posted February 19, 2010 at 5:37 AM
To +INFO ON WINDOWS OF EMOTIONAL TOLERANCE
At http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/info-on-windows-of-emotional-tolerance/#comments
By Nan:
Wow, I find such validating clear information related in books and on websites I have known nothing of, until very recently. I am a 48-year-old survivor, of my father’s sexual actions and my mother’s monetarily-driven inactions, healing now on my own, for lack of trust in anything or anyone else.
I always appreciate and marvel at what I now find; I want to say, I could not find it previously; but must call out that lie, as I also now know that I was told years ago that I have this damage and must face it honestly. Or at least, I think that is what they wanted to say; I always stomped out of the counselor’s rooms, frustrated that they would ask me about the years-ago past, when all I wanted help with was how to live at that point of my life.
I mourn for the who-I-would-have-lived-to-be; and I still fight alone.
2010/02/05 at 5:58am | In reply to debbi irish.
comment made by LilAdopted1 to CONTACT INFO page at:
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/contact-info/
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WOW, I had no idea that my “monster”, I mean “mother”, (that constantly told me I cost,$10,000.00 of her hard earn’d $, she’d wasted her entire retirement fund on me & my adoption) told me almost daily I should’ve never been born! She adopted me when I was 3 days old along with her 13-year younger husband that was an alcoholic since his early teens. She was in her mid 20’s when she had an etopic pregnancy& in those days(1940’s)she was given a complete hysterectomy. Her husband & she had tried to adopt once before my adoption.
They had the baby Laura for almost the full 6 months when the young parents decided to get married & they came and took their daughter back to be with her biological parents(NP)/with only a few days left for Mary Ann (my adoptive Mother)& Kelly (my adoptive Father(AP), by law they had to give the baby back to the natural parents(NP).
Well (my Obstetrician), Dr.Frank Norris, somehow knew both sets of my NP & old AP, he put, “the wheels in motion.” He called Mary Ann & Kelly,(AP)& Bradford&Josephine (my100%Natural Parents) Lagomarsino, who had my older brother Dino & my 2 yr,1month,1day older sister Gina, I equalled #3 in the gene pool. Gee Thankx Dr.Norris, for such a great background check on family substance? He delivered me into the hands of a woman that never once physically touched me but I will go to my grave with the scars she gave me over a 14 year span of time then I moved out to get away from her vicious constant comments & manipulation games along with sick guilt games, “why don’t You love me? I’ve done nothing but love you and all you do is hate me?? What did I ever do to deserve this?”
And cry,boy,could she cry. I had learned at a very early age that when introduced to new comer’s , “This is my “ADOPTED DAUGHTER, Lee Ann.” It felt as though, it was the judge, handing out a death sentence, it just sounded so cold to a small child. So insignificant,it made me feel as if I was an object, purchased! for her to try an vicariously live her obviously bane existence through me.
Her marriage on the rocks now, with me age 5 or 6 yrs old, I lost my 2nd dad (since birth)& we left Pacifica, headed up to Lake County, to live with Mary Ann’s mother who was around 80 yrs old. By the age of 7, a creepy old man & his wife had befriended Mary Ann & Babka. They invited us over to their place just a dirt road away from where we lived, they had a Winnabago, well 2 make a short story, even shorter, I was molested N’ that, “big barbie mobile”
I was so excited to get to look inside of (I was 7yrs old), I couldn’t even talk about it because I had been raised to always respect my elders, and have manners if nothing else. I at 7 had some how convinced myself that I had obviously done something to make that old man do those gross things to me? Finally 3 days later after cry’n lots of day, I told Mary Ann: she simply told me, “That never happened!!”
What kind of a mother would brush her child off like that? Or, answer me this question?! Why or what type of deviant personality, would tell a small child that their real mother tried to abort them with a coat hanger? I didn’t even know what an abortion was till school and talking to other kids?
Ok, I am exhausted, and kind of feel ill. Mary Ann’s passed away 12/28/2001 but I still feel all that guilt she raised me with when I speak upon her name in a bad light. How can she still have such a hold on my feelings of guilt & shame? She’z in her grave?? I’ve put myself through anger management class’s and pray’d about it tried to forgive everyone that’s done bad things to me in my life? Why is this wicked woman still infecting my life? and why??
2010/01/19 at 2:29pm posted comment to
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/contact-info/
Linda,
Have you written a book? Is your website a series of blogs…sorry to sound ignorant, I just had trouble navigating the site and figuring it out. Would love to read more of what you have written.
