A ten-year love relationship spanned roughly the decade of my 20s. Out of ten years, I spent about four of them trying to leave this man, a dizzying switch back and forth between moving out and moving back in. I thought he was the love of my life. I finally succeeded in wrenching myself out on the morning of October 17th, 1989. In the afternoon of that already unforgettable day, the Bay Area was upended by the Loma Prieta Earthquake. My upheaval was complete. So ironic and so fitting; my whole world cracked and crumbled. But my little one-bedroom and my beloved cat were all intact and, although shaken, safely unharmed.
I remember attempting to shop for groceries the next day, feeling an odd sense of comfort and kinship with everyone as we all stumbled around the familiar store in a singular, even unifying, wordless, shell-shocked daze. It was what I heard New Yorkers felt in the aftershocks of 9/11. A part of me felt the eerie but somehow reassuring connection, yet another part felt desperately and unspeakably alone.
Yes, it had been a wildly ill-suited partnership, and yes, I gave it my all. A signature of the well functioning brain is learning from experience. I wanted to make sure and do so. Given that it took two hours every morning to cover what was previously a forty-minute commute to my job at San Francisco VA since the Bay Bridge had all but collapsed fully into the Bay, I had ample time to think. I squeezed onto the train (standing room only at 5:00am), and then the 37 bus loaded with people and often their produce and chickens, rolling into work, with luck, by 7:30am.
So ironic and so fitting; my whole world cracked and crumbled. But my little one-bedroom and my beloved cat were all intact and, although shaken, safely unharmed.
The rescue and relief efforts moved quickly in the Bay Area. Rebuilding, cleaning, tallying losses, counting blessings, and assessing the new PTSD trauma casualties of those suffering more dramatic impacts. The earthquake had hit during the hyperbolic “Battle of the Bay” World Series between Oakland and SF, which added color to the new chapter in local history.
However, my own little seismic event progressed glacially into anything vaguely like a new equilibrium. It was as if I dwelled in an avalanche of rubble, and while the world seemed to be emerging, learning new words like retrofit or “the big one,” developing new practices like the earthquake kit in the basement, and upping their earthquake insurance, I seemed only able to aimlessly root around in my “basement.”
We all have our own personal first heartbreak tragedy. Nothing special about me. So why indulge myself by recounting mine? There is certainly no pleasure in recalling it. Because as a relationship therapist and sex therapist, I often hear a question that I also had. For the first two years after the quake, I cried, initially unconsolably, every single day. For the three subsequent years, never a day passed, without thinking, even fantasizing about my long-gone ex. That is five solid years, after a ten-year coupling!
Because as a relationship therapist and sex therapist, I often hear a question that I also had. For the first two years after the quake, I cried, initially unconsolably, every single day.
I remember the day, sometime after I had met my now husband, I suddenly flashed, “Wow! I have not thought of him! A whole day!” It is always harder to discern and notice what is not happening; that is what is so confusing and insidious about neglect and its colorless story of deficits. This, I had to acknowledge, was like the like shedding the weight of a long dragging ball and chain. So here is the question, why?
I heard a talk by the renowned Helen Fisher, a celebrated anthropologist specializing in sexuality. (If you have not heard her speak, she is marvelous and riveting, and a wealth of Ted Talks and YouTubes graciously abound).
Both a sophisticated scientist/researcher and popular writer, she is accessible and even entertaining. She said a brain going through heartbreak looks identical to a brain crashing from a massive cocaine binge. No joke! No wonder it feels so bad! And although I have never crashed from cocaine, my hyper-aroused brain always preferring drugs that sedate; it is a vivid portrayal nonetheless!
A delightful artist couple we met who live deep in the outback in Volcano, Hawaii, host a variety of species of ferile animals on their beautiful rainforest land. They have rescued and made pets of many of those brave enough or hungry enough to approach their home. They tell the story of a pair of probably sibling feral dogs (probably part wolf) whom they began to see lurking around the house. One of them had the remarkable distinction of habitually looking both ways before crossing the un-trivial road where cars routinely drive well over speed limits! Where did he learn that?
The two were large and intimidating (at least to me), and our friends were later to discover, truly terrified. And they were hungry, especially as that year had been unseasonably dry and available prey was meager. Our friends, as was their custom, cautiously put out food for them. The two skittishly sidled only close enough to snatch their meal, quickly disappearing back into the tangle of green. This went on for months, during which time our friends quietly named and befriended them from the cautious distance. “It was many months before we could touch them.”
Perchance, someone gave our friends a very young puppy. That adorable little girl behaved more like a usual pet, and they happily held and played with her. A turning point came when the two big guys saw the puppy. They slowly edged up to her and sometimes even played with her. They hovered closer and closer to the house and ultimately became veritable pets! Never quite as relaxed as the puppy, who undoubtedly had had a safer start in the world, the three dogs harmoniously joined the household, living together as a family for many years. What sort of bell might the little one have rung inside her older “cousins?”
So, what does any of this have to do with my broken heart? It came to me organically out of the depths: I don’t remember how. I might say in a dream, but to be honest, I don’t dream much, so have to forego that poetic turn of phrase. Perhaps from a deep therapy experience or a deep sleep. The seemingly endless grief I had endured, now thankfully a distant memory, was not about the man whose name I quietly keep to myself. It was about my mom, my real first true heartbreak. No wonder I couldn’t get over it.
The abandonment and loss of infant neglect, unremembered in the ordinary autobiographical memory of which an infant is incapable, continued reverberating and quaking in its desperate quest to tell the trauma story. Certainly, like for many of us, the first real heartbreak. How do we shorten the seemingly endless river of grief over that first devastating heartbreak? By going to the source if we can and processing that. That is finding a way to access and work through that prehistoric attachment injury. Perhaps that will help to shorten the seemingly infinite and often humiliating journey, or at least make sense of it. And you’ll save a whole lot of Kleenex. Neurofeedback definitely helps to move things along.
Attachment trauma, and neglect, as we as a field and as a world are slowly beginning to grasp, is perhaps the most devastating trauma of all. Something about the puppy being a vehicle of healing seemed, at least to me, to illustrate that. And why breaking the intergenerational chain insofar as we can, is a personal and cultural imperative.
Some fifty years ago I made a blouse for my mother, probably for Mother’s Day. It is sky blue, and I elaborately embroidered it with a large daffodil surrounded by a vibrant rainbow. The colors have stood the test of time valiantly, and it is one of the few things I took, besides the sewing machines, when our dad released us into her closet to help ourselves after she died. Inside the little garment, on the back facing where a store-bought label might be, I had embroidered the words “I love my mom.”
I know at times I disparage our mom (and speaking ill of the dead is admittedly poor form), especially in the privacy of my darling aesthetician niece’s treatment room, where she works on my ragged old face. She tracks my progress diligently, like a good neurofeedback provider, taking pictures and showing them to me along the way. In horror, I exclaim, “Oy vey! I look like my mom!” However, somewhere deep inside, hidden like a relic, in the interior of a sacred vestment, persists the faint echo of the howling primordial longing.
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is Love Me Still by Bruce Hornsby.
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.
Sometimes a story or a movie is truly worth well over a thousand words to express and convey an often wordless experience concisely. This week I decided to do something a little different and dip into popular culture – commenting on a film and a book, both of which speak to our themes, portraying them sharply and differently; perhaps tipping a sensory nerve and providing food for thought, at least for me.
Neither of these two are great works of art I might add, at least not in my opinion. And in neither case did I feel a deep connection with the character, but both are good envoys, and there is no substitute for a good story.
Jeremiah Tower was a local treasure and cultural icon to a food-loving Bay Arean like me. I say “was” because in the movie, it is hard to know if he died or simply evaporated back into the vacuous wasteland of his neglect ridden childhood. I certainly noticed this when the film Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent was brought to my attention. (I won’t say it was recommended, and frankly, I am not really recommending it either.) Nonetheless, for the curious, it is available on Amazon Prime for $2.99, and I will avoid the “spoilers.” And if you love cooking and eating, the visuals of spectacularly beautiful and interesting food is well worth the price!
The film was produced by Tower’s dear friend and self-proclaimed “fan” culinary rockstar, Anthony Bourdain, who certainly must have his own story. As you may remember, Bourdain committed suicide in 2018. Clearly, the restaurant world, even at its peaks, is cruel.
Known for being one of the early luminaries in the now exalted almost “religion” of California Cuisine, Tower was a key figure in the historic, and still after 51 years, wildly acclaimed Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Tower’s own tabernacle, Stars Restaurant, opened in 1984. I think we only ate there once, and all I really remember about it was walking down the carpeted stairs to our table. It was like entering a palatial theater and going to the most expensive seats in the orchestra section: grand. The cinematic scenes of the interior of Stars brought up that pleasurable and even exciting image. Stars Cafe, a later, more casual and reasonably priced Tower offspring where you could actually get a reservation, became a frequent go-to for us. I admit that back in the 90s, the big draw was the caramel sundae, which I am sure is what called me back almost every Friday for a good long time. I don’t remember anything else I ate there besides that sundae, although my husband could probably tell you!
I admit that for me back in the 90s, the big draw was the caramel sundae, which I am sure is what called me back almost every Friday for a good long time.
Hearing about the movie, I was startled to realize (rather like the neglectful parent who, fifty miles down the road, suddenly registers that their child is not in the car but was somehow left at the gas station) that I had not thought about the restaurants in years and had forgotten all about Tower himself. I’m certainly not intending to equate a restaurant with one’s own child, but rather that the forgettable invisibility of neglect and the clueless oblivion of his parents were the staple and persistent ingredient of Tower’s entire childhood. His seeming “disappearance” is perhaps a re-enactment of that.
Tower was the quintessential “poor little rich boy.” My flashbulb memory of Stars’ majestic, theatrical opulence perfectly portrayed his childhood “home,” although it was anything but a home. His alcoholic mother, who manifested the pinnacle of glamour and style, entertained her similarly privileged white comrades constantly and elegantly. The adorable little boy was either parked somewhere to keep him out from underfoot or forgotten completely. His only solace became the spectacular food that he came to love and took great pleasure in eating.
By age eight or so, little Jeremiah learned that when his mother became prohibitively drunk, she was unable to “perform,” so the food would not make it to the glamorous table. So, like many the child of neglect, he transitioned from complete invisibility to (still) invisible rescuer. He learned to cook to “keep the show on the road” (and shield his mother from shame as it were) and was remarkably successful. Cooking and covering for his mom gave the boy a sense of purpose, and although he continued to go unrecognized, he found that he loved it.
A similarly poignant feature of the film, barely a blip on the story’s screen, is the exquisite depiction of how vanishing in the elegant Dom Perignon sipping crowds, night after night, would make young Jeremiah an easy target for trauma. I won’t give it away; the brevity of the event is almost imperceptible. If you run to the bathroom without pausing, you might miss it, and because the hideous event never comes up again, you won’t know it happened. Again, smacking of traumatic re-enactment.
Predictably Jeremiah went to Harvard to study design and then graduate school in architecture. The spectacular visuals of the food he created reflect his imaginative aesthetic and structural brilliance. He started cooking for his peers in college, and for sure, lots of wine and other intoxicants were on the menus. Although the film does not explicitly say that this child of at least one alcoholic parent had a substance abuse problem, it is easy to wonder, and somehow, I vaguely remember his falling deeply into a serious hell of cocaine use. I could not find any corroboration of that, so perhaps I made it up, but it is easy to imagine.
The adorable little boy was either parked somewhere to keep him out from underfoot or forgotten completely. His only solace became the spectacular food that he came to love and took great pleasure in eating.
His rise as master chef is well documented, beginning with his starring role at Chez Panisse, where he bitterly claimed himself to be of equal valence to the famed Alice Waters. After a dazzlingly successful partnership, there was not enough oxygen in the place for the two of them, and Tower struck out on his own. Clearly, the world of relationships was a predictable minefield for him, as one would expect after his disordered attachment childhood. The film never clearly identifies his sexual orientation. Although it alluded to his being gay, it was hard to tell if that was “all” and he never seems to have a lasting partnership.
As a waiter in some relatively high-end restaurants back in the day, I am not a stranger to chefs blowing up and even throwing things at waiters and line cooks. Similarly, our dad had been a chef, and like a good child of neglect, I often worked in his shadow, however invisibly, to keep order while he created his “masterpieces” in our kitchen. I prided myself on being the only one able to be in the kitchen with him when he cooked. He too, was prone to outbursts and fits of rage, using the heat and delicate time pressure as his excuse. Tower, of course, was no exception to the raging chef rule, and his relationship world, like many a survivor of trauma and neglect, left a trail of wreckage in its wake.
It is lonely at the top. The film does not give us much about that, but I could clearly imagine it. The remainder of the film carefully and “protectively” portrays the collapse of the Stars house of cards. The Stars empire (like the Twin Towers), once a world avatar of wealth and power, was reduced to rubble. It is startling how to “dust he returned.” Again invisible and forgotten, I had to google to find out that he is still alive and living somewhere in Mexico.
Out of curiosity I looked up the story of the prophet Jeremiah. Here is what Wikipedia says:
As a prophet, Jeremiah pronounced God’s judgment upon the people of his time for their wickedness. He was concerned especially with false and insincere worship and failure to trust Yahweh in national affairs. He denounced social injustices but not so much as some previous prophets…
I wonder why they named him that.
Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent (2016) available on Amazon Prime. 2 hours.
When I heard an interview with author Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, I was intrigued. First of all, because she is Peruvian, and somehow anything Latin American seems to pique my interest. But more, because she led an international group of women survivors of sex trafficking on a trek up Mount Everest, which struck me as heroic in every way. I ordered my copy of her new book, soon noticing that reviews of it seemed to be popping up everywhere. Eager to read it, I was mildly disappointed to find that it lacked the depth of character development and quality of “good writing” that compels me. But remember, I am an insatiable and somewhat critical reader with my own quirky tastes.
The story switches back and forth between the stories of Vasquez-Lavado’s traumatic childhood and younger adulthood and the story of the trek. For me, the more autobiographical part is most interesting. By way of warning to the vulnerable, she describes her own sexual trauma somewhat explicitly but powerfully. And her story, much like Jeremiah Tower’s, clearly illustrates how tightly coupled trauma and neglect must be. Terrible things can happen to a child who is unseen and not taken care of.
What Vasquez-Lavado does particularly well, and uniquely so, is clearly present the trauma of gaslighting. I have been amazed lately that the word has become a household term somehow. Referring back to a favorite classic movie, not Hitchcock but similar, the term, the name, and the movie that matter in my memory anyway were ancient history. Suddenly the word is everywhere. All the young people use it too. However, its portrayal as traumatic to a child trying to make sense out of the world, especially a child of neglect who has no one to ask, it is crazy-making and contributes to the confused belief endemic of neglect survivors that “nothing happened to me!” Vasquez-Lavado, perhaps better than I have seen anywhere, explicitly and effectively conveys the gaslighting experience from the inside. That in itself is worth the price.
Again, we do not get deep view into the life of the young girls, the survivors of sex trafficking. Some are Nepali, some from the US, so there are language challenges. We also see tragically portrayed how often sexual trafficking is an artifact of a galling degree of poverty and perhaps the gaslighting of well-meaning and destitute parents who believe the criminals enticing them with the promise of employment and a better life for their starving daughters. The cursory depictions of both the grimness of their traumatic experiences and their often stunningly courageous escapes are again some of the more captivating parts of the book; as is the one session when Vasquez-Lavado and all the girls gather in a group, in the chill of the mountain, and with the assistance of interpreters, share all of their trauma stories. There, the power of the group in trauma healing is vivid and moving. Many had never spoken aloud of their experiences, even with those with whom they went through them.
There, the power of the group in trauma healing is vivid and moving. Many had never spoken aloud of their experiences, even with those with whom they went through them.
Vasquez-Lavado, as planned, takes the group of girls as far as the base camp, but she herself has planned and trained to go to the 29,032 foot (8,849 metres) summit. The book continues to pivot between her “checkered past” and the climb. And although her personal history is often less than endearing, sensational and reminiscent of a dramatic AA “drunkalog”, she powerfully conveys the desperate compulsion to self-regulate. Ripping and running with alcohol, drugs and out of control sex are well known to many of us with trauma and neglect histories. She tells that story tragically and effectively, even if a bit tediously at times.
Never attracted to cold in any iteration, the prospect of being up in that kind of cold (let alone for six weeks) is truly unnerving! And myself a veteran of endurance sports, I have never cared enough about any sport to literally and knowingly risk my life for it. Many who attempt the summit do not come back. Vasquez-Lavado was the only woman in her group (as well as being the only lesbian and vegetarian, she is sure to tell us). A number of the men (including the man whose athletic resume touted completing two Ironman Triathlons in one day) turned back before arriving at the summit. Vasquez-Lavado does make it, which is an accomplishment that not many women can claim, and that is impressive. But more than that is the role of empowerment in trauma healing and experiencing the body as an undeniable ally. We cannot really reproduce this in any therapy.
All the women in the stories were transformed by both the physical integrity and empowerment proffered by the climb and the power of interpersonal connection for both staying alive and finding some peace with a previously unspeakable and shame-ridden past.
In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado February, 2022
Once again, although you may be sick of hearing me say it: it is all about regulation. Oy vey, there I go again. The addled organism, out of whack from over and under-stimulation, lack of or distortions of attachment and connection, is on a voracious quest: drinking, drugging, sexing, work… all to that same end. That is what Jeremiah and Sylvia most have to tell us if we are listening.
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is There Is A Mountain by Donovan.
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.
As an inveterate bookworm and student, I am reading all the time, and there is never enough of it—Oy vey. But what a wonderful problem to have when compared with the years of slogging to get through the day. However, with all that I read, it is not that often that I learn something that really changes my way of thinking. Not only new information, that is easy, but actually making use of it differently or relinquishing old, often long-held views. Over now close to forty years of sobriety from alcoholism, I have been entrenched in an admittedly “orthodox” 12-step rigidity. Not the “God” part, which trips up many people. I resolved that right at the start. But rather a hardcore abstinence-only program.
Of course, a severe black and white perspective readily suited me. I was always an “all or nothing” kind of girl and defaulted to a hungry “more is better.” I remember from an early age my mother trying to teach me the word “moderation.”
That’s a pretty big word for a little girl. I never quite got it and probably still don’t, or not enough. However, now I understand it more in terms of regulation versus voracious greed or wild overzealousness. Total abstinence from alcohol was infinitely easier than trying to figure out how much was enough or too much, i.e., to self-regulate, so I grabbed on to that one for dear life.
I was always an “all or nothing” kind of girl and defaulted to a hungry “more is better.” I remember from an early age my mother trying to teach me the word “moderation.”
Some people resort to entering a convent, the military, a cult or an authoritarian party or regime because all the decisions are made for them. There, they don’t have to assess or conclude what’s “just right,” like Goldilocks. I admit that some of that was in play during my political activist days when ideology was strictly prescribed, and political correctness was fundamental to having any sort of value at all. To this day, I am most comfortable in tight-fitting clothes: they seem to contain me and keep me from blowing apart from the inside. Similarly, I recently discovered that a weighted blanket has a similar “holding” effect. I continue to have a tendency to “color outside the lines.”
From the beginning, we all need a mom, not least because a good mom is regulating and teaches regulation. Comfortable in one’s own skin, one can live, love, “pursue happiness” with all that means, create, learn and take pleasure in life. A history of childhood trauma and/or neglect puts one on a relentless quest to find it. I think of the 23-year-old that I was, 98 pounds, on the couch with my cat Marti, drinking a quart of Old Crow bourbon straight each night single-handedly; it was $6.95 a quart then. Marti, named for the Cuban National Poet, Jose Marti, lived to 22. I always said she was like a mother to me. Really it was all an endless quest to find that elusive calm in the war-torn world of my body. Marti certainly helped, and so much of addiction boils down to that.
The dictum to “just” stop, or “just say no!” (a day at a time of course) was not easy but simple, and much easier than finding my way with food, which could never be relinquished entirely, or not safely.
From the beginning, we all need a mom, not least because a good mom is regulating and teaches regulation. Comfortable in one’s own skin, one can live, love, “pursue happiness” with all that means, create, learn and take pleasure in life.
I have since learned several sobering “new” to me facts about alcohol. According to World Health Organization data, alcohol is one of the world’s leading causes of death, behind tobacco which amazingly is still a great killer. Alcohol kills not only in its insidious damage to the body and brain, but DUI car accidents, behavior and crimes committed under the influence, not to mention the suicides of not only the drinker, but collateral loved ones whose lives with that person have become unmanageable.
Alcohol also causes more brain damage than any other drug, and neuroimaging shows the blackened tissue, which is the poisoning and deterioration caused by inflammation and dying cells. No other drug, neither medical nor recreational, shows that kind of wreckage.
And finally, a measure I had not actually pondered before: damage is measured not only by a substances’ impact on the individual user but on others and the world. How many children and spouses are neglected and abandoned every day due to addicted or substance-abusing parents? How many were molested, raped, beaten or in some other way violated by someone who might have much better judgment or control if not intoxicated? It goes on and on. And in this tally, alcohol wins by a landslide in terms of how widely one person’s substance use reaches. More reasons to be grateful, I was able to stop at 28 before doing more damage! Unfortunately, a hugely profitable industry holds it in place. Prohibition failed. Culture, tradition and culinary aesthetic make it essential to find a way at mass level, to regulate and self-regulate. Of course, this would have to include, at least where possible, addressing the myriad realities that would inspire an individual to “escape,” even if momentarily.
Michael Pollan’s latest book, This Is Your Mind on Plants, has a long section on caffeine. What I found most interesting was the history of how coffee affected industry, the industrial revolution, and the world political economy. Well worth reading! And we, or at least I, had not thought so much about caffeine as a “drug.” But meanwhile, in the private laboratory of my own brain, I have had to look at it as such.
One of the ways I have grappled with my complicated sleep issue (and the “challenges” of sleep will be a topic of its own blog on another day!) is with my afternoon coffee. I also began to notice that if I woke up and had my morning cup too early, by early afternoon, I would have one of those scull-cracking headaches right in the middle of my forehead, the undeniable battle cry of caffeine withdrawal. So the afternoon cup became medicinal in more ways than one—Oy vey. I am back to being that rat on the wheel, trying to stay ahead of the breathless chase. And although I don’t believe in the rhetoric of the “addictive personality”, I know all too well about the deep-seated dysregulation of early attachment trauma.
I knew that to begin to ratchet down the caffeine headache loop and ultimately eliminate it, I would have to find a much better way to manage the sleep issue (which I am constantly working on anyway) and also endure the discomfort (agony?) of weaning myself off. That is no fun at all. Although my own alcohol withdrawal is a blurry memory, not only because it was so long ago, but due to the addled brain I would remember it with, I do remember one of my very first mental health jobs in a methadone clinic. It was there, with a clearer head of my own, that I was to learn most vividly about “dope-sickness.” So, facing the prospect of enduring headaches without relief, or perhaps relieved in some other undiscovered way, was daunting. That is precisely what keeps all addicts on the wheel. And it is reminiscent of the age-old attachment theory dilemma without solution when the source of comfort/relief and the source of devastation and/or terror reside in the same package, human or otherwise. All the more reason why we need a more regulated world, in all the ways, regulated relationships, self-regulating individuals.
Here is where I began a subtle process of “changing my mind.” I heard expert drug researcher David Nutt (what a great name for a psychiatrist!) talking about “Harm Reduction”. When I first started hearing people talk about this “new” approach alternative to total abstinence, I balked, trying to conceal my skeptical contempt. My “todo o nada” all or nothing sensibility was roused. However, Nutt is not only extremely knowledgeable but personable and experienced at talking to people about delicate, often highly personal and controversial topics.
According to Nutt’s data (culled from his talk at the recent Addiction and Imagination Conference):
“…reductions in consumption gain much greater value in terms of health than you might imagine if the curves were linear. If you go from someone drinking 100 grams of alcohol a day, say a bottle of wine, to just 50 grams a day, you would lower their consumption by 50%, but you reduce their risk of death by eight times. And even if you reduce consumption at the top end by 10%, you actually reduce the risk of death almost by twice. So this is why any reduction in drug consumption is hugely important and that’s why harm reduction approaches are likely to be the most powerful ones in terms of mitigating the harms of drugs.”
As many of us know when learning regulation, harm reduction paradigms are not “pie in the sky.” But perhaps, I must also consider they are also not another money-making gimmick like the latest in an endless stream of commercial diet schemes, but rather a viable interim option. I have actually “updated my files” to incorporate them. Even this old dog can learn a new trick now and then!
In an Imago Therapy conference, I attended probably thirty years ago, I learned a quote that I have never forgotten, although I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the speaker or of the First Nation tribe that originated it. However, the words have stayed with me, and I even made a colorful wall hanging with them, which is hanging in my office: If you think you know me, you have stopped my growth in your presence. My interpretation: If you hold me to what I said or believed thirty years ago, or last week, or even yesterday, you are closing off the possibility that I may be growing all the time in our relationship. So, harm reduction is an important consideration. So there you have it: Addiction 101!
But as for me, well, I will stick with total abstinence and neurofeedback!
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is I’m So Glad by Fresh Cream. I love this song, although sadly Eric Clapton has his own story about addiction.
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.
As a very young child, as far back as I can remember, I felt, and I believed, that somehow I had no right to exist. I don’t know if it was because six million had perished in gas chambers or children were starving in Europe, but I was convinced that I must earn the piece of ground my feet occupied on the planet and ceaselessly justify and compensate for my probably mistaken existence.
Quite early on, I had my own particular calculus of worthy utilization of time: service to others like housework and cooking to relieve my mother’s burden, or being “good”, service to the world like collecting record-breaking amounts of money for UNICEF instead of collecting candy on Halloween, study, and later earning money for college, and exercising more and more and more as my eating disorder evolved its own unique ledger. It was as if I entered the world in debt, and life was a ceaseless attempt to pay it off.
How does a child come to have a sense of self-worth or self-esteem? As a stalwart student of Attachment Theory, I believe it is by (as an infant) looking up into my mother’s or primary caregiver’s face and seeing a loving reflection of me! It is through the early resonance, largely through the gaze, where my right hemisphere and theirs lock into a rhythmic dance, which registers deep in my primitive brain, and my default mode network, which will grow to house my sense of Self is stimulated to develop, grow and ultimately thrive – or so we hope.
How does a child come to have a sense of self-worth or self-esteem? As a stalwart student of Attachment Theory, I believe it is by (as an infant) looking up into my mother’s or primary caregiver’s face and seeing a loving reflection of me!
And what happens when I look up into a face that is terrified, or angry, or grief-stricken, or ravaged by depression, hunger, violence or just plain fatigue? What if there is a blank face? Or no face is there at all? The image I am left to have of myself will be some sort of reflection or self-reflection of that. I can only imagine what I looked up and saw as a tiny being. I knew that my mother was too young. She had a lively two-year-old already, a hard-working, largely absent and traumatized husband, and a terrible story of her own. I must have known early on that she really needed a mom. Of course, I don’t remember. But I do clearly remember the relentless drive to justify my existence. And sometimes, when I am in the presence of a client who talks from a familiar sounding place, I am visited by such an image and have to wonder what they looked up and saw.
Today I saw a man wearing a t-shirt that said, “Children Are to be Seen and Heard!” I thought, “Wow!” As I watched him pass hand in hand with his lively young son in tow.
Money was another mystery. There was never much, and it was a taboo subject. One never asks how much things cost or how much someone makes. I have never to this day had any idea of what either of my parents earned at any time. We were never to touch our mother’s purse. Our dad always had multiple jobs, and work of all kinds was highly regarded. Our dad was a chef, a waiter, sang in cocktail lounges and later taught and became a cantor. There was no shame in manual or service work, and my parents were always very respectful of working folk. Our mom’s family was well to do and intellectual before losing everything to the Nazis, but they, and certainly my grandmother, who was one of the first women ever to graduate from Oxford, never lost the sense of superiority that came from their class. I think they quietly or not so quietly believed that the US culture was superficial, materialistic and petty. Emotionally they all were quite impoverished, and life, certainly in our family, seemed like zero-sum.
One never asks how much things cost or how much someone makes. I have never to this day had any idea of what either of my parents earned at any time.
Our mom was a practical and careful shopper. She clipped coupons, journeyed across town to get a bargain, and scrupulously collected Blue Chip and S&H Green stamps which I ceremoniously helped her paste in the little books. I don’t remember what we would redeem them for, but I know it was a serious and committed endeavor. I remember when she shopped, she would matter of factly ask the checker, “So what do I owe you?” Thinking on it now, the expression sounds odd to me; it connotes a power differential? An imbalance to be corrected rather than a reciprocal exchange, or give and take, a debt. As I got older, I felt shame and contempt for this low price proclivity and took a wicked pleasure in paying “retail” even though it might mean playing roulette with the bank to stay ahead of often (temporarily) rubber checks. In those days, checks might take one or two unpredictable weeks to clear, so I often won.
Feeling worthless is readily a conscious or unconscious bi-product and even marker of neglect. Feeling invisible, unheard and categorically not understood is a short hop from the sorry conclusion that “it is something intrinsic about me.”
In the vacuous world of neglect, where there is no one to ask how the world works, the child must figure it out. I started earning money young because having my own money felt empowering. Babysitting brought fifty cents an hour in those days, a far cry from what I hear young parents groaning under now! I washed cars and mowed lawns in the neighborhood once we had moved to the suburbs, and in my early teen years, I had my own little housecleaning business. Earning money made me feel like I was worth something. To this day, I am jarred by the language used to describe wealthy individuals as being what they are worth.
I liked being able to buy things, and even more, I liked being able to give things. Perhaps I might have something to offer. I took great pleasure in giving, especially things that I had made. I still do, but then it was different. It was once again the quest to compensate, to purchase, to somehow equilibrate, merit or even the score.
Certainly to be loved. And like a rat on a wheel, I could never give enough to secure my position for long and relax. Of course, that kind of giving is a trap. Invariably I would overextend myself, feel depleted, pathetic and resentful. I believed that anger is the luxury and the privilege of popular girls. In my case, it would make me even less likable. It was hard to learn to regulate the giving because for so long, I believed if I were not always giving and gratifying, I would vanish.
Many are the children of neglect who are hard-pressed to receive. Interpersonal need is so dangerous that the ferocity of complete self-reliance is the safest if unconscious way to go. There may not only be a sense of superiority but safety in always being the one who dives for the restaurant check.
Giving and receiving is another of the delicate rhythmic dances of regulation. For many of us, it takes years to learn it. And as I attempt to teach others every day, including myself, both require great humility. Ultimately the balance can elicit equality, safety, connection and pleasure. As an old married lady facing into the unknowns of aging, I am grateful that our couple has worked hard to grow reciprocity and know what we can count on in one another.
My husband, a quintessential child of neglect, used to say to me when I had no idea what he was talking (or not talking) about, “you mean you are not in my head?” The child’s world of neglect is so solitary that much of it is never seen or known by another human. As adults or their partners, it may be jarring or, at best surprising to learn how oblivious they might be. I’ve heard many a partner lament, …”when I try and walk with you, you are always a good six steps ahead without even noticing that I am not with you!”
The insidious calculous of giving and receiving can also drop into this black hole of oblivion and slide into a transactional world missing consent. More than a few times, I have seen in couples, where one partner provides everything in one medium, which then, according to their own private calculator, entitles them to some sort of remuneration in their own preferred medium. But there is no handshake, no agreement, no awareness. We have a deal, but you don’t even know you are in it. In my mind it is “fair”, so I proceed as if we had an agreement and then get mad if you don’t deliver. Oy vey! This sounds much more intentional and duplicitous than I mean it to. It is a function of being too much alone, of a story of a child who grew up a stranger to the relationship world and has to learn about a world that is populated with real others. For a partner, it can feel frustrating at best and more often enraging.
All too often, the currency is sex, and because sex has so many meanings and so many individuals have charged histories around it, it can come to take on a life of its own or become a focus that may then eclipse these often deeper layers. Sex is a very big topic that we shall have to return to another day, especially because in its countess iterations, it shows up so often as the presented problem in my office.
Returning to where we began, the under-stimulated infant brain fails to develop certain connections that may result in some kinds of deficits around awareness and emotion. It is never too late to cultivate and grow these connections and regulations, so we can cultivate and grow relationships where we make our deals out loud!
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones.
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.
Many children of neglect, in their dark, lonely, scared hyperarousal, discover masturbation as a source of comfort, regulation or simply a way to get to sleep. Many are quite young and make the discovery well before they have any idea what they are doing.
They might before very long, get “caught” and reprimanded; or learn in some sort of religious or moral education that it is wrong or bad, or even in some way damaging. Orgasm itself may never be spoken about. Until they are older and learn of it as a mythical power that we should all be able to manufacture, and that makes us “hot”, powerful and sexy.
Originally a source of comfort, it might become a source of shame, pressure and power struggle between couples and a great mystery. And it is another of those taboo topics that no one really wants to be candid around or ask questions about.
Many people outside of the sex therapy field have never heard of woman pioneer Betty Dodson, a heroine worth honoring. In the Bay Area, March has been dedicated to women’s history, and I thought of Betty Dodson and her seminal work, an essential gift to women, and everyone really. She died in 2020 at age 91, healthy and vital until the end.
Many people outside of the sex therapy field have never heard of woman pioneer Betty Dodson, a heroine worth honoring.
Betty Dodson viewed part of her rich longevity to be a result of her viewing regular orgasms, along with sleep, good food and other exercise, as fundamental self-care practice right up until the end of her life.
I “discovered” Betty Dodson at my first sex therapy training in 2000. I was attending my first “SAR” or Sexual Attitude Reassessment. The SAR is something of an initiation, where the clinician is exposed to every imaginable and unimaginable variation of sex and sexuality and challenged to both examine and discuss what they/we think and feel. It is an effort to de-sensitize us so that we will not be shocked or scared by anything that might walk into our offices and also, to unearth what unconscious biases or attitudes we might have.
My first SAR was seven days long, in the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York, a spectacular setting for our long days that stretched from about 8:00am to 11:00pm of watching explicit movies, listening to speakers of every sexual ilk, and participating in small group processing after each presentation. We affectionately referred to this intense total immersion experience as “Sex Camp”.
Late one night, I was wandering around after hours, way too wound up to sleep, and I stumbled on one of our instructors watching a video in a classroom. On the screen I saw a circle of women covering a wide range of ages, shapes and sizes, all completely naked, and a leader who was teaching them how to have orgasms. That was Betty Dodson; at the time, she was “only” about 70. She also was wearing nothing but a beautiful pendant. That night, it became a bucket list item for me to attend one of Betty Dodson’s groups. I wanted to learn how to teach women to discover their orgasms.
Betty Dodson became a champion of women’s orgasms in the time period of the burgeoning Women’s Movement of the 1970s. Growing up in the rural American south, she was a gifted artist. Her art is truly spectacular, showcasing bodies in the classical style of Da Vinci or Michelangelo, only later to become exquisitely and (usually) tastefully erotic.
Marrying young, she came to find her marriage unbearably boring and lifeless. Her nice enough young husband was truly uninterested in sex and even less in her sexual pleasure. She came to find respite in long days in her art studio, where she settled into a brilliant and highly productive feedback loop: she masturbated often and found artistic inspiration in her orgasm, and the creation of art turned her on to masturbate, so her solitary days filled in with this colorful, energetic cycle.
She would come home at night energized and exhausted and pretty estranged from her already distant spouse. She was understandably secretly relieved and essentially freed when her deeply remorseful husband revealed that he had fallen in love with his secretary and wanted a divorce. Besieged with guilt, he left her their beautiful apartment in downtown New York, where she stayed until the end of her life.
Meanwhile, the Women’s Movement was gathering steam. Betty Dodson grew increasingly distressed about how overlooked and sidelined women’s sexuality was, and that became a centerpiece of women’s liberation for her. Women were indeed sex objects, expected to be available for men’s sexual pleasure without any value being placed on their own. In the women’s consciousness-raising groups she was involved in, she became loudly vocal about this, subsequently offering groups specifically on the topic.
Betty Dodson grew increasingly distressed about how overlooked and sidelined women’s sexuality was, and that became a centerpiece of women’s liberation for her.
My favorite story is when she wrote an article about women’s orgasm and submitted it to the newly established Ms Magazine, the first real mouthpiece of women’s lib. Up until then, women either read fashion magazines or House and Garden type periodicals filled with recipes and housekeeping tips. Ms being new on the scene, skittishly whittled Betty Dodson’s 18-page essay down to three, which had her understandably perturbed. She convinced the editors to agree to her placing a little note at the end of the published piece that interested readers could send one dollar and receive the uncut version. In the next several weeks, Betty Dodson’s mailbox swelled. with about $30,000 in one-dollar payments. Not bad for a starving artist. Clearly, she had hit a nerve – or a hunger – in many women’s worlds. Thus began her almost 50 years of groups.
In 2018, when Betty Dodson was close to turning 89, I saw an announcement of an upcoming workshop. I knew if I was serious about my bucket list, I better jump on it before it was too late. I made a pilgrimage to New York to attend what was a truly awesome experience. Betty Dodson was a brilliant teacher, even at 89. By now she had a delightful young assistant, Carlin Ross, who stood in for Betty Dodson’s ears and memory when they failed. (For the interested reader, I wrote a lengthy article about the workshop, Coming of Age which is available on my website here).
For now, I will say that I believe Betty Dodson gave countless women the joy and living pleasure of reclaiming their birthright and learning to value and create space for orgasm, both inside and apart from relationship.
Although I never went on to teach the art, not quite knowing how to incorporate that into a rather traditional psychotherapy practice, I found it invaluable to learn how it was done. And certainly, as you can see, how to talk openly about it.
For those dysregulated by trauma and neglect, sexuality is often hard hit. It requires an unusual combination of sympathetic and parasympathetic arousal; both ease, safety and relaxation are required, as well as excitement. Many brain areas are involved, besides the obvious body areas. Shame and anxiety are vasoconstricting, which means veins constrict and blood flow is inhibited. And of course, engorgement and erection are all about blood flow. It is important to me to convey that it is not only sexual trauma that engenders sexual inhibitions, impasses, and dysregulations of all sexual sorts. Neglect and many other traumatic and dysregulating experiences can do so too.
Many couples blame and fight about this misunderstanding. Betty Dodson had the courage to speak loudly on behalf of women’s orgasms and scream louder with pleasure. Let’s honor her by carrying on her legacy with pride and joy!
In the 1990s “Decade of the Brain”, we learned about neurogenesis: that we can produce new neurons. Prior to that, scientists believed that neurons were like ova – you are born with your life’s quota and that’s it. That would have meant that the thousands I killed during my drinking years were gone forever—Oy vey. We also learned that the three best ways to encourage neurogenesis are novelty, enriched environments and physical exercise. I have always been fond of saying that with good sex, we get all three!
One of the heroes of modern neuroscience was a poor soul named Phineas Gage, an affable, well-liked, intelligent and successful young man of 25. While working as a railroad foreman, he was tragically struck by an iron rod that went completely through his head. Miraculously he survived, although he emerged from his ordeal a very different man. He was angry, moody, and extremely hard to get along with. From studying his brain damage, scientists began to learn previously unknowable information about emotion regulation and which brain regions correlate to behavior and personality.
Phineas Gage’s recovery, however, was extremely trying for him. People found it very difficult to like the volatile new version of him. He was lonely, not to mention being faced with the challenge of securing employment. Somehow, he ended up driving a commuter train between Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile. Between the novelty of varying routes and the many languages and ethnicities of the people he encountered, Phineas Gage’s brain healed significantly, and he lived a strong 12 years post-accident. He died of a seizure disorder at the age of 37 (sadly missing out on the possible benefit of neurofeedback). Nonetheless, he was a testament to persistence and post-traumatic resilience.
So what does Phineas Gage have to do with orgasmic health and Betty Dodson? I guess it is all a pitch for persistence and a reminder of the resilient brain. And hope for those in search of an elusive orgasm.
Thanks Betty Dodson! Thanks Phineas Gage!
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is High Hopes by Bruce Springsteen.
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.
I recently heard a story where a self-identified Aboriginal woman in Australia learned that she was adopted when she was a teenager. “I always wondered why my mom was so mean to me, treated me differently from the other kids. I did look different from the rest of the family but discovered it was because I wasn’t really ‘hers’.”
A client of mine had the experience of being completely and utterly rejected by her father, who insisted she was not “his.” He brutalized her and her mother too about her being another man’s child. Seeing pictures of them together, she was the spitting image of him, and indeed she felt similarly “spat upon.” Although he eventually appeared to relent in his bitter hostility toward her, it was far too late, and she was profoundly traumatized by the rejection and the abuse.
I have worked with couples who struggled to conceive, and one partner was categorically opposed to adoption while the other was desperate to have a family. What does it mean to raise a family where maybe the genetic material is not (or not all) shared? All this got me thinking further about adoption.
Loss and rejection are threats to survival for species that rely on the pack for not only nourishment but also protection. What is the impact of having those essential needs fulfilled by a “substitute?” And in turn, what is the impact of this loss to the recently pregnant mother?
I remember from second grade Sunday School the picturesque story about Moses, who led the Jews to the Promised Land after their 40 years of wandering in the desert. As the story goes, the Egyptian Pharaoh ordered that all male Hebrew babies be drowned at birth in an effort to keep Jews from becoming too powerful. Jochebed, having recently given birth to Baby Moses, was grief-stricken and kept her baby hidden as long as she could. When she could no longer ensure his safety and her own, she tucked him into a basket and placed it in the reeds on the edge of the Nile. As it happened, Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket while bathing in the river. She took the baby home and raised him: an idyllic adoption story.
What, in fact, is the impact of adoption? Is it an attachment trauma? What if the baby is adopted at birth? What is the impact on the birth mother? All of these and many more questions began to swirl around my mind. Loss and rejection are threats to survival for species that rely on the pack for not only nourishment but also protection. What is the impact of having those essential needs fulfilled by a “substitute?” And in turn, what is the impact of this loss to the recently pregnant mother?
I had a client once who grew up in a fiercely religious community in the American deep south. She partnered with an African American man before intermarriage became legal in 1967, but even before that, she got pregnant as a teenager and was secretly whisked away to an “unwed mother’s home.” Nobody knew where she had gone. Her baby was as quickly and silently whisked away virtually at birth. To my client, it felt like having part of herself ripped away as if her body was ravaged by amputation. I saw her at least 30 years after the fact. She was still torn apart by grief, guilt and shame, both desperate and terrified to find and meet the child that, interestingly, she had named Faith. Every kind of regret was unbearable. She had much other trauma, which we worked with for some years.
Long after she left therapy with me, she finally met Faith. Although they did not appear to establish an ongoing relationship, she was comforted and achieved some sort of closure, if nothing else, than to make the story real for herself and also express her deep remorse and love to her daughter.
I read all the hefty biographies of Steve Jobs, another adoptee. I am a great admirer of his extraordinary genius (admittedly, I have a fascination with very smart, narcissistic and sometimes mean men, probably in the image of my father). Jobs fit that description. His unmarried teen parents gave him up for adoption at birth. A loving couple adopted him, and he described himself as quite harmonious and close with them. Some years later, Jobs’ birth parents had married each other and had a daughter, Jobs’ sister, Mona Simpson, whom he met some years later.
When Jobs was roughly his parents’ age when they gave birth to him, and similarly unmarried, he also fathered a child. Initially, Jobs vehemently denied paternity, even after formal paternity testing confirmed that he was indeed the father. He balked and paid the absolute minimum of child support required by law, even after his early company had begun earning well. Only after many years did he develop a relationship with this daughter (of course, I read her memoir as well.) To me, it seemed like some sort of trauma re-enactment, which would suggest that, at least in his case, being given up for adoption was traumatic.
I have had some adopted clients who seemed terribly dysregulated from being raised by the “wrong” mother. I have seen other veritable “love stories” of adoption. There is research that says indeed it is an attachment trauma. In the words of one researcher:
When working with adoptees, we must consider the possibility that this disrupted attachment may be a cause of at least some of their difficulties.
Belonging and being part of a group are sources of not only identity but safety and equilibrium. Knowing where I am from and where I belong creates a kind of orientation and balance in the world, as well as a place to retreat to under threat or in trying times. Although I am not a practicing or religious Jew, I am very much identified with the “tribe”. I love baking challah and bagels and always insist that my homemade bagels and homemade cream cheese are the “real Jewish Penicillin.” I consider the Holocaust and my parents’ Holocaust trauma very much a part of my identity and have a profound reaction to genocide, racism and segregation which are undeniably wound in with my own ancestral story.
I tend to unwittingly notice Jewish sounding names or other characteristics and feel, even unconsciously, rather kindred. I hope I do not suffer from some sort of racism in that regard. I feel strongly that when a child or adult is removed from their clan, group and often country of origin, the loss is visceral. The world of diaspora that we now live in is rife with such homelessness, which is growing alarmingly worse given the most recent world events. It frightens me, even when countries of refuge are relatively welcoming. It is no wonder that ethnic and country of origin food pop-ups are such a popular source of solace to many immigrants and refugees, at least in the food worshipping Bay Area.
While briefly dipping into the wide subject of adoption, I am reminded of another issue I feel strongly about; reproductive justice.
For same-sex couples, adoption is one of a number of options for having a family, perhaps the least expensive, although adoption also may run into significant outlays. The other avenues to pregnancy can run into many thousands and even tens of thousands, which amounts to discrimination of sorts. Who gets to procreate, and with what support? It would seem to me that the next step after legalizing same-sex marriage would be making same-sex family planning affordable, safe, and accessible.
To close on a happy note, I heard a heart-warming story the other night on one of my favorite wee-hours BBC programs. A young man, adopted at birth, who had a seemingly smooth childhood and upbringing, searched out and met his birth parents in his early thirties. He learned that, like Steve Jobs, his two biological parents had married each other and had several more children who were his full siblings.
He met his younger sister, who was herself several times a mother, and when our young man and his wife were unable to get pregnant, this sister proposed that she might serve as a surrogate and carry their child. They gratefully accepted, and their fertilized egg and sperm were placed inside her. As it turned out, they expected twin girls.
The crowded delivery room included three sets of grandparents: the young mother’s two parents, the young father’s adoptive parents, and his birth parents. It was a wild, unconventional and joyous welcome and family for those two little girls!
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is It Ain’t Me Babe by Bob Dylan.
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.
As we mark the second anniversary of the seemingly endless global pandemic, let’s not allow it to eclipse International Women’s Day on March 8th, which doggedly rolls around year after year in the similarly seemingly endless march towards equality, justice and simple dignity.
Some decades ago, when cigarette advertising was still legal in the US, the specially designed “women’s” smokes had the catchy ad slogan ”You’ve come a long way, Baby…” Well, maybe some, in the First World anyway, but we still have a long way to go. As ever, I wrestle with my skepticism that “Me Too” and other momentarily epoch-making advances will disappear in the quicksand of traumatic memory, as other interests compel the public mind or sell news.
In 1970 pro tennis when male players were paid seven times (!) more prize money than their female counterparts (if women were admitted to compete at all!) and Billie Jean King fought for parity, it appeared as if female athletes were winning ground. Recent events like Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai’s “disappearance” and “silence” after speaking out about sexual abuse; or mysterious events surrounding teen Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva make me wonder.
As ever, I wrestle with my skepticism that “Me Too” and other momentarily epoch-making advances will disappear in the quicksand of traumatic memory, as other interests compel the public mind or sell news.
Perhaps Valieva’s tumble is a fitting metaphor. Yes, we have a woman vice president and women are even driving now in Saudi Arabia, but as contemporary Peruvian author Sylvia Vasquez-Lavado recounts in her recent memoir, even in her short lifetime she learned early that making herself ugly was the only defense against the relentless sexual intrusions and obnoxious attention of any random man.
Because of my own interest in “mother-lessness” and motherhood, I chose to focus on that female issue because it can have such profound meaning and impact on development, trauma and neglect. I remember when I first started therapy in my 20’s, my mother railed “It is the blame your mother generation!” That is certainly not my intent. However, Vasquez-Lavado’s mother is a vivid illustration.
In effect, “sold” into an arranged marriage at the age of 14; she had born three children while still a teen, until overwhelmed and overcome with tremendous shame and terror (and most likely dissociation), she fled. Vasquez-Lavado herself only learned her mother’s story years later, having always believed that the older relatives she thought were aunts and uncles, were her siblings. Of course, this all had a tremendous impact on her.
Deception, a mother’s disrupted development: generations of mother-lessness begetting generations of mother-lessness.
I have to wonder, with utmost compassion, what it was like for my mother growing up with my cold, upper-class intellectual grandmother. I believe there were a lot of nannies involved. And this, even before the explosion of the Nazi Holocaust.
I was stunned and horrified when I heard the story on February 5th that a Salvadoran woman identified only as “Etsy” was released after completing ten years of a 30-year prison sentence. The crime: abortion.
Well, they called it “aggravated homicide.” In El Salvador, abortion for any reason, including rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s health is strictly illegal. Still, in Etsy’s case it was an obstetric emergency that prompted her high stakes decision. Her release after ten years was a triumph of the international reproductive rights movement.
I don’t know if Etsy already had children before going to prison. If she did, they were motherless for ten years, and Etsy, besides being robbed of a decade of her life in conditions that I hate to envision, would have been torn away from them, Not to mention the grief of losing a wanted pregnancy.
This is all present tense. And as we all know, Roe v. Wade, the famous case that made abortion legal in the US in 1973, teeters on the precarious brink of survival.
Etsy’s trauma hovered right at the interface between abortion and miscarriage. In El Salvador, the line is blurry between the two, and even women who suffer miscarriages and stillbirths can be prosecuted for murder. I could not find any other countries that criminalize miscarriage, but I did learn that in some other cultures, women who miscarry are viewed as “dangerous” or possessed of some sort of spell that would make them, at the very least a threat and thereby unwelcome at baby showers and the like.
How very sad! Their likely grief and loss is then compounded by social isolation and ostracization – rejection. All too often, women are blamed or stigmatized for miscarrying, and certainly, this trauma is poorly understood by most who have not experienced it.
I have seen numerous examples in my practice of women who lost wanted pregnancies grieving with profound and vacuous loneliness upon these traumatic losses, especially when their reproductive window may appear to be soon to close. Somehow our culture is clueless about miscarriage, not understanding it as the death of a beloved other. I guess perhaps we don’t know what to say.
All too often, the grieving mother will hear something overly cheery like “you can try again…” or a quick jump to the joys of adoption, which may sound to the grieving “not-to-be-mother” like “this is no big deal,” or “there is nothing here to talk about,” or simply ”I don’t want to hear it.” The grieving one may then wonder if she is pathological or if her depression is exaggerated or self-indulgent.
There may also be medical complications or hormonal shifts that make healing slow, difficult and again lonely. There are no sympathy cards. There is no funeral, in most cases no spiritual or religious marker, public or private—a lonely and poorly understood road. And when grief is complicated and traumatic, and there is a subsequent pregnancy, that child spends its early months of development in a womb still lost in grief, stress hormones and fears that it might happen again. We could certainly help those children and later, adults, by developing an understanding of how to support miscarrying mothers-to-be and also make it a safer and kinder world in which to talk about miscarriage openly.
I was troubled to learn that in Spanish, or certainly in El Salvador, there is no word for miscarriage. The same word is used to refer to miscarriage as to abortion: aborto. So the mother of miscarriage is categorically likely to feel like a “sinner.” My recommendation to those who learn that a loved one or friend has lost a pregnancy and who don’t know what to say, is to just say that! Just say, “I don’t know what to say, but my heart goes out to you.” That is what I always recommend when we don’t know what to say, as it is a way to communicate that my silence is not because I don’t want to talk about this. I simply don’t want to make it worse. And it may serve as an invitation to let you know what would perhaps help.
I knew when I was five that motherhood was not for me. I was such a profoundly sad and lonely child, I knew I did not want anyone to ever come into the world and feel like that, and I feared I could not do better. I did not speak of it, but I always knew. As I got older, and my mother would refer to couples we knew who chose not to have children as “too selfish.” So, I concluded that my undisclosed plan for myself was another indication of my badness or defectiveness, it was probably true about me too. I was all the more compelled to be “unselfish.”
As I got older and saw how excited others and later my friends were about having families, I grew to believe that there was perhaps something monstrous about me and unnatural in my preference. In my thirties, as my window of possibility was narrowing, I had the good fortune to have a consultant, Mardy Ireland, who had recently written a book on the subject. All these years later, I still highly recommend that book: Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity.
Both Mardy and her book helped me tremendously to make my peace with my decision, which I have never regretted. I was also fortunate to partner with a man who was on the fence about children and therefore left it up to me. I am blessed with a wealth of nieces and nephews whom I adore, and the one thing that really endeared me to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, is when I read an essay he wrote on the joys of being an uncle. Being an aunt is one of the great pleasures of my life. I am good with that.
Admittedly I can slip into feeling that motherhood is an act of heroism and courage that I lacked. I must be mindful that when a client is grieving what she has not “accomplished” in other areas, that I do not miss the mark or intrude with my own formulation. And we all live or wrestle, like George Floyd in his final breaths, with a deep memory of the at least then, most important person in the world. In that spirit, I do say, thanks mom.
In the 1970’s Women’s Movement, we used to say Women Hold Up Half the Sky.
Happy Women’s Day to all.
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is Madre by Silvio Rodriguez.
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 the pandemic began, there was a crazy run on toilet paper. Oy vey! An African client told me about exclaiming to his mother, “I don’t get it about this toilet paper thing. Americans don’t know how to clean their butts!” He explained to me that in his country their custom is to wash themselves with special cloths. For him, the TP “shortage” was kind of a joke.
In a fancy hotel in Cuba, I was fascinated by the bidet. I had never seen one of those before. When I texted the picture to my dear friend who is well-traveled all over Europe, she was intimately acquainted with them. I had a Greek boyfriend who squatted on the toilet seat—a balancing act I had never seen anyone do before. Admittedly I tried and never pulled it off too successfully. How often do we see what anyone does in the bathroom?
When we were kids, our dad used to go to the bathroom to hide or read. He might be in there for an hour. There was only one bathroom in our little apartment, but we knew not to knock or disturb. And admittedly, sometimes the man-sized odors made us want to run for it…
How we move our bowels is another of those unspeakable body functions, and like sex, no one really knows what anyone else does. We all think we are supposed to know and that whatever might seem different from the imagined “normal” is a point of shame. With neglect, where the experience is “no one gives a s—”, there is even less information shared, and sometimes even potty training or something as fundamental as having one’s diapers changed is missing.
I recently learned that one’s bathroom routine or ritual is as personal and unique as one’s walk or signature. Not only culture and experience but individual style shapes it. The same is true for how one thinks about it.
How we move our bowels is another of those unspeakable body functions, and like sex, no one really knows what anyone else does. We all think we are supposed to know and that whatever might seem different from the imagined “normal” is a point of shame.
Historically, humans have not been so squeamish about bowel function. In fact, before the heart was thought of as the “seat” of emotion, it was the bowels. In the Song of Solomon, one of the great love missives of all time, Solomon wrote:
“My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.”
Voltaire was credited with saying:
“Persons who have an easy movement in the morning are the favorites of nature. They are sweet, affable, thoughtful, gracious and efficient. No words have more grace than a yes in the mouth of the constipated.” (Wow!)
Oscar Wilde’s Lady Chatterley “moved her bowels for the gatekeeper.” It would seem that Des Cartes’ mind-body split might have been a factor.
On the flip side, I remember one of the most rejecting insults a kid could make was, “I hate your guts!” That would imply something pretty essential.
Not long ago, I had a client extremely hesitantly recount not one but two recent episodes of leaking stool. (This same client had suffered an agonizing months-long bout of treatment-resistant constipation: a hideous parade of miserable visits to a spectrum of practitioners. I can’t remember how it finally remitted. It seems so long ago now.)
The recent “leak” was just “a little bit,” but she was horrified. Post-menopausal, it had happened twice over a period of several years. It was a push to reveal it, or expose herself that way, even to me. She was surprised to learn that it is a not uncommon fact of aging.
I was similarly blindsided by the advent of urinary incontinence when I got into my 60’s. No one had warned me that is a not uncommon side-effect of menopause. I learned the hard way after being surprised by a flood, thankfully in the privacy of a gym locker room. It was a blessing that men may readily experience the same thing, and my husband knew every bathroom in the Bay Area for our longer bike rides.
I had another client once, an attractive sixty-something woman, impeccably dressed in Chanel suits, perfectly accessorized with Louis Vuitton bags, who matter-of-factly reported “fecal incontinence.” She was not alarmed about it, and she was not a child of neglect. It was a simple element of aging that one had to take precautions to manage—no big deal.
I learned long ago that constipation is generally a communication of fear and terror. We have all heard the term “scared s—less.” In fact, when a mammal is under threat, and of course this includes us, priority goes to the survival functions of fight and/or flight. We don’t have the luxury of being able to commit energy to a “non-essential” body function like digestion. So that may stop for a while until the danger passes and the body returns to whatever homeostasis or regulation is possible for that organism or person.
Interestingly for humans, 30-40% of our energy is consumed by digestion. The Latin cultures have the right idea by observing siestas after their main meal, although I don’t know if they do that anymore.
Clearly, constipation can be a clear communication from the body of fear and terror or the body “speaking” to us about what is not consciously known or felt. A challenge of healing is learning to listen to these nonverbal utterances, and as parents, teachers, therapists and citizens of the world, making it safe and acceptable to speak out loud about body functions: dispelling the shame.
I remember “constipated” as being an insulting euphemism for “uptight” or not forthcoming. (“Anal” was used the same way.) It can, however, be essential information that informs treatment planning. It is certainly a point of inquiry or a marker of hyperarousal when doing neurofeedback assessment.
Laxative abuse, or manipulating the digestive function, can be a symptom of or an eating disorder in its own right. As with sex, we must learn to listen and learn to speak with respect and curiosity, without taboo, shame or jest, about functions and dysfunctions that we all share.
It appears that Japan is ahead of us in this way. I discovered a “poop’ or “unko” museum.
Unfortunately, I cannot read Japanese, so I am not sure how to visit the virtual venue. But it is cheerful and natural and worth having a look at, at least to me. Like Voltaire, it portrays an “easy movement” as cause for celebration. Why not? Cheap thrills for the regulated? Another incentive for regulation? At the very least, an indicator of regulation and progress in recovery from trauma and neglect.
My husband’s grandfather was known for saying, “Never pass up a chance to fill your stomach or empty your bladder.” We might make an addendum to those words to live by!
The recent ‘poop’ blog brought such a response that due to popular demand, I wanted to add one more little piece. Many with trauma and/or sexual trauma receive their doctor’s prescription for colonoscopy with dread and paralysis. In the US, it is recommended to get one regularly after age 50 for early detection of colon cancer, but many simply do not do it.
After I was 60, I finally took the hint. With a history of cancer in my family, this was not smart! I learned to my relief that I could fill the prescription with a ‘poop in a box’ system prescribed by my doctor. The specially designed box was delivered by FedEx and came with all the necessary instructions and accouterments. FedEx also picked it up, and it was done and gone. Poof, wiped away! I imagine for some medical conditions, and also in some geographic areas, it might not be available. However, maintaining health and safety while navigating trauma healing is a balancing act already. It may be worth looking into.
And because I can’t help myself, I will add that a ‘high point’ in Everest climber Silvia Vasquez-Lavado’s recent book In the Shadow of the Mountain, to be reviewed in a future blog, is when she not so happily poops at the cruising altitude of 30,000 feet! You can look forward to that!
As we used to say in junior high, “hope everything comes out alright!”
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is People Like Us by Talking Heads.
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.
On February 5th, 2022, Trayvon Martin would have been 27 years old. February 26th marks the 10th anniversary of his tragic and senseless murder in Sanford, Florida. It is hard to believe a whole decade has passed.
It is Black History Month in the U.S., and in a way, my awakening of an aspect of Black history certainly began with Trayvon: the massive systematic and traumatic setup for injustice, failure and all too often death faced by any dark-skinned male in this country.
I don’t mean to ignore women and girls by any means, but as any parent of children of color knows, boys and men are at particular risk. Young Trayvon was pursued and shot dead by “concerned” neighborhood watch representative George Zimmerman for the crime of “looking suspicious,” wearing a dark-colored hoodie, and looking around at the houses in the neighborhood as he walked by. He was 17.
Increasingly, I am compelled and sometimes gobsmacked by the inextricable entanglement between trauma and social justice. I have always been deeply driven and motivated by the urgency of both. Somehow, it hits me even deeper that, of course, parents who are traumatized by war, poverty, genocide, racism, drugs and sophisticated political and economic systems will fail to attend and may even re-enact their own trauma on subsequent generations. How could it be otherwise? It can sometimes seem too complex to know where to begin to devote one’s energies, like the hydra of San Francisco’s homeless problem. Too many monstrous heads! Which one to target, or target first?
Increasingly, I am compelled and sometimes gobsmacked by the inextricable entanglement between trauma and social justice. I have always been deeply driven and motivated by the urgency of both.
Since the nature of trauma, as many of us confusedly know, is remembering and forgetting, remembering and forgetting, I want to be sure to remember Trayvon, who fell in a long line of young Black men whose deaths punctuated the last decade of my life.
Next, I remember Michael Brown, gunned down in Ferguson, MO. It was 2014, just before my first visit to Saint Louis for a sex therapy teaching gig. Ferguson was just minutes away. Brown was 18.
Then, Eric Garner, whose infamous words “I can’t breathe” were on all the T-shirts some six years before George Floyd devastatingly gasped them again. Because feeling forgotten, unimportant and ignored is such a silent and insidious hallmark of neglect, I want to remember them all. And there are countless others whose names I don’t even know.
In Latin American revolutionary movements, I remember how fallen heroes were memorialized by the rallying call and response of their names followed by a chorus of “Presente!”
Trayvon Martin, Presente! Michael Brown, Presente! Eric Garner Presente! George Floyd… There are so many more.
Perhaps many of my readers are too young to remember much about Shirley Chisholm. The tiny dynamo of a woman with a huge bubble top hair-do to rival only my then Barbie doll was the first African American woman member of the United States Congress, where she represented New York’s 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1968-1973.
She was the first African American woman to seek the nomination and fight discrimination to run for the presidency in 1972. She set a dramatic precedent. She was renowned for exhibiting phenomenal “guts”, which was ever her aspiration. Setting an example for bold and defiant action, one of her many famous quotes was:
“I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am Black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women’s movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that. I am the candidate of the people…”
A role model for women and girls of any race, she was unstoppable. In the presidential race, she fought all manner of inequalities. Blocked from televised presidential debates, she was somehow allowed only one speech. But working within the bounds that she could muster, she left epoch-making tracks. When George Wallace survived a disabling assassination attempt, Chisholm surprised many, including Wallace himself, by visiting him in the hospital. She said to him, “What happened to you should not happen to anyone,” bringing him to tears.
Chisholm left us with a writer’s treasure trove of wonderful quotes, perhaps culminating with “I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.”
That she did! Shirley Chisholm, Presente!
One of the racist demons of my generation was Alabama governor George Wallace, an icon of segregation. He was famous and infamous for saying, “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
That was his mission.
Wallace ran for president in 1972, and during his campaign, an assassination attempt left him paralyzed from the waist down, as referenced above. Now 75, being riddled with pain and sentenced to living out his days in a wheelchair must have wrought some sort of unimaginable reckoning and remorseful change of heart. Wallace made several surprising appearances at churches and civil rights gatherings. Most notably, he approached Black community leader John Lewis.
Lewis was a devoted and dogged civil rights activist and leader, chair of the pioneering Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, and later serving in the US House of Representatives from 1987 until his death in 2020. We might all remember the massive outpouring of grief and esteem from far and wide when he died not that long ago.
Part of his remarkable legacy was his being sought after by iconic racists like former Ku Klux Klan member Elwin Wilson and the Alabama segregationist George Wallace who approached Lewis with apologies.
Apologising for heinous and destructive acts is a complex, challenging and relevant topic and is very important to me. Without repair, how do we change relationships and change the world? And in turn, how do we make whole victims and family members of the myriad of Trayvons, Michaels, Erics, Georges, and all the nameless ones, including my ancestors and probably yours – even many of ourselves? How do we begin to assess and achieve reparation, restitution and healing? These are big questions for the traumatized.
John Lewis left us with these words:
“When you can truly understand and feel, even as a person is cursing you to your face, even as he is spitting on you, or pushing a lit cigarette into your neck, or beating you with a truncheon – if you can understand and feel that your attacker is as much a victim as you are, that he is a victim of the forces that have shaped and fed his anger and fury, then you are well on your way to the nonviolent life.”
John Lewis. Presente!
Several years ago, in observance of Black History Month, local treasure Jerry Rice appeared at an event at Macy’s in Downtown San Francisco. Jerry was the renowned, by then retired #80, Wide Receiver of the SF 49er’s football team. Although I am no fan of football and have literally never watched even part of a game in my entire life, I always loved Jerry. I always identified with his fierce commitment to work harder than anyone else and make his headway by sheer force of will. I can relate to that.
He always said, albeit with excessive humility, that it was not natural talent but rather grit that got him everywhere he got. I feel that way too. But Jerry is a brilliant athlete, and I wanted to see him. So I rounded up my most loved 49er fans: my husband, brother-in-law and nephew, and we all trooped down to Macy’s as early as possible to score a good seat.
Jerry grew up poor in the deep south, the son of a bricklayer. He started helping his father and catching bricks when he was five years old – no wonder he had the biggest hands I have ever seen!
The most memorable moment in his talk was when an 8-year-old boy stood up in the Q&A shyly asked a question. He said, “I don’t play football; I play soccer, but here is my question. I am the only non-white player on my team. I feel very self-conscious and left out. I often just feel like quitting because I feel so bad. Do you have any advice for me?” Jerry did not miss a beat. Obviously, this feeling was well known to him. He said, “Just play your very best game. Work hard, and show them what an asset you are to the team. Just do that, hold up your head and give it time.”
That is exactly what Willie Mays did when he first broke into virtually lily-white MLB. His book recounts how lonely and ashamed he felt in his early games where the whole team would be staying together in a nice hotel, and he would be quartered in a poor boarding house across town that accepted “coloreds.” But he persisted at playing his best game over and over, ultimately becoming a standout player and a well-loved team member and friend to many.
Viva Jerry Jerry Rice! And Willie Mays Presente!
Let’s celebrate Black History: Remember if we can, forgive if we can and play our best game. And as Shirley Chisholm said, “If they don’t give you a place at the table, bring a folding chair!”
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is You Can Get It If You Really Want by Jimmy Cliff.
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!