Category Archives: 7 sins and friends

by

Adverse Childhood Experiences 9: crisis wiring

I spoke to a patient recently about ACE scores. A veteran. Who has had trouble sleeping since childhood.

“What was your childhood like?” I say. “Was sleeping safe?”

“No, it wasn’t. We were in (one of the major cities) in a very bad part of town.”

“So not sleeping well may have been appropriate. To keep you safe. To survive.”

We both think this veteran has PTSD.

“I think I had PTSD as a child. And then the military made it worse.”

I show the veteran the CDC website and ACE pyramid: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/about.html.

Adverse childhood experiences. Leading to disrupted neurodevelopment. Leading to a higher risk of mental health disorders, addiction, high risk behavior, medical disorders and early death.

Ugly, eh? Damaged children.

“But I don’t agree with it.” I say.

My veteran looks at me.

“Disrupted neurodevelopment.” I say. “I don’t agree with that. Different neurodevelopment. Crisis neurodevelopment. We have to have it as a species in order to survive. Think of the Syrian children escaping in boats, parents or sibling drowning. We have to have crisis wiring. It isn’t wrong, it’s different. The problem is really that our culture does not support this wiring.”

“You can say that again.”

“Our culture wants everyone to be raised by the Waltons. Or Leave it to Beaver. But the reality is that things can happen to any child. So we MUST have crisis wiring. Our culture needs to change to support and heal and not outcast those of us with high ACE Scores.”

My Veteran is quiet, thinking that over.

I say, “You may read more about ACE scores but you do not have to. And we can work more on the sleep. And we do believe more and more that the brain can heal and can rewire. But you were wired to survive your childhood and there is no shame in that.”

 

I took the picture in Wisconsin in August.

 

by

dive

I am diving into my Saturday like this turtle, a breath of air and then paddle down into the depths, hi to the local fish and other fauna and look, lovely places to paddle and hide. I am puttering, wondering, not directed, no list, I might wander by and do laundry but some of the day I will just revel in sloth…. I hope you get lazy time, down time, undirected time, unscheduled time, dream time, time to expand and paddle around and float in the sea of dreams…..happy Saturday.

….and I submit this to the Daily Prompt: dignify….

Today I refuse to dignify the type A part of myself with any attention: I am relaxed.

by

Forgiveness 2

I wrote this poem in 2009 when I was struggling with forgiveness and wanting to forgive. How do we forgive when someone does not apologize? When they do not explain nor listen to your hurt and grief? Yet forgiveness is internal in each of us. The external is reconciliation and that requires listening from both sides.

Forgiveness

I want to forgive something
Someone
In fact a group
Something that hurt a lot
I’ve tried logic
I tell myself
“It was an expression of concern”

My heart doesn’t agree
It is sullen
Immobile and grumpy
It whispers
“They have not apologized”
It whispers
“When people say you’re crazy
It could be a joke
An expression of concern
It wasn’t
It was a palm held out
At arm’s length
To distance me.”

My head argues
“That’s what it felt like to you.
You don’t know their intentions.”

I want to write
A poem of forgiveness
Hoping my heart will follow

My conscious doesn’t write my poems
My conscious wrestles with an idea
The poem comes out of this struggle
I look at the poem I’ve written
I think,
“That is what I would like
my conscious heart to feel.”
My poem is often more generous
than my conscious feels

My poems are not mine
They are a gift
From the unconscious
It is much larger
Than the small conscious me
I dream of feeling envy
I climb into a bathtub
And transform myself
To battle a trickster
We are transported
To the bottom of the ocean

In the ocean
The trickster and I are one
It is unlimited
It is not my unconscious
There is no separation
It is all unconscious

I did not think
A poem would give forgiveness
But pain drove me
Into the sea
I am connected
You gave me these pearls
Thank you

 

I am submitting this to the Daily Prompt: jiffy. I wish this could happen in a jiffy…. but it is slow….

by

The introverted thinker in the garden

My second earliest memory is between age three and four. We have moved to upstate New York, Trumansburg, and are living with my grandmother. I am old enough to know that I can’t pick random things outside and eat them. However, my grandmother has a currant bush: red currants.

I am amazed to see her picking and eating something outside. Does she not have to follow the rules? And then she lets me eat some. And I do not instantly die.

“You may pick them and eat them off this bush whenever you want.” says my grandmother.

I remember the color of the currants and the taste and the miracle of having permission to go eat something on my own recognizance, outside in the great wide wild world. I was so thrilled and entranced with the currant bush and my grandmother.

Here are red, black and white currants from the farmer’s market yesterday. I put them in a fruit salad with a honey melon that was so ripe that is dripped, and added apples and blueberries and lemon juice. Mmmmm, bounty. The tartness of the currants is delicious with the sweet melon.