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The effects of childhood abuse...in its many forms...

I have often stated on this blog that childhood abuse can lead to health problems later in life.  This is an interesting article on that.

From the Everett Herald, May 17, 2011

Connections to adult problems clearer

By Jim Teverbaugh and Michele Rastovich

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Everyone knows that harsh, hurtful and negative emotional experiences in childhood make certain people more vulnerable to developing drug and alcohol problems as teens and adults. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study shows us that those same childhood experiences also make it much more likely that certain adults will have chronic debilitating diseases, employment problems and mental illness.

The ACE Study is an ongoing collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. It is perhaps the largest scientific research study of its kind, showing a direct, causal relationship between nine categories of adverse childhood experience (physical abuse; emotional abuse; sexual abuse; an alcohol and/or drug abuser in the household; an incarcerated household member; living with someone who is chronically depressed, mentally ill, institutionalized, or suicidal; witnessing domestic violence against the mother; parental discord indicated by divorce, separation, abandonment; emotional or physical neglect) and at least 18 physical, mental and behavioral health outcomes.

The more ACEs, the higher the rate of mental, physical, behavioral disease and disability in the population, including higher rates of chronic disease, low educational achievement and increased violence.

In the words of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study authors: "The ACE Study reveals a powerful relationship between our emotional experiences as children and our physical and mental health as adults, as well as the major causes of adult mortality in the United States. It documents the conversion of traumatic emotional experiences in childhood into organic disease later in life. How does this happen, this reverse alchemy, turning the gold of a newborn infant into the lead of a depressed, diseased adult? The Study makes it clear that time does not heal some of the adverse experiences we found so common in the childhoods of a large population of middle-aged, middle class Americans. One does not 'just get over' some things, not even fifty years later."

In Washington, 26 percent of the adult population has three or more categories of ACE; 5 percent has six or more ACEs. It is a credible assumption that a community able to reduce ACEs will simultaneously reduce many factors known to influence health in the general population, and, in the long term, reduce the rates of cardiovascular disease, substance addiction, mental illness, obesity and community violence.

The Washington State Family Policy Council first introduced the ACEs research to Washington in 2003. With this new information, the Snohomish County Prevention Partners discovered a new lens by which to consider local prevention efforts and have been meeting with local leaders to discuss the implications of this research on public policy; how our systems work together; and how we deliver services in Snohomish County.

Increasing awareness and helping organizations understand how to incorporate ACE information and screening into care planning and service provision will result in improved health outcomes for individuals by insuring appropriate care is accessed, creating more appropriate care planning and increasing the likelihood that key causes of disease are addressed. Increasing awareness of ACEs in the general public will help reduce rates of ACEs in the community.

Adverse Childhood Experiences occur within the context of relationships -- specifically the relationships among people in the household of a child during his/her development. So, action to reduce ACEs must be broad enough to reach the adults and youth within those households and in trusted contact with household residents.

Additionally, professionals who are working with family members can, and should, have specific knowledge and competencies to address ACE-related risks and to help to mitigate ACE effects.

Greater community-based knowledge and understanding provides a larger context for service providers to integrate ACEs into their work, and offer support for the positive behavioral changes individuals need.



Jim Teverbaugh is executive director of the Snohomish County Federated Health and Safety Network. Michele Rastovich is coordinator of Snohomish County Community Mobilization Against Drugs and Violence.

I was a parentified child - take three

I was thinking the other day about how far I've come since I posted in 2008 about being a parentified child. At that time, I was still waking up with that elephant sitting on my chest--the trauma, shame, and fear would come while I slept and they would take over my heart and soul. I'd wake up, heart pounding, my mind and emotions in the trauma. And I'd feel like I was never going to get free of it.

If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would no longer have all the triggers and would no longer wake up with that elephant on my chest, I would never have believed them. I had nightmares most of my life. Sometimes someone was trying to kill me. Sometimes I was being chased. At one point, I learned how to fly in my dreams so I could get away from the danger. And then one night I told myself that I could not fly away from my problems anymore and after that I could no longer fly. I remember lying in bed wishing I could feel that sense of freedom I got when I flew.

And now I do. Now I have that freedom. It didn't come easily and it didn't come quickly. It came over a lifetime of doing the work, facing the fears, not giving into the emotions, and believing the truth.

The truth was that I WAS lovable. I was valuable. I was important to someone. I had a reason to live.
That was the truth that took me a lifetime to understand and to take into my heart so that I believed it more than I believed the lies.

The lies are what destroyed me. And when I learned that they were lies, I started tearing them down one by one. And as I tore each one down, a stronghold in my life was conquered and where I'd been weak, I was now strong.

I never thought I'd be free, but I am.

I believe that you can get free too.

Bad Girls Club has been added to the Pacific Northwest Special Collection at the University of Washington Library and the Ted Hipple Special Collection at the University of South Florida.

New Cover, New Kindle Edition!

I've waited a long time to get this book into digital form and it is now a Kindle Edition. And it costs half of what it did in hardcover, which is good. I know a lot of people are using Kindles and other readers. I use my iPod and have a Kindle app and I love it.

Here's the link to Amazon.

Here's what the story is about:

Destiny has a secret. She's been told not to tell anyone what happened to her, her mom, and her little sister at Crater Lake. She also can't tell anyone that sometimes her sister is covered in bruises. Her friends all want her to report her parents, but Destiny won't tell the school counselor. If she does, it could cost her little sister's life or possibly her own. When the secret becomes too much to carry and the truth she knows becomes a lie, Destiny has to make a decision. Will she find the strength to speak the truth or will she drown in the lies? Will she discover her own worth and the voice she needs to cry it out, or will she remain what her mother has always called her -- a bad girl? 

Bad Girls Club has been added to the Pacific Northwest Special Collection at the University of Washington Library and the Ted Hipple Special Collection at the University of South Florida.

Autoimmune Disease

It's interesting that every single person I know with autoimmune disease was either abused, neglected, or traumatized at some point in their life. I meet a lot of people at work and I get to talking about them about their problems. And ultimately, if they are suffering from autoimmune disease, they were victimized in some way at some point in their life. Whether it was family, boyfriends, relatives, or foes, they all suffered the same fate. Their body at some point turned on them and began to treat them as if they were the enemy.



Doesn't it seem a little ironic that a person who has been victimized like that now has to deal with a body that is breaking down because it has decided to attack itself?



I'm not a statistician or a researcher although some of my college studies centered around trauma, so I do know something about it. But I take my own surveys as I go through life and meet fellow travelers who live with odd autoimmune diseases because their body has become their enemy and is trying to slowly kill them.




I find that unfair but that's how it is.

Learning to love yourself

I had a realization the other day that was pretty profound. I've been working for a long time on really, really liking AND loving myself and sometimes it's hard because the old feelings and the old thoughts are there. Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning feeling kind of yucky mostly because it was new day, same old me. You know what I mean?

So, I've been working on finding the real me for a long time and on caring about the real me when I find her. I've also been concentrating on not entertaining the old feelings and letting the newer, better feelings about myself and life come to the surface.

The other day, I realized that for the first time in my life, I am genuine and satisfyingly happy. I don't know if I could ever say that at any other point in my life. And when I realized that I am happy, I realized it's because I like myself. I've become a genuinely nice person, and I can see that I am. When I realized that I'm a nice person, it hit me why, over the years, I did not like myself. And it was because I  identified with the hurt inside me and my reaction to it, rather than identifying with the true me. I saw the anger and the pain, the unforgiveness I had for years (and don't anymore) and the resentment I felt for a long time (but don't anymore). And I so totally identified with the negative aspects of my feelings rather than the positive aspects of my self. And for that reason, I found myself unlovable and unlikeable much of the time, or in certain areas of my life. It's not like I ran around hating myself all the time because I didn't. There are degrees in all things. But sometimes I just didn't feel so good about myself, no matter what good I did or what good I felt. It all seemed negative to me.

And now? I am experiencing myself as a kind and gentle person, not the warrior I used to be. I used to love a good fight. I liked getting a subtle form of revenge on people who hurt me. I don't do that anymore. Nothing like doing good things to produce good feelings. Right?

Anyway, it seemed profound.

Thinking...

I've been thinking lately about taking down my personal website. I have this blog which I use fairly infrequently, but the personal site was used mainly to promote my book. And to handle my email. Some time has gone by now and life has changed. I finished up my degree. I'm going in other directions in my life. I'm not so sure anymore that I want to talk exclusively about parentification.

It's hard to leave it all behind, but I think that I must. So, next time payment is due on my website, I'm going to let it go and move on to whatever the future brings.

Finally Finished!!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I was busy finishing up my degree and I have finally finished my studies in Human Development and received my B.S. with a concentration in Family Studies. I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I have dreams of working with women and children.

I am going to start up a day ministry for the poor at my church and help provide food for the needy. I think it will be fun and I think I'll enjoy it. I did this kind of work in Times Square with teenage runaways, prostitutes, shopping bag ladies, and street bums, so it's something I'm familiar with. I'm hoping that my church can have an impact on the poor and needy in our city. I'll keep you informed.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for more information on parentification, read down. There's lots to read here and at my website.

All things parentification...

Make sure you visit the link on the right that says MORE ON PARENTIFICATION. Clicking on it will take you to my website where there are more posts on parentification and some are more current. Thanks!

To be yourself...

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Once you label me, you negate me." Soren Kierkegaard

When I was in my 20's, I loved to read Soren Kierkegaard. Looking back, I'm not so sure why I did, other than he spoke to me in some special way and although I don't remember what he said to me, I was reminded of his poignancy today when I found one of his quotes.

"Once you label me, you negate me."

I think that is one of the most powerful and profound things I have ever heard. If ever we lived in a world where labels are important, this is it. We label everything. Every group has a label. Every personality type has a label. We label our children. We label our friends. We label our parents and our friends, our co-workers, and everyone we run into.

And by doing so, we negate them.

As a former parentified child, one thing I know too well is how it feels to be labeled.  I was a troubled child and a wild teenager. And everyone knew it, myself included. "Wild" became my identity because that's how I'd been labeled and it seemed like an OK identity to take on at the time. But it had many sides, this wild label because it also included irresponsible, immature, damaged, and much more. These things all became my identity and for many years I believed that I was what I was labeled.

In truth, I had negated myself.

I am older now and realize that "wild" doesn't sum me up. It was a label and a persona I choose to take on but in doing so, I sterilized my personality and became something I really wasn't. I squashed who I was and took on what I thought I should be. And it took me many years to undo that.

Be careful when you label others or when you label yourself. It's limiting and restrictive and it does negate you or the person you label. Try to think more broadly about who you are or who the people around you are and work hard not to put them into a box. It's easy to put them in a box, but it's truly challenging to accept people for all that they really are.

But it is possible.

I Was A Parentified Child - take two

I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about all the things that come with being a parentified child. Because I've been thinking about it a lot lately, I wasn't surprised when I woke up last night at 3:30 with the memory of a very traumatic event that happened to me a long time ago fresh on my mind. Well, let me change that. It was sitting on top of me like an elephant and screaming in my ear. Present were all the subsequent emotions of that trauma and the feelings of complete helplessness. I was "in" the trauma, I was suffering the loss, I was trapped.

Fortunately, I've been through enough of this stuff that I've learned how to get to the emotions, recognize them, acknowledge them, and then let them go. But it wasn't always so. And I think that's because the parentified child feels so responsible for everything that happens around him that he feels compelled to wrestle with every problem (or emotion) that comes his way.

I did this for years. It is a compulsive kind of coping, I came to learn later in life. The thinking goes along this vein. "If I am wrestling or coping with a problem, I am in control." The parentified child wants to be in control. He has grown up in chaos, usually, and it's been his job to make sense of it and to make everything all right. So, it makes sense that he would take into his adulthood the sense of responsiblity and need for control.

It has taken me a lifetime to become a recovered parentified child/adult and to learn that the emotions are only what you feel. They only want to be acknowledged and they really don't want you to fight with them. I wasted many good years of my life fighting everything I felt, creating a chaotic war inside myself that I could not win, all the while spinning my wheels for no good purpose. I think that's because the feelings scared me so much that I felt like I was "handling" them if I was attacking them and trying to get them under control.

What a relief that I can walk amidst the trauma of my youth and not take up the old patterns. I guess I've grown. And I hope that all parentified children/adults learn that it's not in fighting the feelings that you get well. It's in acknowledging them and freeing them that healing comes.

More Interactive?

I've wondered recently as I've watched the visitor statistics go up and down if it would be helpful to have more of a conversation on this blog. I know that's hard given the fact that it's not LIVE, but I am up for fielding questions if anyone is interested in throwing one at me. You can leave a question in the comment box and I will answer it.

Ok, I'm waiting.

PTSD

I am not a mental health expert, but I'm always looking for information from those folks about things that affect parentified and traumatized children. I figure that information is a good thing, especially for those looking for answers and today I found an article on medscape.com that was very interesting. (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/579412)

I am sure that I suffered for years from posttraumatic stress disorder (PSTD) because of the trauma of my childhood. And today's medscape.com article on the effectiveness and durability of mind-body programs in the treatment of children with PTSD was good news! They found that PTSD symptoms as well as nightmares and flashbacks were reduced when this new treatment was used on children who had been in the war in Kosovo. (See link for article)

Interestingly, this program can be delivered by "trained individuals who don't necessarily have to have a psychiatric or medical background," according to investigator James Gordon, MD. That's even better news. Lay people like teachers, community and religious leaders and others can be trained to do this work. This would be effective for large groups who have lived in war zones, or experienced other kinds of disasters.

The program used a mix of things like meditation, guided imagery, breathing, drawing, movement, biofeedback, etc. All in all, it's effective, durable, and helpful.  I'm excited!

Parentification and Vulnerability

I was thinking the other night about how vulnerability is very much a part of the psyche of a parentified child. In fact, I think that in all forms of abuse, vulnerability is a key issue, but I'll talk about parentification since that's what I know best.

I know that when I was 13 and my mother left, and even before, as she was quickly disintegrating, I felt especially vulnerable. I was afraid of adults. I did not like making decisions. I did not like change. I was afraid that bad news was coming around the next corner. A certain tone of voice could make me feel that somehow I had miserably failed and you were going to tell me about it. That all wrapped up into the feeling of vulnerability that I took into my adult life with me.

I have thought long and hard about why that is. And I think that when a child's parent collapses and leaves the child in control, that child has no resources for being an adult and they are not sure of anything. Is this right? Is that right? Am I doing this wrong? Did I say the wrong thing? Did I cause this? Can I stop it? Does anyone believe that I didn't cause this? All those questions swirl around in your head and you are unsure of everything you do. There is no one there to say, "Good job." or "Wow, you did that really well." You're basically guessing that what you're doing or saying is right but there's no form of support and no affirmation anywhere. You are on your own.

Imagine for a minute being eight years old and feeling as if you are totally alone. You have no emotional support from family. There is no one to go to if you have a problem. In fact you hide your problems. I remember spraining my ankle one summer and not telling anyone because I was sure that no one either cared or would help me and that revealing my sprained ankle would only make matters worse at home. So, I lived with the pain and the swelling and I limped around all summer. Now that I think about it, it's amazing that no one noticed. But then, I always felt that I was invisible and maybe in a way I was. But I was vulnerable. Nothing was sure. I had no security. I had no one to back me up. I was alone. At that point, I only had my sister and she was in worse shape than I was, so I took care of her too.

It's no wonder that the parentified child goes into adult life feeling as if life could collapse at any time.  In my life, it applied to every area of my life. I had a fear of anything going wrong medically, mostly, I believe, because my mother talked incessantly about dying when I was a kid. She always thought she was dying, and as an adult any kind of medical problem could send me into a state of fear. It also applied to work, relationships, everything!  Anything out of the ordinary, any bad news. It all caused me to collapse inside myself and shake.

Thanksfully, I don't do that anymore. I've lived long enough to work through a lot of this emotional stuff and it does not haunt me. But some people never work it through. They live with their triggers and go where they take them and never come to an understanding that they are a frightened child living in an adult's body.

That is the legacy of many parentified children.

If you are looking for someone to speak about parentification from first-hand experience, I am available and will travel. Just email me from my profile page. Thanks!

The Shame

It's been a while since I've posted something about parentification and since this blog is very much about that (among other things), I thought I'd blog today about that and also about shame.

It took me many years to understand and come to a conscious awareness of the shame I experienced as a child and then took into my adulthood. I'm sure that a therapist could explain it all very nicely, but I'll do my best to tell you what I know.

I think that for a child, when the parent is not "performing" as expected, there is a sense that somehow the child is less of a person. Children so easily reflect off their parents. They are, after all, mirror images, or so they think. I thought I was a mirror image of my mother, so I also thought that all she suffered, I must suffer too. So, when my mother became the child and I became the parent, I was overcome with shame. I became, in my own eyes, less important, less meaningful because she was damaged and therefore, I must be damaged also.

I use the words useless/worthless to explain my shame. I only discovered this undercurrent in my life about a year ago. I sometimes had this niggling feeling inside that something wasn't quite right inside me. One day I sat down in the big overstuffed chair in my family room and I asked that feeling who it was. "Give me a name," I said to myself, because I have learned that feelings do have names and they do reveal themselves if you ask.

As I sat there, those two words flooded my head. USELESS! WORTHLESS!

It was a revelation. I had never been able to pinpoint those words or those feelings, but finally they had risen to the surface. I believe they are connected with shame, perhaps the bastard sisters of the shame a parentified child feels. But they had deeply rooted into my subconscious and they had colored much of my world, even if only in small ways. But still, they were there.

I sat in the chair that day and asked myself why I felt so useless and worthless. Why did these feelings attach to me in such a strong way? And it leads back to the fact that my mother was damaged and therefore I was damaged and I did not have much worth.

Oh, the things that the traumas of our childhoods teach us. We pick up the negatives and we hold them so close. The positives don't have the impact that the negatives do. I remember the positives, but they don't have a hold on me the way that the useless/worthless feelings did.

Fortunately, by the time I found useless/worthless, it wasn't a very powerful force in my life because I had overcome most of the shame I felt as a child. They were little foxes I had to chase down and reveal. Once revealed, their power was lessened if not totally destroyed. But they had done their work over the years in their own crazy way.

Shame is not a nice thing. And like I said, it has bastard sisters and tentacles that anchor deep in the soul. These things are hard, but they can be overcome.

Talk! Things talked about are things revealed.

Life in General

">Today is my birthday (I won't tell you which one) and I've spent some time reflecting on what has happened over the past few years. I started out in 2000 writing a book about two children who were parentified and abused and in 2007 the book was published. It was my dream to get the book into the hands of mental health and education specialists, as I felt that it would be a great resource for them in their work. My first book was used as a college psychology supplemental text, and I felt that my second had the same potential.

2007 was a good year. The book was very well received by mental health specialists, teachers, librarians, psychologists, and others who work with abused kids. It was compared to A Child Called It, but reviewers said it was better. That was quite thrilling, as I worked so hard to explain in the novel how the cycle of abuse works from generation to generation.

But I didn't feel that the book was enough. I wanted to get the word out to the world that you can go through very tough times and survive. Or even thrive. So, I became a radio talk show host. It took me a whole year to make that happen, but it did happen this summer and I've lined up some great guests.

I still want to travel and speak to groups about the effects of parentification and abuse, and maybe this is the year that that will come true. Dreams do come true. But they have to ripe and mature before they blossom. I will wait.

I encourage you to listen to my radio shows if you have an interest in abuse or parentification. Abuse takes on many forms. My next guest on August 10th was a Dachau liberator. Talk about abuse! After seeing what went on in the concentration camp, he quickly forgot. Literally, he forgot about it until five or six years ago when he came upon some pictures taken on that day. And then it came back to him. And now he's talking about it. He's a retired professor from St. Mary's College in California and quite the character. It will be a show worth listening to.

Well, I am going to go enjoy my birthday, so you have a nice day too.

Grace Under Pressure

On Sunday, July 20th at 10 a.m. PST

I will be speaking on THE REAL CONNECTION 

with Life Coach Deborah Smith 

About the fight or flight stress reaction.  

Pressure and stress put you in a fight or flight mode. But there are ways to get your mind back into rational thinking. Life Coach and Teacher, Deborah Smith, will talk about how you can do that so you aren't pushed by your body into a constant pattern of irrational thinking when under stress. She'll also talk about the chemical reactions that go on in your body when you're stressed, how that can become a chronic chemical state, and how you can make sure it doesn't.

You can listen on the link to Blogtalkradio on the left. It will be archived so after that date, you can listen to it on www.blogtalkradio.com/the-real-connection.

Breaking the Pattern

I think that the best way to overcome parentification is for victims to break the patterns in their lives. I know that I've had to do that and while it wasn't easy, it was the most freeing and positive thing I could do.

I think that you first have to recognize the patterns in yours and your family's life. Every family has their myths and when children are parentified, there are patterns that emerge. Usually the strongest child takes charge. They become responsible for their parent or siblings. This leads to a pattern of feeling responsible for everything and everyone. With that comes tremendous stress, because having that kind of control is impossible. You really can't control everyone and everything, but you feel that you must.

I know that in overcoming my own sense of responsibility, I had to learn to let go of people and allow them to be who and what they are while at the same time I learned to voice my own truth. You can't control what people do, but you can say what you think and you can remove yourself from a situation if you choose.

I have the perfect example. I have had problems with one family member for many years. This person likes to control those around her and uses money to do it. Now, what fool wouldn't take money in exchange for making someone else happy? Well, it got old for me and I stopped. I said what I thought about the situation and I expressed my desire not to play the game this way. I removed myself and went on with my life without this person and her games.

There was a price to pay. I was belittled to other family members. I was "cut off" financially, while the rest of my family was not. I had to watch them all as they reveled in the money and presents that were bestowed upon them. But I held out and I didn't give in. It took several years, but I now have a relationship with this person based on truth and reality, not on her buying me. It totally changed our relationship and that is only because I was willing to break the pattern in the family at whatever cost. And trust me, there was a cost.

What pattern do you need to break? Is someone controlling you? Are you controlling someone else? Awareness is 90% of the battle. The rest is just doing the right thing and letting life take its own path.

The Long Term Effects

I don't know if you ever totally overcome the long term effects of neglect, abuse, and trauma. I think you can heal considerably. I also believe that you can become aware of your own reactions to the things around you. Knowing yourself goes a long, long way, because awareness is half the battle.

I think a lot about triggers. I used to have a ton and I only have a few now. That, thanks to my very kind and patient counselor who sat and listened to me cry for a few years. Getting all that out really helped, and now I am left with only a few triggers.

I don't know why sickness is such a trigger for me. Or, I should say, the fear of sickness. Maybe it's because my mother was always "dying" (so she said) and yet she didn't die until some years later. She always had some "illness" or someone she knew had some deadly affliction. I am sure that it horrified me as a child to listen to the tales of woe. I remember her telling me about my poor cousin who had Crohn's Disease and who would have to have her rectum cut out. Now, really, she didn't need her rectum cut out, but my mother was an over-exaggerator who scared the crap out of me. So, to this day, all you have to do is mention a terrible sickness and I will go into a state of fear. I can only imagine how crazy I will become if I get really sick.

Relationships are so important. They have made the biggest difference in my life. I lived my life on an island all by myself for a very long time. I hid the most important parts of myself in a place that no one would ever find them and sometimes even I couldn't find them. But relationships, especially with my husband and my children, really helped me open up those parts of myself and let them heal.

I think we take the marks of abuse, trauma, and neglect with us through life. In some ways, it has been the best thing that happened to me. I'm a better mom because of it. I understand people because of the things I suffered. I'm sympathetic and emphathetic and I care. I know how to talk to people when they are devastated and I'm not afraid to say what I know they need to hear. So, the things that scar us also leave us with gifts that we would get in no other way. Is it the way we want to receive gifts? No, it's not, but that's how it is.

Life is difficult. Learning to live is even harder. But it can be done.

Parents get eight years for starving child...

Read the story here:
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080315/NEWS01/330595289/0/NEWS

This one really gets me because the judge says that children aren't treated this way in America. Woah, Judge, think again! According to Helpguide.org, four children die a day in this country at the hands of usually someone they know, like a parent. Four a day! And 12 out of every 1000 children in America are abused and 80% of the abusers are their parents.

So, this couple claimed not to know how desperate their boy's condition was. They also claimed that they weren't deliberately cruel, were overwhelmed with caring for the boy and a one year old child, and the woman (a girlfriend) claimed she was depressed.

So, since when did it become ok to starve a kid if you're overwhelmed and depressed?

It was reported that this poor four year old child weighed 5 pounds less than he did the year before (25 lbs) and that he had not one ounce of fat on his body. In fact, he looked like a Holocaust survivor.

I'm not convinced that eight years even comes close to being a suitable punishment for these people. All they had to do was look at the boy and know that he was going to die if they kept it up. Now this poor child has cognitive problems and will suffer his whole life because of what these two adults did to him.

If this is happening all over the country, to 12 out of every 1000 children, what is the future going to be like?

I should pay more attention

I really should post more often and I will try to in the future. One of the reasons I haven't been posting is that I went back to college to finish a degree in Human Development with a concentration on Family Studies. I'm doing this so I can work with teens in a professional capacity. I think that I'd like to work with homeless teens or teens in crisis (in juvenile detention maybe), or even with kids in foster care, as an advocate or counselor.

Because I was such a traumatized and parentified child, I do understand the problems that many of these kids face. And now that my kids have grown (the youngest has two years of college left and the oldest graduates in May), I have the time to think about contributing something to the world.

I always thought I'd spend these years cranking out books for people who have suffered trauma, but I decided that I wanted to get into the trenches. The book business has changed so much in the last ten years. The competition is so tough. It can take a while to sell a book. But jumping into the trenches with kids is a whole other thing. I can just do it.

I have also thought about being a foster parent but my own kids aren't "gone" enough yet to clean out their room and move in someone new. I have looked into taking the class and being ready when/if that time comes. I love kids more than I love anything else in this world and I'd rather be with them and help them than do anything, even write.

I still want to visit schools and talk to kids about writing and becoming a writer. I'll actually go almost anywhere to talk to people about parentified children who have suffered severe trauma because it's an issue I care deeply about.

So, if I don't post it's because I'm taking classes and I've been busy. But I'm not gone.

Life Happens

And because it does, I've been away for a while. There was the holidays, the water damage in my kitchen, the car accident, kids visiting from college. The list goes on and on. But I wanted to catch up today with a few things.

First, Love Our Children USA has a periodical newsletter that's chock full of good things about nurturing children. These folks take the positive swing on abuse, they talk about about prevention, loving children, nurturing them, and stopping abuse before it happens. Three cheers for them.

You can also visit their website at http://www.loveourchildrenusa.org/. There is an article of school bullying that might interest some parents and one on cyber bullying.

That's it for today.

More about commitment

I was thinking about my last post and realized after I wrote it that commitment requires a parent to be an adult. Most of us don't come fully formed as parents. We learn as we go, but one thing we have to do is grow up. If we don't grow up and act like adults, our kids will have no one to depend on or lean on.

I remember when my kids were little and they needed so much. It was really hard sometimes. I used to call my husband and tell him that my oldest was really going to drive me to the looney bin if she just didn't stop being HERSELF! She was a difficult child. Busy all the time. Talked incessantly. I would have preferred to run away some days but it struck me that I'd better get a grip and grow up myself if I was going to help her grow up.

When it came, it was a mind blowing revelation. I was the adult. I had to act like the adult. She was the child. It would have been easier sometimes to be the child because being an adult required a lot of commitment and some days I wasn't sure I had it in me. But I decided to grow up. I decided that my kids needed to respect me, not like me. That was a real breakthrough for me. I gave up MY NEED to be liked and instead took on the right to be respected and that made it all the easier to do what I had to do.

It's not a popularity contest. They become friends later, after they respect you. But they have to respect you and they don't respect you if you act like a kid. They want something solid, something real, something they can depend on. If you're not it, they'll look for it elsewhere. And trust me, someone will provide it. But it will most likely not be good because they're kids and they don't know what the heck they're doing sometimes.

Being respected means doing the hard things. Saying no when they need to hear no. Saying yes when you don't want to because they need to hear yes. It's work. But it pays off. When they respect you, they will embrace you and trust you and lean on you and they will become healthy children.

It's worth it. Work? Yes! Lots of work. But all worth it.

Let's talk about something different...

The whole issue of abuse, parentification, and the likes is very depressing. I get sick of it at times because it's not a pretty issue and usually nothing good comes out of it and I'm sure that other people get sick of it, too. So, I've decided to do some posts on something positive for a change. And that's what you can do to make sure that your kids are healthy and whole.

Truth is, there's little you can do about all the kids out there who are abused. What you can do is do the very best for your own kids. Perhaps that will start a revolution. As the child of two alcoholics who didn't get most of what I needed either emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually, I'd like to share some of the things that I believe build an emotionally healthy and secure child.

The first is commitment.

This is a commitment that is solid and makes the child's needs a priority. This isn't a commitment that's important when you "have time" or when you're "not busy". NO, this is a commitment to be there when that kid needs you, even if it's a sacrifice for you to be there. This says that no matter what you do, I'll be there for you. I'll pick up the pieces. I'll hold you and make you feel better. You can depend on me because I'm dependable. If it's 3 o'clock in the morning and you need me, I'll be there. If I'm at work and you need me, I'll come home. If someone rejects you and you're in your room depressed, I'll sit and talk to you until I can make you smile. And then I'll stick with you until we work this out. I'll bail you out of jail (although I might kill you afterwards), but I'll be there. Nothing can stop me from being there for you, not even you.

That may sound rather obvious, but really, it's not. It's work. It's pure sacrifice sometimes and it means putting the child first when they have needs. It doesn't mean giving them everything they want because that wouldn't be good, but it means giving them what they need, when they need it. Children need to believe that they can depend on you, no matter what. If they screw up, they need to know that you'll be there. If they make a mistake, they need to know that you'll still be there, not judging them, but helping them sort out their mistake and then moving on to learning something from it. You'll be there to point out the dangers on the road, but you won't make them feel stupid for not seeing them. The fact is, commitment means that you are their right arm if and when they need you and sometimes when they don't even know that they need you.

This kind of commitment produces secure children. That, along with six other things which I will talk about, one by one, over the next few posts.

Remember, kids do know how committed you are to them. They know if they're first, second, third, fourth, or fifth in your life. They know it better than you do. They know if they can depend on you and if you'll be there without judging them. They figure out pretty early where they are on the food chain.

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while...

It's been busy around here what with college starting in less than a month and other things going on. And I can only take so much about abuse in one week (or month). It's a hard subject to think and write about.

But I have some news. The former Executive Director of the Massachusetts School Counselors Association has recommended my book, BAD GIRLS CLUB, as a must read for school counselors, psychologists, and nurses.

Also, it's been nominated as a YALSA Quick Pick.

These are all good things. I am thrilled to get the thumbs up by mental health professionals!

I'll be back soon with more posts. I have to catch up with life.

More on parentification

It happens in families where the parents are alcoholics. Or drug addicts. Or even when there is a single parent running the family. The child takes on the role of the adult or the parent. Maybe she dresses her sisters for school, cooks dinner, cleans the house. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. But when the child has to give up her childhood to care for the family or the parent because the parent is unable, it's really bad. The loss of childhood and the thrust into adulthood creates many problems in kids and in later life.

This article says it best: http://www.fww.org/famnews/0402b.html

A Great Resource on Abuse and Trauma

I came across this page today:

http://inbloom-abusetrauma.blogspot.com/

It is a VERY comprehensive site with information, links, articles, etc., about abuse and trauma and seems to cover just about every topic I could think of.

In fact, it made me wonder why I blog, if someone has already done this.

I was a parentified child...

Sometimes, it takes a lot for me to talk about my childhood. I was the fourth child of parents who spent their weekend afternoons in bars and usually my sister and I were dragged along. I got really good at that game they had there, the one where you slide the puck to hit the pins, kind of like bowling, but different. There was an endless stream of dimes so we'd keep playing and when we got bored, we went outside and played on the dock. By the time dinner came, we were tired of sitting in a bar and wanted to go home.

That was the least of it. It only got worse from there.

It's hard to talk about the loss of my childhood because by the time I was about nine, I had become an adult. My sister and I searched the house for hidden bottles of booze. We spent many a night in the car with my mother, who several times either almost drove off a bridge or into a tree. Back then, it wasn't a big deal to drive drunk. Or to keep your kids up all night while you did some really big drunken blubbering. Or to terrify them in any way.

I was terrified. I was terrified by the loss of my mother, or who she had become. I was terrified by the seeming indifference of my father. I was terrifed by the fights, the screaming, the smashing of things against the wall. I was terrified by the future, finances, food (or the lack of), but most of all I was terrified by everything I felt.

Fear goes down like a piece of fruit but it comes up like a monster, triple in size, wholly more horrible, and all the more frightening. I learned to be invisible, so I wouldn't set either of my parents off on a drunken binge. I learned to keep my mouth shut, which, if you knew me, you'd understand how hard that would be. But what I learned was that I had no worth, I was last on the long list of things that counted. I didn't.

Fortunately, I believed that I would get away, change my life, raise my own family, and find happiness. I did. But it took me a long time to come to terms with what had happened and how damaged I'd become. And healing was a painful process.

This is why I write books. Or at least a part of it. No, it's not cathartic to write. But I think it's important to shed light on what goes on behind closed doors. Too many kids suffer like I did. There's not much else I can do.

A little light. A little hope. A promise that it can be better. That's why I do what I do.

And on a side note...

I am available to speak to groups including college or high school classes. I also do inspirational talks for larger groups. Just email me and we can talk.

Parentification

I haven't posted in a few days because I've been away at a writers' conference in Spokane, WA. While I was gone, I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about on the blog. And I decided that I want to shed some light on parentification -- when the child becomes the parent and takes on adult responsibility in the home. This can happen because the parent is mentally ill, a drug addict or alcoholic, or for other reasons. It robs a child of their childhood and leads to problems when they grow up. You can read more about it here:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Family-Mental-Illness---Coping&id=231899

I will be talking more about this problem this coming week. For now, I'm trying to catch up on things I missed while I was away.

Staggering...

As I research on the web and look for statistics about child abuse, the numbers stagger me. Not only do we have a huge problem in this country, but Australia and New Zealand are also reeling from the effects of this too.

It seems that kids everywhere are the punching bags of the new millenium.

I like to talk once in a while about something good that's happening surrounding this issue. And honestly, it's hard to find good news. Occasionally I come across a hero. Maybe it's a police officer who saved a child. Or it could be a child advocate in the prosecutors office somewhere. I even found one college that was doing a walk to fight abuse. But trust me, these stories are hard to find and I can't stand putting up bad news every week. It makes me sad.

But I was thinking today about this. Why is it now perceived by so many folks (parents or whomever) that it's ok to knock the crap out of a kid? Are their lives so miserable that they are taking it out on someone smaller than them, like a school yard bully? What happened to our society and why aren't children treasured anymore? I know that much of this abuse has to do with adults who have alcohol and drugs problems, as well as psychological problems of their own. But what happened to us as a society?

I don't believe that it's just reported more. I was a kid in the 50's and 60's. There was "some" of this going on. Kids talked to each other about it. Maybe I lived in the perfect community where this just wasn't a problem, I don't know. I just can't believe that it was always so rampant, and of course, someone will probably correct me on that, but if you do, please supply statistics. Of course, there probably were no statistics back then, so if you can enlighten me, please do.

We have a whole subculture of children who are very, very damaged. They can't learn in school and they probably don't have much of a future - at least some of them. What is the world going to be like in twenty years? And how are we going to put these people back together? We can't afford to lose them.

I don't believe in throw away kids.

Kid Nation

Ok, it just keeps getting hotter and hotter. The Chicago Tribune has jumped in with this:

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/tv/mmx-0904watchersep04,0,312481.story?coll=mmx-television_heds


Ok, I give. When did we all become so stupid?

Kid Nation

Kid Nation first airs on September 19th on CBS. I found this article today about the show. (I originally said it was October 19th, but I was wrong.)

(Blogger is cranky today and won't put in the link so copy and paste this to see the article:) http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=17907

David L. Levy, Esq., Chief Executive Officer of The Children's Rights Council believes that the show should be cancelled and the producers of the show should be prosecuted.

You know, I've wondered about this show. Apparently kids were sent naked out into the desert, suffered heat exhaustion, and vomited as a result of what went on there and Mr. Levy believes that this is really all too similar to Lord of the Flies and he wants the show cancelled.

But there's money involved. Up to $20,000--which doesn't seem like a lot to me to put your child at risk, if that's what parents have done by getting their kids on this show.

I'm going to watch this show and see for myself. It's probably good press for CBS that they're being accused of child abuse, because it ups the interest in the show, even if in a bad way. Remember the old saying, "No press is bad press"? Well, maybe this is the case.

But my question is this: why would parents WANT their children on a show like this? I know that I wouldn't send either of my kids into the desert with TV producers. I don't happen to believe that my kids are fodder for a network, no matter how much they're willing to pay me. In fact, I think it's horrible to send your kids off to the desert.

But I'll watch the show and see for myself.

Note added later in the day: I did a little research and there's much talk about this program in the blogosphere. I didn't spend a lot of time reading the blogs. I am going to reserve judgement, watch, and see for myself, because I've learned that the media can be very unreliable at times.

Radio Show

Just to let you know...I'll be on http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/home.htm tomorrow night, September 6th, at 6:30 p.m., PST. I'm doing the Jackie Sue program and we'll be talking about abuse, my life, and my books.

Some Statistics on Abuse

It's hard to get current data because it takes a while to compile statistics on a nationwide basis. So, I find that research is always 1-3 years old. But it's good enough for getting a picture of what's going on.

Here's what the Child Maltreatment Report of 2005 from the Children's Bureau of the Administration of Children, Youth, and Families tells us. (With a special thank you to Dr. John A. Gaudiosi, their mathematical statistician.)

You can find the report here: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/index.htm#can

• In 2005, 899,000 children in the US, DC, and Puerto Rico were victims of abuse and neglect.

• Over 3,500,00 children received an investigation in 2005, with nearly a 5% increase since 2001.

• In 2005, approximately 1,460 children died from abuse and neglect, and that's nearly 2 children per 100,000 in our population.

This report is 184 pages long, so there's a lot of information and many breakdowns on all the different aspects of this problem, but I want to concenetrate on the children who died as a result of abuse and neglect since my book is about children with a mother who was at the danger point of killing her children.

• Around 76% of the children killed are between the ages of birth and 3 years old.
• Approximately 13% are 4-7, 4% are 8-11 and a little over 6% are 12-17.
• Approximately 28% are killed by their mothers and 15% are killed by their fathers.
• The rest are killed by a combination of those two, a father and another, an unknown, or a nonparental perpetrator.
• About 23% are killed by someone they're not related to.
• That means that about 77% of the time, a child is killed by a parent or a parent and another person.

Think about it.

• Roughly 28% of the 1,460 children killed in 2005 were killed by their mothers. About 408 children were killed by their mothers in 2005.

Ok, I know I'm stunned. We've all heard about Andrea Yates and Susan Smith because they were very high profile cases, maybe because they killed several children. But apparently they're not isolated cases. For a long while, I thought they were. Then I started digging into the statistics and discovered that they are only two of a long list of mothers who kill their children in this country.

Later this week, I'll post some statistics on these parents.

99 Years

That's what a man in Texas faces for putting a two year old girl in a hot clothes dryer, leaving her with second degree burns on her body.

There are 6.3 million kids in Texas. 275,539 cases of child abuse were reported and 17,536 kids were removed from their homes last year, according to the Hardin County News.

Read the story here:

http://www.thehardincountynews.com/news/2007/0905/Front_Page/002.html

Tomorrow I'm going to dig out some of my statistics and shed a light on that.

Hero of the Week

It's easy to talk about the many cases of child abuse and trauma, but I like to look behind the scenes at the people who fight for these kids. Today's hero is Bill France from Everett, Washington.

Bill spent 21 years with the Snohomish County prosecutor's office as a victim advocate. He also worked at the Luther Child Center and the King County Juvenile Court. That's 44 years spent seeking justice for kids who had been raped, murdered, abused, or otherwise mistreated. The article is here:

http://heraldnet.com/article/20070903/NEWS01/109030045

Forty-four years is an astounding amount of time. Heck, I have a hard time sticking with anything for more than ten years. Bill was known for achieving impossible results in difficult and sensitive cases.

Hey, Bill, that's really something! You are my hero today and I salute you!

Book Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngOBf6d_IlI

I have had a very difficult time getting Blogger to embed my video trailer. So, I am posting the link. For some reason, it's acting real funky on the YouTube page, so patience is required.

Different kinds of abuse

I was thinking last night after I got off the computer about the different kinds of abuse. The reason I was doing this was because I got in a conversation with someone who'd been beaten by her father when she was a kid. I was never beaten. I was also not sexually abused, as were some women I know. I didn't come out of my childhood with visible scars as many do.

I find that some women who are abused as kid (and I'm saying women here because I honestly don't know many men) end up having dissociative order when they hit their late teens and early twenties. It seems to be one of the ways to cope with the destruction of their psyches. I'm sure there are more.

But what I was thinking last night was, which is worse? Is it worse to be beat? Or is it worse to live with the message that "I love you, but really, I don't". That double message is mind-bending stuff because no matter how much they love you, their actions say that they don't love you at all. Which leads you to believe that you have no value.

Same result as physical abuse.

And what about neglect? I'm sure there are many forms of neglect from not tending to your children's hygiene, to abandonment of all sorts, to not feeding kids. The lines become really blurry after a while.

But we hear so much more about sexual or physical abuse than we do about emotional or verbal abuse. Maybe it's because it's visible. You can see bruises and scars, or broken bones. Kids end up in the ER and doctors and nurses report their parents. But I am convinced that there are many kids out there who have invisible scars and no one knows it because these kids hide it and then don't show up in the ER. They go on with their lives and try to put the pieces together, which really, isn't that easy without help.

Someone Beats the Odds

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070731/NEWS01/707310426/1008

I found this article a few weeks ago in the Louisville Courier-Journal. I regularly Google the web for articles on abuse, abandonment, and trauma and sometimes link them to my website at: http://www.judygregerson.com/.

This one caught my eye because it's a success story about a boy who, after being removed from his home at the age of six, passed through 30 different foster homes before ending up in Bellewood Presbyterian Home for Children. And he managed to graduate from high school and is heading to college in the fall.

That's just truly amazing.

I once worked at a Catholic Orphanage in New York and was group mother to about a dozen girls under the age of fourteen who had been in similar circumstances. Trouble is, by the time they got to the orphanage, most of them were so damaged that there was little that could be done to help them, other than to feed, clothes, educate and shelter them. It was a sad state of affairs. I could go into the stories about how I often feared them, how they had taken a hammer to the ankle of the last house mother and shattered the bone, or how one set her bunk mates bed on fire while she was sleeping because she was mad at her. But trust me, I've seen it first hand. And I don't think that working with that population is my life work.

But then this story appears. Someone makes good and rises above these awful circumstances. I'd like to shake this boy's hand and wish him well. He beat the odds!

I also think that the Presbyterian Church should be commended. And the State of Kentucky should get a high five, too. They are working very hard to educate families so they can stay together, stop abuse, and keep children's lives in tact.

Here's the sad news. A foster child is more likely to become homeless or unemployed after leaving the system than s/he is to succeed. If that is true, you have to wonder how many of our homeless are former foster children and what kind of future they really have.

But this boy made it. He's going on to college and has a bright future ahead of him. I think it's almost like winning the lottery, the odds are so low that a foster child will succeed.

So, congratulations to Andrew Massengale of Kentucky, who received his high school diploma with the help of many caring people and who will now go on to college. Andrew, you're amazing. That's all I can say.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, I'm Dumbfounded (without the apostrophe). I'm the author of BAD GIRLS CLUB, a novel about abuse, trauma, and parentification (when a child becomes the parent and the parent becomes the child).

My book has been overwhelmingly approved by teachers, librarians, school psychologists, school counselors, and mental health workers. It has also been recommended that the book be added to middle and high school health curriculums. The Midwest Book Review compared it to A Child Called It but said it's better at explaining why the abused remain so loyal to their abusers.

And that was the point of writing the book - to give readers a glimpse into the mind of a sixteen year old girl living with a mentally ill mother, abused little sister, and ineffective father. As the child of two alcoholic parents, it's a subject I thoroughly understand, especially the trauma and parentification part.

That's what this blog is about--children who are turned into parents by their parents or who are abused, traumatized, or abandoned. Maybe by talking about it and sharing information, the public will become more aware and someone will be saved from living in a cage or being starved by a parent.

So, welcome to my blog. Feel free to comment (nicely).