I often ponder the question, of how it can be that parents can be so oblivious or thoughtless about their children. How can this happen? I have wondered this since childhood, and like all children of trauma and neglect I had to conclude it was somehow because of me. Either it was my fault, or it was about my worthlessness, or that I simply did not really exist. I certainly could not imagine that I existed in anyone’s mind. Nor did I “deserve” to, a word I came to despise since in this world there seems little correlation between people’s goodness or worthiness, and what rewards they receive in the world. Let’s say, it was completely consonant with my view of myself, that there was no reason to remember me. Remembering this reminds me yet again, of how wondrous and transformative good therapy can be, because I can happily say, I rarely feel that way anymore. Although I can’t say I never do!
All this is to say, I have been compelled by questions of how some people can be so unthinking, so relentlessly cruel, or at the very least oblivious and thoughtless about the humanity and subjectivity of others, be they human or some other species. Especially more recently as somehow, it seems as if things might be worsening in that regard, that it is more acceptable to lie and threaten and haplessly murder and pillage, but then looking at history that is probably not really true, just my disheartened lens.
As a child I remember my father’s diatribes about what it was like for him being on the receiving end of hatred, and it was frightening and also made me feel guilty for my good fortune. My first strong compulsion was always in the direction of justice and sticking up for the “underdog” which both my parents taught us, although admittedly too much of the time I felt like one myself.
When my original life plan to make my life, (and probably death) about liberty and justice fell apart, and I got swept up in a world of dysregulation (eating disorder, alcoholism and depression), I found my way to work of healing, first through my own. I have been deeply compelled by this work with trauma and neglect for four decades, and as is often the case, I am increasingly finding my way back to earlier iterations of myself. Or perhaps it is becoming increasingly impossible to view trauma and neglect apart from the macro levels of cruelty in the larger world. This large-scale feedback loop of inequality and injustice in the larger world, harming us all in ways that our next generation resonates to our dysregulated brains and then go on to act out of dysregulation that wreaks havoc on others, on a large or small scale, and on and on. We must address both!
Years ago, I remember hearing a speaker at the Trauma Conference named James Gilligan. He was one of these amazing humans who was able to compassionately work with the most frightening of perpetrators in a maximum-security prison somewhere. I remember going home from the conference and reading his book called Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic. Published in 1997, Gilligan identified shame as being a key factor underlying impulse or the “habit,” the cool or oblivious numbness to the suffering of others. I have been trying to connect dots.
SHAME
Shame is a ready and understandable reaction to neglect trauma. For an infant, the primary caregiver(s) indeed are survival. This is not metaphor. The helpless infant relies on that other for everything: food, warmth, protection, shelter and regulation. Without those things we will die, and an infant, although they lack language and cognition, they do “know” this in their bodies and emotional experience. The loss, abandonment, rejection or simple absence of this source of everything needed to survive, is experienced first as life-threatening terror. Terror and the frantic attempt to “get them back” somehow, which often results in an exhausted collapse and freeze response. An under-stimulated brain, the result of being left alone too much, results in numbing, what I have come to call “nothing.” Because there is indeed nothing to remember. It is all about emptiness. And of course, if there is no feeling about oneself and one’s own pain, it is easy to imagine that one might be unmoved by the pain of another.
As the large scale trauma in Chile and Latin America are so much a part of my story, and I recently read a new book about long delayed fact finding about what really happened there, I attempted to find background information about the monstrous dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Not surprisingly he was the oldest of six children, born close together. The next sibling was born before he was one, and the others followed in rapid succession. His mother was described as strict and authoritarian, he attended military schools and his wife was described similarly, her parents tried to dissuade her from marrying him as they were convinced she was marrying “down,” and he was below their station.
MIRRORING
It has always irked me, that many believe, you cannot love another if you do not love yourself. As it took me years and decades to even like myself, I simply did not buy it. And attachment theory seems to be on my side. When the infant looks up into the eyes of the longed for and needed other and sees a loving and joyful reflection of “me!” that is where the positive self-regard begins to germinate. There is also a neurobiological component, where the most primitive part of the reptilian brain is stimulated. That is where the sense of self resides.
I remember in the bad old days when my husband and I first went to couple’s therapy. We finally after numerous failed attempts found a therapist who seemed to be able to help us. He practiced Imago Relationship Therapy which was what I later got trained in because it actually worked. The first step in the Imago dialog, was mirroring, where each partner had to reflect back the very words of the other. I remember how utterly dazzling it felt to have my very own words coming back to me, to be listened to that attentively. Experiencing that kind of presence was obviously a first for my famished brain. I can see how receiving it early in life, would sow the seeds of worthiness, and self, mind and heart. That is so much of what our trauma and neglect survivor clients come to us for, although it may take a while before they can take it in. That was certainly true for me.
DIGNITY
Recently I had one of those “aha moments.” I was on the receiving end of the kind of hatred that I only remember my father talking about. Blessedly and gratefully, I can say I do not experience it often these days, at least as far as I know. Suddenly in one of those powerful moments, perhaps where we channel the presence of a needed and cherished other, I heard the echo of a voice saying the words “without a self, there is no other…” I was Ruth Lanius, the renowned trauma researcher, in one of the webinars that was a lifeline to me in the early days of the COVID pandemic. Before that I was not much of a webinar person. The Pandemic came and I was glued to the screen. Spending hours in my kitchen with colleagues far and wide, alone and isolated, unable to do our work as we ordinarily did. It is in the eyes of the beloved, longed for other, that we in fact come into existence, and that stimulates those deep, reptilian brain regions where the sense of self begins, develops and grows. Without that, and without the capacity to from there feel oneself, the ability to feel, and thus to feel for another fails to emerge. There can be no empathy. In effect there can be no other. The is nothing but the persistent raw need to be seen. The raw need to be seen, is that not the seed of limitless narcissism and perhaps thus a potential for blind cruelty? In one of those vicious but blessed moments, important dots connected. “Dignity” says the Oxford English Dictionary, is the inherent, inviolable, and universal right of every human being to be valued, respected, and treated ethically, regardless of circumstances. Respect is to be earned. Dignity is our birthright, the birthright of all beings. Mirroring is a truly essential function. For therapists, for parents, for all.
Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Ramadan, a time of fasting to have more to give, and Mardi Gras! A time of Revelry. All marking a new lunar year.
Today’s Song: Caution, this video contains images that may be disturbing to some:
