In cheesemaking holes are not flaws. In fact, we call them eyes. In a specific family of cheeses, the “Alpine” cheeses, by design, the cultures ripen, grow and bubble with a lovely, sometimes deliciously smelly aromatic gas that puffs up inside the curd and makes for the little, cavernous jewels. The process is called “eye formation.” I remember when I got my first pathetic little eyes in an early Gruyere. I was so excited. I have since become much more skilled with the Alpines, although I have learned, that in order to get really big holes, you have to have really big wheels. Admittedly I have never aspired to be either a big wheel or a big cheese, so I content myself with my modest, but nonetheless satisfying mid-sized results.
Colloquially, the Alpines are for the most part lumped under the category of “Swiss” cheese, which is hardly accurate, as they have been made all over the world, in the various countries where cows were seasonally herded up and down mountains in winter or summer to where the weather and grazing might be better for milk production. Growing up, I always rather hated the “Swiss cheese” that would routinely appear in our embarrassingly boring and redundant brown bag lunches. It was a pale waxy, perhaps rubbery slab of something that tasted rather like soap. I usually peeled it off and stashed it in the bottom of the bag. Now I love a good Jarlsberg or Emmental.
There is also an unsavory variety of holes in cheese that are in fact flaws. These are the “mechanical holes.” The mechanical ones are those that are the result of some sort of crack, or failure to bind, consolidate, or grow integrally whole. They may result from some oversight of temperature, excessive or insufficient handling, poor timing of something, inattention, lack of sufficient containment or pressure, or some fluke of circumstance. If there are too many mechanical holes, the curd mass can even effectively fall apart, fail to thrive. Back in my early cheesemaking days when my failure rate was about 60%, we routinely had to serve these poor developmentally disabled youngsters, with a spoon. Thankfully my ever-patient husband joined me in eating all my mistakes.
I think of neglect much like holes, gaping absences in developmental experience. Empty spaces inside that burst and open into gaping voids, often to be filled with brilliant and creative adaptations, but lonely and empty nonetheless. And quietly shrouded, existing in the shadow of absence, largely and protractedly it may languish for a long and lonely aging in the dark. I have had to learn to “see” neglect. In effect, developing that capacity for sight, the ability to discern and be present with the trauma of neglect, has been another kind of “eye formation:” growing the eyes, ears and heart to recognize and understand the hidden, seemingly unexplained pain.
I think of neglect much like holes, gaping absences in developmental experience. Empty spaces inside that burst and open into gaping voids, often to be filled with brilliant and creative adaptations, but lonely and empty nonetheless.
I recently read a book about frequency, What the Ear Hears (and Doesn’t): Inside the Extraordinary Everyday World of Frequency by Richard Mainwaring. I did not like the book that much but it definitely opened my eyes in a number of ways. Before I discovered neurofeedback, I really only thought of frequency as meaning now many times a week a couple had sex? Or I did not think of it at all. I have since learned to think about frequency not only in relation to EEG or brain waves, but in the fact that everything is energy, according to Einstein, which means everything has frequency. That is what the book is about, and the author being both scientist and musician, focuses much on frequency as it relates to music and sound. He does tell many interesting stories.
Everything having frequency, includes the deep rumblings of seismic shifts. Living in earthquake country myself, I had never known or thought of this. And apparently the vibration of seismic movement has frequency that can be perceived as sound, but a sound so low, that we humans cannot hear it. But some animals can. The book tells a lovely story about a little girl whose life dream was to ride an elephant, and while on a family trip to Thailand, finally gets the opportunity. Riding high on the back of the mighty creature, he takes her on a lovely ambling walk out on a beautiful, sparkling beach. Until very suddenly the elephant makes a sudden pivot and hurriedly sweeps her in the other direction onto higher ground. Safely up and off the beach, they look behind them to see a massive tsunami has swept through precisely the spot where they had only moments before been strolling. The elephant had heard it coming.
Neglect vibrates at frequencies that a trained and practiced ear/eye/heart/body can hear and feel and sense. Without that special awareness and sensibility survivors truly get washed away by the “waters of oblivion” as my theme song Too Much of Nothing so exquisitely expresses it. Both survivors and therapists, all of us really, must grow the ears of an elephant so as not to miss it.
Story
This is why neglect has slipped under the radar for so long. For the most part, usually having no noisy, thrashing, fiery presence, it easily goes ignored. For an infant, being left alone, or left alone too much, can be as devastating as any more overtly violent life experience. But if the futile cries go unheard, until they exhaustedly and hopelessly cease, there is no witness, no record that it ever even happened. Except the scarred nervous system, the perhaps “mechanical holes” that form inside that infant, later, child and adult.
Recovery from neglect is about learning patterns to look for, frequencies to tune into, to cobble together the fragmented story. One of the first clues, is the poverty of memory. I have always been rather amazed at my vacant and spotty memory of my own childhood. So much of it is blank. Where was I? Equally interesting is how little bits and pieces percolate up from seemingly nowhere, even now after years and decades that I have been working on this.
A second, and probably most salient flag is the morass and complexity of relationship. The ambivalence between both longing for and fiercely fighting against any need for relatedness. Self-reliance is both the life raft and the prison of the neglect survivor, and perhaps the work of a lifetime to resolve. Even after years and decades of study and work, and thirty plus years of (mostly!) happy marriage, I can say it is a work in progress. And relationship challenge is a dead giveaway that most likely a neglect story lurks beneath.
Perhaps a third key marker is some sort of distortion in relation to emotion. For some whose neglect is very early, there may be a rather numb, undifferentiated, largely cognitive “understanding” of feeling – especially for boys and men who grow up in cultures where emotion is viewed as weak and not encouraged. Because we learn to identify, feel, name and express feeling in relationship, through the experience of “feeling felt,” when that does not happen, something is clearly missing. I remember constantly looking outward to try and figure out “what do people do?” Or how I was “supposed to” feel? Unable to take cues from inside, and with no one to ask, I flailed as many of us do, and also became an astute student of the emotional reactions (accurate or imaginary) of others. It is a task (of humility!) for the neglect survivor to reluctantly swallow, that their own perception of the other and their own assumption, may be their very own fiction, and again, a hint to their own story.
I like to think of the study of neglect as a kind of treasure hunt, a searching for clues that will lead us to the treasure: the story and the precious child. Much of the story is outside of ordinary awareness, or the fields of daily consciousness or sensibility. Cheesemaking is a handy metaphor for trauma and certainly neglect trauma healing. Virtually universal, timeless, the study is endless. It is organic and alive, a heady mix of science, art, perhaps even alchemy, time, a large measure of patience, and acceptance that sometimes it truly stinks.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
(In the US, the nickname “March Madness” refers to a historical obsession with college basketball during the month of March.)
