As a devout listener to BBC, I got an earful of the recent coronation event. Monarchy is something I so rarely think about, apart from the recent death of Queen Elizabeth, which similarly took over a day of BBC coverage. From the endless memorial feed, my mind somehow floated back to junior high school European history. Admittedly I don’t remember much. Junior high school was a truly terrible time in my life. A half-starved anorexic, I foggily remember that I stared absently out the window a lot and did not hear much. So perhaps, thankfully, I have little memory at all. Curiously, however, what floated to mind that day, was the term “benevolent despot.” I don’t remember which royal figure it referenced, but I remember thinking, “What?!!” I did not understand how absolute power and the quality of well-meaning kindness could go together. I guess it made about as much sense as “Let them eat cake!”
The world of neglect is fraught with many ironies and contradictions. That is part of what makes recognizing, understanding and working with it so complicated and fraught. Recently, in a conversation about my work with a highly esteemed colleague, she made a comment about “benign neglect.” Somehow that struck the confused and admittedly sensitive nerve about “benevolent despot.” There is something to me oxymoronic about the idea that neglect is “benign” I think of benign as meaning harmless. A tumor, for example, that is malignant is cause for alarm. It may be serious or even fatal. One that is benign may be aberrant or even unsightly. But not to worry. No neglect, if it is, in fact, what I refer to, what Frank Corrigan has so exquisitely named “attachment shock:” rupture, loss of connection, abandonment, withdrawal of the other, is benign. Certainly not for an infant. It is not only devastating but potentially lethal as well. I think my colleague meant not intentionally malicious, which is often the case, but harmless. Not! If intentionality is the question, that is a different conversation.
A lover of words and also admittedly quite fussy about them, I started thinking about the word “neglect.” If I am on a mission to make “neglect informed” a concern for the psychotherapy field, and the world for that matter, I had better come up with precise definitions. Perhaps the noun “neglect” works, but as a verb is floppy and ambiguous. In my mind, neglect, by its very nature, is a failure of awareness, a blip of intentionality, an absence of agency. Whether it be a preoccupation with the urgency of some sort, a limitation of circumstance, emergency or trauma, disability, loss of means, or long or short-term loss of capacity: whatever the cause, the agency goes offline. Something does not get done. In general, my paradigm is one of “no blame.” This means ascribing fault and villainizing the negligent does not serve the sufferer/ victim, or anyone really.
However, the child, or anyone who is abandoned or neglected, is grossly mistreated and pays dearly for it. The losses in terms of opportunity, relationship, choice, capacities, freedom, time, joy, quality of life… I could go on and on… they are too numerous and too costly to begin to try and name. So the grief, rage, agony, bitterness, contempt and judgment are understandable. This is another of the great challenges of neglect, another of the dilemmas the survivor must struggle to navigate. The old saw, “they did the best they could,” with the backwash of every kind of emotion.
Long before I was aware of it, I knew that my mother was overwhelmed and taking care of us was simply too much. I remember being haunted by the newsreels of concentration camps I saw at Hebrew school when I was barely six years old. If I was haunted by movies, what would the impact of lived experience be? My mother was anxious, brittle and sad. I remember hustling to clean up and eradicate clutter before it would make her more jumpy and irritable, being as helpful, inconspicuous and as little of a “bother” as possible. Partly to try and make her “happy,” or happier? And partly for my own benefit, in the hope that she might have more presence and more to offer us if she was calmer. Was she intentionally neglectful? No, of course not! Was it benign, absolutely not! Only after the onslaught of symptoms and problems that plagued me for decades and the years and thousands of dollars of therapy could I figure it out. It was not only what I was previously aware of as my various forms of overt trauma, but the attachment trauma, the missing experiences, and the neglect had scarred me deeply. It was not benign, and I went through at least a decade of terrible conflict and emotion. Of course, she/they “could not help it.” And I was enraged about the price that I was left with. Another Rubik’s cube of neglect. How to hold both?
The child of neglect is caught in the headlights of the “dilemma without solution,” which I talk about endlessly. The object of longing and the source of agony are in the same person. How to manage that. And similarly, the tangle about responsibility. They could not help it? Well, maybe not. And the damage? It is not like the simple calculous of car insurance. The responsible party pays, and the victim is somehow compensated.
For those of us challenged by the work with neglect, whether our own, loved ones’ or clients, we are faced with the flopping dissonance of ambiguities that may blur and alternate, expand, contract, compel, embarrass, frustrate and flummox us for years. They can be paralyzing, or we can think we are crazy or “stuck.” Many of us look so good, accomplished, or are so good at numbing that no one would even know there was someone inside who desperately needed help. I remember how surprised I was when I read Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography and learned that the “Boss” had sometimes spent up to two years in bed with depression, unable, in his words, to “turn off the faucet.” And this was well after he had been long busting charts and filling stadiums. The healing of attachment shock is a complex journey of cycling and often frozen opposites, where both are painfully true and real and yet seem crazily incompatible. That is why great compassion, patience, and the ability to tolerate and hold wild ambiguities and stay the course are all essential.
There is also no substitute for information, about the brain, attachment and healing. And the recovery stories of those ahead of us on the path who can attest to coming out the other side, that a joyful life is, in fact, possible. It is a very hard sell! And certainly, no substitute for the emotional and somatic work that really affects trauma. In those moments when the pre-frontal cortex is firing, they may serve to bolster hope.
I often say, sometimes my main task is to be the harbinger of hope. The one person in the room who is not activated, so I can keep the perspective that it is not happening now, something different is possible, and progress, however glacial is in fact happening. You may not believe me. But I won’t stop holding that. And someday, all of a sudden, maybe for only a minute, you will.
Making our peace and coming to peace takes however long it takes. If it seems to take “forever,” it is not that you are doing something wrong. It is like correcting a terrible environmental insult: nature has been rudely interrupted and the organic processes of restoring it are underway, and not to be rushed. I remember as a child, pulling open the petals of a flower that was not quite ready to bloom. It really only spoiled it. My intentions were not bad. But the result was a small disaster. And we must continue to look upstream to address the social, political, and economic forces that perpetuate these many contradictions, so ultimately peace has some kind of a chance.
Today’s song:
When the lockdown began to lift in our area, and I could begin to see clients live and in person I was ecstatic. As a somatic therapist, a self-identified “emotion hound,” and one who receives tremendous amounts of information about people through the energetic unspoken, remote work has been a strange and challenging journey for me. Apart from the inevitable headaches of technology, I later read, that the energy required to focus extra hard, and try to excavate that missing information in the inanimate screen, explained my splitting headaches at the end of the workday during those first months. I have since almost gotten used to it, or at least found a way to co-exist with it. Zoom has become a surprising component of my own “new normal.” I was also amazed to discover the difference when I began to see people live again. Some clients I had never met in person, having started our work during the Pandemic years. It was not surprising to me, but still somehow stunning to feel the difference both in our relationships, and in our progress.
I was also somewhat surprised when some people preferred to continue to work on Zoom. I can see the convenience factor of staying free of the travails and uncertainty of Bay Area traffic and parking which has ever been a “first world” frustration for me; as well as the blessing of saved time. The Pandemic factor as well, made sense to me, with none of us quite knowing the most prudent ways to proceed, especially those with delicate immune systems or other medical complexities on board. Still, in that still familiar neglect default, of thinking everyone would think as I do, I rather expected everyone to be as delighted as I was. When one client finally agreed to come in person, there was a way that he “opened my eyes.” He has a visual impairment, macular degeneration, which I knew about. I was empathically attuned. At the end of our first in person session, he groused, “So what is the big deal about live sessions?” Blinded by my own enthusiasm about being able to see him, it had not occurred to me, when he said “I can’t see your facial expressions. I can see your outlines, it is not very different for me.” This is a man who had been an avid bookworm all his life, he loved art and had toured the world’s great museums, and spent hours sometimes before one painting. Now that was gone from his life. I thought I had understood the grief of that. Forgetting about the lost world of facial expression, and how much that is part of relationship and true connection, I was stunned. This man had a devastating neglect history already. How could I have failed to see yet again?
As a long time restaurant worker, I have been pointedly aware of the deathly hit the restaurant world has taken during this last almost two years. Here in San Francisco where food commands an almost religious devotion, restaurants have been fighting for their lives, in a market that was fierce to begin with. Many have sadly shut their doors forever. As a baker, home cheesemaker and lover of food, I have followed the march of local food history, at least what is available of it, often while I stir the vat or feed my sourdough starter. I have wondered how my teachers and gurus who are not in the news, have fared. I must often just content myself with their tattered and increasingly worn cookbooks.
For me, one of the great blessings of this time, has been the plethora of emerging webinars and podcasts, not to mention the riches of Youtube with which I had never made more than a casual acquaintance before. I have been infinitely grateful for them, and routinely look for opportunities to see and acknowledge the unsung, the neglected heroes of administration and technological genius that bring them instantaneously into my kitchen with a few clicks. Trying to keep the neglected in view, I make a point of reaching out to customer service people, tech support people and Zoom presenters, even sending them cheese when I can! (It is the best way I know to say “thank you!”) Some parts of that I do not want to lose, and it is not clear how the culture, including my own little “culture” will change.
One of the advantages of my challenges around sleep, is that I am often up at odd hours or all hours. I hear NPR stories I might never have heard. Often the “stories” annoy me, as all day long I hear stories that are plenty interesting and enlightening. However I recently heard one that seemed to connect many brain regions that have never connected before, to form a wild and bright new network of thinking. I don’t even remember how it began.
I love music and I always have a song in my head. By now my clients are amusedly (or annoyedly?) accustomed to my lapsing into song during their session. “Let it Be,” “There’s a Hole in that Bucket,” “You Are My Kind,” oy vey! I rarely go to concerts anymore, even before the lockdown, but there is always a concert inside. I am not up to date on any music later than about 1985 or so, and admittedly I would barely be able pick Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga out of a lineup, although I follow the news. Madonna is perhaps my cutoff, and she is close to my age, at least parts of her are! So an interview with a young musician whose name I don’t even remember, was enlightening. In the course of talking about returning to live shows, he began talking about disability access to concerts. Again, I was rattled by my neglectful blindness to even thinking about these issues. When he referred too “Ability Rights Activists,” I realized I had never given a much thought to those people. Our office has an elevator. I thought I had that one covered. What about those who can’t hear or see? -In the literal sense. What about my own failure to hear or see them?
Feeling unseen and especially unheard has been an area of preoccupation for me, long before I began to study it in the attachment/clinical sense. In the stage of relationship havoc between my husband and myself, his failure to hear me was a redundant relationship refrain and frstration. As he began to lose his hearing literally in the expectable middled aged way, it became more so. Then began my echoing grumble about his getting hearing aids, thinking they would be the magic cure. When he finally got them and even began to use them, I started to recognize my own lousy hearing. When I finally got tested, I was diagnosed with severe hearing loss and got my own hearing aids prescription. Fortunately I have the resources to get them. Ironically, although hearing loss is a predictable predicament of aging, Medicare does not cover them! What a difference! I can hear! If only such a device were available to make the unheard heard!
It was suggested to me, that we prepare an audio version of my new book. When I asked my publisher, she said we must wait and see if there is a market for it. Of course I understand the necessity of the economic. We are all trying to make a living during these odd times. My esteemed colleague and friend Dierdre Fay, and her devoted husband and partner, read her new bestseller themselves, and made their audible version that way. When I asked my publisher if I could do that, she suggested we start with feeling out if there is a market. I am not sure what the tipping point is that constitutes a market. I have asked that interested or concerned readers, include their request in their Amazon Reviews should they submit one. I now sheepishly see the oxymoron in that as well. Those who are vision impaired may not be able to use the majority means to be heard.
For some of us it is a convenience or pleasure issue, like for me, it is an enhancement. For others it is a neglect issue, about being forgotten and left out yet again. Again, I ask those who are able, make yourself heard on this issue, to me or to Amazon! I have even received a similar request about the blogs. Let us know!
Neurotypical, Cisgender, Antiracist, Latinesque, Color, Differently Able, Aged, Neglected… Trying to keep it all in view., even as the Pandemic and Afghanistan overwhelm the senses. I guess I have been holed up in my own tunnel vision about those who are not seen and heard, while missing entirely, or almost entirely, the literality of both sides of the equasion: seen and heard. Until now. I think I need to go back to my publisher and say that this is a social justice issue, at least letting me do it myself, to make equal access available. Yes it is just one book, but isn’t that how all the social movements swell and progress? One little book or lunch counter at a time?
Thank you yet again NPR! I will have to see if I can find the young man who made that podcast, so I can thank him! And ask him my perennial question, “Do you like cheese?”
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” is now available online. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
My course with Quantum Way is now available for registration!