Soul Mosaic

“Scared animals return home, regardless of whether home is safe or frightening.”
Bessel van der Kolk, MD, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Why couldn’t I leave?

“…we are hardwired to seek out and trust the familiar, even when the familiar isn’t safe or good for us….we are hardwired for hope”
Daria Burke, Of My Own Making 71

“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom.”
Herman 110

I know I did. I thought that somehow, once I grew up, the abuse would just magically end…somehow it would all be over with. Then, like a “responsibility fulfilled,” some “debt paid,” I could then be free to go on and live out my dreams. And of course, there would be no “aftereffects.” I would just magically be fine.

“But the personality formed in an environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the tasks of early adulthood — establishing independence and intimacy — burdened by major impairments in self-care, cognition and memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships. She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.”
Herman, 110

That totally sums it up. I was so damaged by the abuse that I “couldn’t” make that break. Because I wasn’t a “whole” person, I was totally unable to envision even having the right to my own life.

It was like all the studies said — I had not been allowed my own identity, and I couldn’t develop one later because I’d missed all the developmental stages. I couldn’t break from my family of origin; I was afraid to go out into the world, and I feared any deep relationships.

Add to it that it was constantly communicated that for me to want something for myself was wrong. That my claiming my own life would hurt my parents’ feelings.

Then there was inertia and learned helplessness. The longer that something goes on, the harder it is to change it. Because you’ve already invested so much time in the status quo, you feel like a fool. Because you feel ashamed of all you had to do to survive. Because you feel so weighed down and exhausted by it all that even getting up and showering, going to work, anything, takes all you’ve got, and there’s nothing left for dreaming, moving forward, creating a new life. Because…what’s the point – you’re dirty and worthless anyway.

In a previous post, I said that what you think is what you feel is what you do. In this post I would expand that motto:

What you think is what you feel is what you do….or don’t do. And the longer it goes on, the longer it goes on…

Mother hunger and my house

“For girls without mothers or maternal figures suffer an injury that author and licensed professional counselor Kelly McDaniels calls mother hunger, the feeling of terminal brokenness, of primal fear of abandonment, or disordered boundaries, a wound that resides deep within the right brain as a result of not receiving adequate nurturance, protection, and guidance in the early years of maternal attachment.”
Daria Burke, Of My Own Making

Author Daria Burke followed her above quote with an assessment of her own pain:
“In my case, my self-image had been all but shattered…The emotional neglect I suffered left me feeling insecure, unworthy, and with a persistent sense of needing validation of my place in the world. Please, perfecting, and performing at the highest levels became cornerstones of my identity…survival tools…

There’s a huge abyss of pain within me that’s been there my whole life and is centered around my mother. Yes, she was always there…physically. We had clothes, food, and supervision. But… there was emotional abandonment, disinterest, lack of protection from Dad, and the feeling I was sacrificed for family security.

There were things I think she knew. But she didn’t fight him. And so often she didn’t look at me. When he was at me emotionally all weekend for “payback” because I’d avoided his ‘advances,’ I didn’t have her protection or care either. So many times, it was a “turned back.”

Whether that was her payback to me because she sensed his over-interest in me, or her way to survive an impossible situation for both of us, I don’t know. One therapist suggested “pathological denial.” If you don’t turn around, you don’t see, and if you don’t see, it doesn’t exist. She might not be able to deny his violent temper and abuse, but other things I think she tried to rationalize. Yet, still, she KNEW something was off.

What you think is what you feel is what you do.

I wrote this motto for myself a long time ago after a session with one of my therapists. It is one thing I use to calm me and remind me to take a moment to “pause” before acting. But it’s also been my way to understand my many behaviors and reactions in life.

Trauma altered my sense of safety, body integrity, physiology, and the way I think and feel. And it follows that all of that then generates what I do…or want to do. They are the root cause of the many different reactions that take place before I even have time to think…unless, like now, I teach myself to pause for a moment, breathe, and remember that these things are not my true self, but trauma reactions:

Somatic/Body Health Issues

In the last post, I showed how high stress and trauma have the nervous system and emotional issues running at high intensity. Given that, it follows that the rest of the body systems somehow get pulled into the chaos, too … and end up paying a price for their involvement.

For anyone who says stress is all in your head, here is my strong rebuttal….

I’m not going to go into each system but instead do an overview of the “biggies” for health issues. I’ll note some of these when I write the post about my own personal costs from trauma. And to most effectively summarize here just how much the body gets pulled into the trauma, I give you the “HPA” axis.

