Warning: this blog contains some graphic descriptions of violence, only right at the beginning should some readers prefer to skip over it.
When I sat down to contemplate this week’s blog, my reverie was interrupted by a familiar and much-beloved voice, one of the comforting soundtracks behind some truly hard times in my life. It was the song of Victor Jara, the famed Chilean singer who was brutally murdered in the bloodbath of the military coup in his country, now fifty years ago, it was on “another” historic September 11th. The hideous story of Victor’s death is still seared into my memory for its sheer sadistic horror and cruelty.
Jara was a popular, pioneering leader in the then New Latin American Song movement, which combined social justice and left-leaning political messages with folk and traditional indigenous instruments and vocal style. It is also simply beautiful. I loved it and still do, and that music was a steadfast companion to me through many lonely years. Often it was Victor’s gentle voice that sang me to sleep. I still have the bulging collection of vinyl LPs, which I cannot bear to throw away even though we don’t even have a device to play them on. Victor was one of the first.
After the original shock of the military junta seizing power and the immediate death of democratically elected President Salvador Allende, the Chilean military began rounding up “dissidents” in droves. One of the temporary makeshift detention centers and torture chambers was the National Sports Stadium. Jara was one of the thousands railroaded and imprisoned there. Confined but not silenced, Victor did what he was most inclined to do, so the story goes; he sang. Of course, that antagonized the “milicos,” the soldiers more. One soldier then “retaliated” by breaking his hands, and when that failed to silence him, he went for Victor’s skull. Finally, the soldier shot him 44 times. Victor still has not been silenced. Years later the national stadium was renamed in his honor. Victor’s widow Joan proclaimed she would spend the rest of her life seeking “seeking justice for her husband and the thousands of others killed or ‘disappeared’ by Pinochet’s regime. She died in November of 2023, one month ago, at the age of 96. So, she was no longer around to receive this news.
Now some 50 years later, Victor’s two daughters, beautiful little girls at the time, must be nearly my age. The news that burst in on my peaceful morning bringing this flood of thoughts and memories, was that Victor’s killer was recently expelled from this country, the US, where he has been living for some time.
The retired Chilean lieutenant was arrested in an operation carried out by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on October 5 in Deltona, Florida. He had previously been stripped of his U.S. citizenship on July 14 for lying on immigration forms. According to the press release announcing his arrest he was to be returned to Chile to face charges for “his involvement in torture and extrajudicial killings during the aftermath of a military coup in 1973.” (Quoted from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website)
So, what does all this have to do with trauma and neglect? Well, everything really. Not only because Victor helped get me through some of the worst of mine. Each day I am reminded that there is no way to address the profound injuries of trauma and neglect, without attending to the larger world. So much unbearable trauma going on out there these days. We must all be mindful to regulate our news consumption carefully, to not be swamped by it all, as more orphaned, attachment-traumatized children, attachment trauma of every ilk; war trauma, natural disaster trauma, every other kind of trauma fills the airwaves of the world.
And this also brought again to mind the complex questions of accountability, reparation and repair. I remember when I was quite young, learning the big word “restitution.” when my parents started getting small checks from Germany, the German government’s meagre attempt to compensate for, if certainly not right the heinous wrongs committed by the Nazis. The payments were a pittance, but we needed the money, and it did seem my parents were on some level gratified, at least my mom was. She was the more Pacifist leaning of the two, our dad being the much angrier. I never did find out how much they were, or when they stopped coming. How does one begin to make up for crimes against humanity? But I ask myself, how do we begin to think about forgiveness and repair when it is about evil on a grand scale? Such huge and essential questions. And how do we make peace with terrible wrongdoings and morals in jury large and small?
In the US, there is currently a national conversation going on about reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans, then descendants of victims of Jim Crow discrimination and terror, and all the sequelae including generations being blocked from owning land to farm and make homes and have something to bequeath subsequent generations. “Roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea of reparations”, according to 2021 polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Even economically they have never recovered, let alone all the other ways. After now a century and a half, African Americans are far from “catching up,” and emerging from the many-faceted setback. And how do we really begin to make up for that? There are complex issues about affirmative action, diversity hiring, and measures to correct imbalances in numbers in workplaces and educational institutions. What constitutes just corrections of past crimes, and who pays?
I have known numbers of survivors of traumatic childhoods who were repelled and proudly refused to receive/accept inheritances from abusive parents, thinking of it as “blood money,” not wanting either to need or dignify it. Some of them could have in fact, really used it. And I do understand perhaps wanting to cut ties with a terrible history. It is rather similar to when Somehow no one seems to want to buy a house where something terrible happened as if horror intractably and permanently permeates the walls, ceilings and carpets.
I do however take some solace and view some value in gestures of reconciliation. When I have made mistakes, thankfully none as large and dramatic as the ones we are speaking about, the effort and the opportunity to do something to in the service of healing, is a comfort, and hopefully not only to me. Jim Thorpe the historic First Nation athlete stripped of his Olympic world records and prizes did not live long enough to see the medals and trophies restored. Even though the way his life was irrevocably altered by the gross injustice of how they were stripped from him, it may have been some consolation nonetheless. The same is true for Joan Jara.
Recently I have been steeped in thought about how to respond to, how to address, face and emerge from terrible wrongs that I may have wittingly or unwittingly committed. As a child of neglect always striving to be visible, to be “this enough” or “that enough”, I always viewed myself or worked hard to be a “good girl.” Similarly, I thought of myself perennially as a victim, at least for many, many years. We all do shadowy things sometimes, great and small. Thankfully none of mine have been too great, but I hate to look at them at all. The Twelve Step Program insists that we make an accounting. If we admit and amend, our recovery requires it. And it may demonstrate that we are at least in the process of learning to do better.
I remember when some years after the fact, I had a long-delayed flashback revealing that the most serious bicycle accident of my life, which resulted in a concussion, loss of consciousness and a night in intensive care with a brain bleed, had in fact involved a car. It was hit and run. It chilled me to realize that. And how many abuses, and childhoods of lethal neglect go unaccounted for. Where I can see the impulse to flee and avoid looking straight at what any of us is capable of, I work hard to ensure I will never do that. I continue to strive to be all about repair, however challenging and complicated.
It was challenging to choose just one Victor Jara song to be today’s song. I invite you to visit his archives of beautiful music and lyrics. This one, Manifesto, says in part:
que el canto tiene sentido
cuando palpita en las venas
del que morirá cantando
las verdades verdaderas,
This song has feeling
When it pulses in the vein
Of he who will die singing
The truest truths.
Thanks, Victor!
This week’s song:
In my busy rock and roll head, songs pop up constantly, often in reaction to something I hear or read. This is no surprise to people who know me, and who are accustomed to my breaking into song inspired by an intruding spark of spontaneous association. Recently I was perusing my groaning, growing pile of books in the cue to be read. Oh, how I wish I could read faster! I cannot begin to keep up with the bounteous wealth of really good stuff that comes along every day, (and a measure of not so good stuff too, that I feel I should at least familiarize myself with, to know something of what is going on out there.) I happened on the unread book I ordered months back written by former US surgeon general, Vivek H. Murthy. Murthy who was appointed by President Obama served only a brief two-year tenure as the nation’s supreme medical authority, before he was dismissed by the Trump administration. His strong stance in favor of childhood vaccination, along with his identifying gun violence as a major public health issue, apparently drew an unsupportable amount of heat.
His book entitled Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes -Lonely World (Harper 2020) is about his assertion that there is an “epidemic of loneliness” in this country. My reaction to that was the fifth-grade exclamation “duh!!” and then I was visited by the exquisitely accurate and far superior words, from the old Bob Dylan song, where Bob eloquently croons, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…”
Certainly, the world of trauma and neglect, most often characterized by one or another variety of attachment trauma, is a vast desert of loneliness, and for many, it is that and the great challenge of relationship that drives them (and/or us) to seek therapy. Trauma and neglect are lonely worlds. And in addition, there are many other varieties of despair and isolation. I heard one report that the Silicon Valley town of Palo Alto, a hub of technological innovation and immense wealth, is peppered with numerous railway crossings throughout town. At each crossing, a security guard is posted poised to prevent people from jumping in front of the trains. Suicide is that great of a danger.
Researchers report that at greatest risk for suicide (but certainly not exclusively,) are men, and even greater- older men. They have identified five factors that heighten suicide risk, the “Five ‘D’s:’ “Depression, Disability, Disconnection, Disease and “Deathly Means,” which primarily refers to access to firearms. Disconnection is of course endemic to trauma and neglect as we know, with many of the others following close behind. We have reason to be vigilant for them all.
Especially during the winter holiday season, where the culture here is swept up in a blizzard of commotion and pressure: pressure to spend money on “stuff,” get together in idyllic Norman Rockwell scenes of loving family, abundant and wonderful food, and drink and lots of “fun,” many of us, probably most of us, are ashamedly unable to fulfill the script. Being Jewish and also immigrants I always felt particularly (and ashamedly) ill equipped to navigate the season. Channukah often roughly coincided in time with the Christmas holiday. And where the Christian kids perhaps jealously imagined we got 8 presents, one each night, that certainly was not true in our family. For me gifts, at least being on the receiving end, were generally a disappointing ordeal. I would look forward to some sort of show or evidence of affection, “worth” or specialness, often with a big build-up and hope. It was the one time of the year, apart from our birthdays, that we might hope to get something that we did not “need.” Maybe something impractical or even vaguely extravagant. Somehow, I wound up feeling as unworthy, worthless or unknown as ever, so I made it my project to be a great giver of gifts, trying to create the experience I longed for, in the other. In general, they were rarely happy days.
When I got a little older it was a great relief and escape to have restaurant or catering jobs, that were super busy and often lucrative too. It was admittedly kind of fun to work that hard, and I felt I was getting away with something in fleeing the seemingly impossible mandate. And at least customers were generous on the holidays, appreciating that we were willing to work on holidays, not knowing what a blessed escape it in fact was.
As I got older and later partnered, I/we began to explore for ways to cope with and even enjoy this season and put our own stamp on the holidays. To find what is festive, meaningful and “ego syntonic” (a psychobabble or fancy way of saying in keeping with our own inclinations and values,) for observing the winter holiday season. We discovered destinations that were free of the dreaded consumerism and congestion, religiosity or simple cultural “coercion” to celebrate in particular ways. We made several visits to Cuba at holiday time, and there was little evidence there of anything outside of ordinarily quotidian life. When the pandemic interrupted traveling far, I found that having more time to write, that being a way to both relax and reflect on the change of both season and year, to move forward into the next cycle, became a delightful and for me celebratory new ritual.
When I looked up the Dylan song where the weatherman quote originated, Subterranean Homesick Blues, I found another exquisite phrase:
Get sick, get well,
Hang around the inkwell…
I thought, yes! There is at least one of my holiday rituals, the luxury of time to “hang around the inkwell.” (I do miss handwriting although admittedly as I age, and can barely read my own handwriting, the digital ink cartridge has become a blessing.) We also discovered that Hawaii is a great escape from the holiday atmosphere we dislike on the mainland, so that has become our go-to. We discovered that besides the quiet tasteful tree in the hotel lobby, and the post office being closed, there is little evidence that these dates are different. The warm tropical breeze, and peaceful atmosphere is a balm, and my idea of the perfect gift for me. And admittedly I do enjoy the excuse of special baking and cheesemaking before we go.
I hope you can go gently with finding your own way. I know the pressure of these days can be a hotbed for shame and increased loneliness for many. Wishing the very best for the season to you!
Today’s song:
Back when I was in grade school, English class, or classes centered on writing, spelling and literature, were lumped together under the umbrella title of “Language Arts.” What an odd and interesting term. I looked up the Oxford definition and found “the study of grammar, composition, spelling, and (sometimes) public speaking, typically taught as a single subject in elementary and middle school.” Interesting to me that the subcategory was “arts.”
In those days the prevailing myth assumed that girls were more likely to excel in these arts and were dumb in science and math. I certainly swallowed that belief, and real or imagined, always struggled with what are now known as “STIM” subjects: science, math and now tech. Even when truly inspired, motivated and curious, say about the brain in trauma, they have never been easy for me.
When I first started learning about the brain aberrations in-memory processing occurring in trauma, I would listen to the lectures, in those days, cassette tapes, over and over again, until they finally stuck. Perhaps that is why I take such pains and derive such pleasure in finding language that is accessible to explain these things, art or not. And I admit I am a stickler about words. There are some words that I have very intentionally torn out of my personal dictionary, for one reason or another, and I make wide, sometimes irrational detours not to use them. I am a nag about insisting that my couples define their terms! so they speak the same language. And I am sometimes baffled by how suddenly a “new” expression or turn of phrase is on everyone’s redundant lips. How does this happen? Why is everyone suddenly saying “pivot” or “guard rails” or “double down?” Oy vey.
Admittedly I am a lover of words, a self-proclaimed wordsmith with my own private lexicon of faves, and gnawing dissatisfaction when finding the English language impoverished, and I simply cannot locate a satisfactory word for something I might be trying to express. Especially something profoundly important to me like Neglect. Neglect is one of those words that does not really “work.” For most people, it conjures images of the extreme: an absence of food, water, shelter physical safety- all of which while not being untrue, many of us thankfully cannot identify with. Even the more typical “latchkey” kids, who were pitched into self-care, meal preparation and childcare for younger siblings, may view theirs as being a safe and even abundant upbringing, especially if it was a household of privilege and plenty in material ways.
And neglect being a verb, connotes action. However, the trauma of neglect is primarily a story of inaction, of failures to act in essential ways. Survivors insist “nothing happened to me!” And they are right! That is the problem, the myriad of essential developmental experiences that are not delivered, that do not happen. In my quest to find a better word, I continue to come up empty. All I can think of is nothing.
There are a number of reasons why I find the word triggers terribly wanting. Besides the reasons I have most readily given, which is that I hate the association to gun violence. That is true, however perhaps even worse is that the word has come to be batted around so loosely that its very precise meaning has been largely lost if not at least badly muddled. People seem to lump all sorts of emotional upsets under that label, and it often sounds like an accusation.
To be precise, in the moment of trauma, the right amygdala is reset as an alarm system, fiercely poised to protect the brain and body from ever going through the traumatic event again. Any stimulus even vaguely reminiscent of the original trauma can trip the system, and activate the full-on fight-flight/freeze response, as if the dreaded experience is happening again right now. It becomes another emergency. The activated or restimulated person will demonstrate what appears to the outside world to be disproportional or dramatic “over-reactions” to what in real time may seem to the outsider as “no big deal.” In real-time it probably isn’t a big deal, So the correct use of the term triggered (if you must,) would be this sort of activation, which is actually the word I prefer. However, the reaction itself is no easier to deal with if we call it something else. How I wish it were otherwise! For now, suffice it to say, if you are angry or hurt or frustrated, or your child or partner is, let’s call it that. The too-big reaction is probably an uninvited visit from past trauma.
A complicated word worthy of its own whole book, of which there are many. For now, I will say one of the complicating factors about this word can be confusing, in that it has two distinct, related and exquisitely accurate and relevant meanings. The first is associated with a spacy, blur of attention and failure of presence. It often coexists with neglect, as the infant brain is under-stimulated from the absence of a parent brain to resonate with and develop with. There is a wide range of dissociative tendencies out to some extremes of dissociative disorders where individuals might lose awareness and fail to track chunks of time.
The other important meaning refers to a fractured self or spits in the self. As the IFS people reassure us, we all have various parts that work together and serve different functions or aspects of the self. And dissociation can refer to more dissonant or conflicted splits, aspects that perhaps contradict or wrestle with each other. Neglect survivors suffer from a number of these tensions, many of which I have written at length and surely will again: the dilemma without solution, where they/we might long for and be terrified of the same person; the Bermuda Triangle which is being plagued by the internal shipwreck between anger, grief and guilt, again all in the direction of the same person. Ironic how one definition of dissociation correlates to an absence or hazing out of emotion; while the other is an explosive storm of too many. All the more reason to watch our p’s and q’s, and speak with precision. Always a worthy goal. Sometimes I do think the world would be much better if we took the time to both express and understand what is earnestly being said.
As I close today, I’d like to pause a moment to honor the memory of Rosalyn Carter who passed on November 19th at the age of 96. Ms Carter was the US First Lady during the presidency of her husband, Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981. Carter seems to be one of the less remembered of US presidents, possibly because he was followed and somewhat washed over by the more dramatic (and perhaps traumatic) reign of Ronald Reagan. To me, however, Carter has always been remembered as a highly regarded good guy, because he championed human rights at a time when they were the centrepiece of my life, and little discussed in the larger world. Carter put human rights on the map, and in the daily national vocabulary. And Rosalyn accompanied him in not only that mission but also one more of her own. Besides being a devout feminist, she took up the unpopular gauntlet of mental health, making it her mission to both destigmatize it and make mental health treatment more humane and more accessible. She fought for mental health parity with the rest of healthcare, a work in progress even still. She was big-hearted, enlightened, and forward-thinking. As we continue her legacy, I thank her. Rest in peace, Rosalyn. And for myself, besides continuing her mission, well perhaps a language artist is the brand of artist I will always strive to be.
I’m still working through the hefty tome of Jim Thorpe’s biography. It is so much more than an athlete’s personal story. It is an education about the Native people in the US, so missing from my public-school history curricula. I do hope that has improved in the many decades since I sat through grade school. I knew a little something about the residential schools that Indian kids were forcibly railroaded into, whose design was in effect to “whitewash,” them, to remove them from family and community and train culture, ritual, tradition, ethnic identity and pride out of them, making them into eligible candidates for citizenship in a land that had always been theirs. Young Jim’s school years were bleak, punctuated by the death of his beloved twin brother when he was nine. A whole generation of attachment trauma and neglect was but one of the many devastating impacts of the residential schools, not to mention the physical abuse that was routine.
Thorpe was not the only extraordinarily gifted Native athlete. There were many. And the extensive story of exploitation of young athletes was news to me. I have long heard of Pop Warner as the umbrella football counterpart to Little League Baseball in the US. I had no idea that Pop was a real person who coached at Carlisle, the Indian school the Thorpe kids attended. He was much more than a coach, and was later a self-interested accomplice in Jim’s being stripped of his Olympic medals.
Apparently collegiate sports were a money maker for schools and colleges. The money of course not going to the players. And although young Jim got launched not only in track but in baseball, football and even basketball, a lot of white middlemen profited along the way off of the backs of Jim and others. The story is bitter-sweet, to say the least.
And Jim’s lifelong travails with alcohol were similarly not unique. Where Europeans had a millennia long experience and tolerance for alcohol with Italy and France having some of the lowest rates of alcoholism in the world, Native people were quite the opposite. “Fire water” was new to them, introduced by the white colonial settlers. So where they had plenty of and increasing pain to medicate away, their organisms were not accustomed, and rates of alcoholism soared disproportionally, and contributed to both tragedy and stereotypes.
All of these images jade my vision as we approach the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday here next week, a mythical celebration of peace, white and Native friendship and harmony. Oy vey. The happy scenes of pilgrims and Indians rather turn my stomach.
My agony with eating disorders began early, so of course Thanksgiving was always a dreaded nightmare. It is the great American eating holiday, as far as I was always concerned, a festival of what seemed like gluttony to me, an abundance of foods that I did not even like under any circumstances. And the day was so food centric that it was pretty hard to escape the watchful eyes of my parents. I found it ironic that although I was somehow invisible in my slowly wasting away in plain sight, into a 79 pound (5.6 stone) skeleton, what I ate or did not eat was scrutinized with eagle eyes. At the Thanksgiving table I felt like a trapped prey animal. And not being a football family of course, we were all pretty much glued around the table until it was finally over.
Like many immigrants our family’s relationship to American holidays was ambivalent. They were clearly not ours, but there was such a societal expectation to do something in the way of the national ritual. When I got to about 9, we moved back to California again. There we had a distant cousin who had an American wife, Aunt Selma. Aunt Selma cooked turkey and sweet potatoes, and made pumpkin pies: all things completely alien to us. I don’t remember anything but the feelings: dread, nauseous anxiety and a desperate wish to flee.
I had the good fortune to partner with someone who did not have strong feelings about Thanksgiving. He has never been attached to observing the holiday in a particular or traditional way. We enjoy a day off, with whatever menu we might desire. I have, however, always loved the day after Thanksgiving, which in this country has evolved into black Friday, the great American shopping holiday. We chose that day to get married in 1993. It is a semi-holiday, everything is open ad most people are off. Seemed like a good day. I do look forward to it, although the date changes from year to year. That is a day when it is easy for me to feel blessed, and grateful.
The gratitude part of Thanksgiving is often lost in the eating and consumerism. And gratitude is infinitely important to me, not only on this but on every day of the year. So often in the household of trauma and neglect, where being seen and known are sorely and tragically missing experiences, there is a gnawing poverty of acknowledgement, let alone appreciation. In my work with couples and parents, everyone really, including myself, I try to instill and install appreciation as ritual and a staple of daily life, like air and water and food. I take pleasure in acknowledging and thanking the often invisible, customer service, tech support and delivery people, that often slip unappreciated into taken for granted oblivion. Written reviews and cash are of course generally well appreciated, but even the often-missing experience of simple notice, has great meaning.
I know for myself, with my age-old expectation of being invisible, unheard, overlooked, forgotten, I would find it dazzling to be remembered, tracked and even appreciated. It is worth having a day devoted to that, although the gratitude is often somehow left out of Thanksgiving tradition. I always say, I don’t need a special day for it, but I am also all for including it in a day that is nominally about being thankful.
For those observing the Thanksgiving holiday, I wish you true interpersonal harmony. Let us remember and honor the people whose precious land this was. Let us remember and appreciate those who grow and harvest this food, whatever it is we choose to eat, and of course those who prepare and cook it. And let us strive for peace in homes and families, and in the streets, and in this painfully troubled world of ours. Happy Thanksgiving.
Today’s song:
The other morning, I learned a new word. I was elbow-deep in bagel dough in the wee hours. Admittedly I love those awesomely silent insomniac hours when everyone in their right mind is asleep. I do end up sleep-deprived, which I constantly struggle to regulate. But the night sky through our kitchen skylight and the gentle quiet is blessedly peaceful, and some of my most creative moments come out of the dark embrace of the night. And some of the best public radio programs aired at those times. This time, I caught an interview with Roxanne Gay.
Gay is a most exquisite writer. I have only read one of her books, but I aspire to get to the others. The one I did read is called Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Harper 2017) where she tells the story of being gang raped as an adolescent, and then proceeding into wildly disordered eating that gradually rocketed to a weight of over 500 pounds (36 stone.) She describes her life as a traumatized, sexually non-conforming, of color woman, navigating a fat-phobic world of that size. It is brilliant writing. The new word I learned from her on this particular morning, was “gerontocracy.” The Oxford definition is “a state, society, or group governed by old people.” Which of course got me thinking.
Only weeks ago, a California senator, Dianne Feinstein, died at age 90. She was the oldest ever sitting US senator. But there was controversy about her staying in office as long as she did, as many believed she was failing in various ways. I did not get involved in that argument, because I always had a special fondness for Dianne. She was the unlucky individual who discovered the freshly-murdered body of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in San Francisco, as well as the then mayor, George Moscone. She handled that trauma with such grace and guts, as she also did, in taking over the helm of SF as mayor for a number of years. Dianne had a long wick with me.
Similarly, another much highly esteemed older woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, beloved US Supreme Court Justice, stayed seated too long. So, as I thought about gerontocracy, as well as the fact that most of the candidates in the upcoming US presidential and other important elections are getting up there. But hey, so is Mick Jagger. And I’m not 19 anymore either. What does it mean?
I often wonder, how does one know when it is time to step aside and make way for a new generation? Surely it is a moment of grief, a process of loss to face that one’s star is beginning to set. I always admire athletes who have the humility and the realism to recognize that their moment has passed. Local football legend Jerry Rice, one of my iconic heroes (although I am certainly no fan of his sport,) knew he did not want to end his brilliant career on the bench. Joan Baez could hear and feel when her voice and throat were getting scratchy, and when maybe it was time to express her creativity through paint and prose. Many rock groups have repeatedly announced their “farewell” tours, only to be followed by a comeback or perhaps sheepish re-incarnation of some kind. I know in my world, although I am not quite a veteran, I am now in the perhaps in-between category of not quite veteran, but perhaps seasoned practitioner, who has something to teach and pass on, but has a task to encourage and help launch the next wave of trauma study and practice. And admittedly I am happy and excited to see fresh young minds brimming with curiosity, stepping up to the fore.
Too there is something perhaps anachronistic, not to mention even stingy about clinging to one’s old stature even when it is clearly on the decline, perhaps denial or refusal to see, fear of change, inability to face the inevitability of loss, mortality? In her provocative book Elderhood, gerontologist Louise Aaronson describes the neglect of the whole category of ageing, certainly in the North American healthcare system, and in our culture. She comments that we acknowledge two stages of life: childhood and adulthood. However now, at least in many first-world countries, adulthood might span 60-80 years or more. We warehouse the elderly, try to forget about them and forget that it will happen to us. Another whole population of neglect whose existence is somehow ignored, overlooked, forgotten. These years are certainly not monochromatic, not uniform to be able to generalize about developmentally, they are perhaps as diverse as any variations of development and growing up.
It was a short hop from this to another tributary of thought: what does all this have to do with intergenerational transmission in general, and specifically the intergenerational transmission of trauma and neglect, which is probably almost always on my mind.
As we know the nature of unresolved trauma is to re-enact it. Unwittingly through behavior and symptoms we might continue and repeat abhorrent patterns, only to realize with horror, ”-oh my god! I am turning into my mother!” or talking to myself as she talked to me. And what does it mean to have a government by the aged? Will we be doomed to keep on recycling the same “nasty, brutish and short” stories? How can we do better?
I am all for reverence, honor and value for the sage wisdom of age and experience. Staying mindful to appreciate, remember and dignify history and historical figures across diverse spectrums, including those overlooked, mistreated or forgotten by history only makes sense to me. Staying cognizant and awake, resisting the urge to avoid or flee questions of mortality- our own and that of those we love, takes courage, awareness and humility, which are in fact the opposite of neglect.
Neglect is generally, blind oblivion, failure of consciousness. It is generally the exception that it be purposeful and intentional with-holding of attention, consideration or thought. Staying mindful, awake, conscious and committed to healing both the injuries and mistakes is probably our best insurance against the blind and static doom to repeat them. That is my best hope.
So on an always related theme, how do we know when the cheese is ready? When it has aged enough and is at its best? Good question! Sometimes the recipe gives us the ballpark, or a range of 4-8 months. Sometimes the aroma rising through the wax is too seductive to wait any longer, or there is nothing else even close. I used to think more was always better, about everything really. I strive to overcome that, in the probably lifelong quest for regulation! There is no simple formula. Perhaps the best recipe for living is to honor and respect ancestry, learn from experience, grow with the times, and stay mindful.
Today’s song:
I remember the first book about anorexia I ever found in my desperate search for help. It was called Addiction to Perfection. It was useless like everything else, but it was slim pickings in those days (no pun intended of course!) It did get me thinking, however, about my perfectionism, not only about my body but about everything really. What is that? Where does that kind of arrogance, grandiosity, and delusion come from? In AA, they used to call it “an insult to god.”
Like many a child of neglect, I had many questions about my existence. I was convinced that I was truly out of sight/out of mind. That if I were not in someone’s direct line of vision, poof, I instantly disappeared ghostlike from their world, imminently forgettable. Once, when our 9th grade AP English class was going to the theatre for a field trip, I thought we were going to see Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. It was an event, an evening outing we were all excited about. Our teacher, Mr. Tanner, was doing the transport and somehow forgot to pick me up! I missed the play! Of course, thinking about it now, I wonder why no one else tried to get me there once the pickup time had come and gone. What was it about me? Maybe if I were extraordinary, I would somehow edge into existence. Or at least break even somehow. It would probably help to not make any mistakes. I might cut my losses that way.
Children of unhealed traumatized parents can readily spark something that activates a parent into some sort of outburst or withdrawal, either of which may be frightening or most likely disconnecting for the child. “Walking on eggshells” to avoid land mines or trip wires makes for extreme caution, danger and anxiety… never knowing quite what will and will not be OK. The whole world seems wild, chaotic, random and unpredictable. Perfection would be the only safe bet, whatever that might be. It does seem to be a ready and unattainable aspiration, even a mandate, for many. It is also a great way to perpetuate self-hatred and shame and a chronic belief that “I am not good enough.” Never will be.
In the wee hours the other day, I happened on an interview with Amy Edmundson, professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, who formally studied specifically medical mistakes. Inspired by a woman whose nine-year-old daughter had ’‘needlessly” died of leukaemia due to avoidable medical errors by hospital personnel in the little girl’s care. Edmundson’s findings were chilling. She found that in the US, on average, 200,000 patients die each year as a result of medical errors. The study prompted her to probe further: how could this happen?
Edmundson discovered five major causes of medical error: the task was too hard; the practitioner was unprepared or insufficiently prepared; uncertainty; experimentation and sabotage. I began to reflect on the hapless child of neglect, thrust into too many situations where, due to abandonment or prematurely having to resort to self-reliance, is faced with tasks that are too hard or that they are insufficiently prepared or oriented for. Of course, they will be uncertain, faced with challenges they have no idea how to complete, inevitably falling down on the job, at least some of the time, with perhaps dire consequences, or perhaps reprimand or even punishment. Of course, the danger of a misstep becomes a kind of nightmare, something to be feared or avoided at all costs. Experimentation or sabotage might become a reaction to the response they get, or not.
I remember hearing bellowed at me: “Your mother was shaking like a leaf!” Or “You are driving your mother to an early grave!” for being late or some other potentially worrisome infraction. Of course, perfection seems like some kind of insurance- that or escape. The lessons of forgiveness for falling short, let alone teaching moments to be able to do better next time, neither of those is likely to happen in the lonely, self-reliant world of neglect. How will a child learn? How will a child learn that it is OK, even natural, to be fallible and that life goes on?
It also occurred to me that errors are, in fact, nature’s design. In biology, we find the frequent appearance of mutations. Mutations are a change in the ordinary DNA sequence of an organism, in effect, an unintended defect in the process of replicating itself. Sometimes mutations can be problematic, even lethal, like cancer. However, others are a source of developmental change, evolution, an improvement on the known and practiced sequence, or simply a surprise. Prior to 1954, “research” showed that running a mile in less than four minutes was an impossibility, beyond the capacity of human physiology, until Roger Bannister in Oxford, UK, shattered that prior scientific principle. And nature has evolved ever since as faster and faster times have been clocked in the decades between then and now. Mutation, in effect, another word for error, can, in fact, amount to progress. Not always, of course! Sometimes, it can be deadly, inconvenient, or destructive. But perhaps not something to be categorically dreaded! Maybe mistakes are a fact of life.
And similarly, “perfection” is not always insulation against sanction, misfortune or injustice. I recently learned the story of Jim Thorpe, an extraordinary athlete from the First Nation Sac and Fox Tribe of Oklahoma, USA. Thorpe went on to compete in the 1908 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, in track and field.
Thorpe was about to compete in the decathlon (10 events) and the pentathlon (5 events) when, at the last minute, it was discovered that his shoes had disappeared were perhaps stolen. His coach scrambled and found two mismatched shoes that were not his, one of which was not even his size. He had to put two socks on one foot; neither fit him right. But fearless, Thorpe went out to compete and took the gold in all the events. In effect, perfection in the 15 challenges, cleaning up the gold medals. Unheard of. And in those shoes!
When Thorpe mounted the podium to receive his medals in the award ceremony, the King of Sweden proclaimed, “Jim Thorpe, you are the greatest athlete in the world!” to which Thorpe shyly replied, “Thanks King!”
However, even such history-making perfection would not inoculate a poor native from racism, opportunism and tragic injustice. Thorpe’s medals were stripped when it was discovered that he was not purely amateur. A couple of summers, he had played minor league baseball for $35.00 a week to help cover his paltry expenses. He was only doing what almost all of his colleagues were doing, including peers Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton. However, most of them were playing under false names, and Thorpe did not bother to change his name. It was 75 years later, in 1983, that his medals were restored. By then, he had long since died, impoverished and alcoholic. Perhaps perfectionism is a lost cause. Life is replete with ironies and opposites. It is hard to keep sight of this when we feel inundated in the despair, loss and grief that are so often the lingering bequest of trauma and neglect. I take solace in the words of Cuban poet Jose Marti:
Todo es hermoso y constante,
Todo es música y razón,
Y todo, como el diamante,
Antes que luz es carbón.
Everything is constant and beautiful,
Everything is music and reason,
And everything like the diamond,
Before being light is coal.
Today’s song (In loving memory of Pablo Milanes, who died almost exactly one year ago):
I am a hardcore Mac person. I really wish Steve Jobs had not died so soon. Yes, I know he was not a nice person, certainly not to his employees or his daughter. In my customary way, I read a huge biography, watched the bio-pic and read his daughter’s memoir too. Admittedly, I guess I have a fascination with very brilliant, mean men, which is, in fact, on today’s topic, one of the many manifestations of intergenerational transmission of trauma. My father, probably the person I most admired, adored, emulated, feared and hated, was one of those.
My husband, a sensible tech guy, operates in the PC world. (Left to my own devices, no pun intended! I would avoid PCs completely if it weren’t for the fact that our neurofeedback programs do not run on Mac.) My husband objects to how pricey everything Apple appears to be, and is less taken by the aesthetic than I. And he keeps me somewhat informed of at least the basics of Microsoft. He taught me the invaluable go-to of “Control-Alt-Delete.” Whenever everything gets inexorably tangled or stopped in the system, it is a first attempt to get unstuck. How refreshing (oy vey no pun intended again, really!) that the stop action, defaults to that simple 3-button reboot, that we get an instant do-over, another chance. Were it that simple to get another chance, a quick access route out of other jam-ups, or shock situations? And that sequence got me thinking.
In the child’s world of trauma and neglect, part of what makes life so terrifying is the unending monsoon of unpredictability. An unhealed, traumatized parent, without warning, might fly into a trauma state where rage and violence erupt from seemingly nowhere. Our dad would explode into that other, scary version of himself, loud and monstrous, with sometimes shocking behaviors. I remember one night at the dinner table, when, with both hands, he furiously mushed up a plate of spaghetti, railing about how we ate like pigs. Other times, he vanished into an absent freeze, gonzo. And still others, he was the genius who taught me so much of what I know and am most proud of. Mom had her own, perhaps less dramatic spectrum. It was never clear, who will it be. There was certainly no way to be ready.
Many survivors of childhood trauma and neglect are tagged as “control freaks.” It is a natural impulse when feeling completely batted around, at the whim of wild swings of emotional weather, to want to nail down everything one can. Remember, when overcome with puzzlement, shame (or defensiveness!) about being controlling, that it is a natural and understandable response to terror. Certainly, anorexia, my first major symptom, is a fierce and deadly theatre of control, until the control itself becomes out of control, which is truly confusing, especially to an already glucose-starved brain.
The point here is to be kind! Control is the first of the three-button attempt to survive. Like many other exit routes, it may reach its point of diminishing or even negative returns. And when it does, it is important to find a more elaborate and nuanced fix.
Bicycling in Cuba, I learned from the stop signs that the word Alto means stop. We have learned from biology that a prey animal who is in an inescapable shock situation, cornered by a larger predator, might go into a major organismic shutdown, with all the non-essential functions ratcheting down to almost nothing, so the animal might be barely more than faintly breathing. They might be “playing possum”, death feigning since most predators lose interest in dead prey. They might be making themselves completely numb to not feel the pain of being eaten, a worthy skill, I might add. I know I have written this before, but it makes so much sense that I don’t mind repeating it.
The freeze response is an alternative to fight or flight, and certainly better suited to an infant who cannot fight or flee. The withdrawal or absence of the primary attachment figure, usually the mother, at least at first, is experienced as life-threatening. The child may feel as if they will die. The freeze is adaptive, gets, in effect, learned by the little nervous system and body, and develops as a regular defense, a way to survive the experience of a lethal threat.
I was unnerved early in my now-long partnership, by how when I would get frantic and vociferously emotional when upset or activated, my partner would shut down, go quiet and withdraw, seemingly absent. I would become more frantic, feeling abandoned on top of whatever had upset me before. And he could readily say, “I didn’t do anything!” And that was true but so not true. This pattern in relationships became one of my early beefs as I began to study neglect. In most couples’ therapy, it appeared that the loud and emotional partner got all the blame and all the help, and the quiet, seemingly helpless one was off the hook and went unseen and un-helped. We must not be deceived by the quiet of the freeze, lest the child of neglect remain invisible, unrecognized, left alone again.
One of the ways I found of coping or self-regulating, was by making myself scarce, disappearing. Feeling pretty invisible already, it was a short hop to making myself a complete mystery. Of course, no one was really interested, I didn’t even really notice. But my whole life was a colossal secret; no one knew where I was or what I was doing. By the time I was thirteen, I was out on all-day bike rides and meeting much older guys. Of course, I learned how to drink, and no one really noticed.
For the child of neglect to be an island unto themselves, private, even secretive, a well of unknown that no one really cares to know anyway, is not unusual. Many kids get into much more trouble than I did, although I nearly managed to do myself in with anorexia. Used to being unseen and unheard, the child might capitalize on that, unwittingly perhaps exaggerate it or, in my case, in a strange way, take advantage of it. It was a lonely but reliable escape route that had to be slowly and very intentionally unravelled as I processed my trauma and learned how to trust and actually be safe with others.
So what of the three-button reboot being a good thing? Well, as we learn to recognize our activations, which may, in fact, follow any of these well-worn pathways, we can choose to stop action. I remember when my genius husband first said, “give me a minute to calm down; it’s not about you!” what a great line! I wish I had thought of that!
Today’s song:
Sometimes, I feel like the mythical cat who lives nine lives as I think back on my various incarnations, which sometimes seem as if they were not me but someone else. Probably nine is not enough. I remember way back to my ardent activist days when I traveled a good bit in Latin America, I was also very taken with the textiles of Indigenous people all over the continent. I had tried my hand at weaving but never got too good at it. But I loved collecting beautiful colorful, exquisitely patterned and textured treasures from all over the place. I still have the various pouches, sashes, scarves, table coverings, and even an occasional poncho that I have been carting around with me through my various lives for almost 50 years! Wow! What brought this to mind was a flash memory. Who knows from where these things pop up?
I remembered how I was so taken by the people in the country town of Otavalo, Ecuador. Because they were legendary weavers, I made a special trip, bumping along dusty dirt roads in the rickety hour or two bus ride from the “big city” of Quito. This was many decades ago. I have no idea what these places are like now. The artisans of Otavalo were widely renowned, not only for their exquisitely beautiful craft but because, out of all the indigenous artisans on the continent, they alone had found a way to market and distribute their own work and safeguard the profits in their own hard-working hands. No small feat in a world where colonialism and exploitation were as old as the other ruins.
I especially remember the custom among the weavers was that their finest, most beautiful and most prized work were worn as undergarments. No one would see it but the weaver/wearer themselves. The most precious was closest to the body, closest to the core. Something about that always appealed to me. Prizing oneself that much, there is no need to showcase or grandstand, but rather a quiet appreciation of one’s own value. So different from how most children of neglect think of themselves, certainly a far cry from how I had always been where what was closest to the bone was fiercely hidden out of shame and fear, while my most beautiful creations were hastily given away, in an effort to score some value outside myself for a minute, somehow.
I have always suffered bitterly from the cold. I can never be too warm, but I am generally the one who asks for a blanket on the plane, and I relish on weekly bread-baking days my irrefutable excuse to crank up the heat to get the starter bubbling. I tell my husband, “I have no choice!” and he doesn’t argue because he loves the bread. I remember when early in my distance cycling days, I discovered the “sharkskin,” a very lightweight, tight-fitting, long-sleeved top made out of some stretchy nylon-like, magical material that was blessedly and unbelievably warm. Back in those days I think there was only one brand: Under Armor. I was in heaven with my new sharkskin. I remember the first time I went high on a mountain in Utah, where I always expected to be hot. But it was fall, the aspens were shimmering gold, and it was freezing cold. But that day, with that amazing new sharkskin hugging me under my jersey, I was amazed at how this seemingly flimsy, unassuming little garment was such a game-changer. Hidden from view, close to my core, it made all the difference between a cold, miserable day and a delicious, brisk autumn day in paradise. What can seem initially inconsequential, when close to the bone, can change night into day.
Infancy is the core on which all succeeding sedimentary layers are laid down. The attachment researchers tell us without doubt that the first two years of life are decisive, whether the base layer of attachment works its magic. What does and does not happen then is pivotal. It is when the right hemisphere to right hemisphere communication between primary parent and infant stimulates and nurtures brain development: a sense of self, an emotional vocabulary, the capacity to find one’s way between states, and return to calm. Sadly, so much neglect begins there. And there is no memory, with nothing to remember. We must reach deep into the nothingness, almost like reaching way into the hat to pull out the rabbit, to reconstruct the narrative. And the rabbit we find is most likely pretty ragged.
When infancy is safe, the base layer is like my shark skin. It insulates, embraces, and turns night into day.
Often, people come into therapy with a known trauma story, an overt abuse history, that perhaps they have been working on doggedly in all kinds of ways for years. It might be a truly nightmarish experience, and we are all familiar with the heinous memory of abuse and all manner of agony, clients,’ other people and our own. And they may have done a whole lot of really good work with good practitioners and maybe spent years and boatloads of money doing it. But they still suffer way too much, or can’t make a go of a relationship, or are running out of hope. It may be that the base layer, the unremembered early experience of neglect, has stayed buried, hidden, unexcavated, unprocessed. And the infant is as desolate and untethered as ever.
In that same lifetime that I traveled south of the US border, I also read a ton about the people and places I was so compelled by. This was long before I “knew” anything about development or trauma or attachment, or perhaps I should say I didn’t know I knew anything, but of course, in my cells and in my heart, I knew quite a lot. Always the bookworm, I read probably hundreds of books back then. One book that I am guessing I read almost 50 years ago stuck in my mind. I did not know why at the time. A couple of years ago, I searched all over for the book. I couldn’t find my original copy. I could not remember the title or author. But I remembered the most important part. That the political prisoners in Chile were tortured brutally was getting to be known around the world, as Amnesty International and others did what they could to get the word out. I would read the accounts with horror and fear, wondering, if that were me, would I “break?” Or would I “sing?” as Tony Soprano would say. What stayed in my mind through all those decades was that the prisoners who had solid connections with their families, who held those attachments securely inside and felt their families’ support while in their draconian agonies, were the ones who held up, who stayed strong through the violence. Hardly surprising to me now, but why did that lodge in my mind as significant? I must have known on some level that I was deficient in that way. Years later, I was able to figure out the title and author: Hope Under Siege: Terror and Family Support in Chile by Michelle Ritterman. I found a copy and even met Michelle.
The early attachment is the bedrock, the foundation of a solid sense of self. Sometimes, working with the overt trauma story is part of the drilling down, but the essence remains to be mined. Often, the way we uncover it is roundabout, working with what older siblings or relatives can tell us about what was going on around us when we were in unremembered infancy, what was going on in our mothers’ lives, when we lived inside her body, waiting to emerge. Was she in grief from her own life events, or deaths, or a troubled marriage, or hunger? Often, from such reconstruction, bits of memory arise, usually unbidden. Even now, I am surprised by flash bulb images and unwieldy emotions.
I might add that what is perhaps obvious is so much abuse might have been prevented If protective others were present, paying attention, and staying connected to the little one. We have all heard stories of kids being left behind in gas stations, forgotten in burning buildings, or left vulnerable to sometimes predictable sexual exploitation because no one was mindful. And the cultural neglect that allows the trauma to persist through generations is for another day. Meanwhile, I have found another brand of Sharkskin called Helly Hansen, and they come in every imaginable color. Not exactly as beautiful as the Otavalo weavings, but deliciously cozy.
Today’s song:
Sometimes I wonder if you get tired of my invoking the Stone Age of psychotherapy or the trauma field. I find my mind so often drifting back in time to when I first started connecting dots and ideas. Maybe it comes with being at this as long as I have, or it is a simple fact of aging. I recently found myself remembering the early days of family systems theory and the then new-to-me concept of patterns originating in the family, replicating themselves like colorful block prints across the fabric of our relationship lives. I have always loved color and pattern, so the image was appealing. I remember making colorful block prints with carved potatoes stamping multi-hued snowflake designs to make home-made wrapping paper. I loved the symmetrical repeating designs. However, it can be somewhat chilling how persistent and powerful the imprinting is of repetitive relationships and personality-dynamics and roles.
What inspired this little cascade of thoughts, were reflections on the experience of immigrants and refugees. I was remembering how as children, we got a resounding confusing message about our home country, the US. My parents were both survivors and refugees of the Nazi Holocaust. After circuitous and traumatic flights, my father endured the Shanghai ghetto until he stowed away on a ship and fled yet again to Sydney, Australia; my mother ensconced in the basement of the kindly and philanthropic shoe-manufacturing Clark family in the UK, until they both wound up here in the States. My father remembered sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. My mother recalled the Statue of Liberty. Both of them, young adults by the time they arrived, were brimming with unprocessed traumatic horror and only slightly older when they met. By the time we were born, they were both perhaps tentatively settled in this, their new country.
I remember best the inconsistent and ambiguous message and a big word I learned early: assimilate. We got the dual mandate to both blend in and slip under the radar, but not too much. Don’t lose our noble, even superior identity, our martyr’s heritage, and don’t forget what happened to us! I remember the militant Jewish Defense League (JDL,) and their battle cry of “Never Again!” although that certainly was not quite my parents’ paradigm. “But don’t stand out either!” And god forbid you intermarry, which would be unforgivable.
The underlying paradox was that the rescuing host nation that received us was simultaneously suspect, dangerous, and threatening. It had both saved us, but the fear persisted, as had happened in their native country; its people could suddenly and dramatically turn on us at any moment. In effect, the source of refuge, of safety and welcome, and the source of fear, suspicion and potential betrayal, were in the same people, the same land. Reflecting on this core refugee contradiction, I thought “Wow! That sounds identical to the familiar Dilemma Without Solution, the heart of neglect trauma. In this dilemma, the infant is faced with a similar insoluble contradiction: the longed-for, beloved other is the very same as the force of danger: loss, abandonment, erratic presence, and/or complete absence. An infant of course has no cerebral equipment to make sense of this problem, let alone respond to it, so they freeze, collapse and ultimately, if they don’t crack up completely, default to self-reliance. This pattern is the deadliest plague of neglect trauma.
Recognizing the dilemma of refugee/immigrant status, as being cut from essentially the same mold, fitting the template of neglect trauma, I began to comb the landscape of my life, picking out more and more examples of the same, as the family systems people named it, replicating patterns. The cookie cutter of the dilemma without solution, seemed to be stamping out cookies across the cutting board of my life.
Perhaps you also get tired of my rhapsodizing about regulation. It is true, I can’t talk about it enough, because it is so essential, and perhaps its failure is the essence of the legacy of every kind of trauma: the inability to restore or even ever experience a state of calm, peace, ease, comfort, after an upset of some kind, be it fear, anger, pain, simple startle, or any other disruption. Upset, dysregulation is so unpleasant, we will go to great lengths to quell or extinguish it, to make it go away.
Certainly, in my case, yet another default to the familiar template, I early discovered anorexia. And something about the seeming mastery over hunger, overpowering the drive for nourishment made me feel powerful and strong: a kind of euphoria, triumph; and numbing of pain. And yet at the same time, it was a source of terror. I knew that the danger was there to take it too far. That the very state that made me feel strong and powerful, made me feel dizzy, weak and terrified. What was I doing to myself? I relied on it to manage my pain, and it was simultaneously a well of more pain. Sound familiar?
It was a short hop to discover alcohol when I was 13. Same deal. It anesthetized me so effectively, and enabled me to have some semblance of relationships, even have fun. But before long it presented the familiar pattern: the other side. I was able to ignore it for a while. But eventually, I had to take note, that I started regularly having complete blanks in recall of the night before, I preferred not to use the correct term: blackouts, but that was what they were, every night. It gave me a jolt when one morning I found myself climbing out the window of someone’s room, having no idea of who that person was. But the dilemma being so familiar, and addiction being an additional powerful agent, it certainly took a while, (even after that!) before it actually stopped me for long.
Years later when I became a couple’s therapist, I began to see systems theory in action yet again. We bring our familiar patterns, learned in our families, to our adult partnerships and proceed to reconstellate them, unwittingly with our partners, who are of course doing the same thing. Then we endlessly, haplessly repeat the usually agonizing, disconnecting dance until ultimately, we get some help or break up. The good news, I always tell my exhausted couples, is that once we identify the redundant sequence, and process its root, we can eradicate the template. Pretty much all of the apparent problems, or content areas seem to simply evaporate, because they were never really the issue. And in my practice, because I work so much with neglect trauma, the now infamous Dilemma Without Solution, turns out to be the root difficulty, and with luck and hard work, might finally, find its solution. Some years ago now, I came across an admittedly comforting book, well comforting to me as I navigate my late 60’s: The Wisdom Paradox, (Penguin Random House 2006) authored by world-renowned neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg. He acknowledges that as we age, we do lose acuity of some brain functions. I hate to face that my memory, once a steel trap and source of pride, is not what it used to be, especially where scheduling is concerned. Oy vey! Goldberg demonstrates that the senior brain, however, becomes more skilled at pattern recognition! That is good news! Rarely do we learn of ways that we might actually improve as we age, (unless you are a cheese!) I do find that I can spot and put a frame around client/couples’ repeating patterns much faster and sooner than I used to Some of it of course is from the years of experience, but I do like the idea that I share the tendency with some of my best cheeses. I hope, however, I smell better than they do!
Today’s song:
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