Hyper-attuned to invisibility, I perk up abruptly when I hear a remarkable but “dated” story. How could I have missed that? Such was the case when Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf came to my awareness. His name was so unfamiliar I had a hard time remembering it, even as I found the man unforgettable. I happened to hear an interview with the filmmaker of a recent documentary about this forgotten basketball legend. Again, I am no sports spectator. But I am fascinated and compelled by the energy, drive, and exquisite body awareness of talented athletes, and have great admiration for those who use their visibility and influence for larger, humanitarian ends. And I am similarly compelled when they vanish from the public mind. How can the seeming amnesia of neglect be so “easy?”
I found many aspects of Abdul-Rauf to be unforgettable. Born in 1969 in the depths of the still racially segregated Southern US, with the name Chris Jackson, he never knew his father. It was a source of persistent grief that his mother “could” not tell him and never did. Already beset with both poverty and hunger, at an early age, young Chris began to suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome. For years, mysterious and nameless, the illness kept him endlessly driven by unstoppable compulsive movements and rituals. It might take him 45 minutes to put on his shoes as he wildly took them off, put them on, took them off, put them on, over and over again. His already beleaguered single mom would become impatient and angry with his noisy opening and slamming, opening and slamming the refrigerator door, taking forever to get the simplest tasks done. Young Chris desperately prayed for the overpowering agony to stop. Finally, after years of struggle, at age 17, the compulsion had a name. He was diagnosed, and although the tradeoffs of the various psych medications (as many of my readers probably know all too well) were another kind of nightmare, at least to some degree, his shame was alleviated.
Basketball was a wonderful discovery for Chris at the age of eight. He called it a “natural love.” He spent hours alone on the street, as he said “using his imagination.” He would imagine all sorts of plays, huge other players, attempting to guard him, complex basketball configurations. For hours on end, he would respond to those phantom situations, over and over again. He proceeded to at least try to “make basketball my father,” in that it took up a lot of his time, and gave him a sense of belonging. And to his surprise, he discovered he was particularly good at it. He also had the secret wish that “maybe if I got really good at something, my father wherever he might be, would want to know me and be with me…” Although his dream about his father never did come true, he did become that good.
NBA stars from various eras rhapsodize about him. Said Shaquille O’Neal, “watching Mahmoud, was like watching God play basketball.” Phil Jackson said “He was Steph Curry before there was Steph Curry.” And local guy, (the only one whose name I knew,) Steve Kerr said “To watch him have Tourette’s Syndrome and still destroy the best players in the league… I had no chance against Mahmoud.” And he was “barely” 6 feet tall.
About the uncontrollable repetitive drive of Tourette’s, as an adult he himself said “It was definitely a blessing, a major blessing. I would’ve stopped practicing after an hour and a half, two hours, and gone on home. But Tourette’s Syndrome said ‘NO!’ ” the forced repetition honed his exquisite skill.
His name was so unfamiliar I had a hard time remembering it, even as I found the man unforgettablehere are so many dimensions of change and transformation.
So what does Mahmoud’s story have to do with trauma and neglect? Surely going undiagnosed with an agonizing disability is familiar to many survivors, especially as countless unknown or unremembered stories are carried and told by the ailing body. Even more than that, however, I was struck by how at age 30, by then an accomplished professional basketball player, Jackson found a home in Islam, both in the spiritual sense, and most likely in the attachment sense as well. He began by reading, first the Autobiography of Malcom X, and then experiencing the love and welcome of the Muslim community, he discovered a kind of affiliation, a sense of belonging, and a meaning system, that seemed to be what had been missing for him. I have to wonder if it had to do with fatherlessness.
I generally think of the mother when I think about the survival need to be attached. It seems organic that the parent to whom the child is literally attached for a significant period of time be at least at first, the primary attachment figure. However, affiliation, belonging to a pack, is also a survival need, at least for mammals. When I looked up the origins of the word affiliation, I found it was adapted from the Latin affiliare “to adopt as a son,” for me it has seemed that acceptance, being good enough, belonging in some way to the world, being part of something greater, were associated with my father. I craved my mother’s love and attention, from my father I longed not only for attention but to be known, and for him to be proud of me: acceptance. I wonder if that is what Mahmoud sought and found in Islam.
At age 30, Jackson changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Inspired by other athletes before him, like Mohammed Alli, and by his own conscience, he began to find it impossible to stand during the National Anthem. He could not stand for injustice, for a history of racism and slavery. He knew that a lot of people who had followed and admired Cassius Clay, were not crazy about Mohammed Ali. He was aware that he risked a lot, yet he was willing to utilize his prominence as a public figure in the service of his beliefs. Some 20 years before Colin Kaepernick valiantly took the knee, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, took his stand. And it cost him dearly. Not only was his basketball career dramatically destroyed; he and his loved ones terrorized by death threats, but the “dream house” he was building for his family was dramatically burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan.
Remarkably, Mahmoud has for the most part overcome his anger and bitterness. Although he regrets that he has not done more humanitarian work, like Kaepernick does, he has continued to teach and speak where possible, and his memoir, In the Blink of an Eye: An Autobiography, was published by Kaepernick’s publishing company.
A recent documentary detailing his story, Stand is indeed excellent and worth watching. It is now available on Showtime. Admittedly having researched more and more deeply about Mahmoud, I feel the movie does not convey the extraordinary depth of the man. And when all is said and done, he has no regrets, and Islam has filled in the missing meaning system, the void left by his massive trauma and neglect. Still, I have to wonder, why had I never heard of him? Granted I am not a “sports fan,” but he does indeed belong on the monument with Alli and Kaepernick. I wonder if Ali also had a “missing” father. I will have to look into that.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Warning, this blog contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some readers.
My best friend in kindergarten was Robin Fields. What a great name!
She recently popped into my mind out of absolutely nowhere. Strange how memory is. I don’t recall ever thinking of her. Robin was so pretty and feminine, with shiny strawberry blond hair in a flip. And I loved her mom, Roselyn: she was so “American,” all the things we weren’t. She chewed gum, wore “tennies,” and made those wonderful tuna fish sandwiches on white bread with lots of mayo. She kind of reminded me of Carol Burnett. Best friends are so important to little girls, especially lonely children of neglect. I wonder what happened to Robin. She came to mind when I was thinking about fields.
I have been pondering the vast expanse of energy fields. Admittedly, quantum physics makes my head spin, but I am fascinated by the wordless communication that passes between us energetically and in all sorts of, what are to me, mysterious ways. Einstein taught us that everything is really particles of energy, so that includes the myriad of ways we experience energy in the body. When I first started learning about the brain, I thought mostly in terms of brain chemistry, not electricity or energy transmission, even though that is what firing neurons are. Neurofeedback taught me to start thinking about that.
Now I am learning that everything is energy, including color and music, even emotions and the way they pass between us. Plants also communicate with other plants, and with animals, we humans with both plants and animals, and with each other, if we are tuned in and aware. What a cacophonous babble of conversation swirls around us at all times. This is not “woo woo,” although it does seem rather magical. I even read about how frequencies and botched/misread transmissions caused disastrous casualties in World War II, but that is for another day.