I am writing a paper on RAD and came across you website as a result of a Google search. I am fascinated with attachment disorders, particularly since I have been diagnosed with clinincal depression and disorganized/disoriented attachment.
My mother was a screaming maniac when I was a kid. I was physically little- and she was an Amazon, 6 ft tall and 300 pounds. She terrified me and then sometime later would want me to be physically close and affectionate. I couldn’t do it- leading to more maniacal rage. To this day, I tolerate her and love her but I do not touch her. Reading your information has been very helpful in understanding this problem even though I have discussed it interminably with my wonderful psychologist of 18 years.
Thank you for letting others know…so they can understand too.
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COMMENT FROM: Randy Webb, aztraumatherapy.com — 2010/01/08 at 6:58am
TO: *Chapter 3a Symptoms at
http://workspacestopthestorm.wordpress.com/book-beating-trauma/chapter-3a-symptoms/
– follow this link also to my reply
“I’ve noticed anecdotally that my clients who have reported experiences of trauma seem more likely than others who have not reported trauma to indicate “black and white” and relatively more “rigid” views of religion, definitions of happiness or success and other people’s behavior. Could these be indications of relatively less CNS plasticity and an indication of something getting “frozen” instead of “completing” some cycle of recovery in response to trauma?”
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See 12-19-09 comment from John to
+PTSD AND SEVERE ABUSE SURVIVORSHIP – CONCLUSION
at this link:
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/ptsd-and-severe-abuse-survivorship-%E2%80%93-conclusion/
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“…when we can let go of all the memories of pain, anger, abandonment, being on the defensive all the time, that WE can get for ourselves what was not there.”
Comment posted December 15, 2009 by reader: PhilA
What about parents who steal their children’s assets and then try to alienate them from the rest of the family in order to keep others from knowing or destroying the credibility of the child in hopes that even if the child complains about severe abuse the child won’t be believed?
READ REST OF COMMENT AND REPLIES HERE:
http://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/when-abusive-parents-steal-their-childs-thunder/
Some of us who read the posts on this blog have been fortunate to be spared the direct abuse that other readers have endured. Even so, I believe that every person in the U.S. currently or previously has had a relationship with a person whose life has been altered by poor early attachments, neglect or direct malevolent abuse. In my own life, besides my sister who is the author of this blog, my ex-husband, former boyfriend, three of my daughter-in-laws and numerous friends have all had these hardships to endure. These issues affect us all, and we can all be part of the solution.
Today I wanted to offer a tribute, to all who have suffered and yet, survived. It may be a bit corny, but I’ve always love the song made famous by Bette Midler, “The Wind Beneath my Wings”, and these lyrics come to mind:
So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.
Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.
(all credit to Ms. Midler, author and performer of this song)
Many of you, did not often have a smile, but occasionally a little glimmer of who you really were would peek out. You, who are reading here, are survivors! My best friend, a psychiatric nurse at a children’s mental hospital, has told me that only around 5% of those who have suffered, for instance, childhood sexual abuse will ever recover enough to live a ‘normal’ life. And yet, You, have survived!! You are reading this blog, looking for answers, believing in hope and I want to say that You are all my Heroes and I aspire to be as strong and as resilient in the face of adversity as You.
Hello again –
Alchemynow, that’s a slightly spooky question – I am indeed left-handed – so are my husband and little sister, while my mother is ambidextrous (self-taught with the right; left-handed originally).
I once found a picture of two mandalas linked like cog-wheels – that is the best description I’ve found of how I think – if the meeting point is any given event, then the thinking turns simultaneously in opposing directions from there, & usually loops back to the meeting point (now experienced as inability to interpret/decide).
I can’t yet tell the difference between shame/guilt/embarrassment…. Have started work with a good therapist on current stuff, will move to EMDR on earlier life stuff later. I have plenty of memories, I don’t think I’ve blanked stuff, but I’m still scared of what will emerge as we go back because I don’t quite understand my attachment pattern (just that it’s not quite secure) or its source in that early age. Reasons for it to go awry later, though.
Dorothy, thanks for your comment – haven’t been checked for those things & am twitchy about meds, so I don’t think I’ll go there – but my current course of exploration seems to hold promise. I just want to be able to settle into my work.
You are right about the need for witnessing. Thank you for saying that.
& alchemynow, thank you for the statistic – weirdly, that does help! & your note about not being ordinary sparked something today…. the thought that maybe I will always have to take more care of my mental health than others….that maybe it’s not just going to be cured or go away, but is part of my self & my journey. not such a horrible thought – at least it’s better than “but I’ve tried so hard! why aren’t I fine already?!”