Suffice it to say that the “HPA axis” is a loop of three organs that work together to run so many vital body functions. They are the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and the adrenal gland.

The hypothalamus is a tiny gland weighing only four grams – not even a quarter of an ounce. It is the connecting link between the nervous system and the endocrine (hormonal) systems.

When the nervous system is on fire, it starts screaming to the HPA axis, in particular, to the hypothalamus, to literally “DO SOMETHING!!!”

My definition of trauma

If I had to describe trauma, I’d liken it to a “horcrux” from the Harry Potter books: a piece of another, something alive, inserted into you by that other. It’s their pain, their wound, their “intrusion” placed inside of you and stored there, even as you have no idea what’s happening to you, or why.

But given my science background, I don’t stop with just my opinion. I like to survey a wide range of sources to see if there is a general consensus on the facts.

Another viewpoint

Author Pat Schneider, in her Forward to the book, Writing Ourselves Whole, by Jen Cross, describes it this way:

“Trauma…is a rupture, a bifurcation, a disassembly. Trauma marks the moment when what was ended, and something new emerged.”

Reading the above, I always ask, “What happens when what “was” was snuffed out right at the start…and you don’t even get to see what was before it was taken?”

Maybe author Jen Cross, in her book Writing Ourselves Whole, hinted at the answer:

The unrelenting battles of sleep

Nightmares are a constant in my life, to this day. The only differences in them are the topics or places, whether they seem like a real situation or a metaphor for one, and how I react to the situation.

I have many that are in an unknown place that feels “familiar.” Often, I am on a dangerous road – a highway under construction or repair- up on a mountainside with no guardrails along the cliff edge. And frequently, there is water right next to me or even flooding over me. Raging, swollen rivers right next to my car tires, or towering ocean waves slamming against the ground right near me or over me. Always there is the sense of danger, risky paths, or of being suddenly overwhelmed.

Other times they ranged from mild fury — screaming at a dysfunctional friend then walking away from the relationship – to being raped, then murdered.

Then there are odd ones in which I am, for some reason, walking around unclothed, and no one seems to notice. Or I walk into my home — my secure retreat from the world — only to find my grandparents and Dad, sitting around. I start yelling at them to leave and demand to know how they got in, feeling both violated and frightened that my “inner sanctum” has been breached.

And always, there are snakes…

They’re bringing reinforcements

Despite my explosive previous nightmare where I pummeled a snake to death out of maternal protective rage, they continued to be a frequent image in my dreams. The difference now was that I didn’t freak out quite so easily. I fought back harder, but then they became increasingly vicious. It was almost as if they realized I wasn’t giving up so easily anymore. They also seemed to bring more and more of them to the fight against me, probably for the same reason.

On this night, I was confronted with snakes that came in large numbers, arrayed themselves in front of me, then started to encircle me so I would have no escape.

Those other worlds

Perhaps the best way to move on into the next section of the book, the “Albedo” or brightening dawn of insights, is to note some things from the past that still have a powerful hold on me, and explore why.

As a kid, I was passionately drawn to five things: fossil brachiopods, marine biology, and the books: The Odyssey, Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, and The Adventures of Robin Hood. To this day, I still passionately love them.

The Odyssey was an almost unending series of sea adventures through fantastical lands and the underworld, while battling the angry gods of Mount Olympus, and ending with the “hero” meting out overdue “justice.” I put quotes because the adult me has some very different views about Odysseus himself that I’ll write about later, though now it’s the female characters in The Odyssey that pull at me powerfully.

The Mysterious Island involved a group of castaways who used their collective knowledge and skills to carve a comfortable existence on an uninhabited island, including a secure cave home inside of a rocky ocean-side promontory.

And Robin Hood and his group of merry men always defeated corrupt sheriffs, churchmen, and princes, ate well, and moved with total impunity through the depths of Sherwood Forest, masters of their own fate.

Marine biology was my dream for a distant future, where I would be a female Jacques Cousteau, sail in a research vessel, and spend my days beneath the peaceful waves amidst the beautiful creatures of the depths.

And the brachiopods…they were ancient marine creatures that, while virtually defenseless in a hostile environment, could sequester themselves inside a secure outer shell that they controlled totally, and could open and close only long enough to allow food and water, but no predators, in.

Hmmm…notice any common themes here? Places hidden, secure, and distant where I would control my own safety, food, choices, and destiny? The ability to win out over danger and villains, deliver justice to those who would transgress against their fellow man, and do it all with confidence, self-assurance, and power?