My "Stammer"

I went and saw the movie "The King's Speech" last night and was struck at how the story relates to my own process.   If you haven't seen it,  it's about King George V's second oldest son, Albert,   who steps forward to become king after his brother abdicates in the late 30s.    Albert has a speech impediment;  he "stammers".    He goes to an Australian speech therapist,  Lionel Logue,  who resides in London.   

Disclaimer:  I am basing my observations on the movie depiction of these historical figures.   I cannot say if the depictions in the movie are historically accurate.

During the course of the speech therapy,  Logue discovers that Albert has endured trauma as a child,  and realizes that the trauma is very likely to be behind Albert's stammer.    Logue subtly and artfully guides the prince,  who becomes King George VI,  in addressing the speech issues on a technical level,  and in helping Albert acknowledge and work through his unresolved trauma.   

The trauma Albert was said to have endured went back to when he was 3 and 4 years old.     In the movie,  Albert tells Logue that he was abused by a nanny as a child.   The nanny favored his older brother, David (King Edward III,  who later abdicates) and harmed Albert in various ways over three years time before the parents discovered what was happening.   The nanny did things such as pinching Albert to make him cry when he was presented with his brother to their parents,  the King and Queen,  so as to make Albert look bad in his parents' eyes.  She also restricted Albert's diet to near-starvation level,  something that likely affected both his physical and psychological development.

It was at this age that Albert developed the stammer.   The movie also depicts what it is like to grow up as a Royal,  the coldness of family interactions,  the overwhelming weight of duty and appearances.   It is clear that,  once traumatized,  Albert was not able to heal from his trauma within his family context.   In a way,  it seems fortunate that Albert had a wound which was so visible.   The whole nation was well aware of his stammer,  especially from the time he addressed the nation in 1925 via a radio broadcast,  when his stammer was painfully apparent to all.

The stammer was so detrimental to Albert's ability to be an effective monarch that he was driven to address it.   His motivation was so high that he was willing to do just about anything to overcome his impediment.    Ignoring the problem was not an option.

I can relate to this story in several ways.    First,  I also came to a place in my life where my own "stammer" was profoundly affecting my ability to lead a successful life.    My own issues did not manifest as a physical impediment like a stammer;   they were more subtle but very real nevertheless.   My issues became an impediment to my life as much as Albert's stammer was an impediment to his.

A key to Albert's healing and to mine is acknowledging the trauma.   Once we have clearly named what happened we are on the road to recovery.    Our issues are no longer impressing their signature on us within the context of our own unconsciousness.   We are awakening to their affect and our higher self can begin to get psychological leverage against them.   Working with a skilled therapist can be very helpful,  though it is not required.

In Albert's case,  speech therapy was much more than just learning how to form words better.   Logue established a relationship with Albert early on that allowed the prince to trust and relax.   My wife rightly pointed out that Logue reparented Albert through the course of their therapy sessions and continuing friendship.    Albert was able to open himself to a model of human relationship that he had never experienced with his family of origin.   Albert did have a warm and loving relationship with his wife,  which is probably a key to his being able to develop a warm friendship with Logue,  and through it,  heal himself.

Just as Albert's wife did for Albert,  my wife is someone who advocates for my healing and who has shown me a model of human interaction that I did not get as a child.   Like Albert,  I am trying to have a happy childhood as a middle aged man.   That is to say,  I now have the opportunity to experience the following factors in human relationships:   healthy boundaries,  mutual nurturing,    stability,  clear and compassionate communication,  that I did not have as a child.     

The movie suggests that Albert's speech was something he had to work at his whole life.   It's not like he was suddenly "cured" and became a gifted orator.   Rather,  it seems he was in recovery,  a long-term process that has to do with one's healing,  growth and being in touch with our higher self.   

Overcoming trauma takes time.   Charles Whitfield,  in several of his books,  states that working through trauma is a multi-year process.   For me,  the simple fact that I am actively addressing the trauma is changing the way I  live my life.   Rather than feeling like there is some kind of force pressing in on me,  I now experience being the proactive force in my life.   