I know when I sit with clients who have histories of neglect, whose stories are unremembered or not stored in the usual cognitive ways, I must keep all my senses wide open and tuned in for transmissions that may arrive through other “media.” If I stay mindful of the vibration, the movement, the frequencies in my own body and system: emotions, sensations, images, my own memories, dreams, and songs in my head, I often get quiet, telegraphed messages that inspire me to ask questions that then may render new puzzle pieces. Of course, I am scrupulously careful to be receptive and not make up their story! Rather, I ask questions, so the story of absence and missing experiences will find its expression as it can.
I am also struck by how our energetic tone powerfully influences what comes back to us. This certainly is not to cast blame, especially on those with histories of neglect, as our experience is to have no impact. No matter what we do, nothing comes back, leaving us with a powerful and enduring circuitry of helplessness and futility. This makes for what I have come to call the Three P’s of Neglect: passivity, procrastination, and paralysis. Oy vey. Many of us know them all too well.
However, something I have been surprised to discover in my own life is that often, when we lead with love, the returns may be surprising. Not always, but enough that it is a worthy practice and an at least aspired to default. It can even make forgiveness fruitful and rewarding sometimes. But that, too, is for another day.
I am also struck by how our energetic tone powerfully influences what comes back to us.
One of the perks of my particular brand of insomnia is that I catch late-night BBC broadcasts and often fascinating interviews. I happened to hear an interview with a documentary filmmaker whose 30-minute film Stranger at the Gate was in the running for an Academy Award. I rarely watch movies, being much too stingy with my reading time, but this one compelled me, and inspired, I sent the link to many others.
Richard McKinney, a virtual caricature of the racist, white supremacist hate monger, was a fiercely traumatized Marine Corps war veteran who served many bloody years in combat and participated in numerous horrific and murderous atrocities. He originally joined the marines as a young man in the futile hope of winning his father’s respect, also a Marine Corps veteran. Although he failed in that endeavor, military service successfully removed him from a downhill trajectory of using and selling drugs. McKinney probably would have finished out his sorry days in that bloody world, but injury sent him home to his mid-western state.
Shortly after his return to the states, 9/11 struck. McKinney, in a blast of florid PTSD, was inflamed with a wild resurgence of hatred for Muslims. His ordinarily quiet town of Muncie, Indiana, had become a refuge for a sizeable Afghan community with a well-attended mosque, and McKinney was seized with the idea of committing mass murder and blowing away as many Muslims as he could, even if it killed him. He began to frequent the mosque, to learn the rhythms of its comings and goings so that he could get “the most bang for his buck.”
Upon visiting the mosque, McKinney was surprised to be met with such warmth, such welcome, such generosity, such openness, such love, that it first gave him pause, and then transformed him. Not only did McKinney dispense with his catastrophic plan, but his soul opened, and he became a Muslim. It is a must-see (and available for free on YouTube.)
There are so many dimensions of change and transformation. There is such a range of visible and invisible conveyance of development, devastation, decay, healing, and growth.
So, what does any of this have to do with energy fields? Well, who knows? There are so many dimensions of change and transformation. There is such a range of visible and invisible conveyance of development, devastation, decay, healing, and growth. Becoming mindful and intentional, where possible, of what we emit and what we receive/consume can have a powerful impact. Certainly not always. So much trauma of every kind, is beyond our control or influence. But there is a sphere of possibility. How could the kindly Muslims know that by simply being themselves and practicing their values and beliefs, they were saving themselves from calamity? How can we know? Well, we can’t know that.
My experience teaches me daily that leading with the positive most often brings returns beyond my imagination. In turn, sadly, I observe people who unwittingly, through the pessimistic or resentful energy (or in the grip of depression) they emit, attract a like energetic response. The prophecy is self-fulfilled; sadly, they “make people not like them,” or worse. Not always, of course! But as the Dalai Lama wisely says, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Although certainly not always easy!
Neurofeedback works directly with brain frequencies, actively training and teaching them to “change their tune.” But we work with frequency in countless ways throughout the day, throughout our respective worlds and the larger world. Tune in!
I have often said that one of my most cherished bequests from our mom, starting when I was maybe two in our little slummy apartment in New York City, was Pete Seeger. His upbeat transmissions filled the air, and even though he died in 2014, at the age of 95, in my world, they still do.
Today’s song is a favorite from those days. I wonder if I listened to this with Robin?
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
We went to adopt our two little dogs, Button and Angel, in 2009. I had recently begun writing my first book, so I warned my husband that I would not be much of a co-parent for a while. But it had been long enough since the second of our two beloved shelties had passed. Never one for being dog-less for long, he was willing to sign on as alpha, primary trainer, and “chief bottle washer.” He began eagerly poring over the rescue sites like I imagine many of the lonely do with dating sites. He finally landed on a couple of terrier mutts at a shelter in Sacramento. I remember years ago, a speaker at a conference said, “All terriers have ADD.” Being high enough strung and high enough energy myself, the quieter, and seemingly “monogamous” type shelties were the match for me. But being the primary caregiver licensed my husband to choose. So one wintry Sunday, we piled into his old VW MR2 and set out for Sac.
It was a sweet little shelter, and I remember cruising the various well-kept cages until we found the selected litter. There were about seven of them. Button was a tiny, mostly mushroom-brown puppy with a curly piglet-like tail and expectant, pleading eyes that seemed to say, “Pick me! Pick me!” She reminded me of myself. And although she later grew up to be a mischievous little rascal who would, as the Grateful Dead song said, “steal your face right off your head,” we did not know that then. Angel looked more like a terrier with a squarish jaw. She had serious, almost sad-looking, wise eyes and scruffy whiskers that reminded me of Einstein. I don’t remember the other sibs; I was pretty taken with Button. And I was also amazed at how these littermate sisters could look so vastly different.
Button and Angel continued to be inseparable throughout their/our life together. Roommates in the womb, they never had any intention of doing anything different, and indeed they lived up to the ADD prediction. The pups had a good long run together until deep in the pandemic when I was now locked down and home all the time. Button began to have many serious health problems requiring much medical attention, and then twice-a-day fluid infusions. My husband would do the difficult medical part at the back of her ever-skinnier little body, and I would entertain the front end with little scraps of homemade cheese. We did all we could to keep her with us, but her little legs got more and more wobbly, to the point where they would collapse under her. Her heroic and devoted dad diligently carried her up and down the stairs and outside to do her business.
Button finally succumbed in 2020. Admittedly it was somewhat of a relief, as well as being so sad. It had become pretty unbearable to watch her suffer, and for Angel as well. When she died, Angel became inconsolable. They had always been together. She could not stop crying. She reminded me of the research I heard of years ago about the “blighted twin.” When twins were initially together in the womb, and one failed to develop and ultimately dissolved away, the other went through life with a deep sense of “something” being missing. If we ever had to leave her alone, which thankfully during the lockdown year was rare, Angel wailed, like in some of the mourning rituals I remember seeing in movies at school. Always shy anyway, grief-stricken Angel cleaved to her dad, making a nest at his feet during his long hours in front of the computer.