All good wishes.
Alchemynow – are you left-handed? I was born left-handed and made to use my right hand instead (something else I was beaten for). My girl cousin is ambidextrous because she was taught to use her right hand for most things – she told me she could even write left-handed (legibly). I’m still left-footed and left-eyed and there are some things I do left-handed even now. When I broke my right wrist (badly) a couple years ago it was less of a hassle for me to learn to use my left hand for stuff (not including handwriting) than it would have been if I’d been born right-handed.
Any links on the left-handed/trauma stuff?
I am not left handed, but my father was — fortunately for me, I am right handed! Forced changes through use does not actually change the way the brain is set up!! Also, the testing that can be done to determine ‘lateralization’ is more complex than just asking people about their preferences and use, etc.
Try these links — poke around — it’s pretty interesting. From how I understand it, when we are only 4-cells-old the process kicks in that directs the cellular traffic of our development: up versus down, front versus back, left versus right. All moving organisms seem to go through a similar process — and what is so fascinating to me is that only in the human kingdom do we evidently find the 10% variation of lateral preference (90% of humans are right handed) — I think because our higher brain helped us figure out how to adjust and still survive.
What this means, really, is that all life between predators and prey (and also when predators ARE themselves prey) knows instinctively which is a critter’s strong side and which is their weak. Sort of a cooperative survival — predators will try to attack their prey’s weak side, the prey knows automatically the predator is going to do this so they adjust their defense, etc.
Pretty cool — but with humans, evidently it does complicate the processing of trauma-related information!!
Here’s a basic Google search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=ptsd+handedness&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=a92da727ef84a59f
This article is great: “Mixed lateral preference and parental left-handedness” see abstract at http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14843974
and on down the line from the Google search!
Personally, I think the military is terribly amiss in not screening for handedness — never should the most at risk left handers, etc be sent into combat — their risk for PTSD is KNOWN!
I feel guilty reading these stories – because my background although difficult wasn’t anywhere near this rough and I feel like a hideous voyeur.
But I’m captivated, and I read them… and I’m learning some things about the way my mind works. Yes, “three things at once”, “losing ideas”, as written above. Always ready to leap into another interpretation, another way of being, if this one proves problematic. Always second guessing, and guilty as a first response to every move I make…. Is it true that not everybody thinks & feels this way? How will I ever know? I want a percentage, damnit!
Thank you for your great, great courage in SPEAKING.
Have you ever seen one of those infant-child growth charts — sometimes in posters, sometimes in pamphlets — to tell parents when their little one will roll over, get its first tooth, sit up, etc.?
When I began my research to try to understand what REALLY happened to me as a result of my mother’s abuse, and as I worked my way through the new developmental neuroscience information, I realized what we truly need is a version of this kind of growth and development chart about what REALLY matters — the time line for nervous system and brain development of little ones that happens directly through its interactions — for good and for ill — with its early caregivers! That is what really matters!!
During my research I found tidbits of information here and there in the very dense and complicated developmental neuroscience books — and I put the info on sticky notes and attached them where they belong on the ‘usual’ child development chart I have attached to my living room wall.
Your comment made me remember that chart and those sticky notes!
Although the neuroscience info is extremely complex, we can begin to understand the basics. One thing that is very basic to us in our physiological development (of our nervous system of which our brain is a part) is that shame, guilt and embarrassment are NOT the same thing. They ‘come online’ in a particular order determined by the growth and development of our little bodies!
Shame is first online. Our body-brains are not advanced enough in development until around age one for us to experience anything like shame before that time. This ability corresponds to the time our body allows us to ‘hatch’ off of the lap of our caregiver so we can go off and begin to explore the world on our own.
The shame experience will be moderated completely by the degree of security or insecurity the infant feels with its primary caregivers based on all the experiences it has had with them prior to age one. Once the infant goes out into the world it has to feel connected and safe enough with its caregiver to return to them to CHECK IN periodically.
This is the ongoing ‘rupture’ and ‘repair’ process between infant and caregiver that has been happening from moment one — these patterns are already built into the infant’s body-nervous system-brain. SHAME happens as a nervous system ‘stop and go’ operation as the infant negotiates itself in a wider and wider world. “Am I OK? Am I safe? Does something need to be changed and moderated so that I am OK and safe? Whose problem is it, mine or my caregiver’s? Who needs to change what?”
