Perhaps the most inelegant step in the cheesemaking process is washing the eight-gallon (30-litre) pot. For those of you who haven’t seen me, I could probably bathe in it. Washing up is by no means the last step in cheese production, as afterwards comes the many months-long ageing periods, which much like trauma therapy seems to stretch into eternity, and often also includes different techniques of “affinage”, (finishing) along the way. However, the scrubbing process is often one of productive reflection. Perhaps my mom was right when she declared that there was something inherently generative (not her word) about having one’s hands in warm soapy water. She proposed that the three-part harmony of wash-dry and put away team of doing dishes together was a time of sweet communion, and although it was initially a hard sell, it often was. This scrub’s musings were indeed interesting and provocative.
I might add that since I have been writing these blogs, I am constantly scanning for ideas, in the news, in daily life, my ceaseless reading and random thoughts, always on a mission to connect dots that will be of material to write, for better understanding trauma and especially neglect trauma. Of course, I have no idea if anyone reads them with the exception of my team who edits and posts them, and a few loyal repeat customers who routinely comment. Being a child of neglect, I still default to expecting to be out there by myself, and like Bruce Springsteen in one of my favorite concert videos, I want to call out “Is there anyone alive out there?!” Well, today’s contemplations took me way back.
As a psychotherapist and a sex therapist, I have often asked people about their first sexual experience. Most people remember those. All too often in my practice, of course, they were traumatic. Few were the fairy tales that we all naively imagined. No, I found myself wondering about something else that I had not asked. When did you first become aware of sexuality, whatever that awareness might have been? When did you first notice interesting, novel, perhaps sparkly, perhaps worrisome tinglings?
I don’t know my own answer precisely, but I know I was quite young. I discovered early the comforting sedative effect of masturbation, as a helpful way to get to sleep, probably when I was about five. But it was definitely before that, that I noticed that something felt different touching certain body areas. Of course, I had no idea what that was. In a household where there is already a poverty of affectionate touch, early sexual inappropriateness, and perhaps loud moral and religious attitudes, whether spoken or unspoken, a child will be that much more confused. William Masters, the pioneering sex therapist described the trauma of having a parent walk in on a child masturbating, as a cause for the enduring sexual problems that I have heard often.
There was no information to be had, in my home or anywhere really. I remember noticing that the feeling seemed to correlate in some way to love, meaning I could feel that when I saw or read about interactions between people- not necessarily romantic interactions, but all kinds really and all kinds of people. I didn’t know what that meant. When my fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Boucher explained something completely confusing about how babies were made and a loving embrace, everyone kind of giggled or gagged, “eeeooooh…” and I was no more enlightened. As I got a little older, my best friend was another misfit like me, a boy. He wanted to talk about how he liked boys, and I didn’t understand that so well either, but I was quite interested. When I got a little older still and discovered Freud, and how he identified sex as the root of everything psychological, that made sense to me. And I was relieved that I was not the only one who thought about it all the time. But no one talked about sexuality. It stayed a secret world and a phantasmagoric mystery. Little did I know that nearly 65 years later I would have the very same complaint! No one talks about this!
One of my often-heard rants is that doctors don’t warn patients about the impact on their sex lives of medications, chemotherapies, surgeries and other procedures. psychiatrists routinely fail to warn patients about the libido-destroying side effects of many antidepressants, psychotherapists often don’t inquire about sexuality, as if it were not an aspect of general health; even couples therapists stay mum. It is a perfect recipe for shame. Shame and fear. What is “wrong” with me? Am I “normal? Is my partner “normal?” And our clients assume they are simply not supposed to speak about these things. Or they think they are supposed to “just know?! Or go with what they have heard on the internet or jokes, or in locker rooms, or “porn…”
I have been on a mission to crack the tabu, to forge permission to speak; and to help therapists make it easier for clients; to get comfortable inquiring about sex. It does not mean we have to have “perfect” sex lives ourselves. God knows most of us don’t! Because you know what? That is the norm! And you know what? It is OK! So, let’s talk about it!
I often reference the gnawing “skin hunger” that the child of neglect suffers from. A long story of rarely if at all, being touched, or touched in a loving or even pleasant way; or the tragically rejecting experience of parents repelled by their own child’s body, and not wanting to touch their child. I remember my mom’s rough touch, like a reprimand, doing a once-over of my back to check if I was wearing a bra. How I longed for those very exceptional, magical moments when I was sick, and she might gently rub my back. But I can hardly blame her, being the daughter of my cool and wooden intellectual grandmother and a parade of nannies, before the Nazis came.
My study of the sexuality of neglect is purely anecdotal. I have no formal research. But it is the close observation and data collection of 35 years and different historical moments as well. This will only be the beginning of the conversation. Much more to come! The defining sexual challenge for survivors of neglect is the pervasive and survival-oriented self-reliance which the child of neglect has come to arm themselves with. This of course does not lend itself readily to intimacy and the interdependence that good sex involves. Good sex requires being present with oneself and with the other simultaneously, being connected with one’s own bodily and one’s emotional experience, while also being attuned and in contact with the body and emotions of the other. Any one of these elements, connections with one’s own body and emotions, or those of an important other have been most likely rarely if ever experienced by the impoverished child of neglect. So, in lovemaking, such presence will be foreign, awkward, uncomfortable, painful, or simply terrifying. “Mechanical” or bodily sexual problems are largely expressions of this terrible conflict. There is nothing “wrong” with you!
When I became a sex therapist and started learning more about people’s sexual (and asexual) lives, I was interested to discover how very many long-term, apparently “happy” couples” had not had any sex with each other or anyone, often in years. No one talks about this at dinner parties, so who would know? I have also recently more often been heartened to have couples in their 50’s, or individuals in one of these sexually dry marriages, want to recapture, and regain a sexual life before their window closes before it is too late. It is not too late!
Sex therapy for neglect is primarily relationship work. Becoming safe enough to be present with one’s own body in the presence and while being present with another. Tolerating not only giving but receiving. So simple, but not so easy! And worth it. Overt sexual abuse is not the only avenue for freezing and clamming up sexually. The survival terror of early parental withdrawal, abandonment, loss, and sheer absence can create terrible deficits. Please, let’s continue the conversation! Let’s have it out loud!
Today’s song:
This week’s blog is in memory of Barry Sterman, neurofeedback luminary, who sadly died on New Year’s Eve.
Admittedly I am not too much of a movie person. I always say I am way too stingy with my reading time to cut into wanting to watch movies. Somehow my husband talked me into watching the Barbie movie on our recent holiday vacation, and I was reminded why. The exception that I make is when I am making cheese which often requires stirring the vat for 60-75 or even 90 minutes, sometimes a movie is the way to go. So, I tend to collect titles of films that might pair well with an upcoming batch. My Monterey Jack recipe calls for 70 minutes of stirring, just right for the Joan Baez documentary I have been saving: “I am a Noise.” I had read about it and heard interviews with Joan and various of its other characters, and of course, her/our era had me very interested. So, all set up with my ingredients all in, I started my stir and hit play.
As is not infrequently the case, I was disappointed, and found it rather “flat.” I can’t quite put my finger on why, except that it did not stir me emotionally, as I stirred the pot, I was not terribly moved by her as a character, although I did love the scenes of Bob Dylan looking about fourteen years old, and the music was great. I guess I found her much more compelling in the interviews, although I had no idea she was such a spectacular dancer. That I liked!
What moved me and got me thinking, was Joan’s little sister Mimi. I remember hearing the music of Mimi and Richard Farina, for a short time, although I guess I did not register back then just how short of a time it was. And folk music not being my preferred tempo, I did not familiarize myself with it that much. I always kind of thought of her as “Joan Baez’s sister”. In the film, Joan talked about how Mimi had struggled in the shadow of her iconic older sister, and how hard Joan’s quick and massive fame was for her. It pulled them apart for some time. I could surely understand that.
My older sister was much more outgoing, popular, and visible than I ever was. We looked enough alike, at least for a while, that I not infrequently heard the question, “Which one are you?” Or the common refrain, “OH! You’re Becki’s sister!” I wanted to shriek, “NO! I’m Ruth!” But of course, I didn’t. And it was even more complicated by the fact that I adored Becki, and still do. I was puzzled about, what it was about me that I was so invisible, gauzey, translucent. And Mimi’s sister? Larger than life.
Mimi met her partner and later husband Richard Farina when she was barely seventeen and married him at 18. With him, she became visible and even had a new last name distinct from her sister’s well-known name. The couple sang and performed together, as I said, for a short time. Richard died suddenly and tragically in a motorcycle accident at the age of 22. Young Mimi was devastated. And all the while Joan’s star was steadily rising. Mimi was the one who stayed on my mind after the credits ran at the end of the movie.
Sibling relationships have always seemed to me so powerful and so underrated in our field. I never understood why. Whenever I have a client who struggles with jealousy or a gnawing vulnerability about “fairness” that is immediately where I want to look first: what went on between and among sibs. And often neglect is the seemingly inevitable result of simply too many, and not enough to go around: not enough love, attention, resources, time, space, even food sometimes. Some of the most tragically neglected people I have known were the youngest of a very large clan. Similarly, often the oldest had a different version of neglect, as they were pressed into becoming default surrogate parents to the little ones, often much too young, becoming not only self-reliant but caretakers, a perhaps less obvious expression of neglect- especially as it may have brought with it some sense of value or importance at least to someone.
I know I have always been infinitely grateful that I had two wonderful sisters. Although I am not a fan of local author, Michael Chabon’s fiction, I loved his memoir Manhood for Amateurs, which begins with him declaring that his story began when he was five because that was when his brother was born. Before that, he had no one to tell it to. I never forgot that. And my sisters also serve as kind of a collective memory, especially as my own memory is so spotty. My husband was an only child, and I think the loneliness of neglect is that much more so, lacking other kids in the family. Certainly in his case.
I went through a phase when I read whatever I could find about siblings. I had a few clients and friends over the years who had had siblings die, which I found unthinkably sad, the idea of it simply undid me. I remember one book in particular, a memoir that involved the author being a bone marrow donor to save or at least extend the life of her severely ill sister, a powerful story of sister love.
Often these relationships are very complex and textured and go through many iterations throughout the lifespan. I have always appreciated that because we are connected by blood, there is always another chance, should a rupture seem particularly threatening. And I feel terribly sad for those who irreversibly pull apart.
I am truly amazed and impressed by siblings who are able to gracefully take pleasure and pride in their siblings’ greatness. I have often been rather awed by Venus Williams! How does she do it? How does one endure the superstar grandeur of Serena Williams, year after year, including competing with her and against her? I strive to be so.
Mimi died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 56, but not without one last time transforming Joan’s life. It was she who punctured her illustrious sister’s dissociation and brought to her awareness the sexual trauma they had both suffered at the hands of their father. Joan had “successfully” blocked it, from consciousness for almost 50 years, all the while suffering agonizing, often disabling, and heretofore unexplained panic attacks, excruciating anxiety and chronic sleeplessness. Like her sister, and her mother, and like many of us, Joan struggled to hold both views: her admiration and love for the father she remembered, and the stark reality of what he had done. With the gentle push from Mimi, Joan did the work that would gradually release her from a lifetime of symptoms.
Sometimes only a sibling is close enough to have a profound impact. With all our ups and downs through the years and decades, our different reads on a largely common history; and our divergent curiosity about ancestry, different lives, and priorities, I am infinitely grateful for my two beloved sisters, growing up together in the same “litter.” And I do not mean to ascribe less meaning and importance to brothers! I simply didn’t have any. Although I always wished for a big brother!
Joan Baez’s life has changed, quieted, like most octogenarians, (with the exceptions perhaps of Mick Jagger et al who at 80 are about to go on tour again.) It is more solitary and less lime-lit. She gardens, paints, draws and writes, realizing her voice is not what it was. She is perhaps for the first time, as many of us after quelling the stifled trauma monsters, content.
As I age, I see more and more fixtures of my whole life and development passing on. It is one of those undeniable truths of life. I don’t want to make a habit of ending on a sad note, but I also wanted, if sadly, to name the passing of Neurofeedback luminary Barry Sterman on New Year’s Eve. He was 88. Sterman engineered the pioneering research curing cats of their seizures with EEG Biofeedback. All the rest is history. I had the privilege of attending a workshop with him once, probably in 2009. In it, he showed photos of the famous cat research. I treasure this shot! He was reputed as wryly saying, “The problem with neurofeedback is that every damn thing we do works!” Thanks Barry! Rest well.
Today’s Song:
When I was a sophomore in college, now it was almost half a century ago! Wow! I had a room-mate named Gayle. She just happened to come to mind today. We were out for a drive as vacation was wrapping up. Gayle and I had known each other since childhood, our mothers were best friends when we were babies, some of the very few non-Jewish friends our family had. Gayle’s mom Jeni had probably a high school education if that, (another somewhat exception among my parents’ friends,) and Mom really loved her. Gayle was the oldest of seven kids. Somehow, we ended up sharing an apartment in college.
Gayle was perhaps somewhat “new age,” at least compared to me, the self-schooled political radical, but we also were a quirky mismatched pair of “bff’s.” One of the many things that Gayle taught me, if one of the few that I retained, I really retained. Gayle said, “Pink is the ‘love ray.’ It heals the heart.” For whatever reason, probably because I suffered from so much sadness, always, I took that one very much to heart, and it stayed with me.
Many years, many twists and turns later, I found myself becoming a therapist. I did my requisite time in agencies, and one year (to the day!) at the V.A. (the US Veteran’s Administration,) I might add that every trauma therapist should put in at least one year at the V.A., certainly in the U.S, to not only learn about war trauma and the moral injury that comes with it, but also to learn about how that system operates. I won’t say more than that now. After paying those beginner’s dues, I went into private practice as soon as I could. Even though I was still pretty deep in student loan debt and post-student poverty. I really wanted to do what I wanted to do, and do it myself, like any well heeled (unhealed!) child of neglect.
I rented my first office, I was still an intern, and I remembered Gayle’s words. I thought, pink kleenex! Pink heals the heart, tears wept in my office would be wiped away with healing pink. So I began my practice of stocking only pink Kleenex in all my offices ever after. Whether or not anyone noticed, or experienced the healing effects of my specially selected Kleenex, I never knew, but I stayed committed.
Well time passed, decades in fact, generations of pink Kleenex passed through my various offices, and Kleenex stopped making colored Kleenex. I don’t know if it was because it is not good for one’s health or for the environment or what, but my pink Kleenex became an endangered species. No longer available in regular stores, I began to buy it up by the case from Amazon, and watched the price go up, while it still lasted. By then I had a little trove stashed in my closet for the decades of future tears. Then even Amazon ran dry. Of course, I was all over the web, searching out and snapping up every stray box I could find. Then I hit Ebay, which has been my last holdout for the last five or so years. If I ever did find a stray, often banged up box, it was in the neighborhood of $30.00 apiece. And some were ancient. (One box that I recently used up and threw away had 1976 printed on the bottom!) But I invested in them nonetheless. And ultimately I hit rock bottom and my supply became finite. What I have left in the closet, which is not nothing, is what is left. I figure when that runs out, I will either have to start manufacturing it myself, or retire. Thankfully, since I got neurofeedback people do not cry as much. But I shall have to find new and additional ways to work with grief. This pink Kleenex story is no joke! If you don’t believe me, you can ask any of my clients of the last 35 years!
Neglect involves rivers of grief, as does all trauma really. I talk often about what I call the “Bermuda Triangle,” the shipwreck-like maelstrom of warring emotions suffered by so many neglect survivors, the three vertices (points of the triangle) being anger, guilt and grief. It is another dilemma plaguing the survivor. In my case, my parents were both so severely traumatized, that of course I felt endless grief for their histories of unimaginable suffering. My father especially never ever let us forget, and he most certainly had a corner on that market. He was one sad man. But it was undeniably heartbreaking, and I could certainly explain my own grief away, or try to, as being about his, and often it genuinely was. And to me, grief was as familiar and perhaps in some way “comfortable” as an old shoe, however unbearable.
The other two Bermuda vertices are the anger and rage which were certainly for me, admittedly undeniable, especially in my adolescent and teen years. I probably siphoned them off into political causes, and fierce activism, but had to admit to my rage at mostly my father, but both parents really. I hated the way they treated me and some of the things they did seemed unforgivable, at least until I made a study of forgiveness, which took many years.
The third vertex is the guilt about the rage, for me because I admired them, and I pitied them, and no they never did healing work, but I had the privilege of having access to good help, in time at least, and the grace to want to seek it out. And the guilt invariably took me back around to the grief. Grief seems to prevail, especially in the years as parents with all their foibles, wind down and start the descent toward their demise, which requires some culmination of both the trauma and grief work. It is not simple. And I have seen many a neglect survivor client relive the worst of their neglect in their parents’ decline and demise. I know I did. My father barely knowing me anymore, barely registering my arrivals and departures to visit him in is final years, was chillingly reminiscent of my whole childhood with him. It brought mostly sadness, but no small measure of the other two. And plenty of use for my Kleenex!
I also learned that another meaning for vertex is the highest point or apex, a summit or a mountain top. I like that idea. It is about reaching the top of something, whatever that might mean. Grief can be like a mountain we climb. We may never reach the apex or summit, but we may. We also used to think that the five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) were universal and fixed, that we all go through the same progression, and can complete them. We all dutifully learned the acronym DABDA for our licensing exams, at least in my day. And the norm was to reach acceptance, and what be done with it? And what if we don’t or we can’t? the deaths of trauma and neglect-begetting parents- (I use those garbled words to avoid saying trauma and neglect-perpetrating, but you knew what I meant,) present all these sorts of challenges and more. The work of grief is more complex and varied than a one size fits all. And perhaps the summit will be something else. DABDA notwithstanding, I think the world is starting to catch on to that now.
Traumatic grief is now a sub-category of trauma work and trauma healing. Moral injury is a more recently named perhaps sub-sub-category. It is the complicated tangle of emotions where the survivor either caused or unwittingly participated in trauma or death to another. Often the sufferers from moral injury are war veterans who killed, or medical personnel of some sort who either made mistakes or were unable to save a life. Or as happened a fair amount in the early days of the COVID 19 Pandemic, had to make impossible choices about who got the scarce ventilators or whatever lifesaving means was in too short of supply. I have also had clients who years ago were the drivers in lethal car accidents, and have had to live with the pain of that ever since. Grief, guilt, undying anguish that persist and persist. Perhaps long beyond my waning supply of Kleenex. We must develop more and better ways of working with this grief. I have heard of some good results with psychedelics. Perhaps you know more than I about how to help with the healing. Meanwhile, I wonder what became of Gayle. She was a good friend.
Today’s Song:
(Eric Clapton would know: his four year old son tragically died in 1991.)
I can’t believe I packed and carried a 5 kg/10 pound book and brought it with me on vacation. I who always strive for the feather light, easy to carry luggage. But I am an immutable biography and memoir reader. And not only athletes’ stories.
Immutable, I like that word. It means unchanging over time or unable to be changed.
Perhaps ironically one of the changes on my roster for this coming year, is to do better at remembering and using new (to me) words I discover and like. I am an insatiable reader, and I habitually read with the massive American Heritage Dictionary at my elbow. My thumbs are constantly in it. Being an old child of neglect and still chronically wondering what other people do, I once asked my husband, does everyone do that? (As if “everyone” does anything!) Who knows these words?” Well, he often does (but that is another story!) but didn’t know about “other people.” I consider myself fairly literate, but wow, I am sometimes amazed at how many indecipherables I have to dig for, from a seemingly popular book. It does slow things down and I often wish I were a faster reader so I could eke more out of my chronically sparse reading time. But I stubbornly refuse to stop doing it and I am generally intrigued and gratified that I did. The problem is I rarely remember them for longer than it takes to digest the phrase where I found them. In fact, I sometimes even have to look up the same word twice in one sitting. So that is a change I am hoping to make: to not only to remember them but even use them. And I promise if I use a word that is too weird, I will tell you what it means.
I finally finished the Jim Thorpe 600 page biography Path Lit by Lightning, by David Maraniss. Although it is not my usual taste in biography as it does not really delve deeply into Jim’s psyche and heart, it was for me an education, not only in the ignominious (there’s one! Hideously shameful and embarrassing.) history of the First Nation people in the US, but the exploitation of athletes, Native and otherwise. I recommend it.
Triumphantly putting that one away, I saw what was next in the cue: a very tiny, sensible traveler: a biography of Alice Miller, that clearly would not even last the flight. And the mammoth memoir My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand, which I could not fight the urge to pack. I have always liked Barbra Streisand. She was the first decidedly Jewish movie star that I was ever aware of, and she stubbornly refused to get a nose job, so has continued to even “look Jewish” all these years. She is now 81 (and still appears to have those amazing dancer’s legs.)
I had been waiting for this book since I read it was coming, some time ago.
I have a beloved sister named Barbara, spelled in the familiar way. We have long shared a particular affection for Barbra, crooning together “people who need people…” And a favorite lavender rose variety which we both love, has her name, Barbra Streisand, so that too has become a part of our lore. So for all these reasons, I packed and carried Barbra along on this trip. Somehow, and perhaps not surprisingly Barbra’s story is a neglect classic. In fact, one quote I could have scripted for her myself: It was at one of her first, and wildly successful public appearances that her mother uncharacteristically attended, young Barbra eagerly asked,
“Mom, what did you think?” She frowned and said, “Your arms are too skinny.” That was it. She had nothing to say about the performance. She didn’t congratulate me or comment on my acting. It was as if she hadn’t even seen me perform. What did I have to do to get her attention and approval? No wonder I wanted to become an actress. It was a way to escape myself and live in someone else’s world.
So far, the book is for the most part an entertaining read, which is a rather mixed review coming from me. The first 50 or so pages read like a compendium of little, perhaps “cute” anecdotes wryly illustrating her pretty miserable, self-reliant childhood. Her father died when she was 15 months old, so she had no conscious memory of him, only the early impressionistic imprint of abandonment on her little soul. Her mother some few years later married the wicked and abusive step-father who completed the template of in one way or another untrustworthy men. Her mother was a cold, self concerned and unaffectionate woman who certainly must have had her own story but was decidedly distantly oblivious and downright mean to her little daughter. There was not enough money and often not enough food, and Barbra was hungry and on her own all kinds of ways from way too young. But there are so so many little vignettes, and such detail! I had to wonder, for a child of neglect, how on earth does she remember so much? My childhood screen is for the most part a vast blank one. I have a sudden flashbulb image of the grainy staticky test pattern on our black and white TV after hours, when there was no program, like a place holder for upcoming shows. My childhood memory is rather like that, static, grainy, spotty and vague, black and white. Hers play like TV shorts, and inconsummate story teller that I am, I almost have to wonder, are these all true? It all comes out being a bit “lite” for my taste, but hey I am going a little lite this week too, in honor of the holiday!
Besides powerfully portraying some of the neglect qualities I most identify with, Barbra continues to be a powerful woman trailblazer, and symbol of graceful aging, and conveys a feel good “adversity story.” And there is much about her that I identify with, and is also timely for me.
Barbra was always ambivalent about her looks. She was by some considered homely, others exotic, even beautiful, likened to a range of animals from rodents to insects to fantasy figures. I can relate to being sometimes called ugly, (even not too long ago by a client,) other times “interesting looking,” and who knows what as I age. The failure of mirroring, and the sense of self-worth, value and confidence that come with secure attachment, have been lifelong challenges for me as for her. And for her even with all the adulation of money and fame. I think she is gorgeous even as an octogenarian, although I do know of the magic of airbrushing, etc. But somehow that insecurity has not stopped either one of us from loving clothes and jewelry and all sorts of adornments, and endlessly loving beauty. My very literate grandmother used to quote the poet (Keats) saying “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Whole-heartedly agreed!
For me, the best gift of this book, was Barbra’s painstaking description of the transition to visibility. The emergence of a largely private introverted self-reliant endlessly hardworking misfit, to being able and willing to share her inspiration with the world, to in effect come out of hiding. I am trying to do that in my own small way, as I attempt to come out and show up for the mainstream public, to write a “trade,” lay-people’s book about neglect. I am passionate about making neglect visible, so I have to be willing to fight to change my prior “nature,” my prior circuitry and let something different happen. I’m on it.
As the endlessly gracious, late night BBC news people say, “Thanks for your company.” Thanks for joining me this year in directing our attention to neglect, and making way for this book, now in its early stages, but promised.. Meanwhile I am glad I schlepped Barbra’s hefty book! (I promise mine won’t be like that!) I am grateful I am strong enough to carry it, and admittedly I did not bring much else. And hey, it prevents me from buying too much pretty stuff on vacation!
Thanks Barbra! And Happy New Year to all! 2024 promises to be better!
Barbra Streisand Rose
Today’s Song:
(Not my usual taste, but it seems fitting.)
Happy New Year!
I sometimes find myself with an image of an infant alone in the dark. I have no idea if it is imagination or primordial memory, or some kind of archetypal or ancestral knowing. But it feels very real. The darkness is vast, empty, echoing and cold, and something about it is urgently lonely. An infant is essentially a bundle of needs and pretty helpless to manage any of them themselves. So depending on the extent of the discomfort, pain or distress, and for how long the cry might be more or less desperate. An infant would have only sensory, emotional or somatic memory, so of course I have no idea, but this scene feels very real, very known to me. And it certainly informs my theory of why many the child of neglect suffers miserably from the weight (and the wait!) of empty time. Boredom and delay, even under-stimulation can be a deathly torture.
Some people “lose track of time,” I am decidedly not one of them! Which is not to say I am never late! I certainly am sometimes. But the kind of abandon where one can actually forget what time it is, has seldom visited me, only if at all with intoxicants, I suspect I am not alone in this. Admittedly the dominion of the clock in psychotherapy, where the day is regimented into pre-measured blocks, suits me. And even the language of “spontaneity” has always rather un-nerved me. Oy vey. But I do like clocks of all kinds, and have many, everywhere. The two times a year when the solstices, or whatever the reason, mandates setting them all back or forward, an hour (as is the genius’ challenge of changing the clock in the car!) is always kind of an event.
Cliché as it may sound, time does seem to speed up as we get older. And as we top the seeming mid-point, the downhill toward mortality appears more undeniable and sometimes imminent. Health is perhaps less to be taken for granted, if we had the luxury ever to take it for granted, and to some extent the Pandemic changed that. But I also notice, many the adult child of neglect becoming painfully aware, for many as they move beyond their early fifties, of all they have missed. It is not unusual in my psychotherapy practice, for neglect survivors long complacent and accepting of a vapid or non-existent sex life, to become vociferous, even intolerant of it, fearing that their window may close. Many other sorts of experiences as well. Partners are often baffled. Where did this “suddenly” come from?
And I do like milestones. The annual dates marking the passage of yet another increment, however arbitrary, are something of a comfort to me, and certainly a cause for reflection. As scrooge-like as I am about most holidays, the orderliness of the flagged dates, assists me in my tracking all sorts of progress, (or not!) in my numerous target areas. All this to say, here we are wrapping up another year: 2023 is nearly done.
Perhaps I always say this, but 2023 was quite the year. Most decidedly emerging from the worst what seemed like a long and lonely winter: the Pandemic of COVID 19. It seems rather surreal looking back, the long months and years of being couped up in pods (if we were lucky!) and seeing only those select few humans in person. Even outside, having to keep a seemingly quaking distance from even neighbors and their dogs. Seeing the now faded remnant of printed reminders, painted on sidewalks or floors, of the requisite “social distancing,” (one of many newly coined terms,) is a weird reminder. I shuddered to think of young children subsisting in a world virtually devoid of touch, something I worry about anyway in the world of neglect, but having it be mandatory chilled me. As did the thought, always chilling, of shut-ins, and “all the lonely people. The US postal service became friend and conduit like never before, as did Instacart and of course Amazon, and the many heroic folks who risked their own health making deliveries to fortunate people like us. And of course the wonders of technologies of all sorts,that enabled me to do what had ever seemed perhaps snobbishly unimaginable, which was continuing the work of psychotherapy in some form remotely. Thank God the worst of those days are behind us, and we were not among the thousands who died daily for quite a while. Many of us, and certainly of you, continue to grieve them. I remember when the vaccine seemed an elusive pipe dream. I still keep my tattered vaccine card in my purse for some reason. Strangely, we never caught it until this last year, and by then with numerous rounds of vaccines in us, it was mild and quick. I am infinitely grateful to see that historical chapter wind down. Of course, now we have others, which I prefer to leave unaddressed for now.
Taking stock of this year, I remember the old childhood round we used to sing: “Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold…” I was of course never too good at either. But thankfully with a lot of dogged work on my trauma and neglect, which made a minefield of vacuous no “man’s” land of the interpersonal world, that has changed blessedly and radically 2023 brought many new people into my life, friends, clients, colleagues, even new little family members some of whom are yet to arrive. I have learned to incipiently believe, at least sometimes, that there are live people out there reading these blogs! Well, I must believe it because I keep doggedly cranking them out, telling myself it is worth it and “people” count on them appearing in their cluttered inbox on time. What a radical concept for the child of neglect to actually imagine that there are live others that one cannot see. I remember in graduate school learning the psychobabble buzzwords “object constancy,” to somehow know of the existence of the other even when they are not in plain proximity and sight. When I first started therapy in 1978, I could not imagine I existed in the mind of my therapist from one (then almost daily!) appointment to the subsequent one. I felt compelled to give her all sorts of “stuff,” mostly things I had made, serving almost bookmarks to my existence on the planet. Now I can sometimes even know that you are out there and these words matter! The blogs will probably hit the bicentennial mark pretty soon!
In 2023 I became visible in other previously unimaginable ways. I began to do much more teaching and speaking, something I had thought I never liked much before, The Oxford Trauma conference was rather like a dream, clacking through those hallowed halls in shoes much like the sensible clodhoppers my grandmother wore there in 1905, speaking there on September 2, 2023 which perchance was scheduled to coincide with the centennial of my mother’s birth on September 2, 1923. (The Oxford dream will recur in 2024, even if on different dates! Stay tuned.)
And like the rest of us, I watched and continue to watch myself getting older, nearing 70 before too long, and having to safeguard and appreciate the changes of all sorts that come with that. We have been blessed with strength and health, that we have all too readily taken for granted, and even been to some extent thoughtless or casual about. We truly can’t afford to squander the treasures we do have, even as we grieve the fading of some of them. Our time is not unlimited, nor is our time with those we love most. Let’s do all we can to better ourselves and this sorry world, in the time remaining to us.
What is on the roster for 2024? I shall set aside the massive categories of the larger world; and the cheeses I have (somewhat) patiently aging in the cave. Speaking for myself, I am on a mission. Gratified, hopeful, and grateful to all of you for your part in it, the world has become much more “trauma informed!.” Not only mental health, but the broader fields of medical health, education, journalism and in many places, even the public at large have become trauma informed. It is about time! And so important! My mission is similarly to introduce the concept of “neglect informed,” not only neglect informed psychotherapy, but putting neglect squarely on the map as a serious priority. This means giving attachment much more its due. I am working on a popular, “trade” book for the larger public on the topic. And hope to get it done this year! And I intend to get serious about getting some sleep! I have played this Russian Roulette with those challenging winks long enough, and I can’t afford to do that anymore! Hope you will join me in sleeping well! It is certainly easier here in glorious Hawaii where we are this week. Out with the old and in with the new! Happy New year!
Today’s Song:
Warning: this blog contains some graphic descriptions of violence, only right at the beginning should some readers prefer to skip over it.
When I sat down to contemplate this week’s blog, my reverie was interrupted by a familiar and much-beloved voice, one of the comforting soundtracks behind some truly hard times in my life. It was the song of Victor Jara, the famed Chilean singer who was brutally murdered in the bloodbath of the military coup in his country, now fifty years ago, it was on “another” historic September 11th. The hideous story of Victor’s death is still seared into my memory for its sheer sadistic horror and cruelty.
Jara was a popular, pioneering leader in the then New Latin American Song movement, which combined social justice and left-leaning political messages with folk and traditional indigenous instruments and vocal style. It is also simply beautiful. I loved it and still do, and that music was a steadfast companion to me through many lonely years. Often it was Victor’s gentle voice that sang me to sleep. I still have the bulging collection of vinyl LPs, which I cannot bear to throw away even though we don’t even have a device to play them on. Victor was one of the first.
After the original shock of the military junta seizing power and the immediate death of democratically elected President Salvador Allende, the Chilean military began rounding up “dissidents” in droves. One of the temporary makeshift detention centers and torture chambers was the National Sports Stadium. Jara was one of the thousands railroaded and imprisoned there. Confined but not silenced, Victor did what he was most inclined to do, so the story goes; he sang. Of course, that antagonized the “milicos,” the soldiers more. One soldier then “retaliated” by breaking his hands, and when that failed to silence him, he went for Victor’s skull. Finally, the soldier shot him 44 times. Victor still has not been silenced. Years later the national stadium was renamed in his honor. Victor’s widow Joan proclaimed she would spend the rest of her life seeking “seeking justice for her husband and the thousands of others killed or ‘disappeared’ by Pinochet’s regime. She died in November of 2023, one month ago, at the age of 96. So, she was no longer around to receive this news.
Now some 50 years later, Victor’s two daughters, beautiful little girls at the time, must be nearly my age. The news that burst in on my peaceful morning bringing this flood of thoughts and memories, was that Victor’s killer was recently expelled from this country, the US, where he has been living for some time.
The retired Chilean lieutenant was arrested in an operation carried out by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on October 5 in Deltona, Florida. He had previously been stripped of his U.S. citizenship on July 14 for lying on immigration forms. According to the press release announcing his arrest he was to be returned to Chile to face charges for “his involvement in torture and extrajudicial killings during the aftermath of a military coup in 1973.” (Quoted from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website)
So, what does all this have to do with trauma and neglect? Well, everything really. Not only because Victor helped get me through some of the worst of mine. Each day I am reminded that there is no way to address the profound injuries of trauma and neglect, without attending to the larger world. So much unbearable trauma going on out there these days. We must all be mindful to regulate our news consumption carefully, to not be swamped by it all, as more orphaned, attachment-traumatized children, attachment trauma of every ilk; war trauma, natural disaster trauma, every other kind of trauma fills the airwaves of the world.
And this also brought again to mind the complex questions of accountability, reparation and repair. I remember when I was quite young, learning the big word “restitution.” when my parents started getting small checks from Germany, the German government’s meagre attempt to compensate for, if certainly not right the heinous wrongs committed by the Nazis. The payments were a pittance, but we needed the money, and it did seem my parents were on some level gratified, at least my mom was. She was the more Pacifist leaning of the two, our dad being the much angrier. I never did find out how much they were, or when they stopped coming. How does one begin to make up for crimes against humanity? But I ask myself, how do we begin to think about forgiveness and repair when it is about evil on a grand scale? Such huge and essential questions. And how do we make peace with terrible wrongdoings and morals in jury large and small?
In the US, there is currently a national conversation going on about reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans, then descendants of victims of Jim Crow discrimination and terror, and all the sequelae including generations being blocked from owning land to farm and make homes and have something to bequeath subsequent generations. “Roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea of reparations”, according to 2021 polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Even economically they have never recovered, let alone all the other ways. After now a century and a half, African Americans are far from “catching up,” and emerging from the many-faceted setback. And how do we really begin to make up for that? There are complex issues about affirmative action, diversity hiring, and measures to correct imbalances in numbers in workplaces and educational institutions. What constitutes just corrections of past crimes, and who pays?
I have known numbers of survivors of traumatic childhoods who were repelled and proudly refused to receive/accept inheritances from abusive parents, thinking of it as “blood money,” not wanting either to need or dignify it. Some of them could have in fact, really used it. And I do understand perhaps wanting to cut ties with a terrible history. It is rather similar to when Somehow no one seems to want to buy a house where something terrible happened as if horror intractably and permanently permeates the walls, ceilings and carpets.
I do however take some solace and view some value in gestures of reconciliation. When I have made mistakes, thankfully none as large and dramatic as the ones we are speaking about, the effort and the opportunity to do something to in the service of healing, is a comfort, and hopefully not only to me. Jim Thorpe the historic First Nation athlete stripped of his Olympic world records and prizes did not live long enough to see the medals and trophies restored. Even though the way his life was irrevocably altered by the gross injustice of how they were stripped from him, it may have been some consolation nonetheless. The same is true for Joan Jara.
Recently I have been steeped in thought about how to respond to, how to address, face and emerge from terrible wrongs that I may have wittingly or unwittingly committed. As a child of neglect always striving to be visible, to be “this enough” or “that enough”, I always viewed myself or worked hard to be a “good girl.” Similarly, I thought of myself perennially as a victim, at least for many, many years. We all do shadowy things sometimes, great and small. Thankfully none of mine have been too great, but I hate to look at them at all. The Twelve Step Program insists that we make an accounting. If we admit and amend, our recovery requires it. And it may demonstrate that we are at least in the process of learning to do better.
I remember when some years after the fact, I had a long-delayed flashback revealing that the most serious bicycle accident of my life, which resulted in a concussion, loss of consciousness and a night in intensive care with a brain bleed, had in fact involved a car. It was hit and run. It chilled me to realize that. And how many abuses, and childhoods of lethal neglect go unaccounted for. Where I can see the impulse to flee and avoid looking straight at what any of us is capable of, I work hard to ensure I will never do that. I continue to strive to be all about repair, however challenging and complicated.
It was challenging to choose just one Victor Jara song to be today’s song. I invite you to visit his archives of beautiful music and lyrics. This one, Manifesto, says in part:
que el canto tiene sentido
cuando palpita en las venas
del que morirá cantando
las verdades verdaderas,
This song has feeling
When it pulses in the vein
Of he who will die singing
The truest truths.
Thanks, Victor!
This week’s song:
In my busy rock and roll head, songs pop up constantly, often in reaction to something I hear or read. This is no surprise to people who know me, and who are accustomed to my breaking into song inspired by an intruding spark of spontaneous association. Recently I was perusing my groaning, growing pile of books in the cue to be read. Oh, how I wish I could read faster! I cannot begin to keep up with the bounteous wealth of really good stuff that comes along every day, (and a measure of not so good stuff too, that I feel I should at least familiarize myself with, to know something of what is going on out there.) I happened on the unread book I ordered months back written by former US surgeon general, Vivek H. Murthy. Murthy who was appointed by President Obama served only a brief two-year tenure as the nation’s supreme medical authority, before he was dismissed by the Trump administration. His strong stance in favor of childhood vaccination, along with his identifying gun violence as a major public health issue, apparently drew an unsupportable amount of heat.
His book entitled Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes -Lonely World (Harper 2020) is about his assertion that there is an “epidemic of loneliness” in this country. My reaction to that was the fifth-grade exclamation “duh!!” and then I was visited by the exquisitely accurate and far superior words, from the old Bob Dylan song, where Bob eloquently croons, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…”
Certainly, the world of trauma and neglect, most often characterized by one or another variety of attachment trauma, is a vast desert of loneliness, and for many, it is that and the great challenge of relationship that drives them (and/or us) to seek therapy. Trauma and neglect are lonely worlds. And in addition, there are many other varieties of despair and isolation. I heard one report that the Silicon Valley town of Palo Alto, a hub of technological innovation and immense wealth, is peppered with numerous railway crossings throughout town. At each crossing, a security guard is posted poised to prevent people from jumping in front of the trains. Suicide is that great of a danger.
Researchers report that at greatest risk for suicide (but certainly not exclusively,) are men, and even greater- older men. They have identified five factors that heighten suicide risk, the “Five ‘D’s:’ “Depression, Disability, Disconnection, Disease and “Deathly Means,” which primarily refers to access to firearms. Disconnection is of course endemic to trauma and neglect as we know, with many of the others following close behind. We have reason to be vigilant for them all.
Especially during the winter holiday season, where the culture here is swept up in a blizzard of commotion and pressure: pressure to spend money on “stuff,” get together in idyllic Norman Rockwell scenes of loving family, abundant and wonderful food, and drink and lots of “fun,” many of us, probably most of us, are ashamedly unable to fulfill the script. Being Jewish and also immigrants I always felt particularly (and ashamedly) ill equipped to navigate the season. Channukah often roughly coincided in time with the Christmas holiday. And where the Christian kids perhaps jealously imagined we got 8 presents, one each night, that certainly was not true in our family. For me gifts, at least being on the receiving end, were generally a disappointing ordeal. I would look forward to some sort of show or evidence of affection, “worth” or specialness, often with a big build-up and hope. It was the one time of the year, apart from our birthdays, that we might hope to get something that we did not “need.” Maybe something impractical or even vaguely extravagant. Somehow, I wound up feeling as unworthy, worthless or unknown as ever, so I made it my project to be a great giver of gifts, trying to create the experience I longed for, in the other. In general, they were rarely happy days.
When I got a little older it was a great relief and escape to have restaurant or catering jobs, that were super busy and often lucrative too. It was admittedly kind of fun to work that hard, and I felt I was getting away with something in fleeing the seemingly impossible mandate. And at least customers were generous on the holidays, appreciating that we were willing to work on holidays, not knowing what a blessed escape it in fact was.
As I got older and later partnered, I/we began to explore for ways to cope with and even enjoy this season and put our own stamp on the holidays. To find what is festive, meaningful and “ego syntonic” (a psychobabble or fancy way of saying in keeping with our own inclinations and values,) for observing the winter holiday season. We discovered destinations that were free of the dreaded consumerism and congestion, religiosity or simple cultural “coercion” to celebrate in particular ways. We made several visits to Cuba at holiday time, and there was little evidence there of anything outside of ordinarily quotidian life. When the pandemic interrupted traveling far, I found that having more time to write, that being a way to both relax and reflect on the change of both season and year, to move forward into the next cycle, became a delightful and for me celebratory new ritual.
When I looked up the Dylan song where the weatherman quote originated, Subterranean Homesick Blues, I found another exquisite phrase:
Get sick, get well,
Hang around the inkwell…
I thought, yes! There is at least one of my holiday rituals, the luxury of time to “hang around the inkwell.” (I do miss handwriting although admittedly as I age, and can barely read my own handwriting, the digital ink cartridge has become a blessing.) We also discovered that Hawaii is a great escape from the holiday atmosphere we dislike on the mainland, so that has become our go-to. We discovered that besides the quiet tasteful tree in the hotel lobby, and the post office being closed, there is little evidence that these dates are different. The warm tropical breeze, and peaceful atmosphere is a balm, and my idea of the perfect gift for me. And admittedly I do enjoy the excuse of special baking and cheesemaking before we go.
I hope you can go gently with finding your own way. I know the pressure of these days can be a hotbed for shame and increased loneliness for many. Wishing the very best for the season to you!
Today’s song:
Back when I was in grade school, English class, or classes centered on writing, spelling and literature, were lumped together under the umbrella title of “Language Arts.” What an odd and interesting term. I looked up the Oxford definition and found “the study of grammar, composition, spelling, and (sometimes) public speaking, typically taught as a single subject in elementary and middle school.” Interesting to me that the subcategory was “arts.”
In those days the prevailing myth assumed that girls were more likely to excel in these arts and were dumb in science and math. I certainly swallowed that belief, and real or imagined, always struggled with what are now known as “STIM” subjects: science, math and now tech. Even when truly inspired, motivated and curious, say about the brain in trauma, they have never been easy for me.
When I first started learning about the brain aberrations in-memory processing occurring in trauma, I would listen to the lectures, in those days, cassette tapes, over and over again, until they finally stuck. Perhaps that is why I take such pains and derive such pleasure in finding language that is accessible to explain these things, art or not. And I admit I am a stickler about words. There are some words that I have very intentionally torn out of my personal dictionary, for one reason or another, and I make wide, sometimes irrational detours not to use them. I am a nag about insisting that my couples define their terms! so they speak the same language. And I am sometimes baffled by how suddenly a “new” expression or turn of phrase is on everyone’s redundant lips. How does this happen? Why is everyone suddenly saying “pivot” or “guard rails” or “double down?” Oy vey.
Admittedly I am a lover of words, a self-proclaimed wordsmith with my own private lexicon of faves, and gnawing dissatisfaction when finding the English language impoverished, and I simply cannot locate a satisfactory word for something I might be trying to express. Especially something profoundly important to me like Neglect. Neglect is one of those words that does not really “work.” For most people, it conjures images of the extreme: an absence of food, water, shelter physical safety- all of which while not being untrue, many of us thankfully cannot identify with. Even the more typical “latchkey” kids, who were pitched into self-care, meal preparation and childcare for younger siblings, may view theirs as being a safe and even abundant upbringing, especially if it was a household of privilege and plenty in material ways.
And neglect being a verb, connotes action. However, the trauma of neglect is primarily a story of inaction, of failures to act in essential ways. Survivors insist “nothing happened to me!” And they are right! That is the problem, the myriad of essential developmental experiences that are not delivered, that do not happen. In my quest to find a better word, I continue to come up empty. All I can think of is nothing.
There are a number of reasons why I find the word triggers terribly wanting. Besides the reasons I have most readily given, which is that I hate the association to gun violence. That is true, however perhaps even worse is that the word has come to be batted around so loosely that its very precise meaning has been largely lost if not at least badly muddled. People seem to lump all sorts of emotional upsets under that label, and it often sounds like an accusation.
To be precise, in the moment of trauma, the right amygdala is reset as an alarm system, fiercely poised to protect the brain and body from ever going through the traumatic event again. Any stimulus even vaguely reminiscent of the original trauma can trip the system, and activate the full-on fight-flight/freeze response, as if the dreaded experience is happening again right now. It becomes another emergency. The activated or restimulated person will demonstrate what appears to the outside world to be disproportional or dramatic “over-reactions” to what in real time may seem to the outsider as “no big deal.” In real-time it probably isn’t a big deal, So the correct use of the term triggered (if you must,) would be this sort of activation, which is actually the word I prefer. However, the reaction itself is no easier to deal with if we call it something else. How I wish it were otherwise! For now, suffice it to say, if you are angry or hurt or frustrated, or your child or partner is, let’s call it that. The too-big reaction is probably an uninvited visit from past trauma.
A complicated word worthy of its own whole book, of which there are many. For now, I will say one of the complicating factors about this word can be confusing, in that it has two distinct, related and exquisitely accurate and relevant meanings. The first is associated with a spacy, blur of attention and failure of presence. It often coexists with neglect, as the infant brain is under-stimulated from the absence of a parent brain to resonate with and develop with. There is a wide range of dissociative tendencies out to some extremes of dissociative disorders where individuals might lose awareness and fail to track chunks of time.
The other important meaning refers to a fractured self or spits in the self. As the IFS people reassure us, we all have various parts that work together and serve different functions or aspects of the self. And dissociation can refer to more dissonant or conflicted splits, aspects that perhaps contradict or wrestle with each other. Neglect survivors suffer from a number of these tensions, many of which I have written at length and surely will again: the dilemma without solution, where they/we might long for and be terrified of the same person; the Bermuda Triangle which is being plagued by the internal shipwreck between anger, grief and guilt, again all in the direction of the same person. Ironic how one definition of dissociation correlates to an absence or hazing out of emotion; while the other is an explosive storm of too many. All the more reason to watch our p’s and q’s, and speak with precision. Always a worthy goal. Sometimes I do think the world would be much better if we took the time to both express and understand what is earnestly being said.
As I close today, I’d like to pause a moment to honor the memory of Rosalyn Carter who passed on November 19th at the age of 96. Ms Carter was the US First Lady during the presidency of her husband, Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981. Carter seems to be one of the less remembered of US presidents, possibly because he was followed and somewhat washed over by the more dramatic (and perhaps traumatic) reign of Ronald Reagan. To me, however, Carter has always been remembered as a highly regarded good guy, because he championed human rights at a time when they were the centrepiece of my life, and little discussed in the larger world. Carter put human rights on the map, and in the daily national vocabulary. And Rosalyn accompanied him in not only that mission but also one more of her own. Besides being a devout feminist, she took up the unpopular gauntlet of mental health, making it her mission to both destigmatize it and make mental health treatment more humane and more accessible. She fought for mental health parity with the rest of healthcare, a work in progress even still. She was big-hearted, enlightened, and forward-thinking. As we continue her legacy, I thank her. Rest in peace, Rosalyn. And for myself, besides continuing her mission, well perhaps a language artist is the brand of artist I will always strive to be.
I’m still working through the hefty tome of Jim Thorpe’s biography. It is so much more than an athlete’s personal story. It is an education about the Native people in the US, so missing from my public-school history curricula. I do hope that has improved in the many decades since I sat through grade school. I knew a little something about the residential schools that Indian kids were forcibly railroaded into, whose design was in effect to “whitewash,” them, to remove them from family and community and train culture, ritual, tradition, ethnic identity and pride out of them, making them into eligible candidates for citizenship in a land that had always been theirs. Young Jim’s school years were bleak, punctuated by the death of his beloved twin brother when he was nine. A whole generation of attachment trauma and neglect was but one of the many devastating impacts of the residential schools, not to mention the physical abuse that was routine.
Thorpe was not the only extraordinarily gifted Native athlete. There were many. And the extensive story of exploitation of young athletes was news to me. I have long heard of Pop Warner as the umbrella football counterpart to Little League Baseball in the US. I had no idea that Pop was a real person who coached at Carlisle, the Indian school the Thorpe kids attended. He was much more than a coach, and was later a self-interested accomplice in Jim’s being stripped of his Olympic medals.
Apparently collegiate sports were a money maker for schools and colleges. The money of course not going to the players. And although young Jim got launched not only in track but in baseball, football and even basketball, a lot of white middlemen profited along the way off of the backs of Jim and others. The story is bitter-sweet, to say the least.
And Jim’s lifelong travails with alcohol were similarly not unique. Where Europeans had a millennia long experience and tolerance for alcohol with Italy and France having some of the lowest rates of alcoholism in the world, Native people were quite the opposite. “Fire water” was new to them, introduced by the white colonial settlers. So where they had plenty of and increasing pain to medicate away, their organisms were not accustomed, and rates of alcoholism soared disproportionally, and contributed to both tragedy and stereotypes.
All of these images jade my vision as we approach the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday here next week, a mythical celebration of peace, white and Native friendship and harmony. Oy vey. The happy scenes of pilgrims and Indians rather turn my stomach.
My agony with eating disorders began early, so of course Thanksgiving was always a dreaded nightmare. It is the great American eating holiday, as far as I was always concerned, a festival of what seemed like gluttony to me, an abundance of foods that I did not even like under any circumstances. And the day was so food centric that it was pretty hard to escape the watchful eyes of my parents. I found it ironic that although I was somehow invisible in my slowly wasting away in plain sight, into a 79 pound (5.6 stone) skeleton, what I ate or did not eat was scrutinized with eagle eyes. At the Thanksgiving table I felt like a trapped prey animal. And not being a football family of course, we were all pretty much glued around the table until it was finally over.
Like many immigrants our family’s relationship to American holidays was ambivalent. They were clearly not ours, but there was such a societal expectation to do something in the way of the national ritual. When I got to about 9, we moved back to California again. There we had a distant cousin who had an American wife, Aunt Selma. Aunt Selma cooked turkey and sweet potatoes, and made pumpkin pies: all things completely alien to us. I don’t remember anything but the feelings: dread, nauseous anxiety and a desperate wish to flee.
I had the good fortune to partner with someone who did not have strong feelings about Thanksgiving. He has never been attached to observing the holiday in a particular or traditional way. We enjoy a day off, with whatever menu we might desire. I have, however, always loved the day after Thanksgiving, which in this country has evolved into black Friday, the great American shopping holiday. We chose that day to get married in 1993. It is a semi-holiday, everything is open ad most people are off. Seemed like a good day. I do look forward to it, although the date changes from year to year. That is a day when it is easy for me to feel blessed, and grateful.
The gratitude part of Thanksgiving is often lost in the eating and consumerism. And gratitude is infinitely important to me, not only on this but on every day of the year. So often in the household of trauma and neglect, where being seen and known are sorely and tragically missing experiences, there is a gnawing poverty of acknowledgement, let alone appreciation. In my work with couples and parents, everyone really, including myself, I try to instill and install appreciation as ritual and a staple of daily life, like air and water and food. I take pleasure in acknowledging and thanking the often invisible, customer service, tech support and delivery people, that often slip unappreciated into taken for granted oblivion. Written reviews and cash are of course generally well appreciated, but even the often-missing experience of simple notice, has great meaning.
I know for myself, with my age-old expectation of being invisible, unheard, overlooked, forgotten, I would find it dazzling to be remembered, tracked and even appreciated. It is worth having a day devoted to that, although the gratitude is often somehow left out of Thanksgiving tradition. I always say, I don’t need a special day for it, but I am also all for including it in a day that is nominally about being thankful.
For those observing the Thanksgiving holiday, I wish you true interpersonal harmony. Let us remember and honor the people whose precious land this was. Let us remember and appreciate those who grow and harvest this food, whatever it is we choose to eat, and of course those who prepare and cook it. And let us strive for peace in homes and families, and in the streets, and in this painfully troubled world of ours. Happy Thanksgiving.
Today’s song:
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