Finally, after perhaps a year and a half, Angel is finding a regulated, calm state. And when her dad goes out, she even has the courage to come upstairs to my home office and, with consent, of course, attend a client session. I recently learned that 2015 research showed that human twins in the womb begin reaching toward each other and touching 14 weeks after gestation. The longing for contact has already begun.
I recently learned that 2015 research showed that human twins in the womb begin reaching toward each other and touching 14 weeks after gestation. The longing for contact has already begun.
Attachment is indeed our most profound and foundational survival need, which is why neglect is the most pervasive and destructive injury of all, certainly to humans. Although massively unacknowledged (and I am doing my best to change that!), it quietly wreaks its devastating damage, especially in the realm of relationships, which of course, has unspeakable ramifications in both individual and collective life. Trauma therapists are well aware that loneliness and interpersonal pain are what drive people, often with deep ambivalence, to our office doors. Most certainly, with neglect, survivors really don’t want to need us or our help. But the sense of deadness and isolation, pandemic or not, becomes unlivable.
Recently at a conference, I met a charismatic super couple, a physician and an attorney. The doctor, Laurie was her name, had recently won a national award in her country, and in the past, might have been someone who intimidated me. But she was so approachable and delightful, as was her partner of 36 years. They sat across from me at breakfast, so making conversation, I asked if they had children. Like myself, they had long ago opted against it, but somehow ended up telling me the story of when they accompanied a close friend to China to support her in adopting a baby girl.
When the three roamed the orphanage, not unlike my own experience in Sac some 13 years prior, they met up with baby “Anna” (not her real name.) For some unknown reason, and to the surprised dismay of the prospective adoptive mother, the 18-month-old orphan magnetically reached for Laurie. It was as if she had found the missing part of herself. I remember, years ago, reading about adoption, that after nine months of inhabiting the mother’s body, living with her rhythms, her voice, her chemistry, the climate of her energetic and emotional vacillations, they profoundly know her. When they are passed, even at birth, to the adoptive parent, they seem to profoundly know, “This is the ‘wrong’ one!” Well, little Anna, drawn almost as if by a vacuum aspirator to Laurie, felt as if she had found the “right one.” Now in her twenties and recently married, that never changed.
Anna’s legal mom has had to live with the primary and primal love that the child, and now the young woman has had and continues to have for Laurie, and secondarily Laurie’s wife. Laurie proudly showed me pictures from Anna’s wedding not long ago, the two beaming together. And Laurie, her wife, and Anna’s legal mom have graciously navigated this challenging configuration over now decades; it remains mysterious. This indescribable, inexplicable, and super-glue-like attachment. What is that?
Attachment is indeed our most profound and foundational survival need.
Shortly after that deeply emotional breakfast conversation, I went for a walk through the chilly, idyllic grounds of the quaint New England conference site. The beautiful trees were bare, and it was blessedly quiet. I knew there was a labyrinth on the grounds but did not think much about it, swimming in my feelings about Laurie and Anna. When I stumbled on the labyrinth, I thought perhaps I might try walking it, something I had never even thought of doing. I have always said, “You know how they say a leopard can’t change its spots? Well, I can!” I change my spots every chance I get. So I entered the maze.
It was an interesting experience; I thought it was like trauma recovery. I feel like I am going around in circles, getting nowhere, hitting dead ends… But if I “stay the course,” the path takes me out into the open again. It was remarkable, just like Laurie and Anna have circled, hit dead ends, and kept going, ultimately finding their way out into the open world, again or for the first time. Attachment is the ground upon which it is all built: connection, love, and a measure of patience. Anna’s adoptive mom heroically gave her a chance and graciously shared the road with Laurie, moving aside to allow space for extended family. What an angel. And all of them, all of us find our way to the opening and out into the world.
Today’s Song: In honor of Grateful Ed, who I think is the one who diagnosed all terriers years ago.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Occasionally, I read a book because it has been hanging out on the NY Times Bestseller List for so long that I feel I need to know what “everyone” is reading to keep up with the times. No, I am NOT talking about The Body Keeps the Score, which has been a fixture on the List for seemingly ever! (I was probably one of the first people to read that!) I did read 50 Shades of Gray (all three volumes!) only for that reason. Sometimes I do it also because the book was recommended by someone I am very fond of. Recently a very intelligent, young friend recommended a book that has been persistently hovering out there for quite a while, so I decided to go for it: the memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.
Never much of a TV watcher, and also of the wrong generation to be familiar with her, McCurdy’s story was all new to me. Born in 1992 and becoming a child TV star by eight, I had never even heard of the many shows she appeared in. But I found the book interesting because it is an exquisite portrayal of an often unrecognized and devastating form of neglect.
Growing up in a Mormon household, she was the youngest of four, the only girl, the most adored child, and wildly idealized by her clearly troubled mother. McCurdy’s mother, Debra, had always dreamed of being a movie or TV star herself, and already in early childhood, Jenette was painstakingly molded and sculpted to become the child star of her mother’s own lost aspirational dreams. Right from the start, Debra dressed, coiffed, and shaped Jennette’s appearance and even play, to be Little Debra 2.0, but the deluxe version that had never materialized.
Until her earlyish adulthood, Jennette experiences her mother’s “attention” and focus as the epitome of love. They were “inseparable,” and Jennette lived to please her mother, while her mother busily doted on and prepped her to inhabit the illusion. They did everything together, including creating and sharing perversely disordered eating that would train little Jennette to aspire to anorexic weights and sizes, well before she even received that indoctrination from the larger world. It was their little shared ritual to go out to lunch and split a “chef’s salad,” with the dressing on the side, no cheese, no meat, and no egg. Debra was able to locate and ultimately enlist the connections and the professionals that would connect little Jennette with first extra, then “guest,” and then starring regular roles in ongoing TV shows. Debra was thrilled, triumphant and proud, as well as relieved by the ways that Jenette’s income took the financial pressure off the otherwise struggling family.
Meanwhile, having survived, at least into remission, a serious bout of cancer, Debra was able to utilize the “cancer card” to win sympathy and the occasional “pass,” both inside and outside the family. Debra was the super-nova. Jennette was but a satellite. This kind of neglect, where “there is no you,” is one of the most devastating and insidious. The child is told and imagines she is so “loved” that the annihilation and, in effect, “soul murder,” not to mention the extreme of intrusion, are indiscernible to the young person. It takes a while for the rage to register, the authentic, inaudible voice of “what about me?” Or who is “me” anyway?
It is only when Jennette is sidling into adulthood that she begins to feel tired and resentful of living out her mother’s dream, of being her mother’s alter-ego. By then, she is completely dysregulated, struggling with severely disordered eating, well on her way to alcoholism, and of course, has every kind of relationship and sexual confusion. It is a devastatingly brilliant portrayal of a profound, unrecognized form of neglect/attachment trauma.
It would have been unthinkable for Jennette to imagine herself being neglected, as the attention, preoccupation, and obsession with her was unrelenting. Like many who are nominally “loved” even with less extreme of intrusion, it is challenging to identify the loss of self and the profound destruction of not being known, understood or seen.
Like many who are nominally “loved” even with less extreme of intrusion, it is challenging to identify the loss of self and the profound destruction of not being known, understood or seen.
Although Jennette rarely had a moment free of Debra’s towering invasion into any space she found herself in, her mother was never present with her. That invaluably vital developmental ingredient of being truly there with her never happened. Many clients I have seen bear all the scars of neglect but are hard-pressed to recognize, let alone name, their experience of nonexistence, of not being seen or known. They can’t understand why they feel so bad, shamefully calling it a failure of gratitude or some other sort of personal failure. Sometimes, their only identifiable (to them) and barely “legitimate” complaint might be in bodily symptoms.
Jennette’s eating disorder is florid and undeniable, and she portrays the mysterious swings between anorexia and terrifying, uncontrollable binge eating as well as I have ever read. Although I never “graduated” to bulimia the way she did, I remember that runaway train, being out of control in both directions and not in control of which. It is a nightmare I hate to remember. How courageously and graphically she exposes it! And it helps her to recognize that something is truly wrong. Sometimes only the body can communicate this, or force it into awareness, as we are all finally starting to understand.
I was recently reminded of the unspeakable power of simple presence. I had a minor surgery that required anesthesia, and I was still pretty drugged on the car ride home and our return to the house. Apparently, it was early afternoon when my husband delivered us safely home. My memory is spotty to blank for most of it. I floated through the afternoon in a deep sleep and woke up somewhat disoriented about what day or time it was. But opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was my husband and our little dog, Angel. He had been reading, and she was keeping him company while I slept. I began to cry. Presence. Perhaps the most precious expression of love, and so tragically missing in the neglect experience. In awe of the experience, I was, of course, (gratefully) reminded of the tragedy of its lack.
Presence. Perhaps the most precious expression of love, and so tragically missing in the neglect experience.
Another brutal police murder of a young Black man, Tyre Nichols, shatters the headlines. Although it is hardly a shock anymore, it is still unbearably shocking, this time, the wild beating perpetrated by five cops of his own race. That part is another whole subject for another day. What struck me, yet again, was how in his final moments, with his final breaths, young Nichols cried out “Mama, Mama…” much as George Floyd had. Attachment is a survival need for us humans, as all mammals. It is what we immediately grasp for and cry for in those moments of agony or terror when survival is at stake. More fundamental than even food, or almost air, its absence is like a slow suffocation. Often we don’t even know, or don’t know for a long time, like Jennette, just how airless the space is and maybe always has been.
Moments like waking up from anesthesia to a loving presence can bring simple but unutterably profound healing. We can all give that in big and small ways. So many reasons why we must wake up to the quiet devastation of neglect.
Today’s song:
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
Back when I was in college, I remember the Maoists used to say, “Women hold up half the sky.” Although I was never a Maoist, I always loved this image of women, muscled arms upstretched, supporting at least half of this wide world of ours. As we approach International Women’s Day, it continues to shock me that girls and women can still be prohibited from going to school; imprisoned and even killed over what they wear, or their reproductive decisions in 2023. In some parts of the world, perhaps more than others, the sky is falling.
In honor of International Women’s Day, I want to memorialize a quiet and powerfully important woman who equally quietly slipped away on February 3, 2023. She was only 79, and I say only because the numbers seem smaller and smaller as I approach them myself. And I say quietly because after hearing through the grapevine, that she had passed, I systematically combed the web and all my accessible resources, turning up nothing: no obituary or substantial biographical material. Finally, an article written by her husband made the rounds and landed in my inbox. The woman is, or was, Sue Othmer, the valiant matriarch of neurofeedback.
I am moved to write about Sue, not only because neurofeedback is so powerful as a way of working with developmental trauma, neglect, and many other afflictions, but also because she epitomizes the polar opposite of the neglectful mother. Her life and career were inspired, shaped, and compelled by her fierce attention and commitment to the thriving, healthy, and safe development of her children.
Born in Boston, Sue, then Fitzgerald, grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and later Bethesda, Maryland. A superior achiever in school, she later studied physics and then neurobiology at Cornell and then at Oxford, where she met her husband and later professional partner, Siegfried Othmer. They were married for 52 years. In 1968, their first child, Brian, was born, followed in 1973 by their daughter Karen, and then in 1975, their youngest, Kurt.
Neurofeedback has continued to evolve and grow into an increasingly comprehensive, complex, and effective methodology beneficial to so many people (and some animals!) with a broad spectrum of somatic, emotional, and behavioral symptoms.
Grief was both the context and the catalyst of Sue’s life, certainly her professional life. Baby Karen died at 14 months of a brain tumor. By the time of his sister’s death, Brian had already been suffering from painful mental and behavioral problems for five years. As time went on, Brian’s complex problems evolved further into a difficult-to-treat seizure disorder.
The Othmers set out on a fervent quest in search of help and relief for Brian, in the course of which Sue happened upon a quirky, then new procedure developed by Barry Sterman at UCLA: neurofeedback. Sterman had been experimenting and succeeding at curing seizures in cats. The Othmers were heartened to find that neurofeedback proved helpful to Brian as well. And although it was not sufficient to save him, it gave him six good years, enabling him, almost, to graduate from college before his death in 1991. By the age of 47, the Othmers had lost two children. By then, however, Sue had studied and created an evolving mental health treatment option of neurofeedback. Transforming her own tragedy, she made a tremendous contribution to the world and certainly to my life and work.
I only had the occasion to meet the real woman once. It was probably in 2009. I was a new, starry-eyed neurofeedback practitioner, fresh out of my beginners’ training. For some strange reason, neurofeedback did not seem to have caught hold on the West Coast of the US: strange because I have always thought of my coast, particularly the San Francisco Bay Area, as being in the vanguard of the new and groundbreaking of whatever discipline. For whatever reason, that did not happen with neurofeedback here, and my impression is it still hasn’t, much to my dismay (despite my humble efforts to disseminate it.) So, in those days, I traveled wherever I had to and wherever I could to learn more. When the Othmers, Sue and her husband Siegfried, offered a weekend workshop in Los Angeles, I was on it in a hot minute.
Sadly, the neurofeedback field, mighty but small, has been fractured by factionalism and “in-fighting.” As my consultant once said, “The polar bears get on well when there is plenty of salmon. However, when there is not enough salmon, they fight among themselves.” So unfortunately, this quirky “new” discipline suffered from a senseless “otherism,” which, while needing numbers and unity to garner attention and research funding, could not settle on a unified purpose enough to work together. So be it; I did not know that then. When I enthusiastically found myself in the Othmers’ training, I did not know I had “crossed lines.” But it did not matter.