It seems hard to believe that all this is actually going on when a little one is a year old, but it is, and it is forming who we are and how we negotiate change, conflict, rupture and repair, transitions between emotional and mental states — for the rest of our lives. All these transactions are built on the prior history of secure or insecure attachment that infant has built into it from birth.
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Our brain hemispheres, our cortex, and our nervous system does not develop or advance enough to experience GUILT and embarrassment until much later. My little green sticky note on my developmental chart attached to my wall says that not until around the age of THREE is a child developed enough physiologically to be able to handle these more complex states.
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Which leads me to my response to your comment as it struck me when I read it. We are fundamentally CONSTRUCTED AND BUILT from the bottom up by our experiences that happen to us that we are not likely to ever remember consciously — they happen that early — and affect us profoundly on the physiological level. It has never been required that parents be perfect. However, the most important thing we can examine within our own lives — as openly and honestly as we can — is our SENSE of how our parents were in the world from the time we were born until we were about three – four years old.
This requires that we throw any denial or imaginary thinking out the window when it comes to knowing what we can know about any unresolved trauma that our parents carried from their childhood into their adulthood (including in our thinking anything we know about later trauma that might have happened as well — to include assault, rape, war traumas, great loss and tragedy, loss of earlier-born children including miscarriage, etc. as older-child and later traumas they might have experienced).
Parental unresolved traumas impact how they interact with their young offspring. If you have (if I can be so forward as to say this) ‘issues’ about GUILT that continue to trouble you, it is back to your pre-four-year old years that you would have to go to in order to discover the roots of the problem.
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Seeds of adult complications in our well-being in the world stem from seeds that germinated and took root — in our physiological development — well before our conscious ability to recall the facts of experience are possible.
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The other most simple and basic thing I would ask you is this: Are you left handed or ambidextrous? Were either one of your parents? Research shows that any alteration from right-handedness changes how the brain processes particularly trauma related experiences. It’s the first place to look when a person seems to process information different from ‘ordinary’.
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Oh, and on the statistics: 50 – 55% of people in our culture have ‘ordinary’ secure-enough attachment systems from birth. That leaves the rest of us with some version of an insecure attachment disorder!
The original comment is from an e-mail I sent alchemynow that she asked if she could post. I’m ADHD and that is, at least in part, the base of my losing sight of an idea or thinking three things at once. Have you been checked for ADD or ADHD? I find the meds do help me with focusing some (thought they’re expensive!). They don’t get rid of all of the problems but I can concentrate better on everyday things (including work) with them than without them (as I find out when my prescription coverage runs out at the end of the year). Also, even if you weren’t as terrifically abused as others (and no one has a right to judge what you “ought” to be able to bear) you’re not so much a voyeur as a witness. And we *need* witnesses to this so that someday there will be less child abuse and more interventions and help for both abused and abuser.
From a reader:
I read your description of the “bubblegum incident” and it broke my heart. Sometimes “evil” seems to fit our mothers better than than the toxically crazy label. My mother, too, would rage uncontrollably over tiny incidents that – even if we’d actually done anything wrong – any sane parent would not get upset over. It’s like they were looking for an excuse to harm us. As if they had to justify their “punishment” of us to themselves (or others?). I was also flabergasted at your mother charging you for her breaking the things she used to hit you. Amazingly enough, my mother never thought of that one. Of course here in semi-sane land it seems if you did “owe” anyone (and, of course, you didn’t) it should have been your father, since he supported the family financially. Way for your mother to make everything all about her as usual!
I did want to ask if your mother ever told you to commit suicide. One of the reasons for the suicide litany for me is that my mother was always telling me that I should commit suicide. Gee, got a “C” on a spelling test? Well, I should just kill myself because my “life is over.” She used this formula for every small thing that went wrong in my life and I also heard how I “deserved to die” because I was “so evil.” I know from reading your blog that your mother told you that you “deserved to die” – and maybe that translates for us as not “deserving” to live or that we’d be “better off dead” (that was another of my mother’s favorites). It’s interesting how some of this all ties together.
I need to sit down and try and put things (or at least events) in some semblance of order – due to early trauma and ADHD (no doubt having to do with the trauma – it’d be fascinating to know how much effect genetics had on this and how much of the effect came from the trauma) I tend to go off on tangets and be thinking of three (or more) things at once and also “lose” ideas. I’ll realize a connection and then forget it again – I keep having to remind myself how much the early trauma affected my mind/body/life and try not to be impatient with myself that I have trouble coping.