I feel very hopeful because I can now see that my path leads toward an unfolding rather than a closing in.     The "closing in" signature is what I mentally inherited from my parents.   I am beginning to see how I am gradually and increasingly growing into the person who can perceive the inherited pattern and can then choose a different path out my higher self.   I have the support.   I have the tools.  I have the understanding.

This is not to say that it's easy.   It's not.   I am putting a lot of mental energy toward my healing and I'm guessing it will be that way for a while.   But,  like King George VI,  what's inside of me has enormous motivation to shine through,  and overcome,   my own version of the  "stammer".

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Realizations

I have had a couple of realizations in the past week.  

First,  I now realize that I have been fairly spacey since my therapy group retreat three weeks ago.       I think that my processing of the trauma around my dad at the retreat brought me into a place I've never been before.   I am letting myself go into the feelings about him.   I am letting myself feel more wounded than I have before.   And as these feelings come up I have a traditional coping mechanism that kicks in.   That is,  I "check out".   I have been trying to connect to other people,  my wife,  my step-daughter,  people at work.   But I am feeling pretty checked out.

I think it's because I am letting some of the trauma from my childhood  into my experience more.   It feels pretty shitty.   But it also feels good to be acknowledging these true feelings,  shitty or not.   Along with this realization is the acknowledgement that I have spent my whole life trying to keep these experiences at arms length.   They deeply affect who I am but I fear facing them.   During my twenties and most of my thirties I was able to, more or less,  go on my happy way and pretend like they were somehow not part of me.   

Then,  a few years ago all of the "stuff" from my childhood started pressing in on me.   I became more and more affected by the baggage I had been successfully ignoring all these years.   I came to realize that I was going to have to go "through" the stuff in order to get to the second part of my life.   If I chose not to do this work I had the sense that I would stay at the same level of personal evolution that I'm currently at,  and that life would probably get harder for me.   

So now I am in the thick of it.   At least,  that's what it feel like.   All of the scary shit I've been carrying on my back since I was six years old I am now talking about and trying to process.   And so,  at some level,  I am re-experiencing the trauma.   I go "up and out",  I "check out",  I get dreamy and fuzzy headed.    I feel sad.

The second realization  is that I am still in relationship with my dad.   It struck me the other night as I was coming home from work,  "I am still in relationship with him."   This idea hit me like a flash of light.    My dad died in 1983 by his own hand.   I was fourteen.   I had not seen him in eight years.   I was very bonded with him when I was little but then I grew up without him.      I never really  grieved his exiting my life and I never grieved his death.   I was too busy coping with my life as it was.   My mom took me to a few sessions with a psychologist when I was seven but I don't think I processed anything at all, really.   I was a little clam who had shut his shell very tight and was not going to let go.   It did not feel safe to do so.

Since my twenties I have been very interested in spirituality.   I have a very strong sense that life does not begin at birth and that it does not end with death.   This has been an established belief of mine for about seventeen years now.   I have had experiences with my grandparents and my aunt,  a strong sense that I was still in relationship with them even though they had passed the threshold.    I did not have a sense that they were "gone".    They were present to me in a different way.

Somehow I have excepted my dad in seeing myself being in relationship with someone beyond the threshold.   It's hard to blame me for doing so.   He chose to abandon me and had only the most minimal contact with me in the years before his death.    The manner of his death was deeply disturbing.   I have every reason to be very pissed off at him.   And yet,  the "flash" I had the other night made me wonder if I might give his being more attention.    For my own benefit.

See,  as I explained to my therapy group the other night,  the signature of him and of my mom are strong in my life.   They both fizzled out of their careers at about the age I am now.   I was influenced by their experience and there is something inside of me that "wants" to spiral down in similar fashion.   Obviously,  it is not my higher self that would want such a thing.   It is the part of me which is self-destructive.   

I recognize that voice as one which tells me I am not good enough.   The voice berates me for being somewhat of a hermit.    It tells me that if I get something crappy in life it's because I'm not worth any more than that.   It tells me that I should be happy my life's not worse,  and that it could get worse any time.   It's not a nice voice.   

Luckily,  I am on to its tricks the vast majority of the time.   I tell myself that because something happened to my parents doesn't mean that I have to repeat the pattern.    I listen to the bit about being a hermit and,  rather than see myself as "less-than"  use it as an opportunity to reach out to others.    I see my life as blessed in so many ways.

My dad's exiting my life, his death,  and how he died have left  deep psychic scars on me.    It often feels to me like a gaping hole in who I am in the world.   I feel weakened by the facts of his life and how they interact with mine.  I feel unsure of myself.  The path he led which ended with suicide was deeply sad and confusing.   The arguments of the lower self won the day.   That has imprinted on me.    What is my path through that gnarled,  dark and lonely wood?

I wish I could work it out with my dad and reach some kind of resolution around it.   That's not really possible.   But I can light a candle on his birthday.   And think about his good side.   And acknowledge him as an important person for my life.   I am thinking that it may help me to work through the deep and lasting pain I carry with me.   

Spirituality is the torch I carry with me in these woods.  I know that I have the courage to face what's in the dark,  in my facet of the darkness.  My courage now and my ability to keep moving my process forward is what gives me hope.    I will come through this journey a changed man.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Looking Up

Part of my process is realizing that,  to heal myself,  I must be able to look at a great number of details.  I must study myself like a scientist.   I must be willing to look at the little things that I often might blow by.   Noticing the little things can shine light on larger themes,  and deepen my understanding of why I am the way I am.

In my therapy group I've been reflecting on why I  behave a certain way.     Members of the group have pointed out that often when I am talking about difficult parts of my early life I often look up at the ceiling rather than maintain eye-contact with those in the room.    They have gently pointed this out on several occasions.   

So why do I do this?   My best guess is that the behavior is an echo of events from the time I was five and six years old, ones which I've talked about a lot.   And there seems to me good reason to do so.  The events in question have shaped my whole development process and who I am today.   Let me explain.

When I was a young child (birth to four) I received what Eva Marian Brown calls "Good enough parenting".   That means that,  although my parents were not likely to win any awards for their parenting skills,  they were doing a good enough job for my development to proceed through its natural steps in a healthy way.

But between the ages of four and six my environment became much less supportive.   We moved to a new state.  Several months later my parents divorced and my mom and I moved to a town several hours away from dad.   After nine months we moved back to dad's town but I started getting molested by my babysitter.   I spent time with dad but saw him depressed and alcohol-soaked.   Several months later my dad moved out of state and I never saw him again.   

These successive shocks to me,  each more damaging than the previous one,  shook my little world at its core.   My world was becoming dramatically less safe and neither my parents nor anyone else were able to give me support to help me navigate the heavy weather.   I  was forced into a situation where I had to respond to various blows without someone helping me through it.  In a certain very real sense,   I was on my own.

In my last post I used a term,  "inverted" to describe what I did to survive.  What I meant by this term is that all of the radiance I was projecting out into the world reversed direction.   I adopted a protective gesture in a basic way.   My energy turned inward in a way which was not healthy for me.

The inner part of me,  my higher nature,  what Charles Whitfield calls the "Child Within" went "out".   That is to say,  my inner self,  under "attack" from outside forces,  actually tried to exit my body.   Healthy development leads to "integration" where the body and the higher self are closely aligned.    The body gradually becomes closely aligned with the higher nature,  and unfolds in harmonious development.    My inner self,  which up to that point had integrated in a healthy way into my body,   now went "up and out".    In a certain spatial way I was up and behind my physical body.   I could not exit my body but I could get as far away from it as I could while still being,  technically,  in it.

One of the facilitators of the therapy group showed me a picture of what I was describing.   It was from a book by Barbara Brennan called Light Emerging and shows the space around a person where the area above them has bulged up and back.   The picture sure looked like my experience of what life has been like for me.   We inhabit not only our body but the space around our body.   The space around our body is also "us".   So perhaps one way to say what I did at age six was to push my being out of my physical body and into the space above me.   

As a child I was still able to function.   I did reasonably well in school,  etc.   but I was always very dreamy.   Spacey would be another way to say it.   It also created something of a split,  which is not uncommon among humans:   I had a higher side and a lower side.   A noble and radiant side contrasted with a cold and thoughtless side.  A light-filled part of me and another which was a wounded animal clawing for survival.