I don’t remember that weekend well, but I do remember that I loved it. Sue was a towering, if somewhat quiet, exquisitely smart, strong, precise, and no-nonsense presence. Although not warm or approachable to my taste, I liked and admired her, and she was a fine teacher. And she gracefully held up her half of the sky alongside her powerful and imposing husband and professional partner. Indeed they were the highly effective neurofeedback “power couple.”
Neurofeedback has continued to evolve and grow into an increasingly comprehensive, complex, and effective methodology beneficial to so many people (and some animals!) with a broad spectrum of somatic, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. It combines science, art, and perhaps some magic: brain and heart. All in a sea of hope, tireless conviction, and hard work, all of which epitomized Sue Othmer.
Again, not religious; I have little puffs of memory that float up from my childhood of “compulsory” religious school. I remember the song, the quote from Proverbs: “A woman of valor who can find? Her price is more precious than rubies…” That does sound like Sue.
In many ways, a simple procedure, simple enough to originally utilize with cats, it is also vastly complex, and learning it is endless. It works on the principle of “operant conditioning,” which seems utterly obvious, but can be so easily “forgotten.” Essentially, positive feedback is re-enforcing: reward, encouragement, acknowledgment, appreciating all the positives, strengthening and increasing whatever behavior or change is being rewarded. It seems like a “no-brainer.” I will resist the urge to rhapsodize about neurofeedback here, but I will surely return to it repeatedly. And there is much information to be found about neurofeedback!
From the ravaging flames of grief, from the depths of her broken heart, Sue Othmer summoned the mythical phoenix of neurofeedback.
From the ravaging flames of grief, from the depths of her broken heart, Sue Othmer summoned the mythical phoenix of neurofeedback. She and Siegfried continued to experiment, study, evolve, and teach it all the days of her life, until she could not, creating new and even more mysterious iterations, but never flagging in her curiosity, vision, and energy. I know how much neurofeedback has regulated, healed, and enhanced my own life, and my many clients over the past 14 years, countless suffering people around the world. It certainly guided the direction my own practice has taken, and I am so grateful.
So often, tragedy and grief, pain and suffering spawn and catalyze immense creativity and inspiration. This is not to minimize or somehow cancel out the impact of loss, violence, or destruction, but perhaps to give them meaning. I have always said, “everything I have ever been through serves me.” That certainly cannot be said of all trauma. But I am vastly grateful to all the many who have made a gift to us all of their own agonies. Thanks, Sue, and Happy International Women’s Day to all!
Today’s song: Mujeres by Silvio Rodriguez. Says Silvio: “Me han estremecido un monton de mujeres:” I have been ‘shaken’ by numerous women…
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
What I remember best about John F. Kennedy’s assassination is the looping image of the president’s little son, “John-John,” saluting. In 1963, I was eight, and we lived in South Bend, Indiana, where the winters were fierce and long. I was hunkered down in the basement, with the heat blasting and unending coverage of the memorial and the national tragedy on TV non-stop. That image of John-John must have replayed a million times – or maybe it is the distortion of my young memory and my profound identification with the grief-stricken child. I don’t remember much else about John Kennedy Junior through the rest of my life, but I never forgot when he was, I guess, three. What happened to him?
The Kennedys were iconized, as tragedy and martyrdom often are, and it was years before I knew some of the unsavory politics and aspects of JFK. I was surprised a few days ago when I heard a story memorializing his sister Rosemary Kennedy on the 18th anniversary of her death. I did not know there was a Kennedy sibling who had been lobotomized for being “slow.” It got me thinking about the neglect, even seeming annihilation, that often comes with political or other kinds of “greatness,” large and small.
Our dad was not a major celebrity or famous, but in his way as a religious and community leader, he was a figurehead or centerpiece of sorts. I remember when we were growing up, sometimes when we met someone new, someone he knew, or someone noteworthy perhaps, he would say, “Do they know who you are?” The emphasis on “are” meant, “Do they know you are my daughter? The cantor’s daughter?” Evidently, that was all that I was. There was no me.
When our mom died, we each had a list of people to call and notify, and one of the people on my list was the teacher of Dad’s autobiography writing group. He had been in that group for perhaps five years, writing and sharing his memoir. Everyone loved him. Apparently, the group format was that participants would read aloud and comment on each other’s work, so they knew each other quite well after that long. When I identified myself to the teacher, she said, “Oh! I didn’t know he had a daughter.” Rather shocked, but not really, I said, “Yes. He has three.” As ever, my existence was an ongoing question. In this case, it was all three of us, I guess.
I remember early on feeling I had to justify my existence somehow, earn my right to occupy a patch of ground to stand on, on this earth. Much of the time, I felt like a puff of smoke or shadow that was perhaps punctuation in his screenplay. Or a prop or extra in his movie. Perhaps that is why I excised the word “deserve” from my personal lexicon, and to this day, I bristle when I hear it. There really is no such thing in this world as “deserving,” or perhaps more accurately, getting what one “deserves” – so I believed.
In the mind of the neglected child, existence is a mystery, or it was to me. Worthiness, merit, privilege, specialness, responsibility, “luck,” – how do they all fit together? How is it determined who gets what? And why me? Or why not me? And what on earth to do about it? I remember early in my exploration and study of neglect, I could spot a child of neglect quickly by the signature shrug, deep as the ocean, of “I don’t know what to do!” Or, “There is nothing I can do!”
In the mind of the neglected child, existence is a mystery, or it was to me. Worthiness, merit, privilege, specialness, responsibility, “luck,” – how do they all fit together?
Nelson Mandela was quoted as saying, “I have often wondered whether a person is justified in neglecting his own family for opportunities to fight for others.” Mandela’s daughter, Maki, much as she admires her father, recounts painful memories from long before her father was in hiding or imprisoned, of not knowing if he loved her or not. She is torn by grief and bitterness about her devastating neglect, tugging against profound feelings of admiration, respect and pride. “I had a father who was not there – which was how I saw it through the eyes of a child – who chose politics over me or even my brothers, my family.” I heard similar sentiments expressed by her brother in an interview some years ago, but I can’t seem to find it now.
Fidel Castro’s oldest son, also named Fidel, a prominent physicist and accomplished researcher, died by suicide at the age of 68. I don’t know the details. What are the unique costs and conflicts of being the child of “greatness?” Of being eclipsed by the world’s suffering? How does a child make sense of, or peace with that, through their lifespan?
Our dad did much good in his own particular sphere. On weekends, I wished he would come home, but he was often running to the hospital to visit congregants. It is a “mitzvah,” a good deed, to visit the sick. And indeed, a noble and generous act of charity, so to speak. I honored and respected, even learned from that. But I, guiltily, hated it. Like Mandela, he was “never around.” And, of course, I could not begin to compete with the sick, dying and grieving multitudes. But shame on me for feeling that!
I sometimes wonder, is the price of heroism, martyrdom, or “goodness” the sacrifice of one’s kids?
