Chapter 2.5 Trauma, Personal and Family

(Melinda will probably perform extreme edit, or eliminate, much of the following material.  so read at your own risk)

My father grew up in an abusive home, and had a troubled relationship with his parents. When he returned from WWII duty in the navy, my father attended the University of Portland  for five years, attempting to learn about and understand the human condition, with its all too typical hateful and chaotic states of mind that punishes innocent citizens, and children, just for trying to be themselves. He studied logic, metaphysics, religion, child development and psychology. In his efforts to understand.  while attending college, he befriended the locally famous Father Delaney at the U of P, and had many, many discussions about God, man. And our troubled relationships with truth and live. with my father’s need to provide for himself and his family (he married my mother in 1950), he discontinued his studies after five years of endeavor, and proceeded to work two jobs for the next ten years.  When it came time to pass the baton onto me, though I wanted to know why I was so anxious, and suffered so, I also needed to eat and shelter, so I bypassed some of my father’s interests in college, seeking a degree that would provide money, and perhaps a pathway to employment at NASA, as an astronaut and/ or as an engineer..  I sought two engineering degrees, while not being too intent on addressing the human condition, other than minoring in psychology.  I did thoroughly enjoy the elective credits I gained in classes in philosophy and religion as optional subjects, however.

He started college at the University of Portland, studying Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, and other courses, from 1947-1952. He really wanted to understand the human mind at the deepest level, and his curious mind about other issues only left him late in his life. But he had to delay his academic search for the truth about the broken human mind, as his now hyper-busy life got in the way of him finishing his studies of the human condition.  Dad formed a great friendship and relationship with Father Delaney, who taught at the University of Portland, and in whose name the Delaney Institute was named. He struggled a bit with his school work, but he did stay at it over a course of five years, which did not result in a degree.

Note: I was to later pick up my father’s mantle, and I have made my own attempts to finish the job that he had started, which was understanding the human mind. And, like my father, I rebel against the spiritual and philosophical authorities of the day, sometimes sharing with the readers of my blog and Facebook readers my insights.

Now I will try putting to words the perceptions and experiences around being a youth, from the current perspective of a 66 year old man.  My intention is not to resort to “revisionist history” when it comes to presenting the memories and experiences of my childhood.   And, I will only resort to editorials where I perceive that it might enhance or develop the story in a way that could not be done so otherwise.

Third grade photograph, Bruce back row, third from right

Third grade photograph, Bruce back row, third from right

My sister Pam was a fourth grader at Cedar Oak Park Grade School, and I was one grade behind her. I was small compared to some of the bigger boys for grade three, having been admitted to 1st grade when I was five years old.

After school one day, I began the walk back to our house, located about 3/8 mile away.  My sister also was preparing to leave, but she first wanted her new boyfriend to meet me.  Her boyfriend had a younger brother with him, who was a first grader.

My sister started to tease me, as she would often do.  Her boyfriend offered to beat me up for her, then saw how small I was, and said it would be funner to watch his little brother beat me up.

I had never been in a fight, and I wanted no part in the bullying behavior.  The first grade boy, who was about my size, proceeded to start punching and kicking me viciously.

I did not know what to do.  My father had never taught me how to defend myself. My sister taunted and laughed at me

When the boy added insult to injury by pulling my ears and hair after tackling me to the ground I had taken more than enough of a beating.  For the first time in my life I felt a surge of energy unlike anything I had ever experienced, and I began to not only resist the physical assault, I started copying the fighting bevior of the other boy.  I proceeded to clean his clock, and when the older brother got concerned for his little brother’s safety, he pulled me off.

I was still so riled up I began to go after the big brother, but my sister broke it up by laughing some more, and dragging her boyfriend away,

I had learned how to fight.  I also learned that some  boys are untrustworthy and prone to capricious violence against innocent people, like myself.

I learned how absolutely vulnerable I was.

I started playing more with the girls, too, who played non violent games, like kickball, instead of the often times violent game of prison ball

My mother was a constant presence of love and respect for me.  She was a great supporter for me throughout all of my years until her death.  My mother, in case in it is not obvious elsewhere in this story, was my “great protector” from the over-extension of male punitive technology and methodology.  I had to draw her into a couple of the discipline efforts that my dad extended to me, especially when his belt hit my ass especially hard and often.  But the image of my mother crying hysterically as my father raised his belt into the air remains one of those “marker memories” of a traumatized life.  My basic discomfort with aggressive male energy probably started here, and this “fear” informed and guided me through all of my relationships to follow.