My work as an adult has been to try and knit those two sides together;  to integrate all the parts of myself and bring healing to the wounded parts.   I have tried to become more grounded and not so spacey.     I have tried to acknowledge my darker parts and thoughtless actions I have towards others in the past.     I have made progress.

But I still look up when I talk about my trauma.   The little boy who was trying to fly out of his body to get away from danger stills shows up in my eyes.

Becoming aware of this little detail will help me to heal that little guy.  I can let him know that he's safe now and doesn't need to fly away.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Healing Trauma

My therapy group had a retreat this past weekend.   We traveled a few hours,  stayed in a house,  ate well,  and processed a lot of grief.   The two therapists (a married couple) who facilitate the group are licensed social workers and have a spiritual orientation which feels comfortable to me as well as,  from what I can tell,  a few agnostics in the group.

The six members of the group started by pairing up and sharing with his/her partner what "story" each wished to work on over the weekend.   My story had to do with my social gesture;  how I am,  in a basic way,  with other people.   There are at least two traumas from my early life which affect my social gesture significantly.    

First is the sexual abuse I received at the hands of a 15 year old female babysitter,  over the course of several months,   when I was five and six years old.   

Second is being abandoned by my dad when I was six.

What I communicated to my "partner" and the group as a whole is that these two traumas affect my interaction with any human being I meet.     When I meet a woman/female there is part of me which experiences fear because I subconsciously wonder if she is going to sexually attack me.   When I meet a man/male there is part of me which experiences fear because I wonder if he is going to abandon me.

I am able to conduct myself passably in social situations.   At times people have even told me that I have skill and strength in the social realm.    I think that my higher self carries this strength but that my lower self,  the deeply wounded me inside of me,  keeps me from connecting with others.   I can connect on a relatively surface level but hold up an inner barrier to others (my wife excepted)  in terms of developing any deeper connection.

What I am feeling really good about is that this "story" I've just laid out started to get shaken during the retreat.     I was given an opportunity to tell my story,  do a lot of crying,  and process the trauma using a technique called "Body Centered Psychotherapy" (BCP)  used by the two facilitators.

The idea behind the BCP used in our group is that, being human,  we each store the feeling signature of trauma in our body.  If we can access the buried emotions stored in the body, in a safe and supportive environment,  and express them,  then we can free ourselves from what happens when we bottle them up.   

As I was talking with the group about my grief over being molested and having my father abandon me I started sobbing.   I came to a realization that I had been a bright and radiant little boy as a young child and much of that vitality inverted as I was getting slammed by these traumas at age five and six.   

I believe it is accurate to say that I went from being a radiant child to being a wounded child between the ages of 4 and 7.

As my sobs began to slow down one of the facilitators asked if I would be open to working with the trauma in a more physical way.   I agreed and we went to the next room where there was a large, cube-shaped cushion and a mattress-like cushion.   Everyone sat across from me,  so I could see them,   as I stood in front of the cube-cushion.

The therapist gave me a tennis racket and invited me to hit the cushion with it in a rhythmic way and vocalize as a way to access the buried emotions.    I looked at my friends in the room and they looked at me with great caring and compassion.   Some of them had tears streaming down their cheeks as they deeply empathized with the pain and anguish I was expressing.   I felt deeply cared for.

My emotions are very buried but nevertheless began to come up as I struck the cushion.   My energy for it let up a bit and at that moment the therapist took the mattress-like cushion and put it between me and the others in the room. 

The therapist said,  "this is the obstruction between you and these people--what are you going to do?"  He asked me if I thought the people in the room cared for me.   It was obvious to me they did.   He and another strong man stood on the other side of this cushion and provided resistance.   I pushed and pushed,  feeling like a wounded and sad soul.   He kept encouraging me to find the feelings that were there and express them.   

Suddenly,  I felt a connection with the feelings and began to push against the cushion such that the two on the other side could not hold me back.   My strength was much greater than it had been.   I had made a breakthrough.