Neglect is fraught with searing, seemingly irreconcilable ambivalences. The mixed feelings of jealousy versus guilt, rage and resentment versus social and political responsibility, grief versus gratitude, love versus bitterness, self-care versus greater good, gratitude versus tail-chasing confusion. I am still flummoxed about the balance between my commitment to the larger world and looking out for my little and aging self. Oy vey. Admittedly that is part of what keeps me awake at night. My feelings about our dad are in a similarly vacillating both/and. He perhaps hurt me more than anyone, but he also bequeathed to me all of my most cherished traits, qualities and many skills. How do I resolve that? How do I make sense of it? What do I call it? That, of course, complicated my feelings further as his life drew to a close, now almost three years ago. But thankfully, I do not suffer about it anymore – it is more a contemplation.
I sometimes wonder, is the price of heroism, martyrdom, or “goodness” the sacrifice of one’s kids? As ever, kids have no say, no voice. Are they/we part of the deal? Sadly, it is on the unconsenting child to “figure it out,” to deal with the fallout of the neglect. Perhaps the conundrum that plagues a lifetime?
I was always puzzled by the Bible story where God instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son as a show of faith. Dylan eloquently expressed my sentiments in his timeless missive, Highway 61: “Abe said God, you must be puttin’ me on!” I didn’t get it. How is that a good thing? I don’t know. I have had a similar conflict with an occasional client who had a famous parent whom I had always iconized and admired, until being jarred by a back story, a casualty that I had not known about before; or a memoir by the child of a hero figure who may have caused devastating harm. Steve Jobs’ first daughter Lisa, asked, “Was I named after the computer or was the computer named after me?!” I don’t know if she ever resolved it. And I still struggle with the ongoing choice between my own interests and the “larger good.” Perhaps it will always be one of those chicken-and-egg scenarios…
Today’s song:
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
When I was in kindergarten and first grade in New York City, teachers had not yet made the rule that we had to give Valentine’s cards to everyone in the class. We all had our little art project mailboxes made out of decorated brown paper bags perched expectantly on the sides of our desks. The “popular” kids’ bags brimmed over with the bright red missives of “love.” Invariably mine was, as Tony Soprano would say, “a little light.” I felt like a “reject” or a “queer,” back when that word was not associated with sexual orientation but rather with being weird and outcast. By the time they made the rule, it was way too late for my battered ego. And I knew that the kids only stuffed my mailbox because they “had to.” But I would have felt like a reject anyway because that is how a child internalizes neglect. I am ignored because I’m worthless, or worse.
As I got older, I was so used to being a misfit, an introvert, and later a rebel, that I did not get caught in the romance around Valentine’s Day. But I certainly saw the big build-up and letdown among so many of the kids around me. Valentine’s Day can be a dreaded nightmare for many who are unpartnered and often even worse for those that are.
As a couples’ therapist, working with many clients who have histories of childhood trauma and neglect, I am faced daily with major disconnects and misunderstandings between them about “what makes me feel loved” and giving and receiving. Valentine’s Day can be a veritable hornet’s nest for both, resulting in major ruptures and hurt feelings that endure like the ghosts of Valentine’s Day past. Oy vey.
This year I had an idea to help my struggling couples. In anticipation of the potentially spikey day, I thought, how about if we head it off with a conversation or two about “what makes me feel loved.” I still feel shame about my ungracious response to a beautiful gift my husband had picked out and bought for me over 25 years ago. I was convinced he bought that instead of the printer I wanted for my computer out of stinginess. It was only much later that I learned that the gift he had bought me, a set of Italian ceramic canisters for my baking ingredients, cost at least five times as much as the lowly printer I had requested. I still have the canisters, and besides being a lovely home for my various flours, they are a ready reminder that I do have the power to inflict great hurt.
The child of neglect can readily believe that only someone who “matters” has the power to inflict harm, to be mean. Someone inconsequential is not important enough to injure another. Not! It is a myth essential to be corrected and healed for the sake of all involved!
For many, it is a hard question to answer, even about oneself. What makes me feel loved? And if I don’t know, I certainly can’t communicate it intelligibly to my partner, who may be “trying,” failing, and lapsing into hopelessness, impatience, frustration, and even ultimately anger. If pleasing me is enough of a moving target, of course, they will give up in fatigue and despair. Then I can insist I was “right!” I am simply not worth the trouble. I have the insidious power to fulfill my own bitter prophecy.
For many, it is a hard question to answer, even about oneself. What makes me feel loved?
At the core of childhood neglect is the often unremembered and nonetheless indelible experience or perception of rejection. It is a ready and “logical” interpretation for a seemingly chronic lack of attention or priority: I am unwanted, unworthy, undesirable, unlovable. And it is a “handy” default that can readily slide, often before they even know it, into withdrawal, sulkiness, or even unwitting rejection of others.
I remember years ago, my therapist saying to me, with that sledgehammer voice she sometimes used to get through my thick cloud of triggered mud, “YOU’RE the rejector!” I did not get it – when I shut down as impenetrably as Fort Knox after a perceived a slight, a whiff of dislike, complaint, or judgment towards me, I am. I did not recognize that what I thought of as my “self-protection” or quiet scream of “leave me alone!” could even be experienced as harshness or even hostility. Frankly, it simply did not occur to me that I could have an impact. Again, that is the mark of neglect. Whatever the child might do to attract or garner the loving attention they crave does not work. I never imagined that I could be mean or rejecting. Not me!
Valentine’s Day can indeed pose special challenges for the child of neglect of any age. The core dilemma surrounding neglect is the gnawing ambivalence about interpersonal connection. There is, to a varying degree, the quaking ache of longing for closeness in a fierce tug of war with the terror and even rage around abandonment and loss. It can be a persisting plague that might feel or seem unresolvable. I used to berate myself with, “I simply can’t get along with humans.” And many survivors of neglect tend to “people” their relationship world with animals instead. I have (long) since joyfully and gratefully proven myself wrong. It is not an easy journey, but imminently possible and definitely worth it. I have also learned that when neglect survivor clients seem viciously rejecting of me, they may really be wishing I might “find them in their hiding place.” Or perhaps unwittingly showing me how it was.
Another of Valentine’s challenges has to do with gifts, as in the case of my canister set. It may be a day when we hope or wish for a particular gift from that special person: flowers, chocolates, or something personal. Again, gifts can embody the dilemma. If I permit you to get it “right,” do I run the risk of puncturing my wall of solitude and self-reliance? Without realizing it, one may become the rejector. I always say, “It takes humility to receive a gift, to let the other know what would indeed hit the mark, and make me feel loved.”
There is no one “right,” “normal” or “best” expression of love. I encourage us all to examine our own “not me,” let others know what makes us feel loved, and give love a chance!
There is no one “right,” “normal” or “best” expression of love.
In 1988, the renowned author and playwright Eve Ensler had the idea of rebranding February 14 as V Day. In conjunction with her historic theater piece that rocked the world, the Vagina Monologues, it was to be a day devoted to ending violence against women, girls, and the planet, V being for vulva or vagina. Ensler subsequently changed her name to “V.”
