More Time & Changes

Though it would take me years to remember, I had been cajoled and manipulated from the earliest moments of my life, to meet my parents’ needs; to fulfill in them, for them, unmet and unsatisfied portions of their own longs and carvings – though these were not actually truly “legitimate” in terms of my needs. I was used, and used cruelly and without restraint. My father to expiate his burning hatred, pseudo-authenticated by his fervent vilification of me because of my body weight and mental prowess; my mother to utilize my most tender emotions and precocious sexual energy as well as my deeply-rooted hunger to be loved and needed. Ultimately, my body and especially my perception of it, were severely warped by these competing needs of my parents, and, of course, irrevocably and logically, showed up in my behaviors and presentation to life in general. There is a level on which I do most severely condemn both of them, and hold them co-responsible with myself for this – even though I espouse total responsibility for my manifestation and the choices I made pre-birth to take all of this on.

Body weight and body size, even more one’s perception of same, have a tremendous influence on one’s confidence and sense of healthy self-love. Negative imprinting embeds deep and vicious wounds in the heart and psyche of an individual, especially when delivered by those who would nominally be considered to be one’s caretakers. (This resonates strongly with all of the research on disorganized attachment (Blizard, 2003; Howell, 2003; Hyams, 1994; Main & Hesse, 2003). Miller (1984a) commented that a child might introject an extremely negative self-concept as proper or valid because: “Children have no previous history standing in our way, and our tolerance for our parents knows no bounds. The love a child has for his or her parents ensures that their conscious or unconscious acts of mental cruelty will go unnoticed" (p. 4). The frequency of the reinforcement signals, of course, has a direct impact on the level of severity of the conditioning of the individual (cite?).

In many ways, all of the pretensions of this so called “modern civilization” are directly related to individuals maturing physically and remaining damaged and regressed emotionally as a direct result of the pernicious effect of shame-based childrearing. It is this insidious process, accepted broadly as “normal,” that, I believe, has ultimately caused more damage than all of the wars of history, recorded and unrecorded. Of course, the bellicose orientation of humanity and the predilection for war both stem from the unmet and unexpressed emotional hungers of humanity. The desire to shun shame combined with the pervasive need for reinforcement of one’s “rightness” leads many (all?) parents to rear their children in a manner similar to their own imprinted standards – in effect forcing children to become the caretakers of their parents’ unmet needs, resulting in generation after generation of children becoming too early “adultified” by attempting to please their parents’ illicit demands for comfort and nurturance. It keeps getting passed on because very few ever examine the roots of their own socialization, the obvious conclusion of which would be the understanding that the world is insane and that one’s seemingly aberrant reactions and behaviors are perfectly same in reaction to the ways of the world that are routinely accepted as “normal.”

The early invalidation of the individual shapes that one is such a way that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to ever effect a fundamental change. It locks in behavioral response patterns that are neurologically and emotionally congruent with the earliest experiences of shame, harm, and damage. As such, they can easily be perceived as “proper” and accepted as such. Thus early invalidation may be introjected by an individual in such a way that that one will act in a less than confident or assured manner, perhaps always seeking the opinions of others; or in other ways deferring to external authority because one feels intimidated or contaminated; or one may act even more extremely by becoming (at least occasionally in moments of great stress) in a regressed manner (cf. ARAS, Malecek, 2008) that reflects the age and developmental level of the earliest damage “frozen,” as it were by the pernicious impact of that “training” inflicted upon the child under the aegis of socialization; and, in fact, causing great harm that simply allows the runaway insanity of the current world system to be repopulated by the next crop of damaged individuals.

The utter shunning and degradation of early childhood experiences also adds fuel to the voracious hunger with which most people approach the acquisition of money and material goods in an attempt to feel strong and powerful; to ameliorate some of the incredible diminishment suffered when one had no other recourse than to endure, often harboring tremendous rage against authorities of all sorts, a rage that will later manifest as a revenge taking of sorts in attempting to become bigger and stronger, more wealthy, et cetera than others. It may also manifest in a self-destructive mechanism of weight gain (“Look at me, Daddy! I’m a big boy!”), in an attempt to be “seen” as valid and real when one feels otherwise shamed, unworthy of being loved, and relatively invisible. I further believe that all addictions are related to this earliest invalidation; and that all “relapses” with drugs, alcohol, and other addictions of all sorts is directly related to a quasi-flashback situation in which one’s earliest invalidation is restimulated (albeit in a less than conscious manner).

Roots in Childhood

By early disempowering a child, one teaches that child that he or she will be given no power to manifest his or her will; that he or she will be at the effect of other, more powerful individuals; and that he or she must learn to express their deepest inner needs filtered through the mask of the persona (or false self).

This is the beginning of the Newtonian-Cartesian split of self and other that so characterizes the entire of the dominant society. It is “learned helplessness” (Seligman, 1975), in which one assumes an attitude or guise of dependence imposed upon one by a dominant figure, and adopted as if one’s own.

Once the child has been denied sovereignty, the education system takes over with its regimenting agenda, further reinforcing the conditions and punishments of the “mainstream culture” on the still active and growing individual; forcing the child to accept the mandates of dominant culture before he or she ever even has a chance to investigate and explore his or her own ideas or soul. This forces one to always stay within the box.

Child abuse of every sort only teaches violence – that might makes right. The power inequities of childhood are then further reinforced throughout the lives of most individuals. One rarely has a chance from the start; but I believe, one may and even must redeem (L., “buy back”) oneself eventually. This may be the defining feature of spiritually aware individuals, no matter how sullied or downtrodden they might seem to have been by the ways of the world. One must reach deeply into oneself to find the clarity, strength, and light to manifest a new pattern, to reverse the course of the old, and stand forth revivified in the light of the revelation of self – one does not have to follow the typical pattern of the dominant contemporary society – of pursuing specious riches and power, only to die spiritually bankrupt and soulfully destitute.

This kind of thinking flies in the face of all that one is usually taught. I myself have been an outcast all of my life because of my desires for and ideas about something more than what might easily be obtained by following all of the rules and being a “good boy.” The early injuries I received set the tone for a lifetime of shame, sadness, misery, and addictions from which I am still recovering.
Being invalidated as a boy by my father, and as a person by seemingly everyone else, was an extremely deep and vicious wound. I never ever felt that I mattered, except to my mother who was using me for her own ends too (though in an even more insidious way that it took me years to unravel). The original invalidation was so powerful, and reinforced so many times and in so many different ways, that I became early convinced that I had no value and indeed, no right to exist (cf., Laing’s [1959] concept of “ontological insecurity” [p. 92]).

Having been consistently and persistently shamed for my size and body weight (a direct insult to my personage), I developed a variety of strategies to cope as I now see it. At the time, I see these reactions as being more reactive, and trauma-mediated emergency measures adopted to allow me to survive the onslaughts of my childhood. I harbored tremendous anger, verging on and frequently crossing over into rage on many occasions. I became severely depressed as a result of not allowing the then natural process of venting said anger. I harbored tremendous resentment toward anyone who seemed to get attention and validation of any kind, though especially so when I felt that I could have or should have “been a contender” for such validation: I became morbidly interested in displaying my intelligence at every opportunity – often being seen as a poseur, not as precocious. I took to hiding my thoughts and intentions, especially as to my very early awakening interest in sex. I began to overeat at every opportunity, especially sneaking food whenever possible, in contradistinction to my parents’ increasingly strident demands of me in this arena. I achieved the best grades for any of the boys in the class, though there were sometimes one or two girls who surpassed me.

I remember always seeming to carry the heavy burden of shame, especially around my size and body weight. I was frequently taunted by cruel invective. I was occasionally hit, spit upon, or assaulted for similar reasons. (I remember vividly once being the scapegoat in a snowball fight in the schoolyard when all of the other boys began pelting me, including at least one who put rocks in his resulting in my suffering a bloody scalp wound). I felt wounded and goddamn angry all of the time; conversely I was always wrangling to get, and craving for, the attention of girls upon who I had fixated my developing attentions. I always felt ashamed and intimidated, which had been deeply ingrained in me by my father’s vicious taunts and denigrations; as well by my mother’s overly lavish attentions and demands. (See Recapitulation II [Malecek, 1992/1993; 2001] for the gory details.)

I have always been ashamed of my body

This speaks directly to what I am calling the “original invalidation,” (Malecek, 2010), in which, induced by traumatic experience of any sort (sexual, physical, emotional), one first begins to feels ashamed and less-than. One begins to experience a sense of separation and diminishment from one’s self. This usually occurs (always?) at an early enough age that one has previously been identified with one’s body as the self. Therefore one’s sense of well being, confidence, and joy are automatically shattered and decreased radically. It is the direct result of traumatically mediated damage and injury to the boundaries of an individual. One feels significantly diminished in the shaming eyes of another, “an other” who is powerful and seemingly (even actually) necessary to for the maintenance of one’s continued beingness (father, mother, etc).

This depreciation is then internalized (introjected) and becomes a quasi-truth; is internalized in such a way that one begins to operate as if it were true. One begins to see oneself in the manner in which one has been seen as diminished by the significant other – as less-than, as damaged, as only worthy or valuable if one is being a sexual object or punching bag. One then begins to feel the fullness of this, and acting as if it were true, one begins then to treat oneself in a similar, less-than manner.

This might happen in any number of ways, depending in part upon environmental influences and role-modeling – overeating, cutting – self-harming behaviors of all sorts. It marks a significant turning point in one’s psychosocial and psychosexual development. It is the loss of the innocence one usually associates with the beauty and joy of children.

It is also a tool of the corrupted patriarchy, the corrupted social system in which one lives. It is as a direct result of this diminishment of self-esteem that an individual develops all of what might be called the “social neuroses” of our times, addictions of all sorts, including the incessant, driving desire to acquire money and material accoutrements. Addiction has rightly been called slavery. It is enchainment to ideas and behaviors that would otherwise be repulsive to the individual were such a one in an uncontaminated mindset, based on the belief that one deserves whatever harm befalls one. One begins to believe in one’s own damage and the propriety of it. One begins to believe in the apparent rightness of being punished, and acts as if it were proper. This is the beginning of “self-perpetration” or the internalization of the oppressor as an introject (or internal object, as if it had an actual physical presence).

With some notable exceptions, almost everyone is socialized to meet the needs of their immediate family and the extant (dominant) society. Thus the idea and process of socialization is a form of conditioning, albeit done usually in a rather repetitive, unconscious manner that induces in children the desired state of quickly becoming “good little adults,” who are easily recognizable by those others who have already attained adult status. There is rarely, if ever, any real thought given to what the innate needs of the child might be. Rather, the goal orientation of the dominant figure is imposed upon the child as being for the child’s own good.

Of course this is related to the one-lifetime-only orientation of both psychology and religion. Adults usually have no sense of the possibility of there being multiple lifetimes. Therefore the innate soulfullness and spiritual status of the newly arriving being is not considered because the soul of that individual is considered to be “tabula rasa,” first mentioned by Aristotle (as cited in Aristotle, 1936) who wrote of the “unscribed tablet” in what is probably the first textbook of psychology (De Anima or On the Soul, Book III, chapter 4).

This concept refers to the idea of a newborn child as having a blank slate upon which the existing world will inscribe whatever knowledge and information that being may need, or even ever need to know. The implication is seriously simplistic, reductionistic, and naïve in the extreme. It leaves no room for the concept of soul, or the reincarnation thereof. (I will treat the interrelationships between Buddhism and psychology later in this book). It is obviously to the benefit of the controllers of current society (the “cultural elites”) who are usually bankers and financiers, to be able to control the working ideology of the masses. What better way than by engineering a mechanistic socialization by which all that must be honored or obeyed is induced in children from the moment of birth (to include laws, education, and economic orientation) and followed to the grave?

Parents who are obedient to laws, religious concepts, etc., cannot help but to reproduce the same in their children – barring that occasional aberrant one that actually survives a traumatic childhood with the ability to think beyond the box, to reason for oneself, to actually feel the import of oppression and throw off the yoke.

In many ways the essential structure of modern society was set up approximately 350 years ago when the British Empire created a colonial structure and began spreading its insidious tentacles across the globe. Although Turkish traders had introduced opium to China as early as the 6^th or 7^th century, it was in very limited quantities until the British founded the international opium trade. This led to a series of wars called the Opium Wars (1839 -1842 and 1856 –1860), after which China not only lost Hong Kong, but her ability to control the importation of opium by the British.

The essentially sociopathic nature of modern corporations worldwide is easy to explain when one remembers it originated in the needs of professional opium traffickers, viz, the British East India Company under Clive. To see it as anything other than the expression of a criminal mind-set is catastrophically naïve. They grew it in India and shipped it to China under armed escort until twenty million Chinese were addicted…By the nineteenth century, the entire British Empire would have gone bankrupt without the narcotic. The French were similarly active in Indochina, the Dutch sold anything to anyone, the Germans tried to catch up while the Americans stuck mostly to slavery. What do these countries have in common? Only this: that through narcotics trafficking and trading in slaves they were able to invest in heavy industry that put them two hundred years ahead of the field (Burdett, 2010, p. 192).