If I had stopped with sitting on the chair sobbing I would also have processed some of the emotions.   But my experience I carried forward from that moment would have been of being a very sad and wounded person.   Because I brought my body into action with the subsequent exercise,  I was now becoming the hero in my new story.   The new story is that I am able to reach into my grief and process it so that I can develop deeper connections with the people who were in that room at that time.   I can build on that.

My part of the session ended as the therapist asked me if I wanted to lie down and ask others in the room to physically support me.   I asked someone to cradle my head,  to hold my leg,  to hold my hand.  All seven people in the room held me as I lay there,  feeling very supported as I processed my pain.   It was like I was lying on a cloud of human warmth and caring.

My old story has been about suffering trauma and then not being able to tell anyone about it (or telling people but not having it be acknowledged).   In recent years my wife has been a wonderful friend to me and has helped me bring out parts of my pain in order that it might be healed.   

My therapy group is taking this process to the next level.   And as I make progress I can build on the work I have already done.   

Having been home for a few days,   going back to work,  etc.   I have felt very tender.   I caught a cold for the first time in several months.     The group facilitators told us that as we went from the "expanded" state of the retreat to being back home,  we would likely start feeling more "small".   They reassured us that it is about the "breathing" of the healing process and that we should not feel alarmed.

I feel like a weight is coming off of my shoulders;  like the little kid who wanted to scream as he was getting hammered now could let out the pain and be supported and cared for in a way he never was before.   It is safe now.   I can heal the little guy who has been so hurt for the past 35 years.

I know this healing path will take time,  most likely years,  to release and properly grieve the traumas which have,  for so long,  colored the lens of what I think of myself,  how I express myself.   It seems like my higher self is going to have more room to grow now that all that pain,  all that is so deeply connected to my lower self,  is coming forward for healing.

This is not easy.   But it's all I can do.    To refuse to do this work would be to negate myself.  And I am done with that.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Trauma

 I have been working with the ideas of Charles Whitfield lately and am finding them very helpful.   In his book, Healing the Child Within and companion book A Gift to Myself, he describes a system of classifying trauma which I'll use as the framework of this post.   

The categories, with examples given for children/adolescenrts,  are as follows:

1.  None:          No apparent psychological stressor

2.  Minimal:    Vacation with family

3. Mild:            Change in school year,  new teacher

4. Moderate:   Chronic parental fighting, change to new school, illness of a close relative, sibling birth.

5. Severe:         Death of peer,  divorce of parents,  arrest,  hospitalization, persistent and harsh parental discipline

6.  Extreme:     Death of a parent or sibling,  repeated sexual/physical abuse.

7.  Catastrophic:   Multiple family deaths.

Obviously,  numbers 1-3 are the kinds of stressors which we encounter all the time and which do not typically damage our sense of well being.   Whitfield says that if a person can name the more severe traumas and be able to speak about them,  s/he is off to a good start.  So here goes:

First of all,  I don't think any stressor in my life so far could be categorized as Catastrophic.   My entry into the scale is at the level of Extreme.   

My extreme stressors:   

--My father abandoning me when I was six.   

--Sexual abuse by a babysitter over a several month period when I was six.

--The death of my father at age fourteen.

--My mom became psychotic and was hospitalized when I was fifteen.

My severe stressors: 

--I fell while riding my tricycle and busted my chin open when I was three.  Had to get multiple stitches and there is a clear scar today.

--My parents divorced when I was four.

--Moving to a town many hours away from my dad when I was four.

--Shortly before my dad exited my life he came to my house to pick me up, quickly left,  and I was not able to catch up with him--so I rode my bike across town to his house.  He was not there and so my mom came and picked me there after several hours.

--Being in a car accident where I and my mom were relatively unhurt but the other car occupants had serious injuries (broken leg, pelvis, ribs) when I was nine.

--My mom having a nervous breakdown when I was ten.  I went to stay with the family of a class friend for several days while she was in the hospital.

--Getting slapped down by my mom's boyfriend, in front of my mom,  when I was thirteen.

My moderate stressors: 

--My mom's frequent irritable mood when I was growing up.

--My mom chronically being (sometimes hours)  late to pick me up all through my childhood.

---A neighbor friend of mine hit me in the face with a child's rake when I was three.

--We moved to a new state when I was four.

--Watching "The Exorcist" with my dad at the movie theater when I was five.

--Having kids in the neighborhood try to convince me that my mom was not my real mom and that they knew my real mom when I was six.

--I showed the babysitter who molested me a piece of art I had done and she said,  "You didn't do that--you're not good enough to do that."

--Receiving (infrequent) mail or phone calls from my dad from age six to age fourteen.

--My cousin coming to live with us (for about a year) when I was nine.

--Neighborhood bullies surrounded me and spit all over me when I was ten.

--Getting stabbed in the eye with a pencil by a bully in my class when I was ten.   The principal rushed my to the hospital and there was no permanent damage.   However, the lead made a mark in my eye which is still there today.

--I pooped my pants on my way home from school one day when I was ten.

--My mom having a blow-up fight with my aunt's new husband when we were visiting them--we abruptly left and flew back home,  when I was thirteen.

--A man who lived a few doors down from us called me up and said "I want your body" when I was thirteen.

--I was caught shoplifting when I was thirteen.

--Having sex with a total stranger as my first sexual experience after puberty,  when I was thirteen.

--A friend of the family's  killed himself when I was fifteen.

--My girlfriend was hit by a car as she walked to my soccer game when I was fifteen.  She was hospitalized for several days and recovered.

--My mom married a guy I did not all like when I was fifteen.

--Her subsequent marriage to him which included frequent yelling and emotional abuse.

--Having a near miss of a head-on collision when I was driving at age seventeen.

--Death of a close family friend when I was seventeen.

I probably have other stressors that I'm not thinking of,  most likely in the moderate level.    According to Whitfield I may have some level of PTSD as a result of these traumas.   He asks further questions:   

--How did you handle these stresses?

--Did anyone teach you healthy ways to handle these?

He says that if a person doesn't handle these stressors in healthy ways that s/he may still have some level of PTSD.   

He further says that the PTSD is more damaging and difficult to treat if 1)  the stressors happen over a long period of time (more than six months),  2) if the traumas are of human origin,  and 3) if the people around the stressed person tend to deny or minimize the existence of the stressor.

According to Whitfield, some of the symptoms can be 

1) re-experiencing the trauma (upsetting recollections, bad dreams, etc)

2)  Psychic numbing:    This may include a constriction or absence of feeling, or expressing feeling,  which often results in a sense of estrangement, withdrawal,  isolation or alienation.

3)  Hyper-alertness or hyper-vigilance:  person is constantly on the lookout for potential similar stressors

4)  Survivor guilt:  ie. escaping the trauma when others are still experiencing the trauma.

5)  Chemical dependence

6) Avoiding activities associated with the trauma

7)  Developing multiple personalties.

"When we are not allowed to remember,  to express our feelings and to grieve or mourn our losses or traumas…through the free expression of our Child Within,  we become ill."

More on this next week.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Not Crazy

I have been reading lately a book by Charles Whitfield,  "Not Crazy:  You May not be Mentally Ill".   For anyone who wants to see all the sides of the MI debate,  it seems to me required reading.  He is an M.D. who first came into the public eye with his book "Healing the Child Within".   I recently was introduced to this book about a month ago and it is having a very real,  and very positive influence on my life.   

I liked Whitfield's book "Healing the Child Within" so much that I ordered a few of his more recent books.     He paints a very different picture of treatment for mental illness than what I have learned so far in NAMI.   In fact,  he's pretty critical of NAMI's emphasis on the genetic components of MI and strong focus on pharmaceutical treatment.   

Whitfield has written several other books on the topics of recovery and whether today's medical mental health community is doing a good job.   Let's just say that his critique is scathing.   Basically,  he posits that MI is often diagnosed and treated using drugs when what a person may actually have going is PTSD and unresolved grief.     He says that, in many cases, these unresolved PTSD issues, coupled with other factors such as substance abuse,  can easily present as MI.

Furthermore,  he says that once people start taking pharmaceuticals that they can be subject to serious withdrawal symptoms by stopping or being sporadic in taking the pills.   

What resonates very deeply for me is how Whitfield starts with the premise that each human being is spiritual in nature.

He seems to be steeped in a spiritual path called A Course in Miracles and to be joining his spiritual understandings with his decades as a doctor and psychotherapist.     Something that has really struck me as I've read his book involves what I would term the "spiritual individuality" of a person.   I understand this as the being at the core of who we are,  the essential  part of each of us which existed before we were born and will exist after we die.   

The question I am considering has to do with a healing modality and how that is affected by pharmaceutical treatment.   

1)  We heal ourselves through being increasingly in touch with our spiritual identity.

2)  Drugs which treat MI make it harder for people taking them to be in touch with their spiritual identity.

3) Therefore,  are the drugs really healing?

My reading of Whitfield is that he sees the drugs as causing way more problems than they solve.   He references the side effects,  withdrawal symptoms and the the deeply faulty screening process by clinicians as being very significant flaws in treatment for people with psychological problems.   He states that often MI is diagnosed by a clinician who has never asked a client for a detailed health history which includes traumas a person may have suffered in the past.    He posits that many people with a diagnosis may not, in fact,  be mentally ill,  but may be suffering from PTSD.   If the person finds a context where s/he can work through unresolved trauma,  the "symptoms" which presented as MI begin to fade and the spiritual identity is strengthened.

Whitfield does not claim this process is easy.   He says typically it is a multi-year process of recovery for someone who is highly committed to transforming their issues.

What stands out to me about this book is that it is not at all "airy-fairy".   This is a person who has been a psychiatrist for over 30 years.  has worked with countless clients,   and who writes with great clarity and conviction.

As a teacher I have thought for years that the drug, Ritalin,  was spectacularly over-prescribed.   I can clearly see how the environment a child is in plays a fundamental role in how s/he may present as ADD or ADHD.   If we look at the environment (at home, at school, etc.) and make changes,  the child does not need the Ritalin to be able to pay attention in school.   Parents can and do make changes to how they are raising their kids.   There are tried and true methods for  raising a child that, I believe,    completely eliminate the chance that child would ever need such a drug as Ritalin.

Furthermore,  Ritalin is a powerful drug,  a stimulant which alters a child's consciousness.   If a child is not used to his/her own natural consciousness,  it seems like s/he may have a steeper grade to climb in looking for his/her spiritual identity.     

The movie "Garden State" is one I really like.    It is a story of a young person who was traumatized as a child by the death of his mother.   His father,  a psychiatrist,  has prescribed for him drugs (presumably anti-depressants) ever since that trauma which have put him in a permanent calm,  subdued state.   The movie is about the young person realizing that the drugs were keeping him from knowing who he was.   So he stops taking the drugs.    And he starts finding his way out of the state the drugs were imposing on his consciousness.   And towards an experience of his own true thoughts,  feelings and impulses.   

To my eye,  this is a movie which brings artistically what Charles Whitfield is talking about.    

1)  The protagonist is lost in the confusion of life and the fog of anti-depressants.

2)  He decides (spiritual identity is talking here) to stop taking the drugs.

3)  He realizes that he still has deep issues of trauma and grief which he has never dealt with (and neither has his father,  the psychiatrist)

4)  Life becomes more scary but also more real and interesting,  and it is much more about his evolution as a being.   

Now how would this person do if he had the active support of a skilled therapist or therapy group to help him reach those traumas, cognize them,  and grieve all of the pain he'd never been given the opportunity to?  (In the movie he has friends who are very helpful in that regard.)

As I read Whitfield's book I am coming to some realizations.   What seems likely to me is the following:   

1) Some psych drugs are useful in some cases.

2)  They are massively over-prescribed in general.

3)  They are harmful in many cases.

4)  There is a better way.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Alternate Realities

I have been thinking lately about  alternate realities.   It has to do with my parents' patterns I imprinted on when I was a kid.  It has to do with what could have happened if  certain crucial support had not come through for our family.   First,  a little history.

When I was in high school there were several shocks that hit our family.   We made it through them relatively well because of critical support that came towards us from my grandparents.   Without the support things could have gone very differently.