Transforming or expanding the focus and intent of Valentine’s Day is a fine idea! To teach our loved ones how they can effectively communicate love to us and thereby break the chain of rejection is a greater or lesser form of eradicating at least some measure of “violence.” Betty Dodson, champion of the female orgasm, was known for saying, “Viva la Vulva!”
Thanks, Betty! Thanks, V! And Happy V Day to all!
Today’s song articulates the complexity of love, and is in honor of David Crosby, who left us on January 18, 2023.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
WARNING: This blog includes graphic content that may be disturbing to some readers.
I suppose by now it is naive to be shocked by yet another traffic-stop murder of a young Black man. The death of Tyre Nichols, however, flooded me with feelings. We have been virtually barraged by mass shootings here in California, with a tally of 19 dead in the space of 44 hours this month. But in this case, as in the case of George Floyd, the murder was flesh on flesh: knee to neck, flying fists, feet and batons against body – something about how visceral, how undisguisedly vulnerable, human and inhuman it was, is particularly chilling about Nichols’murder. I most intentionally do not watch the videos, but what others tell me is how fiercely, vividly out of control the five officers seemed, like the frenzied scenes in the classic novel Lord of the Flies that haunted me back when I first read it, probably almost 60 years ago. And in this case, it was Black flesh on Black flesh, which makes about as much sense as parents or spouses brutalizing their own flesh and blood or their intimate partners.
There is a legacy, heritage, of centuries of brutal beatings in this country, remembered in the Black body: centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, Rodney King in 1991, so many traumatic generations of transmission. The fact that this murder was perpetrated by African American officers does not make it any less a racist crime. This case shows us how the lack of trauma-informed healing, education and policy morphs into more crime. It is a horrifying reminder of the essential nature of our work. As we know, trauma is not remembered but relived, and tragically often re-enacted. Not always, of course, and thankfully, but often enough – way too much, really.
One of many reasons I have found couples’ therapy with survivors of trauma and neglect so compelling is because of how dramatically and even explicitly the trauma stories make themselves known.
One of many reasons I have found couples’ therapy with survivors of trauma and neglect so compelling is because of how dramatically and even explicitly the trauma stories make themselves known. I always say to my clients (and sometimes my husband!), “Nothing is activating like the intimate partnership!” Perhaps the couple is as “family-like” as any relationship, so we regroup the trauma family in this “new” configuration, and it becomes the stage for the story to unwittingly unfold. Oy vey! So, the couple’s therapist sees dynamics, and often well-hidden aspects of a person, that the individual therapist might never see or imagine. Clients do get angry or shut down with the individual therapist, and to greater or lesser extents, the transference projections appear. But however, regrettably, I do know that my husband has seen the worst of me like no one else has. And as a result, the fact that he is still there makes him a reassuring beacon of safety like I have never known. Those couples who stay the course get to enjoy that outcome too. This is not to say that I never lapse into, usually and hopefully, momentary states of unbidden memory. But I/we become much more able to find our way back to the prefrontal cortex fairly quickly. And yes, long and diligent work is required.
It continues to amaze me how diametrically, stunningly, my perceptions can become distorted, even now. If there is something I am particularly uncertain or insecure about, my lens perceiving judgment and rejection under every rock zooms into the forefront, like when I hit the “zoom in” option on my View menu and the whole screen leaps out at me. Suddenly I am that little godforsaken neglected girl again who can’t trust anyone, whom everyone is “out to get”, as our dad would say. And I am unshakably believing it. Reassuring words annoy me, rolling off like water off a duck’s back. Yeah, but… Perhaps after some gentle and nourishing sleep or a nice long stir of the cheese vat, the whole world looks different. I can see the exaggeration and distortion and find compassion for whomever I may have villainized or projected onto. Of course, usually, there is a kernel of something to pay attention to in real-time. But it is no longer catastrophic as it had seemed when I was activated. Often all that is required is settling the addled nervous system or simple rest. So simple, and yet how messed up the world becomes without… Oy vey!
Yes, even now, I am visited by episodes. But I can generally keep from embarrassing myself, recognize them reasonably quickly and locate the MIA prefrontal cortex, where my self-knowledge, good sense and generosity live. The more work we do, the quicker the turnaround, which is why I am such a stickler for doing the work, and staying the course, whatever that might mean in your lexicon.
Life is infinitely less “dangerous” now, at least in the interpersonal field, which was always the most volatile (and generally is for those with trauma and neglect – at least those of us privileged enough to live in the First World or where there is not a literal war going on…) And now I do, in fact, have the unthinkable: support, places to turn, and even internal resources.
It seems to me in the trauma field, we used to talk about it more: the fragmentation of the self. We described the fractured self: “hyperarousal” and “numbing,” limbic versus prefrontal: dissociation. Maybe it is my imagination, but we don’t seem to use that language much anymore.
Sometimes, it really seems like a mini Apartheid, a polarity between “Me” and “Not Me,” or a split self. One can think I am “crazy,” “schizophrenic”, or who is that? Like the old game show “Truth or Consequences,” where the contestants had to guess who was the “real” one of the three characters in the described story, hidden behind the screen. It seems to me in the trauma field, we used to talk about it more: the fragmentation of the self. We described the fractured self: “hyperarousal” and “numbing,” limbic versus prefrontal: dissociation. Maybe it is my imagination, but we don’t seem to use that language much anymore. In that “other” state, we “turn into someone else.” I wonder who those five Black cops were as children, as spouses, as targeted young Black men themselves, and what inhabited them and took them over to flip into such monsters? This is not to excuse them in any way, but to remind us that it is our duty to the world, as well as ourselves and known loved ones, to do our work, and to help others do theirs, so we don’t continue this hellish chain of trauma, neglect, injustice and insanity.
I date myself as I remember growing up hearing about the “Iron Curtain” and the “Berlin Wall,” dramatic bifurcations on a mass scale. My childhood image was of a larger-than-life chain mail shower curtain encircling the huge amoeba-like shape of Russia on the map. The massive brick wall dividing family from family in Berlin was easier to picture. The fracture of self was in the daily news. It made no sense, but it was familiar. How do we get anywhere if we cannot even knit back together what was once (hopefully) singular? Again, we must, of course, start with ourselves. Then our partners and families, and our communities. Then the world.
Evolutionary biologists remind us that inclusion is a survival need. As mammals, pack animals; without it, we die. When we fear we are, or actually are, “outside,“ we go into the extremes of self-preservation-terror, flee, or fight all too often. And we end up with a messed-up world. I was rattled by the flicker of a long unremembered childhood ditty, “London Bridge is falling down…” I looked up the lyrics and found that after the refrain, “My fair lady…” the verse continues: “Who has stole my watch and chain…”” then, “off to prison you must go…My fair lady…” and finally “- take the key and lock her up… my fair lady…” Do the kids still sing that?
“Not one more!” is the cry both about senseless murders, civil wars, and ravaged, traumatized, neglected selves.
Today’s song: “A Desalambrar! Tear Down the Fences!”
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
My course with Quantum Way is now available for registration!