As the US winds up for another presidential election, I find myself feeling exhausted and barraged by a seemingly elaborate industry of strategy and tactics, already. Even while the actual race is not for another almost nine months. It is hard to escape the unceasing updates and commentaries: it all reminds me of a sophisticated, commercial advertising/propaganda campaign, Was it always like this? Maybe I never noticed? Or maybe now that media are so lightening quick and inescapably pervasive, it is simply harder to not notice. I don’t know.
This morning in the wee hours, I heard a political commentator reporting on research showing that “optimism sells!” Wow! That is gratifying, and perhaps a bit surprising to me, although I have always found it pretty unbearable when candidates attempt to gain their ground with increasingly insulting diatribes against their opponents. And it is hard for me to imagine that the ubiquitous doomsday predictions and threats, inspire people to vote, or even to keep listening, (let alone continue to live here!). Maybe all that negativity is still to come. I hope not. In any case, I was happy to hear this. And I found myself contemplating the whole vast subject of hope.
I remember when I was quite young, certainly not yet five, my mother scolding, even nagging me: “Do you have to walk around here with that long face, moping around all day…?” Ironically, she was not the glowing picture of cheer, nor did she seem to give me a lot to smile about. I guess she thought she did, and that I certainly had it a whole lot better than she ever did, Admittedly it is true that my outlook was often bleak. I never expected to live too long, and the prospect of dying seemed perhaps heroic or redeeming.
Obviously a dark outlook is a glaring expression of depression and it is unclear, which comes first. I remember once hearing one of my friend-mentors, Imago therapist Pat Love tell the story of an upbeat and positive little boy. Surrounded by poop, he somehow still managed to have a bright outlook. Wading through the stinky mess he exclaimed “I know there is a pony around here somewhere!” Would I have had that kind of persistent optimism? Perhaps it would have helped my mom to be happier. I can joyfully say on the other side of all this recovery, I have gotten pretty darn close! I am so grateful. I am sorry my mother was not here to see or share it.
In the case of trauma and neglect of course it is important to know it is not your “fault.” I am one who avoids blame entirely if possible. For the child of neglect, the poverty of hope is most certainly not without good cause. Abandonment trauma for the tiny organism feels lethal. And when an infant repeatedly cries, and meets with echoing emptiness and no response, they will cease to cry. What is the point? Frustration, terror and ultimately collapse, despair, and defeat. The experience of that child is “I have no impact.” “I don’t know what to do!” “There is nothing I can do.” These defaults are signature markers of neglect. At the beginning of my study of neglect, I was struck by the redundancy of these familiar refrains, and the accompanying passivity, procrastination and paralysis, the “Thre P’s.” There is no apparent reason to be optimistic. There is no incentive and thus no energy for agency, or hope. And apparently biology follows suit.
I found it interesting that in studying the Penniston Protocol, the famous and well-researched a remarkably effective 1989 neurofeedback treatment for alcoholism. Researchers measured baseline levels of alpha, the brain frequency associated with a calm, relaxed, and apparently more creative states in chronic severe alcoholics, in comparison with healthy controls. They discovered that the baseline alpha levels in the control group were significantly higher. The alcoholics were able to match it after drinking four shots. A good reason to drink, which so many of our dysregulated survivors do.
Alpha or not, for the child of neglect, there is little reason to believe things will change. And I certainly never had reason to believe that anyone cared enough about me to change out of love for me. And it is hard to believe, that anything would change for the better, period. Rather, I believed if I could only make myself better, a little more bearable, do more, help more, and be less of a bother, I might minimize to some extent the damage or the burden that was my existence.
Johne Gottman the Marriage Researcher has been formally researching relationships for some four decades now and is a prized resource of mine. He has collected and continues to collect reams of longitudinal data about what makes relationships successful, and what are the predictive factors of separation and divorce. I am delighted to add that he and his both professional and life partner, Julie Gottman, will be on the playlist for this year’s Oxord Trauma Conference! Gottman’s research shows that in order to break even, not to make progress or backslide, but to stay relatively steady, the ratio of positive to negative in a partnership, must be 5:1! This means five thank yous for every grumble, five smiles for every mopey frown, five surprises for every oversight… simply to break even. And positive begets positive.
