The other days I got a FB friend request from someone I respect a lot from way back 20 years ago when I was at BBSH. (Barbara Brennan School of Healing) I had come across their facebook page and left a comment.
There was a message too, about some of what I wrote, an offer, and a little bit about her daughter.
I responded, but a huge part of my response or impression was left unsaid, like my initial internal response to the situation of the infant.
Since then I wondered about that, and even though the investigation is not complete, I decided to write about it now as events change and happen so fast in today’s world, that if I don’t do it now, it may never happen.
She mentioned something about her daughter, when she was just born. I was like, OMG, I never knew. I wanted to ask, what happened, tell me more. I used to be a neonatologist after all, but more importantly, I have had to deal with a traumatized nervous system all my life and maybe some thing I say could be helpful.
But I didn’t even acknowledge any of that in my response.
Later I rationalized that I didn’t want to be curious, a bother, not wanting to admit either that what I want is sit down with her somewhere and hear the whole story. Not that logistically that could happen, living in opposite parts of the continent, but why admit such a thing, wanting to hear the whole story.
For some people, those”empaths” or those with nervous systems with limited capacities, being with people, is work, not deeply relaxing as fundamentally not safe or nourishing. Being rejected or left felt like a death sentence so profoundly, that the cellular memory lingers for a very long time. Being vulnerable always feel life threatening. The replenishing of one’s energies has to then come from things one learns to do during alone time. In addition, being social is really mostly work, it is just “dealing with” people, both tolerating them and their manifestations as well as having to work to not be inappropriate or bothersome in one way or another.
In people with early infant and childhood trauma, dealing with humans in unstructured situations is often NOT the go to for dealing with nervous system regulation, nourishing or replenishing energy, being in nature is, animals can be, meditative activities can be, like painting or crafting or building something.
Because being with people is fundamentally scary, uncomfortable or some such thing, one is naturally missing out on actually being social, being intimate, and I don’t mean sexual. The word alone, way back in Germany decades ago, the word “intimacy” was enough to cause a terror response in me.
For those with very early trauma, human interactions are often a cause for more stress, especially if those other humans carry their own wounding, not dealt with. In the end, it just isn’t worth it.
This is a handicap in that humans are primates and by nature social animals. Not having a well developed social nervous system it is a limitation to your agency, to what you can do and how you can move into the “normal” world.
I also find that what Bessel van der Kolk says to be true, those without that kind of nervous system dysregulation, that early trauma, really cannot understand what it is like, they can’t get it. They don’t understand what it takes, that it is work, not relaxing, to be with people. They don’t get how much energy it takes to deal with “normal” stuff that is happening in life.
When younger, there is the hormonal situation that complicated things. There is different drive for connection, dictated by primate ways of being. But the other day I read a study about long term follow up of premature infants. Turns out they are less likely to be married or in sexual relationships. To me, I say, duh, why is that surprising you, but most people won’t get it.
How do you explain to someone that the injury sustained, the experience had in such early trauma is GLOBAL. It is not an event that could be talked about, processed, dealt with. It is so 100%, so completely involves the entire organism. Even as an adult that feeling is the same and there are still no words for it until there is enough Being presence and awareness, enough distance to recognize it as a nervous system state and conditioning. The rage is also non-verbal and feels like it encompasses the entire being. The helplessness and abandonment is experienced totally, so, organismically speaking, globally, it becomes unmanageable. In the end, not wanting to feel, or, as an adult, hurt anyone, one is simply wanting to get away and be alone.
Because those feelings seem to huge and overwhelming, not feeling is the only answer for many and for a long time. However, humans who don’t feel, turn to cruel shells that are capable to inflict pain on others without remorse. So one needs to learn to deal with all the big feelings. Presence and attention – of one’s own self to one’s own processes is a must.
In most children who sustained what is now called c-PTSD, there are redeeming features that make it so one does not kill oneself or get lost in addiction, and that is a good thing. But it is also dependent on the incoming soul/essence habits, or karma, and societal and cultural conditions. Some will be able to rise above it, learn, and keep learning. Others will take their lives. Others will remain unconscious and perpetuate their trauma in their children.
One thing that happens with infant trauma is that part of the soul, or most of it, learned to leave. Sometimes it never really incarnated as a result, and this usually means, it never goes through the healthy embodied mental-emotional growing up process….and by the time it does, you look at an adult that is acting like a child. At the same time there is often a high level of sincerity and innocence, curiosity and spontaneity – just – not considered appropriate to the chronological age.
It takes work to tease all that out and be present, and the energy spent doing that cannot be used in other ways, it is not available. At the same time, energy blocks, physically held in the muscles and fascia, also mean less free flowing energy is available. Working with the body is essential and a must. One the other hand, freeing the energy might overwhelm the nervous system circuitry. Are you starting to get a bit of the dilemma this all is? And then there is the physical pain that develops. But we won’t go there here.
Some folks say you can just transcend it all. And true enough, presence and openness with do that – BUT …put on life stress and there you are again. There really is waking up AND growing up.
It is something else, this human incarnation, and there are many ways, often culturally dependent, to make meaning, to make sense of it all. Even if you consider this incarnation on earth like a game, you will be able to play very differently and in other roles with an integrated, robust nervous system and a strong, capable body. Great attitude is always a plus and actually, crucial.
There is an advantage of sorts to growing yourself up later, after you have learned about your nervous system, after you learned to be present. In a way there is a chance you grow up freer, less encumbered by conventions, as there is part of you that never got conditioned in the first place this time around because – it was not really there, not descended or embodied during the early times and throughout childhood.
Until then, part of you may come out in playing with little kids, or animals, but other that that, it is safely gone from exposure to the brutal painful world of humans. Meanwhile, when young, you develop your best coping mechanism not to die or feel so much pain all the time.
What happens when the trauma was not mitigated at all? It is possible that the soul devolves, and what presents itself as the human is a narcissistic shell incapable of empathy and feeling. Industrialized Western society is full of traumatized people. It is systemic.
One more thing. In the community where I live and work, there is something like a premise: you don’t have to work on yourself to be okay, or be useful. You can put yourself in the Work, and the work itself with bring about your transformation. When you are doing the function you are doing, are meant to do, willingly, even joyfully, that is enough. For me, this has proven to be true. But it still takes your intention and willingness for your life to go into a certain direction. Not everyone is meant to still be growing themselves up at the age of over 60. But as parts of an interconnected whole, everything anyone does to evolve, be consciously embodied, help others, increase beauty and ability to love …is of benefit to that whole, to everyone and everything. Freeing oneself from the confines of habits and conditioning on the deepest level – does lead to freedom to be and ability to love in a very different way.
For most people, this does not happen overnight.
And even when you are free, there is more work to do, just different. There is more to learn, on a whole new level. Each time you level up, there are new tasks. We don’t know that the process every will end. It is infinite – so for me, this tiny “me” in the immensity of what is, learning to be present, to love, to recognize and enjoy the beauty – is important. Connection to the greater Being and nature is essential and primary. This finding meaning for your life is important too.