Glad I'm single

Yeah, I may die alone, but so have many people with partners and even marriages.

I may enter the realm of dying without them or without kids to look out for me, but, I'm not alone there, again.

I have no attachments. No hostages to fortune.

No wading through relationships only to hit booby-traps years, even decades, later.

The sexual, emotional and physical abuse made me learn aloneness, and an acceptance, even a sometime embrace of it.

Looking back over decades, at women in whom I had some interest at times, and it didn't work out?

I'm OK with that.

NIAAA: Child abuse-alcoholism link

And, this research points up alleys I have wondered about, such as why different people react differently to child abuse, sexual especially. Read the details on this study:

Girls who suffered childhood sexual abuse are more likely to develop alcoholism later in life if they possess a particular variant of a gene involved in the body's response to stress, according to a new study led by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The new finding could help explain why some individuals are more resilient to profound childhood trauma than others.

"With this study we see yet again that nature and nurture often work together, not independently, to influence our overall health and well-being," says NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D.

"This finding underscores the central role that gene-environment interactions play in the pathogenesis of complex diseases such as alcoholism," adds NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D. A report of the study appears in the June 26, 2007 advance online publication of
Molecular Psychiatry.

Previous studies have shown that childhood sexual abuse increases the risk for numerous mental health problems in adulthood. However not all abused children develop such problems, a likely indication that genetic factors also play a role. Recent studies have linked the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene with adverse behavioral outcomes stemming from childhood mistreatment.

"MAOA is an enzyme that metabolizes various neurotransmitters that regulate the body's response to stress," explains first author Francesca Ducci, M.D., a visiting fellow in NIAAA's Laboratory of Neurogenetics in Bethesda, Maryland. DNA variations occur within a regulatory area - the MAOA-linked polymorphic region (MAOA-LPR) — of
the MAOA gene. Two such MAOA-LPR variants occur most frequently and result in high or low MAOA enzyme activity. In a recent study, researchers found that maltreated boys who possessed the low activity MAOA-LPR variant were more likely to develop behavior problems than boys with the high activity variant.

"Our aim was to test whether this low activity variant influences the impact of childhood sexual abuse on alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) in women," says Dr. Ducci.

She and her colleagues analyzed DNA samples from a group of American Indian women living in a community in which rates of alcoholism and ASPD are about six times higher than the average rates among all U.S. women. Childhood sexual abuse is also prevalent in this population, reported by about half of the women in the community, compared with a
U.S. average of 13 percent.


Analyses of MAOA-LPR genotypes in this study revealed that women who had been sexually abused in childhood were much more likely to develop alcoholism and antisocial behavior if they had the low activity variant whereas the high activity variant was protective. In contrast, there was no relationship between alcoholism, antisocial behavior and MAOA-LPR genotype among non-abused women.

"Our findings show that MAOA seems to moderate the impact of childhood trauma on adult psychopathology in females in the same way as previously shown among males," says Dr. Ducci. "The MAOA-LPR low activity allele appears to confer increased vulnerability to the adverse psychosocial consequences of childhood sexual abuse."

Dr. Ducci and her colleagues suggest that the effect of MAOA on the hippocampus, a brain region which is involved in the processing of emotional experience, may underlie the interaction between MAOA and childhood trauma. They note that previous research showed that people with the low activity variant at the MAOA-LPR locus have hyperactivation of the hippocampus when retrieving negative emotional information.

Now, the $64 question is, what medical benefits will result from this? Will we fine-tune new anti-PTSD medications?

Relationships, women, a mom, childhood, emotions, sexuality

Aphrodite Matsakis’ “Trust after Trauma,” has some suggestions for pre-trauma relationships journaling.