 

As a child, it appears that I learned that my personal world could be an unsafe place, especially while I slept.  I remember most nights lying awake at least until midnight, fearing sleep and its dreams, until I fell asleep out of exhaustion, even if I was put to bed at 8:00pm.  I remember using that extra time to rehash my entire day, and everything that I said and did.  I would try to see where I could have behaved better, or differently, for a greater advantage.  I intuited that if I were a “better person” by day, my nightmares at night might not be so severe.  Yet, my day time behavior rarely improved, for I was fairly spontaneous, and I tended towards impulsive activity.

I have memories of waking up from sleep, and, with my older sister, walking over to the garage window, and crawling up onto my rocking horse to look out of the window, to see if our parents’ car was in the garage.  Of course, if the car was gone, we were both distressed by the parents’ absence, and, to this day, we both agree that this event did happen, and it happened several times.

Even after I started sleeping by myself, my mother allowed me into her bedroom at night after my typical nightly nightmare terror sessions, as long as dad had already left for work.  I remember how protected from my demons I felt, as I lay in bed with her.   I also know, now, that I unconsciously sought out women, MUCH MORE THAN MEN, to bond with, with the hopes that the relationship would bring a measure of safety and acknowledgement into my life, which seemed to be quite lacking in too many of my male to male connections.  Yes, this was to become an unconscious “center” , yet another locus of energy, in addition to other ‘energy’ centers (such as the fear of being ignored), around which all of my future perceptions were to be influenced by.

There were many moments in the earlier reaches of childhood when I really loved my life.  What I really remember well from my childhood memories are:

My love for my mother, my uncle Wayne, and my maternal grandparents (who provided for me a safe, loving home to stay with them at least one weekend a month for most of my childhood),

My conflicted love for my father,

My love for our pets

My love for exploring  the outdoors,

My love for playing with and studying animals,

My love for running through the forests on trails, or creating my own trails,

My love for building ground forts out of fallen branches,

My love for climbing trees and making tree forts,

My love for exploring islands on the Willamette River near our home, and ,

My love for playing with friends, which were especially hard for me to find, or to make while I was young.

Sometimes, I felt uncomfortable around people my age, especially the boys.  I did not always enjoy playing with the boys, who could be too aggressive.  In first through fourth grades, I usually hung out with the girls, and I played kick ball and other non-contact or reduced violence games with them.   I would become quite attached to one or two girls, and I was already trying to figure out how to incorporate a girl into my life quite prematurely.   I preferred girls to boys, becoming overly attached to girls when I was as young as 8 years old.  The girls, by and large, totally lost interest in me by 5th grade, so I had to stick with the guys for most of my childhood from that point forward.

I usually like my father, but i was often angry with him.  Many times dad was my only friend, and I felt betrayed by him whenever I was over-enthusiastically punished for doing something wrong.    I was always guilty of doing something wrong, whether I admitted it or not.  If I did not admit it, I was lying, which could lead to yet another swat (As the Course in Miracles has stated, these were unrecognized calls for love).

The day after the Columbus Day storm of 1962, when tree branches and fallen trees were everywhere, including our large backyard, my dad was so controlling as to how I was supposed to pick up the branches that I got angry with him, abandoned him, and walked a mile to help Steve Roth (son of owner of Roth BMW) and his family clear the wreckage around their home.  I liked Steve’s mom, anyway, as she was always so friendly to me.  They were comparatively wealthy, and I remember being told by Steve’s mother that my father was not rich, like they were.  This was the first time that I became conscious that there existed people who were better off than we were.

I stole from my father’s wallet sometimes, so that I could go to the store and buy candy.  I did all sorts of things that I knew to be wrong, yet I took some delight in going against authority, and boy did I pay the price!  There were too many beatings with the belt.  Most of the behavior that I was accused of I actually committed, so in Dad’s mind I deserved what I got, though mercy sure would have been a nice charitable gesture, had he offered it to me, or my sister.  Looking back at my childhood, I was confused as to the best way to attract attention, and it may have been a subconscious desire to be recognized that motivated me to ’go against the grain’.

I was taken to Sunday school at a local church, when I was six years old.  I did not like it very much, and I did not nor could not believe that Jesus Christ “died for our sins”.  I knew that I was not a “sinner”, at least not the way that they were trying to explain it to me, and that the language of this church was very harsh and confusing.  When they tried to tell me that my only hope was to believe all of their vague, boring stories, I balked, and in my own unique passive/aggressive fashion, I just ignored what they tried to teach me.  These Sunday School experiences appeared to show me that the church was promoting a bunch of confusing stories with little relevance to my experience.  I tried bible study only two more times in our new Milwaukie neighborhood, but stopped when a girl that I was interested in at the time stopped attending.  Yes, women were the best reason for going to church.  For me, that would prove to be true at least two more times, beginning when I was twenty eight years old.

My father loved dogs, and would always try to have a dog available for our friendship. He instilled into me a great love and appreciation for the canine species, which I still hold onto tightly.    I loved my first dog Nina, who died while running with me while riding my bicycle along a busy road while I was 7 years old, having been hit by a car (my fault for riding too far from home).  I, of course, was devastated, and my dad and mom knew better than making me wrong for her death, but I knew it was my fault anyway.  Our “replacement” dog was promptly run over by our next door neighbor when he got into his truck and backed over our sleeping dog.  Heidi was our third dog, and she was a beautiful Samoyed.  She became, without a doubt, the most wonderful creature that I had ever met up until that era of my life.  I began to recognize the miraculous power that the ‘love’ for another being has on me.  She became the ultimate canine companion for me, as well as for our entire family.

School was not a problem for me in the new neighborhood, as the quality of the North Clackamas School District, at least in the grades schools, was substantially lower than that of the West Linn area from which we had moved from, so I was already a bit ahead of my peers, at least in math and English. And, if the truth be known, I was starting to really get a handle as to how to succeed in school, by watching and imitating the behavior of others who were doing well. I noted at the time that I despised, at times, the competition to get good grades at school. Teachers graded on the curve, meaning that a small percentage of the students got A’s, as well as the same percentage got F’s. Part of me had associated getting good grades with getting love and acknowledgement from my parents, and I hated the idea of having to compete with others to get love at home. It was this experience that led me to sometimes feel good about other student’s failures at school, since it might mean that I would thus have a better opportunity to score some attention points. Collaboration was definitely out of the question for me while living in this scarcity consciousness.

I started to become a bully to some girls around the age of 10 years old. If they were not attractive to me, they were susceptible to gentle, and not so gentle, ribbing and ridicule. I found a behavior where I could get support from other boys, but it was damaging behavior on my part, and was to bring shame to me when confronted at a later time by victims of my abhorrent communication style. One time when I was 15 years old, and waiting for a bus in downtown Portland, a young woman walked up to me, asked my name, and then asked if I knew who she was. I had no idea. She then told me how I victimized her with my poor humor, and made her pee her pants once. I told her that I was sorry, that was not who I was now, but I felt ashamed. I met another of my victims when I was close to 40 years old in an Oak Grove Fred Meyers store, and I sought her out, introduced myself, and apologized for what I had wrought upon her. She had long ago forgave and forgotten, but I had not. It felt good seeing her living a successful life in adulthood, complete with a happy family. Yes, I was part of the oppression and traumatization of the feminine spirit, until I became conscious.

discontinuity

I could also try to “fix it”, if I had the time, inclination, and courage to learn more about it, interact with it on a different level, and be a witness to its healing evolution. There are no affirmations to say or to practice that will make a defective system repair itself. When affirming a truth, or practicing 3, 5, 7, or 12 steps to achieve a goal, or change a behavior, these practices occur within a corrupted environment, and we are only changing the furniture around in our unique prison cells. We can affirm the truth all we want, but if the conditions for its birth and nurturing have not been altered, then we are only treating symptoms, and not causes. Thus, the cycle of fix and failure becomes built into the very system that we think that we want to repair or improve. Have you ever painted a house right before it was to be demolished and rebuilt? Have you ever put new tires onto a car whose engine is near failure, and that may need to be junked out? Would you “put lipstick on a pig” ? (Remember, pigs are not inherently ugly, especially if another pig is making the assessment). Have you ever put new wine into old wine skins, to use an ancient expression?

People, religions, politicians, and writers, who promise you a “quick fix” are a part of the problem, for they make promises in the world of effect, but we must reach back into the source for our consciousness, where the real cause of our problems exists, if we ever expect to make lasting changes There is no minister or church, no support group, therapist, mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, daughter, son, pet dog, or Jesus Christ figurine that can dig into our own unique version of the human soul for us, and remove the thorns/swords which have been thrust into our side over the years since our first appearance on this planet Earth. We must each dig deep into our hearts and souls, and face the absolute darkest areas of life itself, and from this inward journey, mine our own treasures from our relationship with the dark force, or else our lives just become the continuation of a second hand story of someone else’s dysfunction, from which we cannot ever completely heal. Our own living, dynamic story must become forefront in our minds, examined fully to its deepest core(s), we must see where the source of our own discomfort lies, and then the power of our awareness can bring healing into this new, present moment of experience.  Some actually call this process “mindfulness:, though I just call it taking personal inventory, as I learned in AA.

How do I attempt to bring healing to my broken interior?

First, I needed to be absolutely fed up with the way things are.  I then had to see what others have done to approach the problem.  I had to hone my powers of insight. Then, I needed to develop the emotional and spiritual fortitude to look at the entirety of my life, and then incorporate the experience for my greater good, which also impacts the whole of life in a more positive manner.

My spiritual awakening in 1987 was really only the beginning of my process, though I had hoped, immaturely, that it signaled the end of all of my emotional trials, diseases and dysfunctions.

A portion of my journey towards healing from our human condition is represented here.

As each individual is unique, please do not use my experience to minimize, or maximize, your own. We must eventually find our own direction for life, AND LEARN NOT ONLY HOW TO THINK AND FEEL FOR OURSELVES, BUT LEARN HOW TO LISTEN TO OTHERS, AND, ULTIMATELY, LEARN HOW TO THINK AND FEEL WITH OTHERS, TOO.  We can learn to discern whether the perceptions of others, and ourselves, are based upon the reality of the present moment, or upon the disfiguring archetypes that embedded wounds and traumas have created for us.

My deceased father, his brother Ed,  and their sister Susie, were victims of abuse and trauma. They had highly dysfunctional parents, with an abusive and alcoholic father who also almost beat their older brother (Uncle Ed) to death when he was 6 years old. My uncle, fortunately, was placed under the care of his grandparents on a farm in Oregon City, while my father and aunt continued to suffer under the horribly abusive and oppressive conditions, ultimately resulting in my father’s threat to kill his father when my father turned 16, if my dad ever saw him beat his mother again. They all were emotionally scarred from that abuse, only theirs was never diagnosed or treated by professionals.

The biggest victim in all of this was their sense of self-esteem, and their very limited ability to be emotionally and spiritually supportive of others. Both my father and aunt Susie struggled ferociously with their emotional wounds in adulthood, yet managed to live fairly full, complete lives.  Their own children inherited their unresolved parental dysfunction, with added pain and suffering. I must have been whipped by my father’s belt at least 100 times, from the ages of four years through thirteen years.

One beating, and my memory of it, stands as a testimony to the power of the self-created archetypes that unconscious people, like traumatized children, are influenced and controlled by.in their adult years, until we choose to awaken.. In this primal memory, I see my father standing in one corner of the room, with my mother in the other corner, both opposite from me. I was cowering, and crying, while I witnessed dad removing his belt. I cried out to my mother to protect me. She could not, and did not, and she could only cry. Dad then proceeded to beat the hell out of me, and I joined my mother in pain and in tears.

My mother, who I loved dearly all the way to her death in 2009, could not protect me from the wrath of a toxic masculine master of discipline. Mom could not find her voice to challenge a man who was too hungry for disciplinary violence against me, rather than seeking the causes for my disruptive behavior, which were my own vague and immature calls for love.  My father’s aggressiveness scared my mother away from her spiritual moorings.

This whole experience informed my young, impressionable mind that angry men are more interested in making their point than in being forgiving, collaborative, loving and compassionate.  It also taught me that the part of myself that I cherished the most, the part of me that trusted and loved my mother’s nature, could not protect me from the rampages of a toxic male aggressor. My mother, who had not yet recognized that she was being oppressed and had options to break free from it, had not yet unleashed her innate feminine power and her powerful voice.  She ultimately found herself, and her voice later in life, as did myself.  We both had to overcome our culture’s primary oppressor, and source for most traumatic behavior, the toxic man.

My relationship with my father had created much of the irregularities in the foundation for my own vision of life and of love, especially in my youth. My father showed to me, in a perfect way, what a potential end point looks like from a lifetime lacking in true collaboration and emotional integrity while sharing life force with others. My father achieved many of his goals in life, yet at what cost did they come to him, and to the people who he may have influenced and over which he exerted control? And, what is the cost to a society that blindly plows forward while supporting ideals that traumatize our innocents, threaten the dignity of others, and do not conform to the development of all of its citizen’s highest nature, and truth?

I saw how my own father’s ignorance and needs early in my childhood negatively impacted my own mind’s formation. There was a revelation within me that as a result of my father’s sometimes toxic influence in my life, I had unwittingly and unconsciously created fundamental internal feedback mechanisms that contributed to my personal dysfunction, and my unskilled interactions with our world. My father represented, in a perfect way, how my life experience had become overshadowed by the needs and concerns of our culture, and its own unconscious needs to dominate, control, and oppress, especially those who did not conform to its often conflicted, twisted values. A manifestation of this was that my father had difficulty, in times of great stress, in recognizing the intrinsic value of all life, including my baby self, and my essence as a young boy.

I can think of no greater source of trauma, than having one’s innocence attacked and damaged by the parent through their ignorance or planned malevolence, Most of what I know about myself, and my reactions to the world, was created by my fundamental relationship with my parents. My sense of self in my early years revolved around internalizing many of my parents’ attitudes. I was acutely aware of what my mother and father expected from me, what I could or could not give back to them to attempt to please them, and my defense mechanisms for managing the fallout when I failed to please them.

Beginning early in my life, I also developed the desire to protect them and myself from the results of the conflict that arose in our house, either when I made yet another mistake, or when father overreacted to any situation that brought a sense of fear or threat into the home environment. I developed a need to balance whatever energy was being over expressed at any particular moment, and I was very unskilled at those kind of efforts.  I learned the power of the lie to deflect negative attention from myself.

The biggest revelation was that I had internalized and normalized two incomplete creations, or tricksters as I now call them, of who I thought my father and mother were, which were to become sources of self-talk and feedback for me as a child, and then as an unconscious adult. But a most compelling and controlling dark agenda that I had either created or inherited revolved around my self worth. Through the history of my relationship with my parents while very young, in addition to whatever fundamental and universal factors that are innate through being alive and aware in human consciousness, I created two BLACK HOLES in my developing mind.

The suffering from my past provided the foundational material for this exploration into human suffering and trauma. And, the most fundamental aspects of my consciousness, and, thus, of all human consciousness, all share common influential psychic forces. The intention behind the documentation of parts of my life experience is to provide an example for others, and to be a representative voice for those who either choose to, or who cannot yet speak up for themselves.  I will try to give a context, and some names to this distress that I share with the rest of humanity.

I have found that there are two fundamental cores to my personal dysfunction. It is around these powerful cores that the whole of my consciousness swirled around, as if drawn and disfigured by two distinct, though interconnected, black holes of negative influence. We, as a human race, have a predisposition towards creating “black hole events” where no light (love, compassion, empathy, healing thoughts) escapes from our consciousness. These events occur especially during times of collective distress including mass hypnosis and the resultant mob mind activity that leads to wars, genocide, racism, xenophobia, hysteria and fear. These also occur as a result of traumatic injuries to ourselves, as a result of the incomplete responses to the capricious actions of others and the vicissitudes of life.

We, as individuals, have a real talent for creating black hole events within our personal worlds, as well. Our concepts of time and space certainly get distorted, as present day events occurring in our lives get distorted within our minds by traumatic events of our past, or black holes of past influence through which the light of our ever unfolding “present moment of life” gets sucked into the darkness of a singularity point of a traumatic event from our past. I remained tethered to a past that never should have been through this very process. Our minds are the generators of consciousness, which simply stated, means our brains generate internal feedback, develop and support our own internal self-concept, create internal imagery associated with our understanding of the “outer world” and support our verbal relationships with and actions towards all others. We attempt to match the “outer reality” by forming internal verbal and emotional linkages within ourselves, and this helps us to stay relevant and abiding within some measure of resonance and continuity with our perceived external universe or community that we presently share with others.

This light that we internally emit, and eventually share with our worlds either through action or verbal expression, is influenced dramatically by our own secret, internal agendas, whether we are conscious of those agendas, or not. While these agendas remain unconscious, these unconscious subroutines become the equivalent to our own internal black holes. All streams of consciousness that our minds and hearts attempt to express become trapped in the swirling vortices of these powerful forces, and these internal black holes continue to influence virtually every aspect of our lives. And, if not dealt with consciously and carefully, these black holes will eventually draw all of our internal light into them, and we become unwitting agents of our own internal darkness.

To repress or deny these internal forces is to continue to feed them. As we get in touch with our fears, angers, hatreds, or whatever name for manifesting darkness that we might give to them, it is important to realize that these are great forces, and once they are harnessed, NOT REPRESSED OR DENIED, these black holes will continue to keep us connected to the real world, and, as we transmute their energy, the light within us uses these once dark energies for the good of ourselves, and for all mankind.

It was around these cores that the whole of my consciousness swirled around, as if drawn and disfigured by two distinct, though interconnected, loci of negative influence. These dark masses of influence interacted with my internalized representations of my parents, and I now posit that these forces are the precursors to all manners and types of mental illness, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder. My two major black holes within my own internal universe created powerful forces of control, which contributed to my sense of powerlessness, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and isolation.

Black hole number one is that my voice will never be heard, and because my voice has not been heard, I have no value. Insight number two was that I must be alone in this universe, with only death awaiting me. Insight finally reveals that these two are actually connected, and are a direct result of failure to be fully integrated as a complete, healthy human being. This formative consciousness is certainly not the foundation for a healthy integration into the world. These two vortexes drew all of my internal light towards themselves, and by the time that those internal “singularity points” worked their dark magic to their fullness, I actually flirted with the end of my own life. Such is the way these black hole events can influence and control our lives, making peace of mind and positive, loving connections with others virtually impossible.

The black holes may remain, even after making profound spiritual and emotional changes. Their dark influence, however, continues to recede, once there is a committed intention to stay connected with insight and spiritual healing, where all true light comes from. As I strive to stay balanced internally, so shall my walk through the rest of my life remain balanced, as well.

Insight keeps these forces balanced internally, so that the spirit of wholeness within us can utilize our energy in more sane and mutually beneficial ways. And, for more than one of us, these black holes are eventually transformed into “white holes”, where no darkness can escape, and all of our experience becomes enlightened. We can’t short-circuit this process, by just performing “spiritual bypasses” where we avoid looking at our darkness while trying to layer life affirming messages over our unexamined inner universe  , or substituting the pleasant-sounding “spiritual froth ” produced by other great spiritual thinkers.

Well meaning advocates of this process become unwitting contributors to the repression, and oppression, of the Human Spirit. It is only after we do the real inner work, that these teachers can assume their rightful position in our consciousness, as fellow travelers on the path to Truth, which has no final destination.

Our most profound words and thoughts only present the illusion of a “final resting place”, when, in fact, truth is eternally unfolding into each moment as a brand new, unique manifestation. I have my moments with the “white holes”, and I continue to strive for experiencing this phenomenon with both increased frequency and intensity. A path of insight and meditation is quite helpful, and association with others who share in this new reality has been shown to produce almost miraculous results.

If a transformed life experience is to become our real new reality, then there is work to do! Please, let us not rest on another person’s “spiritual laurels”, for by this culturally and religiously ingrained process we will be delayed in finding our True Passion.

After the death of my father in 2017, I had the privilege and challenge of reading and sorting through a lifetime worth of writings and papers from my parents, and from myself.  After reading some of my mother’s personal writings, I was struck by the pain and suffering that she experienced remaining married to my father.  He was not a person with the soft touch, when it came to communicating with those that he loved, especially during challenging/difficult periods of life.  He was what those in the field of recovery refer to as a “dry drunk”.  He was a poor listener, and he could be opinionated, judgemental, angry, obnoxious, overly competitive, and hurtful. He was a member of a huge class of human beings now known as toxic males, and his behavior was to become a major influence for my own choices for how I was to present myself to the world With the death of my father in 2017, it ended the era of subservience to his needs, and the need to protect my mother from my perception of his aggression towards her. It also ended the era of incomplete grieving for my own mother’s death, as I had to immediately support my mentally deteriorating father when mother died, and I had never completely worked through the grieving process. I was finally an “orphan”, and all of the entanglements that kept me wound around their lives were now physically removed. With my fathers’ spirit no longer overshadowing my own life, I was allowed to develop more fully into whatever, or whoever I am.

For me this was an extraordinary release, because the formation of my sense of self was influenced by parental bonding issues just after birth, and through my first 4-5 years. Being placed on “formula” right after birth, and being placed in a chilly car in the garage at night so that my father could sleep better (I was just another “damned crying baby”) left me as a young being feeling abandoned, and lonely, from the beginning. Though I loved my parents, I certainly did not want to grow up and be like them, and inflict this pain on other innocent children. Yet, I was not able to offer to my developing self a viable alternative to being like my father, being extremely limited creatively, and my resultant dull, though at times insightful, personality reflected that darkness.

Coping mechanisms such as passive/aggressive behavior became my normal response to the daily challenges of life. Toxic masculinity, or, more precisely, an unskilled capacity to relate to people in a peaceful and mutually accepting manner, was to become a defining characteristic of my life. I came to perceive the collective impact of male unconsciousness upon my individual existence, with some insight into my own father’s sometimes toxic involvement in my own mind’s formation. I saw that the two tricksters roaming through the inner recesses of my heart and soul gave me limited guidance and kept me from being lonely as a young being, yet kept me from developing into my greater good as an independent, free human being.

In our world, there are countless examples of “self organizing systems”, and all creatures, and the minds of those creatures, are examples of that miracle in action. Our bodies appear to be primarily organized through the pattern created by the history of the human species, and it’s interactions with its earthly environment. Our DNA appears to carry that pattern within our very cells.

Our minds also have a self-organizing principle, as it organizes itself into our unique personal sense of being. The activity of self-organization in consciousness is the greatest mystery of life. The greatest story that I have read around this mysterious process is that which was recounted about the life of Helen Keller. As a young person, she had lost her sight and hearing, and she could not develop the capacity to communicate. As a mute, she appeared to be living a basic life characteristic of many intelligent animals. but not having the ability to communicate with her world. When her teacher was finally able to show her that the letters W A T E R, represented both the substance that she drank, and that which she was bathed in, she had an insight, or a revelation. And, according to Helen, the perception of the word water, as associated with the physical experience of water, initiated her own self awareness. Literally, Helen was birthed as an ego as a direct result of understanding this one word WATER in her mind. Of course Helen went on to become a beloved author, political activist, and lecturer.

Parents are always quite pleased when their children speak their first words, and they then know that they have a viable, healthy child. Usually, the first word is “Mom”, but it can be others. The initial words become the initial organizing energy around which the developing being initiates the launch sequence into consciousness itself. In biblical terms, the word becomes flesh, and dwells among us. It is a mystery of why and how this process actually works, and neuroscientists continue to study the brain, and the human mind, as they attempt the impossible, to locate the physical source of our sense of self.

Sociologists and psychologists have found that healthy integration of self revolves around how well the organism feels accepted by, and connected to the environment that the young person travels through. Thus, happier senses of self arise, and are supported, by myriads of “successful” interactions with its social and physical environment and, giving positive, life affirming names to those experiences. First and foremost is the beings’ acceptance and integration into the primary family cell, or group. If we do not get the requisite positive feedback early on, we face tremendous odds against forming a happy, well-adjusted self organizing principle, or ego. Don’t ask me what should be done with those people who sexually traumatize our youth, or intentionally bring all forms of suffering into other people’s lives. Life has a way of punishing them, but it is always too late to save the victim.

Many of these victims are so traumatized that they never recover, so prevention is our primary hope here, at least for now, though utilizing the following steps has been found to be helpful for those seeking healing. .

• Create a visual timeline.  Write onto a piece of paper, a long piece of paper, the years of your life.  Start with the birth year, and carry it forward to the present moment.
• Listen to music from the eras or time when the wounding first occurred. It will open up emotional vistas, using the wholeness of the self
• Write extensively about the time in question.
• Work in conjunction with a therapist trained in traumatic wounding
• Perform ceremony that indicates finding the wounds, and freeing them from our tissues.
• Listen to the stories from family members, friends of family, and, especially,, friends of the parents who may have witnessed aspects of your upbringing.
• Have an incredibly supportive partner, or a therapist, to watch with you the emotions that arise during the turbulent periods of the introspection.
• Make a decision to make amends to the world for unconsciously wounding events .