When I was fourteen my dad,  who I had not seen for eight years,  killed himself.   This was a tremendous shock to me and to my mom.    About a year later my mom had a psychotic break in which she saw "guns going off" (my dad used a gun to kill himself).   That was when she went into the hospital,  received her diagnosis within a few weeks,  and started taking lithium.   About a year after that she was told by her supervisor that she was going to be fired from her professional job and gave her the option of resigning,  which she took.   

My grandmother had already been giving my mom some financial support before this time.   When my mom lost her job she was "taken under the family wing".   She was given a job managing the small family business with grandma watching over her at every step.   My mom's picture of these events runs contrary to what I have explained.   She sees it that she went to help grandma.   My take on it was that it was grandma helping mom.   I have never shared my opinion with mom because I don't see what good it would do.   She would get very defensive and very angry.    I have to be careful when I choose to challenge my mom's fantasy thinking.   When I do it had better be for a good reason.

Without the support grandma provided,  my mom would have been out of a job and wondering what she was going to do for money.   She would have had to do something fairly different than what she'd been doing.   It would have been hard for her to get the same level of work when she'd been fired for incompetence at her previous job.   

My point in bringing this has to do with the inner gesture of my family,  the one I imprinted on.   That inner gesture, coming from both parents,  was one of spiraling down towards possible calamity.   Of reaching a certain level of professional status but not being able to sustain it for more than several years.     My father carried this gesture.   In his late twenties he had a PhD,  a great job and seemed like one of the "best and brightest" to quote a moniker of the time.   Alcohol and depression took him down to being penniless and alone,  and to taking his own life.

My mom also had great ambition and promise.   She had a Master's degree and was holding down a demanding professional job.   But her mental illness was digging away at her ability to maintain the life she so desperately  wanted to live.   She was not able to look squarely at her issues and work to remediate them.   That appears to be a common symptom of the illness.   Instead,  she created fantasies about what was happening to protect her fragile psyche from the slings and arrows of what life was bringing her.   Her protective denial has cost her dearly as it has kept her from seeing things as they are.  As she looks back at the main themes of her life,  many of them are wrapped in fantasy.     She is a very smart and perceptive person and, at the same time,  her thinking can be very skewed.

So both of my parents had the pattern of not being able to sustain a professional life.   My dad did not have a safety net to swoop in and save him.   My mom had the safety net.

I have also had a safety net.   My grandparents and mom paid for my college.   I have had help and support along the way.    When I resigned from my teaching job one year ago there was some buffer that is helping me to make the transition to a new career without severe financial stress.   

Guess what,  kiddo?   You're doing the pattern!

What I am doing is not all that different from what my mom did when she left her professional job.   In both cases it was family support which made the difference.   One difference is that I am trying to be honest with myself.     My mom built up fantasy structures around her psyche which have been there ever since.   She has such structures about a number of things,  including what my childhood was like.   The difference between how we see things is a major obstacle to being able to really enjoy being together.    We lived much of the same history but we see it very differently.

There are two sets of alternate realities to which I allude in the title.  

The first is how differently I see our family history from how my mom sees it.    This affects  mom's and my relationship significantly because we are looking at a two very different sets of "facts".   There is an enormous number of opinions and thoughts I have in her presence which are never spoken.  I just let her have "her way" of seeing things a lot of the time because for many issues,   to share my view would be upsetting to her and not all that important to me.  So I pick my battles carefully.

The second,  and more important to my process,  has to do with what might have happened to mom and me had my grandmother not bailed us out.   Without that significant family support I can easily imagine that life for us would have been much harder.   Poverty makes everything much harder.   And at a fairly basic level I imprinted on my parents' gesture of "sinking towards likely calamity" without realizing it.     Some part of me inside was expecting that I would reach a certain level of professional status and then start to spiral downwards.   I have had a visceral experience that what I am saying here is true.    I am getting at a whole new level how powerful family patterns can be.

So all of this is fairly sobering to me.   I have to admit that it all makes me look pretty weak.   Yes,  and it is a fact that I am also a strong person.   To be the strong person I can be I'm going to need to further understand the pattern,  then actively and consciously work to undo it in myself.   This is probably going to take some time.   The fact that I am aware of the pattern,  however,  is huge.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben