Autism in women who mask their differences and trauma in children - interview by Gabor Mate.
Also sharing a post by Meryl Nass and one by Caitlin Johnstone regarding our ongoing shared trauma (CoV era and US politics).
A follow-up video to one I have linked in a previous post.
“High Masking Autistic Women, Uncut Interview”, by Autism on the Inside, (youtube)
Very interesting - and a point I learned the hard way - I cannot trust myself in difficult situations. I can be too cooperative in the moment and think later ‘Why didn’t I handle that differently?’ In an emotionally loaded situation, my function shuts down somewhat. ‘Gullible’ or not processing well? People expect women to be in control - so my ability to be in control is to avoid being in situations without a support person to say - ‘No, Jen, let’s get out of here’.
I also have a Time’s-up issue - I can handle stress up to a point, then I need some time to relax and unstress or falling-apart may occur.
“I don’t get subtly, please be direct with me.” - one of the women
So much yes, I often take things literally that were intended as jokes. Well, that one went over my head. I really don’t get pranks though or the Guys-getting-it-in-the-crotch home video shows. As an empath, that just hurts to watch - not really funny, or certainly not a 30-minutes in a row of it. Ouch.
/change of topic - Psychopaths murder for instrumental reasons - for a purpose, for more often than other types of murder which have are around 50% reactionary - heat of the moment. Analyzing language used by murderers as they talk about the event will use more words like ‘because’.
‘Inside Cornell: Analyzing the words of psychopaths’, Cornell University, (Youtube)
In our current situation we have been told a lot of reasons - protect granny, protect society, protect civilization, and obey the directives of Lockdown, masks, no early treatment, and accept an experimental product
“Because depopulation” is a goal of some elite international group, does not make it okay to use taxpayer money to medically murder taxpayers.
Other tells, glib and charming, but less cohesive overall. The psychopath murders talked about what they ate the day of the event. More distant past was the tone and money was a more frequent topic of their conversation. The not-psychopathic murderers talked about the event with more recent time references and talked about spirituality more. (Youtube)
Related - updates from the W.H.O. via Meryl Nass, The WHO and its World Health Summit let the cat out of the bag (substack.com):
Another good one - tongue in cheek newsreporting by Caitlin Johnstone - it’s not good news.
Listening now Gabor Mate on childhood trauma and its effects on our adulthood. He is being interviewed about his book, ‘The Myth Of Normal.’ (amzn.to/3tlR7VP) The interviewer is Steve Bartlett, (Twitter), The Diary of a CEO, Youtube channel. *He is a good interviewer, adds to the conversation. I have listened to a few Episodes. Two-hour video, no one has enough time, I will synopsize a bit:
The common message children who had very early child trauma, abandonment, or neglect have as core values later is a sense of not being good enough, feeling unwanted, or deserving of punishment. Infants and toddlers are the center of their world - everything that happens is taken as caused by them. Feeling sorry for not being good enough may also be part of the feelings.
How can we change it, Gabor is asked. Bring it to the forefront, look at it, see it. Recognition helps that it was an interpretation in early childhood that was wrong.
The blessing of a terminal illness - lesson from his work with end of life patient care - to appreciate life, every moment of it. What matters? A hug, a conversation, a sunrise, a beautiful scene. Chronic illness gave me a stronger appreciation for the beauty in life too.
Regarding our following our passion Gabor shares that: “What is in us, must out, or we will be constantly frustrated.” a paraphrase of something Hans Selye, a Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist, who coined the word stress had said.
The interviewer brings up the problem with competitiveness and ‘art’ - we may hesitate to ‘create’ because of a sense that there is a competition. Why create something that isn’t as great as experts in the field? May answer: For the pure enjoyment of creation, for improving skills, for using your skills and full range of body movement so you don’t get even worse ;-) in skill level. We do need to use pathways for the brain to keep them. Action of a nerve signals support cells to continue providing growth chemicals. Not using nerves causes the support cells to stop sending growth chemicals and other supportive tasks of the supporting brain cells.
Keypoint»>The myth of “normal” - it is a mistake to think or teach children that just because everyone is doing something - making it a norm / ‘normal’ - but that doesn’t mean it is natural, or healthy. “Normal” is associated with natural and healthy, while stress response to modern life is actually a healthy response to an abnormal situation.
Side point - the disease model needs to have kept in mind that it is just a model, describing a theory about a symptom set. It is not proof of correctness in the theory or that it is 100% right. The disease model is based on assumptions which may not be correct or may not be applicable to the patient.
Disease is too often seen by doctors as a thing that happens to people, as an external thing, when the cause may be internal due to emotional or other lifestyle issues which could be changed and “the disease” would go away.
He discusses inflammation as a disease category, wherever it is attacking the body, the standard care response is to provide steroids - which are stress chemicals. How is this helping a stress driven condition? (Me: It doesn’t, once a person is put on steroids chronically, it tends to go downhill within ~ two years - seek other guidance!)
Regarding early childhood lack of nurturing “grooming by mother rats, versus no grooming” causes physical changes in the brain of the ungroomed rats so they couldn’t handle stress as well, AND, the ungroomed [female] rats didn’t groom their own infants. This is known - infants that get too little personal loving care can be very distant and very different than they might otherwise have developed. Later in the video Gabor Mate mentions that a Canadian study found that men who were sexually traumatized as a child have triple the rate of heart attacks later in life. Early trauma changes our physical development.
Spanking is less of a trauma then harsher physical abuse. The big T trauma factors include death of a parent, divorce, a mentally ill or addicted parent, violence in the family, poverty, war. Me: Others might include a parent in jail, or a chronically ill parent or sibling, or chronic illness and medical trauma.
“…remember that trauma is not what happens to you, it is what happens inside you. It is a wound. Trauma is a wound.” - Gabor Mate
“Small children can be wounded within a loving family if they don’t get their needs met” - emotional and physical needs. Emotional neglect or overly controlling parents are a small T trauma.
Recognition of the early child trauma effects on adult behaviors helps, but the patterns are still there - very embedded and changing subconscious reactions takes practice, lots of it, role playing with caring people. The old patterns are likely to emerge anytime the old trauma is triggered by a current situation. PTSD level triggered can send the person into a fright pattern of fight, flee, or freeze. I think I learned or was trained to freeze - not ideal for getting away from a bad situation.
Rage can get bottled up and add other issues for people who learned or were forced to keep everything emotional inside. Recognition that your subconscious has patterns that aren’t helping you is the first step and can feel amazingly life changing. After that comes the practice of new ways to react, or not react, and the chagrin when the old pattern occurs again anyway.
Pathological liars lie to survive, as a mechanism they may have learned as a defense against reality or being judged. When telling the truth is dangerous or will be shamed, the child will learn to lie and hide their truth.
In an emergency we have to suppress our emotions in order to focus on surviving the emergency. As a trained Water Safety Instructor and Lifeguard - that is part of the training, stay cool, calm, and react in the practiced patterns of behavior. Practiced so often that they are the habitual response (hopefully).
Trauma can control us like puppets on strings - being pulled into reactions by the past patterns. Just resisting, trying to will-power away the trauma reactions is still a reaction says Gabor. He recommends the recognition approach - see the reaction tendencies and they will lose strength. Relieve the response of its duties, that may have helped the hurt child. Say thank you and let it go.
“The first step is awareness that it doesn’t need to be the way it is. […] The Buddha says to recognize the source of your suffering is the first step to relieving your suffering.” - Gabor Mate
What is normal? Not necessarily what we think it is or what we are told.
*I am only at 1:08, just FYI. ;-) Really helpful video for trauma survivors - which includes most all of us now (who have survived CoV policies). I am going to pause here in the summarizing. I am not sure if a specific lie, “the childhood lie ruining your life,” was mentioned but it may have been the Key point that “normal” may not be healthy or natural - normal in nature. We are told things are normal that really aren’t - that is a big lie. Maybe it is in the next 52 minutes of video.
*Paraphrased in sections.
Gabor Mate: The Childhood Lie That’s Ruining All of Our Lives. (Youtube)
Addition, /watching again/. Authenticity - denied in childhood, needs to be regained, taken back, with agency - you are your own agent now. Your one-year-old-self had made a decision that you don’t need to continue following now - you are a free agent as an adult. Reattribute new thoughts over the old message. Revalue what is working in your life, refocus on that, or something, or just tell yourself to pause for a few minutes and you can worry later.
Substitution is the way to change brain synaptic connections, we need to stop using the old message and be using something new. That is where addictions act as an escape into something else than self’s thoughts. Choose something positive and moderate any compulsions that rear up - workaholics often die young too, not just ‘drug’ addicts. Gabor had shared earlier that he had a serious shopping problem - music - and lied to his wife about it and was ashamed and still hid it from her out of not wanting to feel judged. We mess up, it can take a while to break the old patterns and build better ones.
Gabor describes ADHD as a reaction to a stressful environment by a sensitive child - too much input, space out. Sounds about right. <thinking face emoji> I was dissociative and don’t remember significant things from my childhood, though photos show I was having fun, even as a teen, not a new forgetfulness.
Regarding toxic society - is it toxic, is it getting worse?
Suicide in children, children and number of people on medications, rancorous discourse, environment, disparity in wealth, racism, inequality. “So, yes, I think it is getting more toxic.” - Gabor Mate
Solution?
Lose our illusions - that this normality is healthy - we need to recognize that what is normal now is actually bad for us.
Introduce concept of trauma into health care. Little to no training currently in medical school.
Education - teachers need to understand brain development and more about the effects of trauma on behavior and ability to pay attention. It is frustration and needs not being met.
Legal system - trauma survivors need rehabilitation to restore healthy function rather than criminal treatment.
“Parents?” - “…need to understand that the first three years are everything.” - Gabor Mate
Children need to have time to play and just be. Parents need to take care of their own emotional needs and not put them onto the child.
“Schools?” - “We need to take better care of pregnant women.” (Woot! Woot!) Children need to feel safe and have nurturing adults.
Related graphic:
A few additional thoughts - children growing up in the CoV policy era are likely suffering trauma reactions and extra nutrients and extra nurturing may help - but also awareness that negative effects may occur later. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is common in child trauma survivors and can occur at any time with significant stress, and then remain a lifelong tendency that can get better or worse depending on what you eat and if you remain very stressed. The stress itself can cause the IBS changes. (TRP channel activators need to be removed from the diet, pretty much for life, just FYI. Small amounts may be okay during remission and then need to be restricted during a flair-up.)
My website peace-is-happy.org focuses on mindfulness as a route to more inner peace in many of the blog posts, and one of the Topic series (Peace is freedom to love), has a lot on trauma survivors. It can leave a strong distrust and difficulty in interpersonal relationships with friends, coworkers, or an intimate partner. The site also has transcript and audio links for my podcast series How Are You Feeling? which focuses on listening to our body and mood signals and learning what our body is trying to tell us with pain or a bad mood - stop skipping breakfast or stop eating that glutamate rich snack or meal for lunch, or drink more water, or other concrete messages that could help, rather than just feeling cranky or tired or anxious.
Additional video by Diary of a CEO Youtube channel - World Leading Therapist: 3 Simple Steps To Remove Your Negative Thoughts: Marisa Peer | E154
“You’re not broken, you had broken parenting” - Marisa Peer.
Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use it is not intended to provide individual health care guidance. Please seek a functional health professional for individualized health care.