Unknown

All that I ever wanted, since I was born, was to be able to love the world, and, in turn, be loved back from it. I wanted Peace to prevail in all of life. Some people seem to come by these capacities naturally. Others strive for their entire lives, and never seem to be able to “touch the hem of the garment”. Prior to 1987, the lack of those qualities in my life drove me to the brink of death, through alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicidal ideation. What were the causes for my own inability to make meaningful connection with the higher possibilities for life? And, what might the solutions be, for one who has finally decided to awaken from darkness?

I have always judged myself rather severely for my inability, or unwillingness, to present my voice and my point of view in stressful situations where I could have helped change the flow of the energy in more positive directions, both for myself and for others. In my adulthood, in times of distress or conflict, I could usually be found, literally hiding under a table, or hiding in my silence. While in my childhood, my voice almost did not appear, not even speaking until I was nearly four years of age. This delay could have been caused by a number of factors, but, looking back, the delay appears due to a fundamental perception that what I had to offer to this world had little value to others..

A self defining,  though mostly unconscious, rubric of my early life has been that few people in life will find me interesting enough to want to develop any further connection with me. Of course, there is a massive negative impact upon whatever positive self esteem that I might have hoped to develop for myself, since self is a concept formed through all relationships with the totality of life. The source of this troubling phenomenon may be traced back through my family history, especially along my father’s generational lineage. It may also be traced to cumulative trauma experienced as a baby, and as a young boy.

When I was a young man in 1976 working at the Main Post Office, at the same office that my father worked at the time, a co-worker of my father, Daniel, came up and spoke with me while I was in the break room. I did not know him, but he sure appeared to know me, through the stories that he heard from my father over the years. I could tell that Daniel did not like my father, who was a major operations manager with the office until his retirement in 1982. There was one story that Daniel said that he felt obligated to tell me, so I listened carefully.

My father had told Daniel 20 years before that I was a disruptive baby, with issues that made me cry almost non stop. My father, during the 1950’s and early 1960’s, worked two jobs during that time period, at the Post Office on day shift, and then on an early morning Oregonian paper car delivery route that he had in SW Portland prior to his normal workday at the USPS. His work day began at 2:30 in the morning, and he did not go to bed until after 9 pm, so sleep hours were limited. As a baby I cried so much that he was kept awake, and it was causing huge disruption and anxiousness in our home. My parent’s had a solution for this issue: they would remove me from my crib, and bundle me in a warm blanket every night, and place me in our car in the garage. When dad left for work, he brought me back into our home, for my mother to manage me as best she could prior to her own work day.

Daniel thought this information might be helpful to me if I ever wanted to understand myself better, and gain insight as to why I might be having the life experience I presently was having. I thanked Daniel for the story, but I had no clue as to how to interpret the past, and make application to my present life experience. I was emotionally numb at this point in my life. I drank alcohol excessively, and used marijuana almost daily, and the combination drug therapy kept me from being too curious about how these issues may have fundamentally impacted me. At that time I could not fathom the impact on the developing psyche and nervous system of me as a distressed baby crying for attention, and then getting none for 5-6 hours at a time.

I eventually asked my parents about this story, and they confirmed the accuracy of it. I was to learn later that other parents had also relegated their disruptive babies to the garage at night during this post WWII era. This was the era of Dr. Spock, and many parents read and listened to his advice about baby care. Yet, I am not sure that “garaging a baby” was one of his techniques for raising the young ones.

My mom was a full time working mother, so my parents really were hard workers, chasing the “American Dream”. My father felt threatened by the debt of owing on a home mortgage, so he was really motivated to bring in as much income as possible to retire his major debt. As a result of their need to work hard, I spent over 40 hours a week at baby sitters from two weeks after my birth until I was 5 years old, so I really did not have an excess of mother/father bonding time. I did not start speaking until I was nearly four years old, and I often wonder if the delay was caused by abandonment trauma, but I can only speculate on this matter.

As a young boy, I remember often feeling lonely, and that I did not get the attention or respect that I deserved. My parents were loving, for the most part. My father was quite the disciplinarian, so it was not like I was allowed to just grow like an untended garden. But there was something lacking in me, some sort of universal “moral code” had not been inculcated into me, so I would act out sometimes, and create more problems for everybody, including, of course, myself. I usually hated the dinner prepared and served by my time-strapped mother, and I would be forced to sit at the table until my plate was empty. I would have to wait until everyone had excused themselves from the table, and then I would begin my schemes. Sometimes, I would pour the food into the floor heat register, I would hide it in the skins of a baked potato, if I was fortunate enough to be served one, or, at last resort, I would put the food into my pockets, and later empty my pockets into the toilet, to flush my problems away.