He also teaches a concept he calls “Positive Sentiment Override” – a mouthful that means, when we have a surplus of positive, some cushion in the field, the relationship is more resilient, we have a better shot at weathering the activations, the “triggers,” without as much interpersonal upheaval. So we can, in fact, effect even interpersonal change, especially if both parties in a relationship at least attempt to stay conscious. Can we be hopeful? Well probably for a long time in recovery it is a long shot. But perhaps with intention, and our dogged commitment to trauma work, we can come to believe…
I am decidedly no fan of Lance Armstrong, (although I do believe he was unjustly used as an example of bad behavior when his laurels were stripped for doing what everyone else was also doing, much like Jim Thorpe), but he was and probably still is a brilliant athlete. I must admit I find him an unsavory person, but reading his first book (written before any of the drama that got him in trouble), I found myself hating his mother much more. I don’t even remember the stories, but I remember finishing that book, and thinking “Oh, no wonder…” Perhaps I was not more fond of him, at least I gained some understanding of why he was so mean.
I do, however, continue to cite Lance as a shining example of something which I believe is exquisitely important. In 1996, he was diagnosed with metastatic testicular cancer, which had already spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain. He was 24, and his life expectancy was about 14 months. Today he is 52 years old.
When Lance very gradually began his remarkable cancer recovery, it was of course a long time before he could climb back onto his bike. When he was finally able to ride, his very first “rides” were one-quarter of one city block! That’s right, one-quarter of a block! And he went on to win the grueling, mountainous 3,405.6km, or 2,116 mile Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, between 1999 and 2005. Say what you will about the doping, I believe it can’t possibly account for his incredible strength and drive. That part notwithstanding, here is my point: Lance started with the minuscule distances that he could, and with persistence and consistency, and unrelenting determination he slowly built up from there. If we can do that, trauma, neglect or not, we have a shot at the kind of joy and peace that I never dreamed I would find. And miraculously, gradually have!
And admittedly in the case of neglect, I do believe that the most vital ingredient, certainly the most challenging, is coming to tolerate and allow an attachment with a supportive other. That requires a similar herculean effort. But when we can do that, who can imagine what the laurels may be? As my Holocaust survivor dad routinely said, “You should always go to sold-out concerts. You’ll get in.” He did that until his final breath. Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Year of the Dragon!
Today’s song:
I remember when the alcoholism field was budding and there was a bumper crop of pop literature about alcoholic families, a buzzword du jour was “denial.” Of course, this was long before social media made everything viral in a hot minute, and we didn’t even use the now everyday term “viral”, so I don’t know how things buzzed around so fast, but a little joke that went around with it, was “Denial is not a river in Egypt.” Ha ha, a play on the Nile River. We all thought we were so clever. But it was a long time before I really learned what that word meant. I alluded to it in last week’s blog, but I realized that it is worth coming back to for many reasons. Most importantly I had no idea how powerful and truly tangible denial can be until I experienced it from the inside.
I might add that I learned something similar about the overused, similarly buzzy clinical term “Narcissism.” I am decidedly opposed to diagnostic labels, seeing their value primarily for getting insurance companies, to pay. Beyond that, they tend to be insults and slurs and attempts to show off. And worse, in the case of partners diagnosing and analyzing each other, something they will never get away with on my watch. I remember once hearing Bessel say “Diagnosis is a political instrument!” And I thought, “Hear hear!” But I admit that the few times I have encountered the real thing, denial was rather like a living mule with blinders. I discovered the intransigence of a person truly incapable of empathy. I mean they could not see the point of view of another person. It was as if there was a physical block or blinder that made it impossible, truly impossible. It was hard to believe. No matter what I did or said, I could not facilitate standing in the shoes of the other, even for a nanosecond. I remember once sitting with a couple struggling with healing from infidelity. The “betraying” partner was literally incapable of imagining what it would have been like had the tables been turned. It was as if it were structurally impossible. Apart from being unmoved by the tears and devastation of the other, only perhaps guilt and confusion were achievable. I was amazed. And only once in 40-plus years have I been able to help put a dent, even facilitate healing from that disability. I remember in AA they would say “Those who cannot recover are those who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.” And although I heard those words hundreds, even thousands of times, only much later did I come to truly understand them.
My own personal experience of denial was, however, an indelible learning experience that I had to have myself to really get it, and believe it. That is what I want to tell you about because I think it is relevant and perhaps useful in our larger topics of trauma and neglect. And yes, it was about alcoholism. I told you the story of my alcoholic partner. I was in love with him like only a young, romantic, lonely child of neglect can be. I was 24 when we met, and it was one of those crazy experiences of young love that really never happened again. He was like a Greek god, and everyone thought we were siblings because we looked like a matched set. We were inseparable, and we started living together almost instantly. Drinking together was a big part of our daily home life, and it was idyllic: delicious European foods, roses, and lots of wine. He loved art and when we looked at beauty, we saw the same thing. As time went on, typically, especially when there was a lot of alcohol involved, things were not as perfect anymore. And as more time went on, and my drinking got more and more out of hand, even I was forced to look at it. As I have often said, my therapist in her infinite wisdom, knew that for a long time, the alcohol was keeping me alive. We did not yet know it was keeping my trauma at bay. But she knew that without it I had probably near lethal depression, in spite of my euphoria about my partner, the alcohol was managing that. She knew it was a symptom but also a kind of lifeline, and then she also knew when it was becoming lethal in its own right. At that point, she nudged me and then sent me to AA. Grudgingly, and also ashamedly I went. And speaking of denial, my parents insisted that “Jews do not become alcoholics” and continued offering me wine for about two years into my sobriety. Thankfully I was able to decline. I had the good fortune of getting and staying sober on my first try which I consider to be grace and a gift. I have absolutely no idea why some of us can and others simply can’t. My beloved partner turned out to be in the latter group. I have no idea why.
Not immediately, but sometime after I did, my partner got sober too. And he stayed that way for a while. Unlike me he came from a Mediterranean farm family, his father was a winemaker, and he grew up drinking wine. For his family, it was even more unacceptable and unthinkable to stop. He fell off a time or two but eventually, I thought he was solidly in recovery like I was. By then I was pretty busy. I had finished grad school and was working at the VA (US Veteran’s Administration) in a dual diagnosis unit, PTSD and substance abuse, with largely Viet Nam veterans. I was saddened and outraged to see the revolving door of that system. These guys (and all of the patients I worked with there were men,) were trapped in a cycle where if they got better, they lost part or all of their benefits, so there was no incentive to recover, even if there had been any effective modalities for treating the newly named PTSD diagnosis at the time. So, most of them stayed addicted and symptomatic and many of the very same poor souls are sleeping in doorways in Haight Ashbury, only blocks away from my home, even still.
Meanwhile, there was “trouble in paradise.” My supposedly sober ex began to stay out late at night, and I didn’t know where he was. But he would come home with the oddest cock and bull explanations of where he had been, concocting truly wild and unlikely stories. But somehow, I can scarcely imagine how I believed him. They got weirder and weirder. One night the cops brought him home. When they knocked on the door, they asked me, “Does he live here?” I said “Yes.” They said “We found him passed out in a driveway…” My ex stumbled off to bed I took him to the hospital in the morning, and he explained that he had some unlikely lung diagnosis that I don’t remember. And again, I believed it! He was such a relentless tobacco smoker, that I figured it was related to that. And in a weird inconceivable way, I had some kind of blinders on. Love perhaps? Fear? I don’t know. But the truly obvious happenings went on for months longer. And I continued, blinded by whatever, to not “see”. Until one night when he didn’t come home at all. In the morning, I got a call from the county jail, where he was locked up for drunk driving. Finally, my denial was punctured. And finally, I was able to do one of the hardest things I had ever had to do: pull the plug on the relationship with this man whom I still loved so incredibly much. But not before learning an indelible and invaluable lesson. Denial is much more than a river in Egypt. It is an undeniable and serious defense mechanism, not to be underestimated. Denial enabled me to ignore and not deal with what I most did not want to see. Until ultimately undeniable events forced the issue. This did not excuse or justify my failure, but it did somehow make sense of it. We block out what is most painful, unbearable, terrifying, shameful, and impossible to accept.
Previously I had incredulously wondered, how do you not see your 13-year-old daughter vanish to 79 pounds (36 Kg) on her five foot three (160 cm) little frame? How do parents fail to “know” other kinds of unthinkable trauma happening to their children under their very roof? Now I began to have an idea. Many of us often wonder about our own neglectful parents, how can they not see? How can they close their eyes to these cruel realities? How can they go unconscious about seeing their child’s needs for all kinds of essentials? Do they simply not care? How could my mom, and my parents turn blind eyes? Did they truly not give a darn? Or were they brittle, terrified, or paralyzed by their own trauma, guilt or shame? Or did they, like me, cluelessly love “too much?” Who can know? But perhaps it gives me a bit of comfort to have a modicum of understanding about denial.
Today’s Song:
Recently I had occasion to walk through the neighboring SF Mission District. For whatever reason, the mystery of memory, I found myself remembering a distant past I had not thought about in ages. It was 1984, I was one year clean and sober. Back then the Mission was a Mexican/Latin American ghetto. Carlos Santana went to Mission High, and one of my favorite haunts was Discolandia, a long-gone Latin Record store, and one of the few places I could find my beloved Pablo Milanes. Now the Mission is a barely recognizable tony, upscale neighborhood, where a parking space is almost as hard to find as Pablo was then. I used to walk through the neighborhood every day, from the BART subway station on the daily commute from my Berkeley apartment to my job. I worked in a small agency called Latino Family Alcohol Counseling Center. I was proud to have a job there and “in the field” especially as a young, Jewish gringa woman. But my Spanish was pretty darn good.
It was a challenging job, as most of the poor clientele were court-ordered for some reason or another, usually drunk driving, and almost exclusively men. In those days the punishments were so different, generally, some modest number of counselling sessions. Perhaps the most challenging part of my job, was that once a month I had to teach the mandatory drunk driving school, which was one full weekend, two eight-hour days, and in Spanish of course. Oy vey. Thinking back on it now, I can’t imagine how I did it. I did my best to make it interesting, lively and interactive. I don’t remember what we did. Back then there was no AV gadgetry. I had a few films I could show, I tried to create activities that the guys could do and/or do together. I don’t remember much, except that we were all doing our best to get through it. They seemed to like me, I guess it meant something to at least some of them that I had my own history and was open about it, and not punitive like their probation officers and often their wives. I also familiarized myself with Spanish language AA which I found pretty awesome in that the program seemed to extend internationally and not become corrupt in one way or another like so many things international did. The addiction field was in its infancy then. I hung in there for that year until I started graduate school. Now forty plus years sober, it all seems like a distant dream, and I am so grateful.
Although AA still has a decidedly moral tone, those of us who studied trauma and neglect understand it as a symptom. And for me, although I never bought into the higher power part, my time spent in those at the time blindingly smoke-filled rooms, was life-saving. I walked devotedly around the corner to my Berkeley Fellowship meetings twice a day: 6:00 AM and 7:00 PM. In conjunction with my then four times-a-week psychotherapy, they saved my life. Thankfully neither my drinking nor the clouds of tobacco smoke seem to have had any lasting damage on my brain that I know of. It was my good fortune and my therapist’s wisdom that got me to quit young enough. By the last of my drinking career, I was consuming a quart, roughly a litre of straight bourbon by myself every night, Old Crow, $6.95 a quart. On my small frame, how did I do it?
We now know that coming out of trauma and neglect, we do what we must to survive the pain and fear. I started out with my near-fatal eating disorder, anorexia that nearly took me down at age 13. Eating disorders were considered the “good girls’ addiction,” although I have always rather baulked at the classification of eating disorders as an addiction because it is unclear if they fit the precise scientific definition. Drinking and bicycling, however, became a ready alternative or addition, depending on the times. And they were at least more social and brought me out of my utter and certainly not unique isolation.
Thankfully the alcoholism field has advanced a lot in the last 40 years. In my early recovery time, AA was all we had, and in eating disorders sadly even less. To my mind that field is still pretty impoverished although perhaps you know more than I do. I am grateful to be I would say fully recovered, although it took a painfully long time.
Within the first four years of my sobriety, my beloved partner, who at the time I thought was the love of my life, was tragically caught in the web of alcoholism himself. I got to see up close what it looks like when someone simply cannot stay sober. We had originally gotten sober together, but he seemed never to be able to make it for long, and there was repeated deception and heartbreak, as well as my learning to my own shock and dismay, the humbling and mystifying phenomenon of denial. The incredibly obvious evidence in plain sight, I was able to somehow ignore and not see. It does help me to be perhaps more compassionate and empathic, at least sometimes, with neglectful parents who are uncannily able to not see, like my parent with my near-fatal starvation.
It took me four years to “successfully” leave that man, four years of a 10-year relationship. The child of neglect riddled with profound interpersonal ambivalence can scale the tightrope for years. And even after getting out, my grief was relentless for another five, and it took years to resolve. I guess this is my way of pitching for patience tolerance, and kindness around relationship loss, whether it be our own, or someone else’s. The important takeaway is that addictions are a symptom, a desperate attempt at regulation, or relief, however momentary.
Admittedly as a therapist, I avoid working with addictions and even eating disorders when I can, which of course is often quite impossible. I know I run short of compassion, especially when there is lying involved, which is of course there usually is, as it is one of addiction’s undeniable symptoms. Although I cannot lie to save my life, especially in my anorexic years, I was a phenomenally creative, chronic liar, and have profound shame and remorse about it now. It is no wonder that AA’s most challenging Step 8 is about making amends, which has in general, become a vitally important practice to me.
In the case of those addictive people who do slip through the cracks into my practice, it is clear that their healing from trauma and neglect is stalled by their use, much as mine was. My trauma recovery really took off when I both got sober and then left the alcoholic relationship. I have not kept pace with advances in the addiction/recovery fields, because I have known that I was not well suited for that work. I am grateful to those of you who are and for leaders like Gabor Mate Johan Hari, David Nutt, and others who I do not even know about because I have not kept up. And for those who have apparently hopelessly addicted partners, my heart goes out to you. And we are indeed powerless. My ex did stay in touch for quite a few years, and I would get long, blubbering messages on my office answering machine, usually on my birthdays or his, although I never returned the calls. I don’t know if he ever quit, or even if he is still alive.
I do not know of any good routes to recovery, other than AA. Perhaps you do. There is good research about neurofeedback; and also perhaps ironically Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) which I find intriguing but have not yet attempted. I did attend a first-level KAP training but realize I still have a long way to go. Meanwhile, I struggle with my ineptitude with the handful of clients I do have who continue to wrestle in the grips of addiction, although I am gratified when they tell me candidly what is really going on. My suspicion is not always as gentle as I would like. Remembering that this tragic symptom is another essential reminder of how important it is to break the intergenerational chains of trauma and neglect, is the best route that I know. However clearly, it is not enough. As AA exquisitely reminds us, it is one day at a time.
Today’s Song:
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:
I have a very hard time putting the macro level of trauma and neglect out of my mind for long. As the poem says (and I am to be sure no poetry person!) “-the world is too much with us.” Certainly true for me. Scarcely a day passes when I don’t strongly feel and proclaim loudly to my husband, “Thank god we live indoors!” Especially in these dark, wet and cold months. I am an admitted sun worshipper and have little tolerance for cold. After a protracted drought in the San Francisco Bay Area USA, rain has returned, and our prolific and notorious unhoused population appears more motley and godforsaken even than usual. I drive past one wind whipped tent city under the freeway on my way home from my Oakland office. The City of San Francisco where I live, has failed miserably at finding viable solutions, not only for the housing problem, but also for the intermingled mental health and substance disorder problems. So, we live with them, lapsing in and out of remembering and forgetting, much like all the other varieties of trauma and neglect, occasionally forced to see and feel.
I was pondering my end of the year blog as I drove to Oakland, the other morning. It was a truly dark morning, pouring rain. And for me, who has little to no tolerance for cold, it was icy. I am also a lousy rain driver, so I drive like the old lady that I am, in inclement weather. So I was concentrating on driving, and also brainstorming about the blog, when I somewhat absently arrived at the office, hurrying to get in, out of the weather. Walking up the stairs I was uncharacteristically met by newspaper billowing around, and when I reached the top of the stairs, I was started “awake” to find a very large man sleeping right smack in front of our office door, huddled under the awning to be out of the rain. I rather jumped back. What was I going to do? The rain pelting down, how would I get in?
I took a breath, and very gingerly said to the sleeping man, “excuse me…” He half opened his most likely drug loaded eyes, “Could I please get around you to open the door?” I was scared, but super solicitous and cautious, not knowing what sort of person with what sort of diagnosis he might be. He sleepily scooted aside, I stepped around him, shakily unlocked the door and slipped inside, hurriedly shutting it behind me. I got safely in and he rolled over and promptly returned to is slumber. Once safely inside, the outside locked door, and my double doored locked office, I sat down. I imagined I was safe now, but what do I do?
I certainly did not want my clients to arrive and find a sleeping, not too clean unhoused person blocking their entry to their psychotherapy session. So what do I do? Do I call the police? The Oakland Police. I did not have the heart to call them. What would the Oakland Police do with/to a poor African-American homeless guy, withdrawing from god knows which drug, very likely toting some psychiatric diagnosis or other? I shuddered to think? I imagined there are non-police homeless services that provide help that does not involve the law or criminal justice system. I simply did not know what they were. As I began to calm down, I settled on texting the landlord. And then calling my husband, so I did both, ang got some tea water going, filled with feelings.
I stayed barricaded in my office, as if there was anything he could do to me, all the while aware of how cold and wet it was out there. The poor guy did not even seem to have any “stuff.” I saw a pair of shoes, a mostly eaten bag of chips, and newspaper. I thought I should see if I had any food to give him? Money? But I did not want to go out there, and certainly did not want to encourage him or make him feel welcome. And to be honest, I did not even want to venture out of my safe four walls and see if he was still there.
A flashbulb memory intruded, I was maybe 22 and traveling in Latin America by myself. I was in a hot dusty desert town, having bought some sort of street food to eat. I was sitting on a stump in my reverie, eating my picturesque lunch. A small band of maybe six little girls appeared. They were dirt poor, dressed in rags and skinny. They began circling around me. I knew they were trying to figure out how to rob this “rich white lady,” even though I was a young activist “kid,” myself traveling in rustic youth hostel style. To them I was the rich American, they might as well have happened on Elon Musk. Back then I was torn by the same feelings as now. On one hand my heart was breaking for them, and I was deeply troubled by the way they must live, by the circumstances of this crazy world. And on the other, I was scared for my own safety, and somewhat “spooked.” I felt guilty, and also reflected on how did it happen that I was born into the life and world that I was born into, and they theirs? So often I had bemoaned my victimhood or loneliness and wondered “what about me?” Now it was what about them? I found a way to steal myself away from there. I don’t remember. But I do remember that feeling, and how it finished me from wanting to travel in the Third World” anymore. It was no longer fun or adventurous for me. I would find other ways to help. I simply could not bear feeling torn apart like that, the same way I felt now in the privilege of my safe and cozy Oakland office.
After about an hour the landlord texted me back. He said he would be right over. By the time my first client arrived, the doorway was clear and cleaned up. There were a few firefighters milling around the parking lot and security people in neon rain gear looking rather busy doing who knows what? I learned later, that the man had meanwhile relocated to a a neighboring doorway and begun to start a fire, but not before relieving himself, over there thankfully. Again, I felt guilty about my self-concern, and perhaps again haunted by the polarity of “me against him?”
It is an age-old duality, a timeless koan of relationship, certainly of trauma and neglect. Why me? What about me? It is all my fault… The mystery of who gets what and how the suffering is doled out in this world, and the joy I always in that signature neglect/self -reliant way, felt unable to turn away from the suffering of anyone, even those who hurt me the most, and felt the quaking conflict of feelings, the “me or you?” So many with haunting stories (or absence of stories) of trauma and neglect, wrangle with long, hard residual feelings: “They did the best they could…” Certainly in my case, my parents’ trauma, even the little that I knew of their dramatic pasts, were so wounded and scarred by their own lot. How could I complain, hold it against them? They didn’t do the work that I did, they did not have the advantage of being able to do the work, that I have had. One of the tangled and challenging tasks of our healing. I still have not resolved it.
The world seems plagued with these dualities, probably no more now than throughout history, but who knows? It is the “bottom of the year,” at least in our hemisphere, to me dark and cold here, but certainly not nearly as much as in many other places. And I have the joyous privilege of being able to flee to warm and peaceful climes, and rest! I hate to leave you with such heavy musings as we are all struggling with the mandate to be merry and bright. As ever, we must strive to manage both.
Wishing you the best of the season. Thank you for sharing the journey with me throughout this very full year.
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