Doing some of that made me recognize that mom’s relationship to me pre-toddler and toddler age was just the opposite it is for most mothers and young children. Usually, until the “terrible 2s,” it’s the child that has problems recognizing the mother as a separate person. With mom, I think she had trouble fully recognizing me a separate person. Some of her infantilizing, calling me her “round browns,” about my eyes, years, no, a decade or more later, reflects that. Combine that with her emotional absence/distancing, even neglect. Add on to that her once or twice leaving the main bathroom less than fully clothed well before I was in puberty, telling people, “don’t look,” plus Tim at least, and maybe Walt, trying to look in the bathroom, pushing me in there once or twice, then later, her keeping the bathroom door partway open at times while not fully clothed, and it’s probably no wonder that, beyond the primary sexual abuse I suffered in childhood, I have such problems with trying to get into a relationship. I’ve got about half a dozen unconscious to semi-conscious, though becoming more conscious, levers that kick in when I get interested in a woman. Now, not all may kick in at the same time, or to the same degree, but, they’re all there. Combine that with dad’s sexual put-downs, and I’ve had a lot to overcome.

Maybe this part of me isn’t a 4, overall, on a 1-10 scale. But, compared to where I was a decade ago, before I quit drinking? It’s at least a 2.5, or a 3.

Yes, the past is past. To the degree I am, or can become, psychologically capable of living in today, rather than yesterday (or tomorrow), fretting over the past won’t help me.

But, learning more just how much the past has affected me, so I know where I need to look at and work on myself today, CAN.

EXILE

When I read that word in Aphrodite Matsakis’ “Trust after Trauma,” it hit home like targeting a bulls-eye.

That feeling I recognized already in college, during late-evening walks, looking at people’s houses and wondering “how they felt,” I now realize described exactly how I have felt.

And, no, eight-plus years of sobriety haven’t 100 percent shaken that feeling.

Unfortunately, as a secularlist, I don’t believe there’s any Land of Goshen, Promised Land or anything else beyond this life as an exile redemption.

Exile.

To the degree I can “heal,” it means carving out my own space, learning how to share it to the degree and ways in which I feel comfortable, and learning how to do that “better.”

Something else to think about in sexual recovery

The WorldScience website reports that the number of sex-related sleep disorders, syndromes, etc., continues to grow.

For those of us who have had flashbacks, there is likely some sort of linkage.

A survivor, looking to be a thriver

I am a survivor,
And I will survive,
Because I know how to do that.
But, right now,
I’m not much of a thriver,
Because I don’t know so much about that.
I have had glimpses of it,
And occasional touches of if,
But, as a regular state,
It’s not always been there.
I don’t know fully
What “thriver” feels like,
And right now, can’t fully leap
To what that feeling is.
I am getting closer, though,
By believing in myself more,
And believing more in what I deserve.
I may just start believing even more
In what I can do,
What I have the power to do,
And then, looking around, and seeing
What I could do.
I’ll know I’m thriving
When I’m growing like I want,
And it’s coming naturally —
Well, more naturally, at least.

Appearances of control, lack of control

“Control” is a huge issue in recovery, above all for sexual abuse survivors. I’ve seen many survivors, once they start to recognize their histories, talk about how much they attempted to be in “control.”

For me, I believe dissociation was “control” by other means. I simply shrank my world enough to have a slice I thought I could control.

But, both I and they were deceiving ourselves.

With full-blown “control” efforts, the energy one needs to invest, in ever-increasing quantities, becomes prohibitive, short of a nervous breakdown.

And, short of dissociative identity disorder (formerly called “multiple personality disorder”), the same is true for dissociation efforts, I believe.

My story, part 1

First, without getting into too many details, I’m a sexual abuse survivor.

There’s a word for it — it’s called incest. At least 2 years that I can remember, perhaps more, from at least when I was 8 to 10 years old. Maybe even longer than that. About anything you can think of, without being more specific. (I don’t just blurt this information out, anyway, for obvious reasons.)

I still can’t remember a lot today. And, I have post-traumatic stress disorder (more on that later).

The lack of memory probably says something. I’ve done the “self-counseling” work of looking at old childhood pictures, and I started looking like a pretty unhappy camper already in 4- and 5-year-old pics.

Whether that was some degree of sexual abuse that I can’t remember, physical or emotional abuse from dad, or emotional neglect going to indifference from mom, I was an unhappy camper, to put it mildly.

I know that the phrase “dysfunctional home” gets used a lot, but, I was there. Behind the Ozzie and Harriett of a conservative Lutheran minister and his wife and his five kids, there were seven individual balls of shit as the years went on.

To put it rhetorically, which may keep a little more distance for me:

When you’re 8 and two of your brothers come into your bedroom at night, and family life goes “blissfully” on the next day, you’re not in a normal family.

When you’re 9, and after you’ve chased your 1-year-younger sister with your Christmas present hunting knife (not recognizing she was reaching out from some degree of abuse herself, etc.), and your dad threatens to use the knife on you if you ever do that again, and life goes “blissfully” on the next day, you’re not in a normal house. (Dad was not the most horrible physical abuser in the world, but did go far enough to hit me and each of us kids in the mouth at least once, go beyond spankings to beatings more than once, etc.)

When you’re 9 and your dad catches you reading in bed at 2 a.m. and spanks you to the point of beating, rather than praising your intelligence for reading non-fiction books late at night, let alone not asking why else you would be up that late, you’re not in a normal house. (Why was I up that late? Best I can figure now, I realized my brothers wouldn’t come into my bedroom, even late at night, if I still had a light on. And, I was surely afraid to go to sleep. How afraid, I may still not recognize.)

When you’re 10, and the younger of the two older brothers is physically abusing you, and something finally snaps, and you attempt to strangulate yourself with a belt, you’re not in a normal house.

When, five minutes later, that same brother and your mom intervene to stop the suicide attempt, and nothing more is ever said about it, let alone done about it, as the family life goes “blissfully” on, you’re not in a normal household.

When, also at 10, the oldest brother primary sexual abuser shows you where dad’s liquor is at on the top shelf of the pantry, encourages you to try various things, etc. you’re not in a normal family.

(And when you don’t recognize until almost 30 years later how abnormal this all was, you’ve definitely been affected by living in a dysfunctional family.)

That said, I sampled all the clear liquors. Then, I saw the Jim Beam, or Jack Daniels.

The amber color fascinated me. Besides, I knew that real men like John Wayne drank whiskey — straight whiskey.

So, I did, or nearly so. I may have cut it 10-15 percent with water, but nothing else. This 98-pound kid drank 4 ounces or maybe a little more. He was macho. Wait until the neighborhood bullies heard about this.

Little did that gentle, soft-spoken boy realize he had just turned off, or finish turning off, an emotional and psychological light switch.

He wasn’t macho; he was hurting, and getting drunk for the first time.

(To be continued.)

Post-alcohol, the struggles only began

Even after I quit drinking, my problems weren’t over.

Due to a variety of abuses from childhood, including family sexual abuse by older males at home, family covert sexual abuse by a female member of the family, early exposure to sexual magazines and more, while being a sensitive child and a late grower to boot, I have had a boatload of problems with sexuality.

They include sexual fears and anxieties, confusion of sex with intimacy, intimacy fears and acting out problems. Because of all the fears and anxieties, my acting out has tended to be “impersonal.” My various forms of acting out behavior have usually been Internet pornography or DVD based. (See the PTSD and me blog for someone with a very similar background, even after getting married.)\

I still struggle. Sometimes I don’t struggle, I say “fuck it” and give in. Occasionally, I am in the groove of not struggling. I usually inflame some addictive subself to get to the point of struggling, before I do eventually give in, in many cases.

It’s a way of beating myself up, while ratcheting up PTSD-based anxiety at the same time. Some fun, eh? Maybe, as many people do with alcohol, I’ll grow out of it. But, to the degree that happens that way, it’s still going to take active work on my part, as sexuality, even as much as I misplace it and fear it, does reflect a human longing and desire on my part.

Hello

I decided to start a blog just about recovery issues, to keep it separate from my other blogs, on political, professional or philosophical issues.

I'll discuss recovery from alcoholic-level drinking, recovery from overt and covert sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, emotional neglect/abandonment, and post-traumatic stress disorder.