I learned of an international day for overcoming poverty, “October 17, the World Day for Overcoming Poverty,” from a free ebook “Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty,” by Diana Faujour Skelton, published by the non-profit organization the International Movement ATD Fourth World. One way that the country of Guatemala celebrates the World Day for Overcoming Poverty is by choosing a citizen to take part in their national White Rose of Peace ceremony. [1] The daily ceremony was begun at the end of the country’s 36 year long civil war to show the country’s hope for ongoing peace. [p 20, 29-32, Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty]
A white rose for peace.
Visit the atd-fourthworld site for more info about the book “Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty,”and to download a free copy: [e-book.atd-fourthworld] Recognizing the value of all groups within society and increasing communication between the groups has helped communities in a variety of situations and locations. This book is the first edition of a three part series.
Maybe a peach rose can also be for peace. Peace is in many colors. (Note: I happened to have this image when I first wrote this post, but later went and bought the only white rose at the florist and took images that didn’t turn out great but – peace is worth it.)
Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.
George & Eve DeLange,Guatemala National Palace Of Culture.White Rose of Peace Ceremony, images and description on a travel website, Guatemala, https://delange.org/Guat1/Guat1.htm
Trigger warning: This post is about recovery from sexual assault.
Sometimes a book can speak to you like a good friend, heart to heart, soul to soul, sharing secrets you never imagined anyone else had thought or experienced. The author wrote words many years ago but may have imagined that there would be a reader in need of the wisdom learned from hard experience.
Dissociation is a way for the mind to cope with pain or fear or with other overwhelming emotions or events. Children who experience trauma may have coped by allowing their minds to dissociate or separate from feeling the physical sensations or from being mentally present during the traumatic event. Dissociation is a natural reaction to intense experiences but it can become a lesson that is too well learned, a strategy for coping that becomes too much of a habit for the rest of life. Recovering a sense of connection to self and with the world can be difficult for the survivor of childhood trauma.
Dissociation became a habit for Karla McLaren, the author of Rebuilding the Garden: Healing the Spiritual Wounds of Childhood Sexual Assault (1997). [1] She experienced ongoing sexual assault beginning at age three. The culprit was caught but the dissociation remained for the author as a feeling of being incomplete and disconnected during her youth and young adult years. The book grew from her personal discovery and exploration of an inner sanctuary that can exist within our minds whenever we care to imagine it and visit. She describes the inner sanctuary in terms of a garden with herself as the gardener. Sexual assault occurring during childhood violates boundaries and can take away an inner sense of self.
“Since the lasting wound of sexual assault occurs in a quiet spiritual center that no one ever mentions, it is very hard for assault survivors to understand why they don’t get better.” [page 5, 1]
The assault destroys the inner sanctuary but the survivor is not the ruined garden but is instead the gardener who can rebuild boundaries that protect and heal. Assault during childhood teaches the survivor that they have no boundaries and are open to invasion. Later in life the adult survivor may have problems relating well to others. Some survivors may be overly controlling of every aspect in their lives while others may seek stimulation and act out of control. Normal sexual relations may be difficult for some survivors.
“Many assault survivors become excellent puppeteers when sex is “happening” to them; they pull the right strings and make the right noises, but they are not present at all. They are off in a dream world, or up on the ceiling.” [page 57, 1]
Meditative relaxation is somewhat similar to the strategies described but the visualization exercises in the book delve more into the energy of the chakras and auras. The author describes the dissociated self in terms of being split. The visualization exercises are varied but aim to help the reader reconnect with their fragmented self and with the world around them.
“Not going anywhere in life, not living in peace, not truly knowing how to behave around people, relying on relationships for inner peace: these are just some of the characteristics of people who come to me for classes, and when I see them, they are often at the end of their ropes. People usually don’t come to psychic healers first.” [page 36, 1]
Seeking guidance from someone who self designates as a psychic healer may not be a first choice for most people but dissociation is the mind or psyche separating itself from the body’s present. The visualization strategies the author shares are designed to help restore a sense of an inner core that is always safe and to help reconnect to the world.
A lifelong habit of dissociation isn’t treatable with a pill. Anti-anxiety medications may be provided to help cope with anxiety if that is also present. Cognitive therapy, retraining the brain, is the most effective strategy used currently for treating people with dissociative disorders. But for that you would need an appointment with a therapist who believes in dissociative disorders. So in the meantime, there’s always Amazon. Finding an author who believes in the problem and believes that recovery is possible is at least a place to start even if it’s not a first choice. [1]
Gloriosa greets the day in the cheerful way, that all daisies share.
/Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./
Our experiences during infancy and early childhood can set us on a path with open communication and understanding of our moods and feelings or leave us in the dark. Difficult conversations are something that the author, Alice Miller, had to have with herself for decades before many others in the academic world joined in. Early childhood experiences teach us wordless lessons that may positively or negatively affect our habits throughout our daily lives.
Alice Miller trained and worked in the field of psychoanalysis in Switzerland and then dedicated herself to writing books since 1980. She shares stories of fictional people in the book, Paths of Life; Seven Scenarios (1998). [1] The stories are written as if told by real people but are of composite characters representing real life issues experienced by many people.The people within the scenarios talk openly about some of the difficulties that too many infants and children have to live through but who may never have gotten a chance to voice out loud. Reading about the struggles that others survived and learned from can help put a voice to personal issues that may have been lingering wordlessly since one’s own childhood.
“But if we don’t go out on a limb ourselves, we’ll never find out what others are capable of. Addressing difficult subjects squarely can sometimes make the unexpected happen. Or not, as the case may be. There are lots of people who give the impression of being open and are very good at talking, but they’ll start panicking immediately if they’re asked to leave the fortress they’ve built around themselves. They can’t imagine surviving without that kind of protection.”
The scenarios created and shared by Alice Miller help to break through some of the more common fortress walls that may have been built in early childhood or from later traumatic experiences. Scenarios from traumatic childbirths and descriptions of more positive experiences of childbirth and lactation are also shared.
{Disclosure – I’m only on page 51 so far, and it’s a great book. She has written other great books on the topic of empowering children of all ages, such as The Drama of the Gifted Child, [2], Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, [3], and Banished Knowledge, [4].}
*Having completed the book does not change my opinion that it is a great book worth reading but I will add that while the words are easy to read the topics are challenging to consider emotionally and intellectually. Not talking about difficult events in personal or world history is more likely to lead to history repeating itself in future generations. Dictators and the possibility that parenting styles and early child experiences may leave people more susceptible to following an authoritarian leader as adults is discussed in one of the chapters.
History is more likely to repeat if we deny it happened or fail to discuss it and learn from it.
This article reviews a book that looks at how Hitler and the Nazi movement may have formulated some of their policies on discriminatory laws that existed at the time in the U.S. at the state level. truth-out.org/opinion/
/Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./
Some right and wrong or good and bad exist in most situations. Decisions usually are made from a variety of choices that each contain a mix of some good and bad aspects. The expected outcome from a decision can’t be known ahead of time; expected results can only be estimated based on results from previous situations that were similar or by making guesses. Focusing on what is good or bad or right or wrong about the choices is helpful but that more realistically becomes a question of right for whoand wrong for who? and how rightorhow wrong for those individuals or groups of people?.
Internal values provide guidance for the choices we make. Understanding how our values developed from childhood and how those internalized values can affect our daily actions is discussed in the book Integrity: Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason(2007). Ideas are included to help improve recognition of why some behavior habits seem harder to change then others and ideas for tackling those tougher choices are provided. Internalized values learned as a child may not match society’s expectations of morality. What was accepted as ‘good’ behavior in the childhood environment often remains the typical pattern of behavior later in life even if the early childhood habits are no longer helpful.
A child that suffers from emotional or physical neglect or abuse in their family home may learn to hate themselves and love their family members because their physical and emotional survival depends on their family. In a way the child is trying to make sense out of their world and are trying to be in agreement with the people in their lives. Victims or prisoners in an abusive or captive situation have also been known to develop a strong emotional bond with their captors. The condition became known as Stockholm Syndrome since 1973 when the behavior pattern was seen after a hostage situation. The victim’s survival may seem to depend on the good or bad mood of the person in control. Anticipating and pleasing the controlling person may seem self protective for the victim.
Children who grew up in emotionally neglectful or abusive situations may not have learned more typical, healthy ways to behave or communicate with others. Severe illness during early childhood also may affect behavior patterns later in life. Dissociation or detaching the mind from feelings is a natural reaction to pain that can become a more frequent reaction for some people. The child from a dysfunctional upbringing may not realize that their sense of normal doesn’t match the average person’s definition of normal. Two children from similar dysfunctional backgrounds might understand each other as adults better than they understand other people. They may help provide emotional support for each other that they hadn’t received as young children. As a team, the grown up children may be emotionally stronger together than they are as separate individuals. The idea of breaking up such a team before they are each individually ready might feel like it would be neglectful or dangerous to the safety of the individuals, (in a way that has nothing to do with the Stockholm Syndrome that has been seen in hostage situations, instead the children learned the behavior patterns of someone with Stockholm Syndrome from what they experienced while growing up in their own childhood home).
Skills and abilities are not handed out in evenly balanced amounts. Working with others or within a team helps provide a variety of skills from the whole group which can help balance gaps in individual ability or knowledge. Communication with others is important for revealing where improvement might be needed within oneself or within a team’s set of skills. Sharing can help with growth of skills. We don’t know what we don’t know or what skills might be missing until after we’ve learned about the lack through experience or from a more experienced guide.
Skills and abilities are a gift from birth and from education.
Advocating for the mental health rights of children and survivors of childhood abuse could help save money and empower lives. Medications and talk therapy may not treat or reveal the underlying problems with communication learned in childhood. Screening questions for problems associated with dysfunctional behavior exist but may be infrequently used. For some conditions like depersonalization disorder, a problem seen in survivors of child abuse and in workaholics, education about the condition typically helps more than medications, but screening and accurate diagnosis are needed first.
A few other books are listed below which may be helpful for recognizing and recovering from mental health and behavioral issues:
Steinberg, M., and Schnall M., The Stranger in the Mirror: Dissociation-The Hidden Epidemic, (Quill, 2003, New York, NY) [Amazon}
Sanderson, C., Counselling Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, Third Ed., (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006, London, UK) [Amazon] *This book is written for counselors about counseling and is not intended as a self help book.
Williams, D., Exposure Anxiety-The Invisible Cage; An Exploration of Self-Protection Responses in the Autism Spectrum and Beyond, (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2003, London, UK) [DonnaWilliams.net] *The author has professional and personal experience with avoidance behaviors seen in people with autism and discusses a variety of coping skills for caregivers and ideas are included for use in educational group settings. Excerpt: “The friendly person caught up in involuntary avoidance responses appears uninterested, cold, and unfriendly. The person capable of intense interest and focus who gets caught up in diversion responses can seem like a clown who never takes anything seriously. The accepting, empathic person caught up in retaliation responses can appear insensitive and selfish.” (p180)
Butler G., and Hope T., Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide, (Oxford University Press, 1995, Oxford or New York) [2007 edition, Amazon]
Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.
