When I was growing up, there was no internet, no Google. There were encyclopedias. I remember a three-tier caste system of them: the most expensive and most sophisticated was the Britannica. The “middle class” was the World Book and the “lowbrow” I think, was called Colliers. I don’t remember. We had the World Book. I think we got it from a door-to-door salesman. There were door-to-door salesmen in those days, invariably men, in cheap suits and ties like the fuller Brush Man, peddling various products. Our World Book was bound in white, not quite 26 alphabetical volumes. I think X-Y-Z were all in one.
The set sat on the lowest shelf of the living room bookshelves. I could curl up quietly on the rug for hours, looking all kinds of things up. No one really knew where I was. And that was one of the few places I could surreptitiously learn about bodies, except for the occasional National Geographic photo of naked indigenous people somewhere. Admittedly I pored over those too. Thank goodness for the World Book! How else was a solitary little child of neglect to learn how the world works?
One of the missing experiences with neglect is having someone to talk to about random, thoughts and questions or teach them about things they might never have thought of or heard of. Children are by nature curious beings, the world, at least at first, is one grand oyster, or ideally so. I am so delighted to see my sister with her little grandson, nourishing his love of octopi by learning all about them with him. And exposing him to many other weird and interesting curiosities of nature. She is a wonderful teacher, and I am infinitely grateful to her as she was the very one who taught me to read when I was probably the age he is now, three-ish? That was a godsend, a lifeline, and books became a lifelong source of comfort, company and information. I have never stopped reading since.
Children lacking an attentive parent or caregiver, who takes time and even takes pleasure in their learning and navigating the big world are once again thrown on their own developing resources to “figure it out.” It involves flailing, looking for models on TV or on the playground to imitate, or as a final resort, making things up. Besides the World Book and what I could get my hands on at the library once I was big enough to go there, all of those were my “answers.” But to be honest, I was, for the most part, pretty clueless. In fact, I remember in my early 20s when I finally started therapy, shyly asking my therapist, “What do people do when…” I still had no idea, and I have always said I only started learning to be a “regular person” when I worked in restaurants, also in my early twenties. The other waiters talked about music and movies and sports, and I learned to imitate them and get over as somewhat “normal.” But I never really knew. And if or when I finally knew anything, I hung onto it for dear life, It seemed tied to existence somehow.
Years later, when I began to formulate what I came to call the “neglect profile,” my anecdotal catalog of consistently observed traits in survivors of childhood neglect, I began to notice or perceive a “charge” at the very least, surrounding the whole notion of “knowing.” Admittedly, earlier on in my work as a therapist, before I put the pieces together, I might become exasperated and more than once lost my cool and exclaiming with frayed or absent patience (and certainly too loudly,!) “If you know everything already, why the heck am I sitting here?” Oy vey! Makes me blush to think about it now. It took a while for me to get it.
Knowing what we know, or what we believe we know, anyway, is a survival strategy. Never having anyone to turn to for answers, the child of neglect resorts to their usual and only default: they pull in on themselves and solve the problem on their own, often with some pride or even self-righteousness. And often become quite defensive or “touchy” about what they know. If I were to mess with that, it might be on the order of taking away a life raft, they might feel rudderless, defenseless. I learned pretty quickly not to argue about these things when possible.
Now on the internet, one can find answers about pretty much anything. There is no shortage of junk science, pop psychology, and “diagnoses du jour.” Admittedly, and it is probably obvious, it can irk me when precisely what I have been doggedly studying, consulting the best research from the top experts in the world for four decades, and a “lay-person:” friend, family member, client or random person, spouts expertise on something that is “my area.” We used to joke, “I heard it on TV, so it must be true.” Now it is the internet. Suddenly surfing the net becomes “research.”
My husband is a devoted supporter of my work, a survivor of hideous neglect himself. Recently reviewing something I had written about my longstanding “three P’s of neglect”, he innocently suggested an idea he had of a 4th P. I was momentarily incensed. My model, my turf, I was once again that reactive, touchy neglect survivor, as if I was in danger of disappearing or dissolving into worthlessness again. Thankfully these things don’t last too long anymore! But a well-worn circuit is persistent, and being a lifesaver, defaults to sticking around without a lot of self-awareness and ongoing mindful work!
It can often happen in couple’s therapy, where one partner will repeatedly say, “We talked about that!” Yes, and of course, they may have talked about it even and often ad nauseum. If it keeps looping back around, something has not been empathically or sufficiently understood and processed. If it had been, it would be laid to rest and stop rearing up. Updating the files can be a tall order! It means relinquishing something one might have been convinced of, which has felt quite essential.
A “know it all” quality is not attractive. Many survivors of neglect, at least before working on it, may come across that way. Sometimes I am able to gently remind myself, “Yes, that is how she makes people not like her,” or he, as it were. Then I am sheepishly reminded of making people not like me that way. Occasionally I can still lapse; briefly, I would hope. Suffice it to say that knowing, and being fierce about what one knows, is another expression of the lifesaving armor of self-reliance. Becoming safe enough to acknowledge interpersonal need and to receive is a goal of our work. It also requires courage and humility, and, unfortunately, time.
The child of neglect craves to be seen, heard and understood. I have learned from my mistakes never to offer unsolicited information if I can help it. I am still accused of “mansplaining” once in a while. I am trying to learn. Learning to learn from others is a rocky road of processing fear and discovering that it can be OK to not know, that someone else knowing or teaching me would not rob, endanger or annihilate me. And is often quite fascinating. What do you know?!
Today’s song:
Like most any child of neglect, I was a desperately lonely little girl. Convinced I was hopelessly weird, probably of some other unidentified nonhuman species and categorically unlikeable, I peopled my world with idealized, fantasy relationships. A “hero worshipper” right off the bat, Beginning at a young age, my ever-advancing hit parade provided an endless feed of new hero figures.
Characteristically, I was probably on a quest for the powerful and protective and loving parent I wished I had, and later a love partner. Some of those figures still languish on the old playlist after many decades, like my own little Mount Rushmore (no pun intended!). Most of them were/are men, and admittedly while being incredibly smart and brilliantly creative in some genre, had at least a streak, if not more, of unquestionable meanness. I have always wondered if one has to be at least somewhat egotistical to be truly great. As with all of us, I figure my dad was the mostly unconscious template.
Admittedly, I have read all the biographies of Steve Jobs, an iconic example. He was perhaps a hideous parent, and I’m guessing a not-too-empathic employer, with an attachment trauma story of his own which I know only the roughest outlines of, and he changed the world. I still wish he hadn’t died. He is probably an extreme example from my parade. But truly emblematic of them all.
As we know from many famous examples in the history of neuroscience and general anatomy, when one region or body part fails or did not develop in the first place, a neighboring region, organ or body part steps in to take over the lost function. Not always certainly, but often. That was exactly what this resourceful child of neglect did to compensate for my unformed, underdeveloped or simply missing relationships and relationship abilities. So I was really never alone. My husband continues to be amused and is ever tolerant of this progression of characters that persists and even, perhaps only occasionally now, continues to grow. And it is a not unusual, mostly benign adaptation for survivors of neglect to somehow fill in the blanks with something. The trick is to be sure we stay cognizant and mindful of the difference between fantasy and reality.
As time goes on, when sexuality comes online very often for the child of neglect, this becomes a “new” locus of dysregulation. After all, trauma and neglect are all about dysregulations of arousal: hyper-arousal and hypo-arousal in the brain and body’s electrical system. Sexuality is another kind of arousal that can be both hyper, hypo or both. It can make for confusing, chaotic, out-of-control and even potentially destructive feelings and behaviors. Especially lacking quality, evidence-based and unbiased information and sex education. This is a major soap-box diatribe of mine. I believe it to be a significant contributor, besides gender-based power dynamics of course, to what we might abbreviate as the worldwide “Me Too” phenomenon. But don’t get me started…
In my case, the hormone-driven kind of arousal emerged early and intensely. Like most children of neglect with no one to ask and nowhere to turn, I did not know what to do with it. Now we have the internet, which is surely a mixed, mostly not-so-good solution. But back then, I resorted, at least at first, to fantasy which had always worked for me until then.
The child of neglect reaches for and finds adaptations or attempts at regulation for the usually distressing, uncomfortable or even tortuous dysregulations. I was no exception, and from the safety of fantasy, I ventured out a bit and discovered the elixir of alcohol by the age of 13. It was a blessed “fix” and provided me with a feedback loop of both a semblance of “calm” and the false courage to meet real people. One of my regulating mechanisms for hyper-arousal was the discovery of distance bicycling, which also brought me into a community of mostly male others. The feedback loops between alcohol and the false courage provided by alcohol and the other iterations of increasing arousal and impulses resulted in my colorful checkered past. I can mostly laugh about it now, and thankfully nothing really bad ever happened.
I am, however, painfully aware of the vast range of sexual dysregulations and difficulties that, for the most part, no one talks about. People are ashamed, don’t know how to speak about them, or don’t know it is “OK” to either have or speak about them. Let alone to whom. Most clinicians in health and/or mental healthcare fail to inquire due to their own ignorance or shame, or perhaps morals. In many cases, if I do hear about sexual concerns at all, it is most often from an angry, distressed or frightened partner or if the individual has gotten into some kind of “trouble.”
In the 1990s, the AIDS epidemic brought some of these problems and their dangers to unavoidable light. For a long time, they were largely lethal, and thankfully in most parts of the world, that is no longer true. Certainly, my neighborhood and the park on the corner, once a famed destination for anonymous sex, is haunted by ghosts: lives lost to the AIDS crisis.
In the early 2000s, my phone rang like a repeating alarm bell, resounding with the then diagnosis du jour of “sex addiction”, compulsive sexual behaviors that at least initially terrified and mystified individuals and couples and clinicians too.
Although a veritable (and certainly at least partially profit-driven) industry sprung up. It took me a while to find reliable and truly scientific and worthwhile information, theoretical formulations, and treatment approaches that I could accept and attempt to utilize. Those were some hard times.
I have a strong conviction about asking and teaching healthcare and mental health practitioners to educate themselves and become fluent in speaking and inquiring about sexual matters. This means getting comfortable with using precise language out loud and without shame to model and both proffer normalcy and permission to not know or to struggle. I would wish that psychiatrists advise their patients about the possible sexual side effects and even losses that accompany some antidepressants, similarly oncologists about chemotherapy and some surgeries, Ob-Gyn’s about pregnancy. Childbirth and beyond, etc. And that we all learn about the dysregulations that may accompany childhood neglect.
The history of sex education in public schools is another interesting and decidedly political story. But that would be for another day. Suffice it to say, I have to wonder how much individual shame and agony, sexual misconduct and abuse, un-bridled and dangerous sexual and even criminal activity result in dysregulations originating with attachment trauma and neglect, and the tragic poverty of good information.
My alcohol-soaked compulsivity spanned most of my 20’s. When clients ruefully lament the idealized loss of their “youth” I have to at least quietly think “good riddance!” Most of my out-of-control behavior, even if it manifested in the physical world with real live others, was not that different from the old fantasy world and lasted not much longer before evaporating, although sometimes with some humiliation and dramatic heartbreak. All of my copious journals from that decade are filled with nothing but those romance novel-like tales, and although the tattered notebooks are lined up on a back bookshelf, I have never ever cracked the covers and sometimes wonder why I have saved them – perhaps as a relic or hopeful reminder of what recovery can do!
I have recently noticed that a number of (mostly) male survivors of neglect entering midlife (fifties and sixties) are “suddenly beset with alarm and grief about a door possibly slipping shut.” Many who have endured long sexless partnerships as they begin to consciously or unconsciously grapple with mortality worry about missing out entirely on satisfying sex. It becomes unbearable and no longer acceptable. Those who have been working on their neglect, either in couples or individual therapy or both, are gaining the voice and the courage, as well as the self-respect, to insist on creating that in their partnerships before it is too late. I am here to say that such is possible. Again, the sequelae of neglect span a wide swath, and to heal dysregulations and the intergenerational transmission of neglect is not only to better individual lives but to make the whole world better, safer and more fun!
Today’s song:
Pondering how I first happened on the translucent, barely visible child of neglect, the oddest image appeared in my mind. I imagined myself, middle thirties strolling placidly along a quiet beach. In one non-remarkable step, walking through the innocuous and pleasantly warm sand, I am suddenly nudged into alertness to discover that one little mound, apparently indistinguishable from all the others, had a little hole in it. Just as suddenly, it explodes into a geyser-like cascade of tiny ants. They are everywhere, teeming and flowing in every direction. They are immediately all over my feet and ankles. Wow! Where did that come from?
Encountering the unexpected world of neglect was like walking into an industrious, quietly busy camouflaged ant hill, which turned out to be a mountain. My mom used to say, “Don’t make mountains out of molehills!” And she generally did the opposite, at least where I was concerned. But in this case, no exaggeration. I hope likening the hapless child of neglect to an ant does not seem insulting! It is not intended that way, and who knows where these seemingly random flashes come from? Besides, ants are really quite amazing. I have seen teams of the little critters working together to heave and lug a leaf infinitely larger than the whole pack combined across a human-sized dirt hiking path. A remarkable mission of strength and courage, too, as the trail is regularly trudged over by hikers and passersby, most likely not looking down. An amazing feat, no pun intended.
I will dispense with the story of how it all began, in real life, I have told it so many times. I am told I am quite the storyteller. I never realized that I am until only much later when there was actually someone to tell stories to. Rather, I would like to paint a picture of the emerging character that began to take shape in my observation and in my thinking as I watched and studied this to me newly identified population.
In cheese making, a rather astonishing process occurs, which still continues to amaze and delight me. A minuscule amount of rennet, the “coagulant,” maybe one and a half teaspoons in an 8-gallon pot of milk, after adding that and an hour or so of peaceful rest, miraculously, a pot of liquid congeals into a large pot of what becomes increasingly a solid pot of curd. That is how I remember the gradual coagulation of what I came to call the “neglect profile.” I will only begin to sketch it here. Like a good cheese, it has aged and continues to age over months and years.
Pecorino, Parmesano, Provolone? Well, those are all good, but not what I had in mind. The first recurring character pattern that began to jell in my observation was what I came to call the triumvirate of Passivity, Procrastination and Paralysis, or the “Three P’s.” The P’s came to be a signature that I spotted early on that pointed to neglect. They seemed to resonate with people. Why would this be?
Three major tent poles of my thinking, the rennet perhaps, were neuroscience, attachment theory and Neurofeedback. From neuroscience, Allan Schore, one of my earliest and most profound influences, we learned that the infant brain develops in resonance with the brain of the primary caregiver, right hemisphere to right hemisphere, primarily through the gaze. If that infant gazes into a face that is angry, fearful, expressionless or unpredictable, the earliest experience of that developing brain will be fear, uncertainty, confusion: dysregulation. And if there is no one there, the gaze is into a vapid emptiness. Left alone too much, that little brain will be under-stimulated, not to mention scared and sad. But of course, emotion will only register in a sensory or bodily way at that stage. This is the unremembered, at least not in narrative form, beginning of the neglect experience. The under-stimulated brain will lack the encouragement and the incentive; thus, the initiative to reach, to begin, to try. Why bother?
From an attachment standpoint, the child who experiences the presence of a loving, supportive other is safe enough to go forth, to explore. We have probably all seen the videos of infants and toddlers crawling and walking further when they look back to see the encouraging, even applauding loved one attentively watching. Presence, having their back, makes for safe exploration.
Similarly, the essential “dilemma without solution,” which will be addressed in great detail in future writings, where the source of comfort and the source of terror or distress are the same people, and the child is in an irreconcilable quandary: reach toward or withdraw? The ambivalence makes for a toggling to and fro; fogginess at the very least, if not a full-on freeze response. Not conducive to purposeful action.
And a child left alone with minimal response to their cries will soon conclude it is pointless to cry, pointless to reach, pointless to act. Passivity would be a realistic default.
And from a neurofeedback standpoint, the under-stimulated infant brain will fire at slower frequencies, making for perhaps a slowing or clouding of attention. This, in turn, makes for what I have perceived to be a high co-incidence of attention deficit complaints from (or about) children of neglect. And although I have not seen data yet on the correlation between attention deficits and neglect, neuroscience of trauma expert extraordinaire, Ruth Lanius, has informally agreed with the hypothesis in a couple of personal communications. So there you have it: three P’s, and not as yummy as cheese, to say the least!
I might add that a frequent accompaniment to the P’s, or a ready refrain, punctuated with a deep shrug, was “I don’t know what to do!” Or, “there’s nothing I can do!” Of course! There wasn’t! The child had no impact. And there was no one to safely ask.
The hallmark of neglect, however, the signature or flagship, curiously became clear only secondly, after the unmistakably consistent P’s: A ferocious self-reliance. In the US, with a cultural history and iconizing of “rugged individualism,” self-reliance is admired, That is probably why I, for one, did not recognize it sooner, being a beacon of at least nominal or illusory self-sufficiency most of my life. Being pack animals, humans are by nature dependent and interdependent. Attachment is a survival need, and interpersonal need is nature’s design. Neglect is the failure or absence of reliable care. A child left alone too much has nowhere to turn but inward.
Self-reliance is a defense mechanism and a survival strategy originating with pain. It may evolve to become a haven of safety and the only comfortable way to be in the world. It may also be a point of pride. Before I was 15, I had my own little housecleaning business. I rode my bike to those big houses where rich people lived and started saving up my money for college. I could not compete with the Holocaust, but I did quite well at making my own way, and I thought it was pretty great.
Self-reliance, although exquisitely adaptive, also makes havoc in the world of relationship. Satisfying relationship involves reciprocity, and if we don’t let the other give also, they may feel unequal, rejected or unsafe. Or they might also appear to take advantage, which ultimately results in messy and often terminal ruptures. It took me decades before I could keep anyone in my life for long, before I learned how unsatisfying and controlling my over-giving might feel to the other, and how disempowering of them my inability to receive could feel.
Therapy is also a challenge for both neglect survivor client and therapist. To let the therapy “work” punctures the self-reliant armor. It is no longer “doing it all myself.” Being desperate for therapy to help and change something collides with the self-reliant armor, replicating a version of the original dilemma. Oy vey.
Finally, admittedly self-reliance can inadvertently blur into a kind of self-centeredness that I call the “one-person psychology.” The survivor is so busy taking care of everything for themselves that they can appear to forget about the other. Many a partner of a child of neglect complains about feeling similarly forgotten and neglected.
These were the beginnings or the foundational elements of what I have come to call the neglect profile. There was so much more to learn. And there still is. This is a start for now, as I begin to unwind and present the inner and outer, the experienced and the observable markers. I want everyone to learn to see what is not there and recognize neglect in others and themselves. Let’s make this world “neglect informed!”
Today’s song:
In the final year or so of my dad’s long life, he did not know who I was anymore. That is not so uncommon, but it was a good thing I had done so much work on my early neglect trauma by then because it was painfully reminiscent of my childhood with him. Our visits were not much fun, to say the very least. Until we discovered that he seemed to remember the entire playlist of songs from his whole life.
Dad was always a very musical man, and although the Nazi Holocaust robbed him of his education from age twelve, when he finally got to the US and was able to work his way to being able to pay for it, he found a college that would accept him without a high school diploma. He became a cantor. In Judaism, the cantor is the musical counterpart to the rabbi. That was a fitting job for him.
I always wondered if music was Dad’s real first love, but he would not quite let himself pursue a purely musical career out of some sort of Holocaust responsibility or guilt. Regardless, however, he always sang. I can remember all kinds of songs, including a fair measure of spirituals and even popular songs. He sometimes had moonlighting gigs singing in cocktail lounges and restaurants, although he never cared much for that because the “audience” was eating or drinking and not paying much attention to him. And he loved classical music, my mother did too.
When we were a little older and moved to California, I remember my dad would buy records called “Music Minus One” (MMO.) They were the accompaniment to famous operas or Schubert’s Lieder and the like. He would blast them in the center of the house and vocalize loudly. There was no escaping his bellowing baritone without leaving the house. By then, I was an adolescent, and perhaps part of my rebellion was to reject classical music, from which I have only partially “recovered.” But I hated being displaced that way for hours on end. And although many rhapsodized about his beautiful voice, I found it another of the ways that his large presence dominated our life.
Most distasteful of all was going to his performances with the Stanford Opera Workshop and seeing him prance around, singing in tights. Oy vey. I was so embarrassed! All this is to say, music was deep in my dad’s psyche and nervous system. I even vaguely remember how intrigued and probably relieved my mother was when an old family friend who was a psychiatrist used music to calm him down or comfort him.
As my dad declined towards death, I found that we could spend our visits singing. He still remembered every word, especially of the Jewish holiday songs. We would often sing rounds, and on a good day, when my sister was able to coordinate her visit with mine, she would bring her guitar, which was formerly his guitar. Music would get a smile out of him, he seemed more alive, and the time would pass. When he was in his final hours and barely conscious, I had some time with him alone. I had already said anything I still needed to say to him. So, I sang, mostly the same song over and over, the old spiritual, Twelve Gates to the City. Somehow that seemed a fitting way to send him off. It certainly comforted and regulated me. And I was somehow sure he was hearing me.
I always have a song in my head. Although, as is common for those of us with trauma and neglect histories, I remember very little about my childhood. Even now, my narrative is spotty. But I also remember every word of countless songs. My husband is often amazed. Even the repertoire of Latin American revolutionary songs we sang 50 years ago, I can still sing pretty much word for word in Spanish. And I still love them. I have groaning shelves of old vinyl that I cannot bear to part with, even though we don’t have any device to play “LP’s” on. I am quite struck by the way music has made a home in my brain and body and has ever been a source of sustenance, comfort, and regulation. It still is, and I treasure that.
I also remember when I was young, and a whole category of emotions were either inaccessible or verboten, (mostly on the rage and anger spectrum!) my music helped me to access and, if not process, at least safely discharge some of that. I loved the angriest Rolling Stones albums, and I remember scrubbing floors on my hands and knees alone in the house, blasting my music even louder than Dad’s MMO. I am sure it helped.
I also believe that music registers, even resonates powerfully energetically in the interpersonal field, even when it is quietly contained in my busy head. It is not uncommon that when I am sitting with a neglect survivor client who often has very few words or lacks a coherent story, the song that pops up spontaneously in my head inspires the question that might unlock an upwelling or even a flood of sensory, emotional, or visual somatic memory or association. It is as if some sensibility in my brain is connecting with an age-old communication in theirs. This may sound a little “woo woo,” but I want to learn more about this. The more I learn about energy and frequencies, the less “far out” it seems.
After my brief but memorable meeting with the ingenious musician Bobby McFerrin, I was all over YouTube watching videos of him. He is uniquely able to create such a vast universe and variety of sound with only his voice and body, it is hard to fathom. I even heard him talking about how he trained himself to sing two different notes at once. Imagine being able to create harmony singlehandedly. And what a great metaphor! I discovered that Bobby currently offers workshops called Circlesongs, which are a protracted capella call and response that may extend for hours, even days. Watching a Circlesong video, I was mesmerized and quieted even by merely 54 minutes on a screen.
Recently in a book I read about frequencies, I learned that “Research has shown that the low-frequency vibrations produced by a cat’s purring can have therapeutic benefits for the cat and its owner. These vibrations can help promote the healing of soft tissue injuries in humans, including muscle strains, sprains, and other connective tissue injuries!”* Imagine the healing that might come from the unison of dozens, even hundreds of voices resounding for hours on end together, not to mention the energetic connection between participants. I hope to get in on one of those, perhaps this summer, and see what sort of healing is possible that way for this old body.
Many cultures, of course, have known this for centuries and have rituals and extended chants and ceremonies that surely have those effects. Bobby certainly does not claim to have re-invented the wheel. I have a client whose Buddhist community had group chants that would extend through the nights and for days on end. I never understood that. But I think I am beginning to. I’d like to understand much more about how music can help us grow and heal. Meanwhile, I’ll keep ending each blog with a song!
*What the Ear Hears (and Doesn’t): Inside the Extraordinary Everyday World of Frequency by Richard Mainwaring
Today’s Song:
On the 24th of April, we lost another queen. Admittedly where I was amazed and perhaps baffled by the dramatic display of emotion and attention following the death of the British monarch last September, when Tina Turner, also known as the “Queen of Rock’n Roll” died last week, the outpouring of grief around the world, made perfect sense to me. The old rolling Stones’ song, “I Know It’s Only Rock’n Roll But I Like It…” well I guess that is me in a nutshell. Turner was an icon in so many ways. She was, among her many “firsts,” perhaps the first public figure to speak openly about domestic violence, which of course had a tremendous impact on women everywhere. She was the first African American to break into the white world of rock, without following a rhythm and blues, jazz or MoTown route, and like a phoenix, she rose out of destructive flames repeatedly in her life. She was a powerhouse and an inspiration.
Tina’s trauma began long before her well known battering by first husband and musical partner, Ike Turner. She knew from the start that she was not wanted and never felt loved by her parents. They already had two children and had no intention of having another when her mother was unexpectedly pregnant again.
Born Anna Mae Bullock in a small Tennessee town where her father was a sharecropper, she picked cotton as a small child, before her parents left to relocate to another town. She and her two sisters were separated, and all sent to live with different relatives, Anna Mae staying with her cold, strictly religious paternal grandparents. When the family reunited two years later, Anna Mae witnessed her father, now clearly alcoholic, violently abusing her mother, until her mother ultimately left, abandoning the three girls. Two years later, her father remarried, and Anna Mae and her sisters were sent to live with their other, the maternal grandmother.
When she was a young teenager, one of Anna Mae’s sisters died suddenly in a car crash. Attachment shock, as psychiatrist and trauma expert Frank Corrigan so elegantly renamed the developmental trauma of attachment and loss, like hers, were her earliest experience, and the “hits” just kept on coming.
Anna Mae sang in the church choir, and from early life loved music and dance. Later as a teen she frequented music clubs, which is where she first saw and heard the musical performance of Ike Turner. She was mesmerized and immediately wanted to sing with him. Ike however, had no interest, at least at first. Somehow when Turner’s drummer’s back was turned and he had stepped away from his mic, Anna Mae grabbed it and belted along. The listening crowd was transfixed by her voice and energy. So originally unwanted by Ike, she suddenly appeared to offer some kind of “ticket” or entrée for his aspirations. Although highly talented as a musician, he lacked the magnetism and verve that this young woman displayed. So Ike took her on.
Ike right away changed Anna Mae’s first name to Tina, and her last name to Turner after marrying her. He patented the new name so she could not leave him, or if she did, she would not be able to take it. Thus, Tina Turner was “born.”
Unwanted from the start, then unwanted again, nameless and used even before being beaten, the young woman, now Tina, never intended to become intimately involved with Ike. Their first intimacy was non-consensual, but she went along. They became the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, and in spite of his ongoing infidelities and violence, she lived and worked with him for 16 years. This is perhaps where the emblematic ferocious self-reliance and survivorship that accompany early neglect, can be a mixed blessing.
It took two years more (after their initial 14 years) of Ike’s drug use and violence, and her one thankfully failed suicide attempt for Tina to finally leave Ike. She even lost a son to suicide along the way. But like the “Grey Goose” of the old spiritual, who simply would not die, in spite of unending parade of assaults, somehow, Tina’s volcanic energy and undying persistence prevailed. After some years of recovering herself which included becoming a Buddhist, with a sustaining (and I would guess regulating,) serious practice of chanting, she did the unthinkable. She made her spectacular re-entry to the music scene, becoming a solo rockstar in her 40’s. Tina performed with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stuart, Bryan Adams and more, which, if you are anywhere near my age, you would recognize as the top of the top. And she was a fireball in her own right, loved all over the globe. She said, although she was not a “superstar” like Madonna in the US, in Europe she actually was, and she later made her home there.
Tina met and married her husband Erwin Bach when she was 47. He was 30 at the time. They were close and intimate for 26 years before they finally married. She continued her progression of “firsts” becoming the first woman and the first person of color featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Mick Jagger credits her with teaching him some of his most cherished dance steps. She scored 10 Grammy Awards; and was twice, (the first time being with Ike,) inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Tina’s final decade, however, was a tragic series of serious illnesses. A massive stroke made it impossible for her to speak or walk for a time, all of which through dogged determination and hard work, she regained, although singing by then became a challenge. Thankfully she could still chant.
Next came a serious run of colon cancer, which resulted in a surgery that cost her much of her large intestine. And finally, a bout of kidney failure that nearly took her down. Although she was unafraid of death, and was prepared to go whenever her time might come, she graciously assented when her husband underwent surgery to give her one of his kidneys, which kept her going for her final years. She died at 83.
Turner was proud and grateful for her life and her accomplishments. She continued to feel a debt of gratitude toward Ike, in spite of everything. I can understand that feeling as I like her feel profound and immense admiration and gratitude for the man who most hurt me in my life. Tina similarly experienced great joy and fulfillment in her also pain racked life. Like many of us who have histories of trauma and neglect, she felt that all that adversity gave her the depth and intensity, the energy and indomitable drive, the creativity and understanding, that marked her life and her work, and contributed perhaps more than anything to her gifts to the world. I can relate to that too, if on my much smaller scale.
Tina also garnered a prestigious star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which this past week has been blanketed with a deep drift of flowers, gifts and missives of appreciation, love and grief. Tina was, as a part of her great legacy, a tribute and a testament to the indomitable power, strength and healing possible, even for the most traumatized. She was indeed “Simply the Best.”
I am sure Tina would have wished to be remembered having this much fun! And like me, she always had a crush on Mick.
Rest well Tina, you so earned it, and you will be deeply missed!
Today’s Song:
Like most of us in the U.S., this latest spate of mass shootings and particularly school shootings, has flooded me with every imaginable emotion: grief, rage, despair, fear, impotence and more. When I finally become able to think, my mind is like a jammed Los Angeles freeway cloverleaf at rush hour, with countless vehicles crammed with lives and destinations, competing, stacking up, and sometimes colliding. Invariably I get stalled. And I definitely have to carefully regulate how much news, how many personal accounts of devastated mothers, despairing teachers, and defensive officials I listen to. And I am not even a mother. Of course, no one knows what to “do”.
“One trick pony” that I am, I default back to a few fundamental perspectives. No surprise, of course, to anyone who knows me and/or my work. I remember some years ago, I read a novel – Jody Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes – about a young high school shooter. Tracking his whole life, like a well-crafted work of fiction would, it was a trail of isolation and failed relationships. His distress signals garnered no response, except perhaps discipline and ultimately dislike and ostracization, which made for more isolation, frustration and build-up of aggression. His eventual massacre was a culmination of that long build-up.
It reminds me of the process of ricotta-making: watching a large pot of whey slowly brought to a very high temperature. The heat drives the milk solids to the surface of the liquid, and they slowly thicken, thicken, thicken to a heavy white cap. After what might seem like a long time, it starts roiling and rolling until a powerful bubbling breakthrough boil punctures the cap. It bursts like a volcano or an orgasm. And then, quickly before it boils over, I turn off the heat and cover it. However, in this case, we end up with something delicious and nutritious, not a bloody mess of chaos.
I remember some years ago, I read a novel – Jody Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes – about a young high school shooter. Tracking his whole life, like a well-crafted work of fiction would, it was a trail of isolation and failed relationships.
As with many other varieties of terror and violence, the warning signs of a troubled child abound if one is mindful. Of course, in the world of neglect, no one is mindful. There might be awareness that there is a “behavioral problem” that is likely met with a punitive rather than a curious or sympathetic response or reaction. Or the child may continue to be invisible or blend in with ambient or worse chaos until perhaps it is too late.
For centuries, mental illness has been confounded with moral, social or legal non-conformity. I remember when I first started college and was captivated by early 19th Century Europe, and most notably Karl Marx, I read a book about the origins of the “asylum”, which corresponded to the Industrial Revolution and Marx’s “alienation of labor”. Life was bleak, and the family was giving way to mechanization and a kind of “efficiency” and economy that was increasingly disconnected from kinship and relatedness. What I remember as being most striking was the conflation of “mental health” with criminality, often with a measure of religion thrown in. Their institutions seemed almost indistinguishable—Oy vey. Looking at today’s world, that has not really changed much in many places. Even the designation of “behavioral health” seems to somehow cast mental illness as a “behavioral problem” or “bad behavior” rather than perhaps a medical condition or a social problem.
The most logical observer of “red flags”, of course, would be family, at least a family that is awake and minimally non-defensive, empathic and related. Understanding distress or dysregulation as cries for help might obviate the quest for comfort and affiliation in other directions, such as social withdrawal, substance use or gangs.
I have not worked in an “institution” in decades. I did a brief stint at the VA and a couple of drug programs before I was licensed, and I have not “had to” since. Patients who wind up in those places are hard to work with. The VA system was set up such that when people got “better”, it whittled down their benefits, so there was a clear disincentive to recovery. And the most severely afflicted will maybe not ever get significantly better. I was relieved to be free to work in settings where people improve or even get well. It is clearly a privilege that I (mostly) don’t take for granted.
And too, there is something very flawed about a “healthcare” system designed to intervene only when the “patient” is a danger to themselves or others. By then, it is too late.
What I remember as being most striking was the conflation of “mental health” with criminality, often with a measure of religion thrown in
In one of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, again, I read it long ago, and I don’t even remember which one, he cites controversial data stating that when abortion was legalized in 1973, the violent crime rate dropped dramatically. Gladwell linked the idea that the removal of unwanted pregnancy, and thereby unwanted children, resulted in less disenfranchisement, loneliness, and of course, dysregulation and criminal activity. It makes sense to me. Attachment trauma, loneliness, rejection, self-worth, and all the incumbent dysregulation accompanying these are at the root of the brain and body distortions that can eventually give rise to so much of the “craziness” and criminality we see.
It is hard to tease out substance use, genetics, poverty, race and huge disparities of justice, among many factors, and I do not, by any means, intend to engage in a debate about abortion or this ancient data. For me, however, it is food for thought, and being the one trick pony that I am, the primary attachment is where I always default to. I continue to believe that attention to the earliest attachment injury is likely as a place to “begin”, as we must choose how to approach and clean up this complex and tragic mess.
My heart goes out to the families of all the murdered children and adults, all the new trauma and attachment trauma that these devastating and senseless murders have wrought. Uvalde especially, where the children were so unbelievably young, is incomprehensible.
My heart breaks for the entire generation of school kids whose last two years of education were fractured by the pandemic, and now that they finally can, they may be scared to go to school. My heart is breaking. I fervently hope we can learn from experience.
For centuries, mental illness has been confounded with moral, social or legal non-conformity.
Today’s Song:
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
My course with Quantum Way is now available for registration!