The internet as we know, is a wide world of “answers!” There is a definite answer, or three, or three thousand on any topic! It is dizzying and confusing for many who are looking for “true information.” All claim to be “it!” Truth! And stated as such. I recently read the quote from some erudite author, Nabokov or James Joyce, I could not find it, that stated authoritatively “cheese is the corpse of milk!” What?!! I was offended! Cheese is quite the opposite of a corpse, more like a re-birth that both extends and gloriously enhances milk’s lifespan! It was originally discovered simultaneously by many cultures as a nutritious way to prolong milk’s longevity. Clearly, wildly different points of view. Perhaps as jarring as the assertion was the insistent way it was expressed as truth. As a cheese lover and devoted home cheese maker I categorically object! But my real point is, in a world where every imaginable self-proclaimed pundit speaks with iron clad certainty on any question, how on earth do we know what to believe?
In my work with neglect, I have learned that because the child of neglect is so alone in finding their answers, they become profoundly attached to the ones they do land on. Self-reliance makes them fierce in rejecting the input of others, and often they insist and truly believe that they are “right.” Married for over thirty years to a child of neglect who was an engineer and a scientist, I was regularly regaled with long-winded detailed didactic “explanations” on any topic. In the bad old early days of our relationship before I knew about neglect, I would become deathly tired and impatient with his being the expert on absolutely everything. I have since come to recognize that this is a signature of neglect: survival in a lonely and confusing solitary universe. As a therapist I have come to recognize that when a neglect survivor actually wants to hear what I think or what I have to say, it is a blessed sign that we are making progress. It reveals a chink in the armor, a however miniscule expression of letting me in.
One of the first things I try to teach couples where one or both is a child of neglect is to speak in subjective rather than declarative terms (stated as iron clad fact,) although, teaching anything is often a challenge. I take pretty much as given that there are very few absolutes about anything! Almost everything is subjective, is our own experience/interpretation of the world. This can be a hard sell! John Gottman the marriage researcher pointedly asks: “Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be married?!” The power struggles can be endless. In the lonely world of neglect, however, there is only one point of view. There is simply no discussion.
The “Truth”
So, what is “the Truth?” Who in the world knows? It utterly depends whom you ask, who you read or listen to, and/or “choose” to believe! Or even one’s own construction. I had a client once who was deeply involved with a religion I knew little about. She colloquially referred to her faith as “The Truth.” They truly believed they “have it,” as do many researchers of every (and competing) stripe. We have Google and Wikipedia “know-it-alls” who refer to their web surfing as “research”. When clients or loved ones defer to the internet as their go-to for medical answers when they or someone close to them has an ailment, I think, “oh no….” Much as I feel when clients or others have the last word about something that I may have been studying painstakingly for almost 50 years. Oy vey. That is today’s world.
My own workaround with this problem, is that I have a handful of people whom I trust. I trust their intellectual, professional and ethical heads enough to consult, to ask for an opinion or a reference. I never want to teach something that has no evidence basis, no scientific legs under it, and I live in the same multicolored world as you and everyone else, a cacophony of viewpoints and competing interests. For many, being “right” is tied to power, money, privilege or some other additional advantage besides the immediate gratification of intellectual acknowledgement. My small cadre of “trustees” may or may not know I exist. Some are friends some colleagues, some are noteworthy others, dead or living, who one way or another won my esteem and confidence. I turn to them, and them only. The child of neglect, at least for a good long time, flails at sea without that. There was no one to ask, no one to tell. An ironic spin on “don’t ask, don’t tell!” If only there were someone! It is nature’s design that there should have been. There is only oneself. For that child, there is no other truth. It becomes a kind of life raft. I know what I know!
Dualities
I remember when I was a child, and for a good long time, I had this odd sensation, especially when I heard the news or read something about distant places unimaginably far away. Looking at a globe of the world, or different colors and kinds of people in National Geographic Magazine, I would imagine none of it, none of them were “real.” Rather it was all background scenery, props or “extras” in the movie about me. I was all that was “real”, and all the rest was the soundtrack, backdrop and the only reality was me. Oddly, I felt very much the opposite in terms of how important I was to anyone else. I never quite figured out how to reconcile those two.
Simultaneously, and this is what I came to recognize as a signature of neglect, was an exquisite sensibility to all the nuanced shift in energy, affect, mood, attention, body language and communication of any kind, coming from important others, beginning and most importantly with the primary caregiver. This acute radar was a way both of minimizing doing something that would put one in more danger, real or imagine, or interrupt hope for likelihood of getting something “good,” or preventing something “bad”. I remember well the hyperawareness and vigilance about all the subtle or not so subtle shifts in my own mother’s energy, body language, voice or face. Like a hawk, I was poised to jump into pre-emptive service. I knew she was sensitive, even jumpy about clutter and “mess”. If I scurried around ahead of her, made sure to prevent counters or tabletops from devolving into what she called everyone’s “dumping ground”, perhaps she would be a little calmer, gentler. Perhaps she would be a little warmer toward me? Well, I could hope, I could try. And looking back I did an amazing amount of cleaning…probably more than I have ever done since.
So, it is an odd duality, one of the reliable markers of neglect, the “one person psychology,” whereby one is both hyper-attuned to the other, and a self-styled “expert” on that other, while similarly being siloed, alone, and existing in a solitary world. It can be profoundly confusing if not downright infuriating to those attempting to be in relationship with them (although admittedly and often without awareness we are the same way!) I remember being so activated and hurt by my husband’s long and detailed conversations with himself or the dog when I was right there with them. It definitely hit my invisibility nerve, until I began to understand about the loneliness of his early existence. Another of the ironies of neglect trauma. I know, I know…the healing journey seems endless.
Again, deepest apologies for the lateness of this blog. I do know that I am not so powerful that my blog not arriving on its schedule is a “big deal”. And yet, I am indelibly trained not to disappoint!
Today’s song:
