Li Li is adjusting much better.  Her English comprehension is really amazing, and she has about 60 words now.  She doesn’t seem to have a clear preferance between Keith or I anymore.  She deffinitely is more a part of the family and seems comfortable with us.  We rarely hear the grieving cry anymore.  She continues to test the limits we’ve set and her and Koen have a pretty normal sibling relationship already (love/hate).  Koen has said several times that he wants another sister from China and often pretend plays that he’s flying to China “to get another girl.”

Bedtime still takes much longer than we’d like and makes our condo feel tiny.  If either child wakes up in the middle of the night, we are running in to keep the other child from waking, which wakes up the first child all the more.  There’s been several nights where Li Li whimpers a little, we come in and rub her back to calm her, and then she lays there with her eyes wide open for up to an hour!  We’re afraid to leave the room because she’ll cry and wake up Koen…… We’d really like to get into a 3-bedroom house soon, and have been looking a little.

Favorite things to do:

-Take a bath with brother

-Dance

-Dump out every toy and resist picking things back up

-Eat (she’s still adding chub every day)

-Ask “why?” for everything (copying brother)

-Wrestle with BaBa and Koen

-Jump on the couch with Koen

-Color and paint

-Help Mama set the table (because it helps the food come faster!)

-Sing

Li Li has a cold again and is having problems with constipation.  She pretty much eats whatever we serve her, but still fights the veggies a bit.

I’m feeling much better as a Mommy, but maybe it’s only because Keith had this whole last week off.  I’m loving and enjoying my little girl more, but still don’t feel like I’m “there” with my bonding to her.  There are still times all my buttons are pushed.

On Saturday we took our extended family out for Dim Sum, which comes from Guangdong Province, where Li Li is from.  Li Li squealed with delight when the BBQ Pork Baked Buns came out.

Enjoying our Dim Sum

Having a stressful childhood may slash decades off a person’s life, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report.

Among people who reported experiencing at least six of eight different bad childhood experiences-from frequent verbal abuse to living with a mentally ill person-average age at death was about 61, compared to 79 for people who didn’t have any of these experiences as children, the researchers found.

Dr. David W. Brown and Dr. Robert Anda of the CDC and colleagues from the CDC and Kaiser Permanente have been following 17,337 men and women who visited the health plan between 1995 and 1997 to investigate the relationship between bad childhood experiences and health.

So far, Anda noted in an interview, they have shown links between childhood stressors and heart disease, lung disease, liver disease and other conditions. “The strength of it really surprised me, how powerfully it’s related to health,” the researcher said.

In the current analysis, the researchers reviewed death records through 2006 to investigate whether these experiences might also relate to mortality. During that time, 1,539 study participants died.

Each person was asked whether they had any of eight different categories of such experiences, including verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse with physical contact, having a battered mother, having a substance-abusing person in the household, having a mentally ill person in the household, having a household member who was incarcerated, or having one’s parents separate or divorce.

Sixty-nine percent of the study participants who were younger than 65 reported at least one of the adverse childhood experiences, while 53 percent of people 65 and older did.

Those who reporting experiencing six or more were 1.5 times more likely to die during follow-up than those who reported none, the researchers found. They were 1.7 times as likely to die at age 75 or younger, and nearly 2.4 times as likely to die at or before age 65.

There are a number of ways that a traumatic childhood could contribute to ill health, Anda noted. For example, childhood stress affects brain development, so individuals who’ve experienced it may be more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, and more prone to deal with stress in unhealthy ways, for example by drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes.

Just a third of the people in the study were completely free of any sort of childhood trauma, Anda added, making it clear that these sorts of harmful experiences are widespread.

“If we want to address a lot of major public health issues we’ve got to address the kind of stressors children have in our society as a way of primary prevention,” he said.

SOURCE: American Journal of Preventive Medicine, November 2009.

Having a stressful childhood can significantly reduce people’s life expectancy. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Kaiser Permanente Organisation studied 17,337 men and women to investigate the links between bad childhood experiences and health. The researchers defined eight different adverse childhood experiences: verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse with physical contact, having a battered mother, having a substance-abusing person in the household, having a mentally ill person in the household, having a household member who was incarcerated, or having one’s parents separate or divorce. 69% of the study participants under the age of 65 reported at least one of these experiences while 53% of those over 65 did. Those people who reported six or more adverse experiences were 1.7 times more likely to die at 75 or younger and 2.4 times more likely to die at 65 or younger. The authors of the study thought that having a troubled childhood makes people more likely to develop anxiety and depression which they cope with by using tobacco and alcohol.

Heheh

This thought popped into my head when I woke up.

I’ve been chuckling about it all morning.

Yeah, me and Siddhartha Gautama, we got a streak of irony in us, eh?

I was planning on doing an article on Death and Life… but I figured that I’m not quite ready to tackle that one yet…However, I think I’m up for a little Attachment on the Past.

Where to start…For our convenience lets start from the beginning, that everyday we go through this struggle with the past. Things that we more or less grieve over, thinking that these things if changed will have presented a different outcome. Because of this taught mechanism inside us, we will go on wishing the outcome were different, whether good or bad. I will show you why this creates suffering… like in my Suffering Suffers, you do not. post it is based around the idea that these thoughts take you out of your present moment. Anytime that thought is involved it does not come from the present, it comes from the past, a memory. So in a way it puts a gear in the mechanism of your natural being to muck everything up..

Also the past…being memory, is gone, so why worry about something that has already come and gone… Will worrying ever change the circumtstances of the past? What good will worrying about these events that you handled the way you handled them in their present moment do for you? Most likely if the outcome has become unfavorable to you its because of the following reasons…

• You were not in the present in that present moment, and you were unaware what was going on, therefore your decision was filtered by the me, which also comes from the past or future… but future doesn’t exist so I won’t even go into that
• Your beliefs, concepts, ideals, have clouded what your true intentions, and the outcome was not as you expected it to be, which pulls from the me again making it sort of selfish if you really think about it.

Our decisions are often based so much fromt he past that we always expect known outcomes, things in which have never worked, but seem to be stable…. but stable to what extent? They are shallow at best, it is like putting a piece of gum on a crack of a dam that is filled with water.

So how to pull away from past expectation of self?
The master says, “Awareness, Awareness, Awareness, means Awareness.”

Be present as much as you can and slowly slowly, you will begin to catch yourself in these phases in which you begin to dive into the past. The past is nothing more than a remnant, there is no use in withholding happiness from yourself for something that you’ve already handled. You don’t deserve that and respecting yourself in the present is much more fulfilling.. That everything you have does not reside in the past but rather right now. It is the only moment that you have worth living. Being present and being aware go hand in hand with each other, the more you are present, the more you are aware. and the more awareness you have the more love you will be receptive to within yourself. The more love you have within, the more love will prevade the community that you live in. Do you see where I’m going with this?

It comes down to you though, it must start with you, you cannot fix other people if you cannot even fix yourself. You have the choice to be present, although you may fall from time to time, but just the catching of it is enough of a reward, do not be bothered by the thought of falling out of the present moment… that is just thought again trying to pull you back into the past. It’s only doing its job of being of past.

Here are some examples to guiding yourself back to presence:

• If you see that thoughts of past have come up, take a moment to see your subtle breathe, how it gently goes in and goes outward. Almost as if in a circular motion, pay attention to it. This is often called by Atisha who was an Enlightened Buddha, “Riding the Breath.” Paying attention to the breath is important because it requires no thought just an awareness of being. The Breath itself will bring you back into the present moment
• Pull yourself back to what you are currently doing, for example if you’re on a walk, to be aware of the tensions in the body, the very intricate way that each foot takes it step.
• Say you are drinking tea, don’t do anything else but drink the tea, smell the fine aroma, observe the taste that it gives off when it hits your lips.
• And the practical one for the thought pulling you in the past, by merely seeing that that is what it is doing, instead of getting caught up in it… Step back (not in the physical sense… or if you want to get creative you can do it in a physical sense ) observe the thoughts floating by, feel no judgement toward you, they need not be judged for again they have already been dealt with, but rather observe the reactions the thoughts are having. By being aware of the thought and the reaction of the memory, you are in the present viewing them, because you have created the gap. With this gap creates realization that, “yeah, these are just thoughts, why have the thought in the first place?”

It’s okay with the thought it there, let it happen, they will subsibe on their own, you don’t need to condemn or resist thought, infact if they want to hang out, let them, you being aware they are there and just letting be will allow them to filter through you. Masters have used this analogy of, “Thoughts are like clouds and you are like the sky, that the clouds will always just drift by and disapear but you will remain.”

More on being present in my precious presence post.

sodom and gomorrah:

Interesting enough my father brought this to the forefront and although I don’t believe this to be an actual historical event as much as a parable for this exact state of being. “Do not look back, only deal with what you have right now in the preent moment. You have everything that you need in this moment right now.” This is what the story says to me. Just do not look back, it is meaningless, but this is not to say that you can reminisce on memories. Just know that there consequences for choices that are made. Like thinking too much will likely have a reaction of thought asking you, “what did i do with my life?” These are natural things that pop up that really don’t need to be worried about. You are not those thoughts but rather just scenes in a long movie that you can enjoy. Also these things have been learning experiences…

Detaching from the Past:

When you have re-discovered that the present moment is who you are, who you really are, there will be a shift. However just because you have become more present does not mean that you will not come into any roadblocks or rough patches in life… for life seems to always be in dual, in equal balance, in bad and good, light and darkness…. So things will still occur in your life, that you may view as being bad or good, but being present allows you to tend to them totally and with clarity, you will learn greatly from the experience and you will transcend the experience. IT is your natural quality to do so…

Abide Here Now, You are You in the Present Moment!~

I’ve been trying to compare post adoption depression with postpartum depression. I have found by and large that the two have a great many things in common such as fatigue, lack of joy (understatement), sense of numbness, isolation, lack of concern for self and/or baby, insomnia, over/under focusing on baby, decrease libido, mood swings, appetite changes and thoughts of suicide.

However, post adoption depression has some unique issues. With international adoption the child is often not a newborn and can be hyper-aware of their new caregiver and their emotions. The guilt of knowing the child can see you struggling surmounts swiftly. The guilt turns to rage. I’m unsure if PPD sufferers go through same ugly rage, I can only surmise that it is possible.

The children often arrive from  institutions with their own issues and likely are going through their own grieving. There has been no nine moths of physical contact between mother and child and there is no bond between you both.

Lastly, the biggest difference is that PAD is not recognized, not spoken about and is usually kept hidden by the guilt ridden mother. Many care providers have not even heard of it and don’t understand the unique issues we face with our new kids.

Another  point of PAD is that the mother, stressed and standing on the edge of the knife, has the ability to disrupt the adoption. She can end the whole shebang with a call to the agency. Sure, us PAD sufferers have all toyed with the thought, especially after a particularly challenging moment, but most of us don’t actually follow through. However, some do. I wonder how many, given enough support, might have backed away from that decision chosing instead to work on themselves and the bond with their child.

In my next post I will discuss how maternal depression might affect the child.

1.  I have been teaching this term two courses that I meant to be identical but at different levels of intensity and abstraction, but my intentions (I typed intensions, which is more correct, since my intentions have stretched) (and I told my students that there are no asides in the classroom) (which is the same thing as saying there is no no in the unconscious) have little to do with what has happened, absolute divergence. As I described in the last post, teaching classes is for me like writing: if, in advance, I overprepare, then become blank and excited before I set out the prospective shape of things, and if, during the time of extension, I find it all absorbing and difficult, and if, afterwards, I can’t exactly remember what happened, not even the affect, and if I have to excavate the encounter as though it involves material from a therapeutic hour, that’s when I know that something has happened.

2.  John Forrester claims that the analysand can only lie, as all the story she has is noise that fills the space of what she knows but cannot know yet, or bear to know. That is true about teaching, too. It is impossible to know who one is as a teacher. The relation between what one intended and what one did–even if one’s own sense of things were to govern the evaluation of efficacy–can’t be determined solipsistically, not only because we teach other people as singularities and as groups, not only because teaching them is so very different than reaching them, not only because the feedback loops are so varied and out of synch (when they’re not out of commission altogether), but also because the relation between information transmission and all of the other activities within the scene of teaching is mostly unconscious, seat of the pants, in the normative ether, and atmospheric, rather than eventilized. I cannot imagine myself as a student encountering myself as a teacher.

But, in contrast to the analysand, I do not lie when I am teaching:I know when things are being described well and I know when we are going somewhere uncharted. I’m explicit about this, too: I say that I don’t know what I don’t know, that I made a mistake, that I fear that things are not happening when discussions are weird, that the quality of the feedback loop is unsatisfying if I sense that people are not learning. I try to keep things ratcheted up. I know when what they came for is available to them and when it’s still inadequately gathered up in clarifying narrative, reference, and context-building. But knowing that it’s available does not mean that teaching has happened.

That’s really the main difference between the classroom and the analytic scene, but it’s a big one.  Not knowing is the inevitable experience of therapy. There, language and bodies carry what is known into domains that cut through what is said. In class, though, I have a mission to model relations of clarity to unclarity, to talk about the ways we might be able to know the contours of something difficult more fully if we had different skills to encounter it. I then show them the beginnings of an encounter with the problem and map out what skills the people in the conversation might need to build, including me, and students add to that pile, when it works. In any given 90 minute session we can only begin to open up an approach to the material that is being mediated by the material material that is on the syllabus. In the next class we try again, aiming toward a new opening that’s different from the other one.  There is never enough time.  Only time for a first (half-averted, distorted) encounter, then another.

3.  This term I am speechless in front of the material I am teaching, and not because it’s about trauma and suffering.  I have been struggling also with my muteness in front of the material with which I am writing as well,  maybe it’s related. Also, it’s a lot of new material, and it takes a process for me to let things in. In another part of this series I will tell a story about an encounter I had in my car a few Sundays ago with Sarah Schulman, who tried to teach me how to write, and the difference was hilarious. For the time being, though, my life is defined by this: I have constructed two out of joint courses that are similar topically but mainly in the way they stuff a fist in my throat.

4. I take that image from Phoebe Gloeckner’s A Child’s Life and Other Stories, which I am inexplicably bringing to my graduate class on trauma, for which I have named this genre, a teaching.

5.  Gloeckner’s book is a heap of remnants, attempts to tell a story whose plot is about her being fucked and out of luck but never out of desire.  Lucky for her, slapstick is in her arsenal to help her see her way through life: slapstick, with its big, violent, hyperbole lodged in the ordinary and shaped by startling rhythms of sequencing that always peter out into an ellipsis or faux finality. Slapstick is the “WTF?” and the “FML!” as best (imaginary) friends.

Gloeckner’s drawing always involves new economies of rawness (exposure) and defense (close-up, distance, clutter, word/image intensity, child-cartoonish distortion).  Her stories are straightforward comic sentimentality:  tragedy with exclamation points. (!!! !!!)  I tried to lead my students through the rhythm of her recirculation of defense and exposure, of surrealism and the detail, of her upending of the inside and outside of the body, of the tragicomic situation as seriality without end or narrative satisfaction. They were not so interested in what I have to say–this class does not find my mind interesting. They were compelled by something else, Scott McCloud’s concept of cartoon realism.  But the communication of something is more than the pressing of a subjectivity’s face onto paper.

6. I inserted the book in the course at the last minute when my dearly beloved Was turned out to be out of print.  But I cannot yet see why I thought A Child’s Life was a substitute, since Was is the most tender book I’ve ever read, which is to say the least comic, even though technically it is a comedy: it’s like putting your finger on the forehead of a friend and then taking away your hand to watch the imprint fade. I had known that Was was out of print because Geoff Ryman had told me so, but I refused to believe it: a week before school started the bookstore confirmed what I had refused to take in and in a panic I inserted this book, this child’s garden of trauma.

7. A teaching exists when you read a text for the conceptual opening it can make in the rhythm of ignorance that you have called your knowledge (Rancière). A teaching exists when you gather up different ways of conceiving the same problem and try to move things by putting them in relation. This is the point about Gloeckner’s use of serial form: it’s not just a representation of being broken (reduced to a cartoon) but a rhythm of astonished ongoingness–breaks, distortions, repetitions, fadings without dying. Authority is not the point and application is impossible. The point is to use the spiky cluster of episodes that are variations in a field of affect to construct a live analytic happening whose governing infinitive does not yet exist (so you ask: what potential action is shifted by these scenes? what is it a transformative case of?). I always need one more class than I have to make effective this process of shifting the shape of any object/scene.  Recomposing  an encounter with a problem forces one to hear the noise, the penumbra of the problem, in a new way.   On the other hand, it all takes place in my head, my desire, I fear.  I bring it to the room, and each day the students look at me as though they were never inside it.  Remember?  Oh, that was four days ago. Maybe they weren’t.  In any case, I am not them inside of it, only me.  All we have to hold onto is the common problem, and I am the keeper of the problem.  And remembering that is hard enough.

8.  Suddenly the room in which I am typing smells like candle wax, and the woman with Alzheimer’s who lives above me is howling for dear life. I hope these things are not related–yet they are.

In intriguing research conducted at the University of California and other locations, it appears that psychopathic killers often have lower intelligence, which can be the result of brain damage; often from severe chronic maltreatment as a child. Three factors appear to be present among violent offenders:
1. Several “violence” genes.
2. Damage to certain areas of the brain
3. Exposure to extreme trauma and poor parental bonding in childhood.

Among genetic markers related to aggression and mood is MAOA. The high risk variant of this gene gets inherited more by males than females. MAOA regulates serotonin, which affects mood (which is why medications like Prozac affect mood. These medications are called SSRIs: Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. They function to keep more serotonin in the synapses between brain cells.). In the womb the high-risk version of MAOA can lead to a buildup of serotonin in the brain making the brain less sensitive to the normally calming effects of serotonin. Other research indicates that people who inherit the high-risk gene and who are raised in abusive homes may be more prone to violent behavior.

In another study pbulished in Comprehensive Psychiatry early in 2009, it was found that boys who inherit a mutated variant of MAOA are more likely to be in a gang than those without the mutation and are more likely than those without the mutation to be the most violent gang members.

Following on from the Clone Wars episode Landing at Point Rain, Weapons Factory continues to highlight the rather unorthodox methodology of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. There is a fundamental disconnect between Anakin’s understanding of right and wrong and that of the Jedi Order, and in the final minutes of this episode, we see just how great that disconnect is.

With the mission to destroy the shield generator a success, it’s now up to Anakin and Ahsoka to destroy the Geonosian droid foundry itself. With the addition of Jedi Master Luminara Unduli and her Padawan, Barriss Offee, the group decide to split-up: Anakin and Luminara will distract the Geonosian forces with a rather straightforward configuration of troops while Ahsoka and Barriss sabotage the foundry from within.

Luminara Unduli and Anakin Skywalker team-up on Geonosis

But, as obliquely hinted at with this episode’s fortune cookie (“No gift is more precious than trust”), Anakin is unsure about the idea of the two Padawans being given such responsibility. The notion of “trust”, however, is a red herring: Anakin is simply uncomfortable with losing control of Ahsoka and allowing her a degree of autonomy.

From the very first moments of Weapons Factory, Anakin undermines Ahsoka at every opportunity, not once giving her the opportunity to grow as a leader or as a Jedi. By allowing Ahsoka to grow, Anakin risks losing the relationship they’ve formed. Like the Mother personality in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho — keeping her son, Norman, as unnaturally frozen in time as the stuffed animals that adorn his office — Anakin cannot allow Ahsoka to mature, for if he does, he loses the child he now cares for.

This then manifests as a rather paradoxical Master/Padawan relationship. Anakin must at once keep Ahsoka in the role of “child” and yet, simultaneously, he must be sure not to mentor her too well, lest she “grow up”. The result is a kind of “big brother” role, where doesn’t so much mentor as hector.

It is not surprising, then, that when Barriss first encounters the pair, they are (rather publicly) at each other’s throats, behaving more as out-of-control siblings than as in-control master and apprentice. Luminara and Barriss, on the other hand, present as calm and respectful of each other’s role in the relationship. The styles of Anakin and Luminara are like night and day.

And so once the two Padawans inevitably become cut-off from the group, the differences in approach between Anakin and Luminara are truly apparent. Luminara remains calm, having made peace with either possible outcome; Anakin, meanwhile, becomes belligerent, mistaking Luminara’s enlightened detachment for cold-hearted indifference.

Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee prepare to enter the catacombs of the droid foundry

Anakin’s attitude represents a complete misreading of both Jedi and, in our world, Buddhist philosophy. It’s not that you don’t care or turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, but rather that you accept that death is necessarily a part of life — no amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth will change an outcome, whatever it may be. You can (and should) be an active force for good in the world, just as the Jedi are, and yet still be willing to accept that life itself is a grand work of art, and both joy and sorrow, comedy and tragedy, give the finished, rendered piece its beauty.

“It’s not that I gave up, Skywalker, but unlike you, when the time comes, I am prepared to let my student go,” Luminara tells Anakin. “Can you say the same?”

Whether Ahsoka eventually dies, graduates or turns to the Dark Side (as unlikely as that may be), I think we all know the answer to Luminara’s rather pointed question.

Okay, I’m not really famous, but I was on the radio!  Okay, it was just a small little Catholic AM station, but, hey, that’s something!

I was driving home from my allergist last week listening to my local Catholic AM station.  Most of the shows are nationally syndicated, so it’s actually FM in some cities.  The show I was listening to is one of my favorites because it’s hosted by a husband and wife and the husband is a psychotherapist.  I like a lot of the other programs as well, but I particularly enjoy that when callers call in, the response is two-pronged with his psychology background and her family-life education background.  And I like that they’re married with kids.

As I listened, I quickly experienced one of those ‘I was meant to hear this’ moments.  They were talking about how childhood attachment (which specifically describes how much you trust that your parents will meet your needs) is directly related to adult mental and emotional health.  They said many studies have been done that show a link between weak childhood attachments and adult resiliency.  I absolutely think my issues with capability are the same as whether or not I am resilient.  Then Dr. P. said something that I think I’ll remember for a long time.  He said that adults who have suffered weak or non-existent attachments often experience healing through parenting their own children.

I got to the grocery store, parked, pulled out my little post-its and started taking notes!  After I heard one caller, they said the number again and I thought – what the heck – I’ll call in.  The screener picked up after two rings and I about died!  I had kind of pulled together what I wanted to say, so after I told her, and waited on hold through one more caller, I got to talk to them!  (I thought about sharing the link, but it’s just so embarrassing! My voice is all high-pitched and nervous…  I figured you could live with just a summary.)

Just like with my therapist, I felt like after I spoke for less than two minutes, they understood who I was and what I was about.  The woman first spoke to me lovingly as a mother to a mother.  She reassured me that everyone goes through the same cycle of getting up their confidence about having more children and then psyching themselves out.  She said her childhood experience was similar to mine and she suggested that I pray in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament.  (Something I have done, but not specifically for strength/discernment about having another child.)  She told me that if I left there feeling positive and empowered, then no matter how much psyching out I do, I can always draw on the memory of that experience.  (I was drawing on the sense I got after we prayed our novena last fall, but now that seems so far away!)  Then she turned it over to her husband to speak to the psychological aspect.

He was thoroughly supportive.  He said that the fact that I’ve been able to see parenting as a healing process from my childhood suggested that I’m at a good point in my journey.  He first told me to acknowledge that that healing process is very taxing (so true!), then he said to explore what is holding me back and if it was specific issues that could be worked through with the help of a therapist or supportive friends, then to go ahead and work through those.  If, on the other hand, it was just a generalized fear or anxiety then that was a temptation to be avoided with all of my strength.  He defined anxiety as the fear of doing something that would be good for us.  That made a whole lot of sense to me because, through my own reading and prayer, I had already concluded that succumbing to my anxiety is my biggest temptation.  Some have alcohol, others have gambling; I have worry.  I have been given the tools to recognize it and combat it, so to choose to succumb to it now is a matter of weakness or laziness on my part.

They ended by suggesting a… wait for it… self-help book!  You will be shocked to know that I’ve already ordered it and started reading it.  It is supposed to help me think clearly and objectively about my attachment to my parents as a child so I can have a clearer perspective and better sense of control over my ability as a parent.  Just from that short radio program, I’ve already had several ‘aha’ moments.  Since I did not trust my parents to meet my needs, I lack confidence that anyone – myself included – can meet my needs.  This explains why I used to obsess over “expert” opinions and why I’m unsure about my capabilities as a whole.  My parents played a God-like role where they told me what I needed, and they gave it to me whether I needed it or not.  This explains why I have such a tough time discerning what my needs are.  Lastly, because my parents never took the time to try to discern my needs and because of the environment of conditional love in our home, I understand the deep, deep fear I used to have that I would eventually lose the love of my husband and son and would end up alone in some psych ward.  (I have my mother to thank for all of her fatalistic stories that happened to involve psych wards.)

It was a little thing, but being a part of that radio program, and getting to hear advice from people whose advice I’ve come to respect, was a true moment of grace!

I admit an honest truth: it’s tricky being a father today. Not because dads don’t desperately desire to succeed at their role, but because what we’re supposed to do is relatively unclear. But this just might be where the problem lies. Most of us dads fixate on what we can do and accomplish rather than what we are called to be.

Maybe the defining need of children moving toward and through adolescence is a close relationship with both mom and dad. This is where father’s get tripped up as we move into action and attempt to manage and monitor parent to child relationships. Developmental scholars label this relationship by the technical term of attachment. They emphasize that the most important aspect to this connection is the perception of the child, rather than the feelings of the parent.

Dads: cultivating a close relationship with our kids is more art than science. It is felt more than accomplished. What is vital is not how we perceive the connections are going but how our son or daughter feel and perceive the intimacy of their relationship with us. Here are several key ideas in developing a close attachment with our sons and daughters that I have tried to live out:

• Be available: not when it fits my schedule but in a way that works for my child.
• Be accessible: physically and emotionally. My kids need to feel that they have access to my time and your heart.
• Be present: I’m trying to look my son and daughter in the eye when I listen. Distractions abound and we must fight the temptation to fake attention.
• Be ready: look for and anticipate the moments when my children are open for me to meet their needs. Listen and look carefully for your teenager to articulate, maybe in an awkward or veiled way, a request for your help. Don’t pounce but respond with gentle help.
• Be encouraging: I’m watching the language I use as I connect with my kids. Look for ways to build up as you guide your son and daughter toward healthy development.

I’m not a perfect father, but I love my kids, and am trying to father them more than fix them.

Box of Books by Francis Bourgoin

Today I gave away five boxes of what, up until recently, I would have considered my most valuable possession-books.  I packed them up and took them down to the County Library and donated them for their upcoming book sale fundraiser. These were not superfluous books.  They were not books that were not any good, or that I had never really wanted and never read.  Those books I had gotten rid of long ago. These were books I had read, thoroughly enjoyed, and in some ways treasured.  I had held onto and possessed these books for a long time. I did not really use them or reread them.  Still, I held on to them for some unknown reason.

Giving them away was not an exercise in cleaning out my office or philanthropy.  I  had to force myself to do this. I really did not want to.  But, what I do want to do is to learn how to live a life free from attachments. It is the attachments of my life that have almost destroyed me.  I am not really talking about books so much.  That is a relatively minor attachment.  I am really speaking about my attachment to self, to my ambition, to my desire to be thought well of and respected, and above all my attachment to success. But, before I can learn to live free of those attachments I must learn to let go of the smaller ones. Unfortunately, as I have discovered, if you really want to discover what detachment is all about eventually you have to let go of something. So, I began by forcing myself to give away something I really like and wanted to keep.  It was only five boxes of books, but it was a start. Interestingly, after I left the library the feeling I had was not one of euphoria or spiritual ecstasy at this great achievement.  I felt somewhat remorseful and regretful.  It was kind of like dropping a child off at an orphanage.  It was not a good feeling. That tells me I have a long way to go.

I have become convinced that speaking about detachment, and understanding it in theory and as a concept, is interesting.  But, unless we are prepared to start letting some things go, then we will never experience a life free from the attachments that so consume our lives. I believe that the life of the Spirit will only open up to us after we first free ourselves of the attachments that tie us down and distract us from the way of the Spirit.  This way cannot be learned, understood or conveyed in books, lectures or any sort of intellectual discipline.  It can only be experienced.  Of course, if we want to experience something sooner or later we have to to stop thinking and talking about it.  We have to place ourselves in a position to begin having the experience. So, I am trying to lean what it is like to do without, to let go of the things I hold on to, and to experience life without all the attachments.  The spiritual guides say it is best to start living such a life slowly.  I will try to follow their advice, a few boxes at a time.

Pax Vobis

Thursday was fucking traumatic, a state of affairs of which you are probably aware given my citation of the disturbing imagery of Metallica’s Until It Sleeps that evening. You’ll have seen on that post that my iPod was reading my mind again in playing it – and other songs on similarly dark themes – but what is most interesting about this is that this strange form of electronic ESP took place as I was driving home from an utterly pointless dissociative trip to a coastal town about 20 miles from home.

My first proper awareness of going to said town was when I realised I was in the centre of it. I do have a very vague recollection of noticing my normal turn off and thinking that the traffic was heavy, but at no time did I think, “why the fuck are you not in that heavy traffic?” I don’t remember deciding to drive on, and I don’t remember the journey. Another small-scale fugue-like episode. Sweet.

I had been quite good on the self-harm front of late, but the good spell has been broken. ‘Bitch’ and ‘grief’ are the latest, though I don’t remember doing the former (it must have bled like fuck though as I had seemingly used a towel to stem the bloodflow). Grief. Am I grieving for myself, or for what I should have been? If so, is that good? Presumably one is meant to say, “well, the self-harm bit isn’t good,” but you know me folks – not really one to listen to that sort of argument. A is raging with C; in A’s eyes, it is C’s fault that I have taken to cutting myself again. But it isn’t. It really isn’t. All C has done is facilitate triggering discussions, and been someone to whom I am hopelessly attached, which is hardly his fault. We can’t avoid matters of this importance simply because there is a risk it may act as a trigger; the entire psychotherapeutic process would then be pointless, and I’d be left as mental as I ever was.

I’m unsure as to what exactly this entry will amount to, as I remember surprisingly little of the session – perhaps unsurprisingly. But let’s start at the very beginning and see what happens.

C pointed out that he’d been looking through his diary and saw that our current contract was due to end shortly (he thought there were two sessions remaining after Thursday; I thought one, but as it turns out it will not matter). This was something of which I was horribly well aware. Having only begun to open up to C properly in the last few weeks, I was convinced that he’d see me as a manipulative bitch – it looked, to my cynical mind, like I was trying to wrangle more time out of him by leaving the avalanche of confessions until this point. Given that my primary diagnosis is borderline personality disorder, it reasonably follows (in my eyes) that he could believe me to be manipulative, as the psychiatric establishment still seems to think that about those who have BPD more than any other psychiatric problem.

Of course, he didn’t like either the idea that he would find me manipulative, nor in particular that he would think this because I have BPD – that fixates on labels, don’t you know. Actually, it doesn’t, because it’s what I think he should think anyway – the fact that BPD is the only psychiatric diagnosis to still be treated with open contempt by mental health professionals just reinforces that point – though to be fair, I have not experienced that disdain personally, thank God.

I honestly don’t think I was being manipulative – not consciously, anyhow – but it did look like it, and that had been my worry all week. Of course, C refused to concede that this was the case in his eyes. Did he point blank deny it? I think he may well have done, but I don’t remember clearly enough to say for certain. What he was willing to admit to was that I may, consciously or otherwise, fear the end of the relationship, and act accordingly to preserve it. Which is apparently not manipulative. Hmm.

The issue of the end of therapy raised its ugly head a couple of times during the meeting. What he said at this juncture was that we should “…continue seeing each other until Christmas, at which point [he'll] be off for a fortnight, and then we’ll review the situation in January.”

Review the situation in January. You can take a wild guess as to what I think about that. He is going to throw me out with the dirty water in cunting January. Just over a month away, after the most stressful time of the year for me (ah yes, I’m sure you’ll be treated to a delicious rant about fucking Christmas in the near future, dearest readers). A tells me that this is not what C meant; apparently, he literally meant that we shall review the situation, and if further therapy is required (as if it won’t be), then that is what the case shall be. Well, Ms Rationality of course says, “yeah, right” to that. He is going to abandon me.

I honesty don’t remember how I reacted in session to the comment about ‘reviewing things in January’. I think I simply agreed and didn’t voice the aforementioned rejection worries, but I wouldn’t swear to it. As I said, it did indeed come up again, but I don’t remember under what circumstances. I can and do appreciate that the relationship can’t be permanent – in the most rational of ways, I don’t want it to be. I want to live an independent life, free of a need for a surrogate daddy. But can C realistically expect to change 13+ years of misery and being fucked about by the NHS in seven-ish months, particularly when I have such a strong neurotic attachment to him? Trying to be objective about it, I cannot honestly fathom that as reasonable, except in especially productive scenarios (which are about as applicable to me as…um…er…something that is very un-applicable to me). This is a personality disorder. It is ingrained into every metaphorical fibre of my self, the conscious, the unconscious, whatever – and it is causing me to self-destruct. Can something of such enormity and longevity honestly be treated adequately in just over half a year?

In any case, eventually the discussion – predictably enough – returned to the eminently delightful subject matter of the preceeding week. Eugh. It was me that raised it, though not exactly through choice; we were talking about something else (no idea what now) which triggered some sort of memory – it’s a shame I’ve forgotten what that subject was, as it would be useful to know these triggers, especially in cases where there is no obvious correlation, as I think the case was in this instance.

I became rather agitated and told C that I wasn’t “going there”. I hid.

Despite my telling him to leave it, he continued to probe me – but gently and quite subtly, to be fair. I eventually admitted that I was thinking about the Pandora’s Box.

My memory is even more fragmented from here on in, though some things do stick out in my mind very clearly. I was very, very careful not to verbally articulate much at all; at one point I desperately begged, “look, don’t you see where I’m going with this?” But it appears that he believes that I need to say the words. I still have not used the word ‘rape’, and strictly speaking he could still be under the impression that it was something other than rape – but he’s not that stupid.

He must have asked what was so troubling about verbalising this material, because I remember then telling him that I am fairly tolerant of articulating the gruesome information on this blog.

“Which is odd,” I mused, “given that it is all the more real when it is written down, even more so than if I verbally discuss it. It’s there, on the blog, in black and white.” (See here, for example).

I went on to postulate the idea that perhaps it is easier to deal with in writing because I can rationalise everything; life events become something that is seen in the third person, by a narrator, an observer with at least a modicum of theoretical knowledge of that about which she writes. If I have to talk about it, I have to feel it. I am there, in the midst of it, with the rawness, the vileness, the trauma of it all.

He agreed. He didn’t say so, but a sense that he wants me to feel that repressed pain was very palpable. Maybe that is why he was such a cock when I put this, and other shit, in writing for him – in fact, I’m certain it is. What kind of profession capitalises on other people’s grief? If I asked him why he became a clinical psychologist, I’m sure he’d respond along the lines of that old cliché, “I want to help people.” What, by making them relive their darkest memories, by making them suffer through them all again? Does that not take a special kind of sadism?

I am, of course, being a little facetious; I don’t believe C to be a sadist in the least, and I do believe he is in his job for the right reasons. But the human mind, and the sciences that arise therefrom, are odd things indeed. It strikes me as strange that it is an apparent psychological necessity to directly face that which you most revile in your past, before you can heal from the wounds it inflicted.

But this is not a post about the curious concept of psychology as an academic discipline, nor is it a post about the mindsets of those practising this form of figurative alchemy; it is a post about a session I had with my therapist. So…was it at this point that I lost it? I’m not sure, but anyway, in my next clear memory, all I could see in my head was the INCIDENT, or more specifically, the moments during which I was pushed to the floor of the outhouse in which it took place and served up as tasty piece of young meat for the delectation of my uncle. I recall very strongly that (in C’s office, not in my mind) I had my head in my lap and was pelting my skull with both fists with as much strength as I could muster. I have never done anything of this ilk in C’s company before.

And so he too did something that he has never done before; he raised his voice to me. He didn’t shout, but he did raise his voice just enough to try and penetrate through the mentalism that had tenaciously gripped my mind.

“SI!” he called. Well, he didn’t of course – perhaps it will surprise some of you to learn that I have a name, a normal, very ordinary name, and he used that instead – but you know what I mean. One thing I’ll not forget about this session was that he actually used my name three times, and at one point I used his too – these things are unheard of in the whole time we’ve known each other. Does it mean something? Why do I attach such importance to something so apparently normal and trivial? Is it because using names is personal, and that I want to see him as a person, not a canvas? Who knows. I certainly don’t, but I do know that that memory sticks with me.

I think he must have somehow brought me back from this mental place, but I don’t remember the specifics. The next part of the conversation that I recall was when he asked me how I felt about myself and that I told him that I felt like a “dirty, fetid little slut.” I then rationalised things for a bit, proclaiming that I am in actuality not a slut. Unfortunately, I still felt (feel) like one.

Then I lost it again. “I’m a filthy whore,” I spat, hiding from him again with my hands.

I think he actually went as far as to tell me that I am not a whore, but that could be a phantom memory. I mean, how the fuck would he know? I could have sold sex in 28 European capitals for all he knows. One thing he definitely did do was try and help me regain my composure. I sat up and pretended to be fine, sticking out my hand to measure how much it was shaking. I have used an incident when I was about 15 as a yardstick to measure anxiety; the day after I found out about an incredibly twisted lie from my first real boyfriend (a long story that I will have to detail some day), I went into school and, in English, happened to notice how much my hand was shaking. That denotes severe anxiety and/or anger. If the shaking is less than that, things could be worse.

I told C about this. However, a brief reference to the lying cunt of an ex must have touched on the self-disgust I was already feeling over my own lying to C about the INCIDENT (when we first met I told him it was ‘mere’ touching, but that was only part of it, obviously. More on this shortly). I told him this – still without using that word – and went into a major self-invective of utter disgust and abhorrence. It was filled with ranting about how much of a shameful, lying, grotesque, hateful slag I am, lying to the one person that might be able to bring me back a little hope in this sorry mental battle, and about how guilty and sorry I am, blah blah de blah.

When I took a second to draw breath, he jumped in to try and (a) reassure me that I had nothing to feel guilty about and (b) establish exactly what it was that I felt I’d lied about.

I answered (b) first, at least to the best of my recollection. He’d specifically asked in our initial assessment sessions what form the sexual abuse took. As is my wont, I had avoided articulating myself properly, and instead managed to answer the question merely by his probing. I think, though I am not certain, that he asked if I was raped, and that I said ‘no’. I am sure that when he asked if it was inappropriate touching that I said ‘yes’, and that I led him to believe that that was all. In my defence – and I told him this in the session to which this post refers – I have dissociated a lot of the INCIDENT. I remember ghastly, loathsome pieces of it in fleeting glimpses, like looking at still pictures in an album or, sometimes, short video clips. I remember the sensations of pain and terror in these moments too. I am grateful that the memories are so brief, but also resentful of it too, as it feels like it removes my power to understand the INCIDENT and my reactions to it. Furthermore, obviously part of me does remember it, and that part is mentally fucked – perhaps it would be easier to address were it all consciously there at the front of my mind.

Anyhow, I then proceeded to respond C’s (a) point. “I lied to you,” I said simply. “Aren’t you angry with me?”

“No, of course I’m not angry with you.”

“Why not? You should be.”

He sort of laughed (he mustn’t have realised I was serious), but seeing the look on my face, he desisted from doing so abruptly.

“SI,” he said again, firmly, looking straight at me. “Do you seriously think that I should be angry with you?” His tone was a more compassionate version of ‘incredulous’.

“Yes,” I began, “fucking dirty, lying, grotesque little bitch, fucking…”

“One,” he interrupted, rather dramatically, leaning forward and counting on his fingers as he did. “We had only just met and you can’t honestly have expected yourself to deeply discuss such sensitive matters with someone you didn’t know. Two, you didn’t lie, you omitted some information…”

“But then that’s a lie of omission…” I began.

“Three!” he went on, raising his eyebrow in a surprisingly authoritative fashion, signaling that I was to let him finish, “three, this is hard for you to talk about, so it is not surprising you withheld it. What is there to be angry with?! I am not angry with you, and neither should I be.”

Well, that was me told, then. I was quite taken aback by the forcefulness of his tone. Actually, ‘forcefulness’ is a horrid word to use as it has negative connotations – let’s say ‘emphatic’ instead. He was incredibly emphatic. I gaped at him in a sort of stupefied disorientation for a minute or two.

He sat back in his chair, recovered his blank canvas and either asked me how I felt, or signalled for me to speak.

“Um…” I muddled. “That’s reassuring. I do feel reassured. But it also confuses me; you have a completely different attitude to it from me.”

He seemed to understand that in fairness, which not an awful lot of people would. He was able to see the black-and-white chain of logic that I was following in believing that he ought to be angry, but luckily for C things in his world do not seem to be as black and white as they are in mine.

I don’t remember how things ended. I know that I was battered and bruised psychologically (and physically to boot what with punching my head). At no point had I been tearful, but one does not need to weep to mentally suffer. I went and sat in the car and phoned A for catharsis and reorientation purposes. Although the trauma of reliving the INCIDENT had been the most awful aspect of the session, the fact that I fixatedly whined to A that C ‘wants to abandon me’ before I even touched on the rest of things is very telling.

In later discussions A urged me to tell C about this abject fear. What’s the point? C already knows I’m terrified of him abandoning me. Perhaps the real question is ‘is my attachment to him healthy?’ There have been mixed views on this from the readership of this blog. cbtish, for example, thinks it puts me in an intolerable position (cbtish is a therapist). Vanessa from eTransference, a clinical psychologist in training who has a particular interest in the phenomenon of transference, thinks it ought to be encouraged in many ways. Others undergoing therapy – bourach and thesamesky (who’s also a counsellor) for example – have their own struggles with the therapeutic dyad (bourach in particular will understand why I thought C should be angry with me, given this post of her’s).

I don’t know what the answer is; just that the attachment is very real. Just that I feel guilty for withholding information and for lying (though he wants me to stop that – and I’ve just remembered that the session ended with him asking me, again, to try and not post-mortem things in therapy. Oops. He was also worried, after what happened with VCB’s SHO in September, that his actions or words could have a…er…detrimental effect on me. Double oops. All I can say is that I think our current dialogue is progress, regardless of any self-harm that follows). And at least I am far from alone in withholding, and even lying.

But it’s still all a bit of a quagmire, yes?

(Part 3 – Synopsis of a lecture given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj on November 17, 2009, in Bhatinda, India)

So the conclusion is that it is the mind alone that has to be purified. Whether you practice devotion to the world or to God, wherever the mind is attached is where you will have raga or love. Vairagya or without raga means to detach the mind from the world. But what do we think detachment means? “Look! That renunciate is living in the jungle! He doesn’t wear any clothing and he only eats fruits! He never speaks to anyone!” But we don’t see that he is still thinking of the world. Instead we fall at his feet thinking he is as great as God’s own father.

This is due to our ignorance. Renunciation means to have no mental attachment in the world. There were uncountable Saints in the age of Sat Yuga, some who ruled over this entire earth like Prahlad, Dhruva and Ambarish. There were Saints like Vasishtha and Bharadwaj, and Lord Ram, Bharat, Lakshman, and Shatrughan – they were all living in family life. The Gopis, whose foot dust was desired even by Brahma and Shankar, were all in family life. But if we had seen them, we would have thought, “Poor things, they are attached to the world.” And when we see a so-called holy man in the jungle sitting under a tree, we think, “This is a God realised Saint.”

We don’t recognize who has love for the world and who has love for God. Everything depends on the mind. For the amount of time your mind remains lovingly attached to God, your devotion is correct. Everything apart from this is just acting, and there is no devotional benefit from this. If someone in the world discovers that you are merely acting with them, they will consider you an enemy. The fact is we act with others all the time.

If a dangerous criminal came to your home, you would say to your wife, “Quick! Serve him tea and make sure he has some snacks.” If you don’t pretend to be hospitable he could turn against you. You do this out of fear. A person may say to his business partner about a rich businessman, doctor or lawyer, “Show him a lot of respect and spend a hundred rupees on him, and then later we’ll make two thousand rupees off of him!” We act like this all the time.

All souls are suffering. Even in one’s own home there is so much tension, fighting, and arguing between family members. But if you ask someone, “Hello, Mr. Srivastava, how are you?” He will say, “I’m alright!” There is not a single right thing happening in his life. It is all wrong, yet he lies and says the opposite, “I’m fine!” Apart from the sufferings we undergo from our family, we also have physical suffering, and even more frightening than this is our mental suffering – lust, anger, greed, jealousy and so on. The emotional pain caused by family emergencies – a mother or wife becomes sick, a son has an accident – is in addition to these other sufferings. Yet we tell others, “I’m all right.” This means we keep on acting with others. The problem is we also want to do this same kind of acting with God.

We get what we want in the world by acting and fooling others. But God is residing in our heart, noting all our actions. When you had a thought, He noted it. He noted what you thought. And you claim to want God’s grace! “You are extremely compassionate! Oh, God, grace me!” Should He grace you when you are deceiving Him? The only way He will listen to You and give you His grace is if you sincerely call out to Him and shed tears. This won’t happen through cleverness and cunning. Learning and scholarliness won’t work here, and neither will the wealth of being a billionaire. You have to shed tears and beg God for His love. Please pay attention to this particular point.

Tirupati Temple

Vaishno Devi Temple

Prabhu vyapak sarvatra samana.
“God is equally omnipresent everywhere .”

Just as ghee (clarified butter) is subtly present in milk and fire is subtly present in wood, so God is subtly present everywhere in the world. Whether you go to one temple or another or even to God’s actual divine abode, there is no difference. But our intellect doesn’t understand this. We think, “In Vaishno Devi, God is 100%, and in the temple next door to my house, He is only 10%.”

In fact, the very same God who resides in His own divine abode is also seated in your heart. God is only one, whether one is a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or anything else. There is only one God. Give Him any name you wish; He has uncountable names according to our scriptures. You could even leave the names that have been written in our scriptures for God and make your own name for Him. The Ved says that even the individual letters of the alphabet are God’s names.

Shri Krishna’s mother, Yashoda, never called her son “Shri Krishna”. Instead she said, “Oh! Kanua! Come here!” Where is the word ‘Kanua’ written in the scriptures? The Gopis used to make Shri Krishna dance in exchange for chhach, what is left of milk when the butter is taken out. He happily danced for them, in spite of how many bad names they called Him. Krishna is walking behind a Gopi. She would angrily say, “Where are you going? Lafanga! Shameless womaniser!” Even in the scriptures He was referred to as chaur jar shikhamani, the foremost leader of thieves and adulterers. Hearing these names, Shri Krishna would become overwhelmed with love.

It matters not what name or form of God you adopt. Call out to Him with whatever name you prefer, whether that is in Hindi, Urdu, English, Punjabi or any other language. But however you remember Him, do it with love.

Continued in Part 4

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009

Minah can now travel up the stairs on her own! She’s very proud of herself. She also has started to shake her head “no” …great, eh! She uses that mostly at meal time. Nicholas gave Minah a shampoo yesterday in the tub. He did a great job for his little sister.

Sleep update…Minah slept most of the night. Unfortunately the students in the house next to us had a party. We had to call the police twice and have the party broken up at 2am. Needless to say, we only slept for three hours. It’s hard to believe we are finally on that side of the fence and no longer on the party side of the fence. We’re seriously contemplating this house as this problem is not likely to go away any time soon….something to think about. It’s a real bummer since we really do like the neighbourhood, but the student house could turn out to be a real problem for us.

We got take out Korean food tonight from the Uma Sushi. It was great. The fellow at the restaurant was very interested in Minah (I only had her with me). He wanted to know if she was adopted. He tried to hold her, but she didn’t want to go to him….yeah attachment! I wouldn’t have minded too much if she did since with Nicholas we always find he goes to Korean/Asian people easily…might be some sort of recognition thing. Nicholas loved the Galibi (ribs) and Minah liked the rice and Bulgogi.

Minah loves to touch/pull at her hair while she eats. This is the reason for the extra morning bath.

Nicholas’ first band aid. Yes, I did say first. Amazing, but true. I purchased these from Korea in 2007.

Look how surly he looks. We’re making banana cake…he looks miserable…close to nap time, which he skipped, sigh.

Amanda inquires about a discord between her husband and her nearly three-year-old daughter:  “I am writing to ask for your guidance on an issue that we have been experiencing in our family for the last year and a half: an extremely attached-to-Mama Sophie who is often so cold to her Papa that he feels very sad and rejected. 

Last night Kevin came home from being away a few days for work, and Sophie wanted nothing to do with him.  She just wanted him to go away and was screaming for him to leave.  Kevin was very sad, saying that he has a daughter who is not attached to him.  I wish I could say this was an isolated incidence, but it is not.  It is the norm.  We instituted ‘Papa-Sophie’ Saturday mornings 6 months ago, so that they could bond one-on-one.  If I am present, it is extremely difficult for Kevin to spend more than a minute or two with Sophie, because she very much demands me physically and emotionally.  The Saturday mornings seemed to help a little in the father-daughter relationship, but for the past few months, she screams and cries when he goes to her in the morning and she tells him to put her in her bed and leave.  Sometimes she’ll just fall back asleep for an hour. 

Bruce, this is so painful to watch…Sophie not wanting to be with Kevin, and Kevin feeling unloved and unliked by Sophie.  Sophie and I talk about Papa often and lovingly very regularly when he is at work or away traveling (which is quite frequent…and when he is home, his workday ends after 7 or 8pm at night. He often works on the weekends, too. This behavior towards Kevin started when Kevin was away for us for an entire month while we were in the process of moving). 

I thought this current state of emotion would improve between Sophie and Kevin, but it has not, and I am beginning to see Kevin withdraw a little from Sophie.  It is so difficult to really talk about this with Kevin because he tells me, ‘you’re going to say it’s my fault.’  On top of that, Kevin is extremely stressed out with his work, which is incredibly demanding, taking almost all of his waking time and sapping all of his energy, as he can’t stay asleep due to the anxiety that awakens him.  He has nothing left to give… he is just managing to ‘get through this’ until he can find another job.  

What can I do, what can we do as a family to heal the divide that, for now, exists between Sophie and Kevin?  How can we nourish the attachment between Sophie and Kevin that seems so weak that it does not exist?”

*

While I am not inclined toward being the “expert” with a ready fix, I welcome this question, and particularly the raw authentic emotion of a mother who wants the abundance of her love to nourish and bond both her daughter, her husband and their relationship.

I like to try to understand this sort of situation from multiple angles and hope that a more accurate and empathic understanding will organically give rise to improved connections.  Thus we look at Sophie first:  at around two years old it’s not uncommon for kids to be rather bossy, ordering around grown-ups and petulantly pitching fits when he or she don’t get his or her way.  Keep in mind that while “terrible twos” trips nicely off the tongue, three is often the time of even more highly pitched tantrums—an exhausting stretch for parents to be sure.  When it comes to tantrums, by the way, it’s often best to let them have it out (so long as she’s not hurting herself, i.e. with head-banging); our task is to serve as the bowl to contain their overflowing feelings.

Children at this age also tend to have some issues with choices, wanting things both ways and yet not having the maturity to allow the loss of whatever they cannot have (i.e. she really does want to keep her cake and be able to eat it too).  In this case Sophie probably does want daddy, but she also wants mommy (and keeps powerfully attaching to her in dad’s absence), and once she gets frustrated it all turns to poop and we’re in the red zone of unreasonable petulance (think the out-of-control queen in Alice in Wonderland shouting “off with her head”).

Keep in mind that transitions are hard—waking from the nap, school to home, dad re-entering the family.  Unfortunately in this case, the reunion moment where Kevin is ready for a big hug marks a disruption in the Mommy-Sophie alone time, thus provoking a hissy-fit rather than a Hallmark moment.

Also, the context of this problem seems to mark the confluence of separation individuation (going back to around 18 months, when kids start venturing back and forth from mom or dad’s knee at the park, needing the secure base of a non-clinging, non-anxious, and non-rejecting upon return parent) with a father who must travel frequently (thus creating some issues of confusion about feeling abandoned, and then retaliating with rejection at the point of reunion) further confounded by a move, which can be unsettling to a child who likes consistency to help them feel secure.  After all, if houses can change, parents can come and go rather suddenly, the idea that the child could suddenly experience a loss that does not reverse itself (i.e. the move) may have provoked anxiety about other potential losses.

Power struggles may also be at play here, with a child working the oldest strategy in the kid handbook:  divide and conquer.  By rejecting dad and siding with mom, Sophie tries to nominate herself into co-parent power role.  Perhaps she gets to sleep in the big bed, gets more special mommy time, and generally gets her way when daddy is away… and thus it makes sense she would perceive his return as a loss of attention, power and centrality.

Finally, kids unconsciously give away their unwanted feelings.  Thus what we parents feel can often be a good indicator of what they feel:  in this case, rejected, disempowered, unwanted, hurt, angry, confused, sad.

In trying to understand this situation more fully, we must also try to wriggle into Kevin’s shoes.  Dads can often feel a little extraneous to newborns, not to mention left out in the cold as the mom and baby have a love-fest of bonding.  Compounded by economic pressures, many dads feel like they must do more in return for less.  When the child finally starts to attach with them, and then pulls away, it is doubly hurtful—as if designed to break these father’s hearts.

For dads it can be useful to contemplate where they were at when they were the age their child is now.  Did father leave the family, have an affair or fall off the wagon, etc. at this point?  We can be triggered to unconscious wounds and then be re-experiencing traumas as if we were young children again, taking hard enough feelings and making them rather overwhelming.  In addition, if themes of rejection or abandonment are relevant to any given father, it can be helpful to realize this and avoid projecting the abandoning mother, or old lover onto either wife or child.

Then there is Amanda’s psyche.  Can there be unconscious feelings of anger for the travel?  Is mom ready for a break when dad returns, and this makes the sensitive child feel that they are about to be handed off and thus cling with all their might to the mother?  Could the mom feel competitive with the daughter and fear that she will end up bearing the brunt of her daughter’s rejection if the tables turn?

By being conscious, and not ashamed of our Shadow selves—our darker, possessive and competitive natures—we are freer from being possessed by them and thus unconsciously acting them out. 

While these thoughts cannot possibly capture the nuance of even this, much less any other given situation, the spirit of these ideas is toward thinking expansively, compassionately and non-defensively.

As for strategies to consider for helping this situation heal:

VERBALIZE THAT TRANSITION IS HARD, as this helps frame the issue as a transitory feeling state and reminds us that it will pass.  We might say to Sophie, “It’s hard when daddy goes, and it’s hard when he comes back.  Transition is hard.” 

Activities to help ease transition might include calendars with days being crossed off until dad returns (which makes this also a teachable moment in that it conveys the relevance of a calendar); making cards for dad when he’s away; daily check-in phone calls.  Sometimes the underlying anxiety for a kid like Sophie is that mom will also go away, so the message that Sophie will always be taken care of can answer the unconscious dread and sometimes help diminish the fear that drives the negative acting out.

Given that the moment of reunion is often fraught, consider shaking things up—go meet dad at the airport one time; meet dad at the ice-cream shop; decorate with a welcome home banner, etc.  Kids sometimes do well when you frame a choice for them:  do you want to greet dad in your green dress or your blue dress slyly give Sophie control over something, while making the accepting back of father a non-negotiable aspect.

Kids like structure:  “Dad will come in, we will tell him about your day and the latest projects you’ve been doing, then mom and dad will read you a story and in the morning, we’ll have breakfast together” can be a calming sort of mapping of what is going to happen.

SUPPORT DAD—give the love to dad that Sophie cannot, and leave her have space to be rejecting.  Beware reinforcing negative behavior (i.e. lots of begging, mea culpa guilt, withdrawal and self-pitying despair in the parent in response to her petulant rejections sends a message of weakness that gives too much power to the child, and thus makes her anxious.  Dad’s best play is to stay on message:  “I see you are mad at me, don’t want me right now, hate me, etc. but I love you just the same.”  In order to be able to do this, dad needs to really feel the love from mom.

A dad (or mom) who stays with love and centeredness in the face of rejection will be rewarded with a deeper bond and the knowledge that the child has been offered an image of enduring love that they can, in turn, internalize and carry with them throughout their life.

MENTALLY ARCHITECT A POSITIVE OUTCOME:  Envision Sophie being four or five and drawing peacefully as dad comes in from a trip and she calmly greets him (rather than perhaps dad’s fantasy of her running across the room and leaping on him for a big hug).  Picture the family having a group hug and a harmonious transition to peaceful, engaged and lovingly respectful dinner together.  Visualize Mom and Dad reading a story together with Sophie happily between them.  They tuck her in and then Amanda and Kevin truly catch up and listen to each other as Sophie sleeps peacefully in her bed.

Hold this (or your hand-crafted future image) in your mind.  When Sophie escalates, and you start to feel anxious, breathe deeply and ask, “What action and/or thinking leads to that lovely future moment?”  You’d be surprised how well consciously architecting a more harmonious vision can help organize our cells into just knowing how to get there.

So, today let’s send love to all parents who are feeling frozenly rejected, hurt, angry and even tempted to throw in the towel on it all—banding together in spirit to support these moms and dads in the service of hanging in and finding the love to conquer the transitory hate and fear that resides somewhere in each of us, and in all our collective children.

Namaste, Bruce 

p.s. As I was crafting this post I received a follow up email from Amanda.  I think it underscores the point that consciousness leads to change in mysterious ways.  It read:  “Kevin actually took a real day off work today…I was very much surprised…and elated!  And guess what?  He agreed to go with Sophie to a little class that I usually take her to… a 2-hour ‘parent-tot’ preschool.  They had a good time together.  Sophie cried for just a few minutes when I dropped them off, but then she was fine.  Also, it was SO great for Kevin, because he was with 12 other little ones, all within 6 months of Sophie’s age, and he had a very positive experience, especially with one little boy, Keaton, who wanted to hold his hand and be near him most of the time (some parents don’t attend). I think this gave Kevin an understanding that he is absolutely okay as a parent, that children Sophie’s age naturally gravitate towards him and like him and are comforted by him. 

Hmmm… this out-of-the ordinary desire for Kevin to want to take a real day off with the intention of spending time with Sophie within hours after I write to you about asking for direction.  Coincidence?  Something tells me no…”

Basically this is my OJT report. My ITE industries attachment, at SASSCO. Information of my company,

http://www.staero.aero/www/businesssubsidiary.asp?subid=MTAwMDAwMDAwMDA.

Day1, 12 Oct – Day3, 14 Oct

Orientation, lesson on Human factor, safety issue and test.

Day4, 15Oct – Day5, 16Oct

Training at composite workshop, hands on honeycomb, foam-core and solid composite panels. The advantage of composites, high stiffness, light weight yet incredibly strong, excellent fatigue resistance, the disadvantage of composites, high cost compared to metals, composite hazards, manufacturing time. Composite can be used in many ways, on aircraft, aerospace structures, we even use composite to joint back, side of a “chair”.

Day6, 19Oct – Day10, 23Oct

Training at seat bay, remove passenger seat from cabin,  remove and replaced seat belts, seat cover, life vests from passenger seat. And do inspection on passenger seat to check everything’s is in order.

Day11, 26Oct – 15, 30Oct

Training at NDT workshop.

Liquid penetrant inspections are only able to detect surface breaking flaws. The specimen is coated with a fluorescent or visible dye solution. After a specified dwell time, the excess penetrant is removed from the surface. Often, a developer is applied to help draw penetrant out of imperfections open to the surface, making them much more visible. With fluorescent penetrants, an ultraviolet lamp causes the indications to fluoresce brightly, greatly increasing the visibility of the flaw. Liquid penetrant inspections are only able to detect surface breaking flaws.

In ultrasonic testing, ultra-high frequency sound waves are transmitted into a material to detect imperfections within the material, or changes in material properties. The pulse echo technique is accomplished by introducing sound into the test object and reflections (echoes) are returned to a receiver from internal imperfections or from geometrical surfaces of the part. It is typically used to detect subsurface defects, or defects originating from surfaces not accessible without disassembly or removal.  It can also be used to detect laminations, lack of fusion, and corrosion of various materials.

Day16, 2Nov – Day20, 6Nov

Training at composite workshop again, using carbon fibre material and resin, hot bond to form composite materials. Also remove/repair insulation blanket.

To be continual tomorrow.

I miss you so badly, 6th day.

A bug in the PHPMailer v5 has been stopping me from sending multiple attachments in a mail. It was quite a confusing thing coz it I checked everything in my PHP code time and again. Somehow, after googling for this, i got my answer; it is actually a bug in PHPmailer v5.

This is how I recified the bug.

1. Open the file class.phpmailer.php
2. Goto line number 1236
3. Change
   7=> 0
   to
   7=>count($this->attachment)
4. Save the file and try.

Thanks for the contributors, it saved my time.

A book I really like is called that.  But it’s also the state of a little part of me that got seriously freaked out earlier this week and can’t be consoled.  I was all managing as best I could and all, but then my therapist canceled our last appointment on Friday before being away a week.  She has her reasons for these things, always, but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

I was in her office wanting to die and feeling unheldtogether and unheld, and so I dearly wanted/needed to see her soon after to get my self righted.  But I think it’s really that attachment stuff, with her being my attachment figure, a base to run to and yet I feel rejected (rightly or wrongly, whatever), and in fact I also was feeling terrified (and that’s not about her, it’s about a previous attachment figure–this one does sometimes pull away when I need her desperately but sometimes she has been really there for me and in any case I don’t think she’s cause for that kind of fear, except in the sense that she can reject me, and that’s not nothing, but it’s not sadism I guess).  Fright without solution is the attachment phrase they use, I believe, when we can’t run to the figure we most need when we most need her.

No wonder I feel how I feel this week, when I think of it like that.  And it is like that, to a part of me that isn’t real connected to the rest, and that I don’t know how to reach.

They tell me there’s hope.  And by they, I don’t mean people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.  I mean people who do, who know this territory because it’s been theirs too.