Posts Tagged ‘AWARENESS’

20 May

Memories that we carry from an abusive childhood

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

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As a child being criticized constantly, followed by physical violence, my self-worth was destroyed.

I felt like I did not deserve or belong on this earth.

My nervous system stayed on constant alert, life was lived with anxiety and fear of abandonment.

I was always fighting an internal battle as life overwhelmed me. My early life was lived inside my head, in a make-believe world.

Living in constant fear as a kid, corrupted my view of myself and the world around me.

Now, as an old man of 71, memories arrive connected to emotional distress and anxiety.

Funny how trauma memories(implicit memories) have all the anxiety and fear of the original event.

It is how they are stored, short powerful snippets of charged emotions.

This morning an old buried, long-forgotten memory came back to life without provocation.

We never know what will surface from our childhood.

It’s hard to feel self-worth at times, while happiness is covered by traumas abstract fear.

My mind wants to engage and change the memory but that only fuels its longevity.

Best practice is to follow the breath while letting memories fade without attention.

Life is a minefield for adults with a history of childhood abuse.
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14 May

I did an interview about my baseball career

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Recently, I did an interview about my baseball career. It was for a college project on a 20th-century man. (If that does not make you feel old)

First question: Tell me about your childhood.

That froze me for a long minute. My brain has this well-developed record, that plays my narrative of childhood. I know it is how I perceive my childhood, saved under duress.

How can you share in words the damage this abuse has caused me? It never goes away completely. There is a void inside me, a feeling of not being good enough.

When you are physically and emotionally abused by your caregivers, self-worth never develops. Constant criticism leads to a flawed ego, a feeling of being worthless at our core.

My memory of childhood is sparse, and limited. My ability to hide most of my childhood back then saves me from more anguish.

These images are hard to share, I bluntly state a few incidents without any hint of nuance.

My childhood is recorded as a black-and-white movie, with short snippets of violence and shouting.

So after the interview, I felt vulnerable and exposed.

Abused kids never like to be judged. I have a sense of fear about what he will write.

It’s part of our disorder, PTSD, fear, and worthlessness.

It’s hard to write and own up to it.

A PTSD life.
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30 Apr

Our Thoughts are the Problem

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , .

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Childhood PTSD (complex PTSD): It is how our brains are wired during childhood that makes our thoughts (dissociation) the problem.

From the Complex PTSD workbook: “Dissociation, like all other symptoms of C-PTSD, is a learned behavior that initially helped you cope with a threatening environment. A neglected or abused child will rely upon built-in, biological protection mechanisms for survival to “tune out” threatening experiences. In adulthood, dissociation becomes a well-maintained division between the part of you involved in keeping up with daily tasks of living and the part of you that is holding emotions of fear, shame, or anger.”

My nervous system and emotional regulation are distorted: Childhood abuse fires the fight or flight mechanism, consequently, we store these memories as traumatic.

Traumatic memories or implicit memories are stored in the right amygdala, out of reach consciously.

Our brains are wired to spot danger above all else.

We spend enormous amounts of time spotting danger.

Questions bombard us on how to avoid, face, or deny our perceived danger.

Our self-worth is damaged, and we feel vulnerable and isolated too often.

Emotional regulation is a constant issue.

Our thoughts are a big issue, for me, it is a constant battle to let go and come back to the present.

How do your thoughts impact your life?
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19 Apr

Our Mindset as abused kids (Complex PTSD)

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Childhood abuse wires the brain in an atmosphere of perceived or real danger.

As an adult, we feel the world is much more dangerous than normal adults.

We are far more accomplished spotting danger, real or perceived.

Relationships and trust are problematic. We dissociate into the shadow thoughts of Complex PTSD.

We can experience mood swings when triggered by other people and situations.

Life hardly ever flows easily, we spot danger in most situations.

School is overwhelming because we are fighting a battle at home, we are compromised from the abuse.

Happy go lucky is reserved for children who were loved and supported.

It seems turmoil thrives inside our heads.

I have to work diligently, be aware, and meditate daily to curb this disorder.

Childhood trauma (complex PTSD) hard wires inside our brain development.

Our abuse happened before the brain developed, so certain parts of the brain are not online to protect us.

Be aware of our tendencies, and have a plan when things explode.

Learn better ways to cope with these feelings.

We never feel good enough, or worthy enough, in fact, we feel flawed to our core.

This is the dysfunction of complex PTSD.
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15 Feb

My teacher passed away yesterday

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , .

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My online kundalini teacher passed away yesterday. She was only 51.

There was something special about Jenn, a quality, a fearlessness, and a selfless way of living. I found her meditation group online during covid.

After five years at a zen center, no one resembled her. I sensed a special being, a selfless warrior who placed herself in the middle of others’ trauma without fear for her mental health.

Meticulously I showed up every day trying to understand how she became who she was. Somehow, someway, she elevated her being.

Jenn had a way of making you feel safe. She would make time between appointments to talk to me. I always felt better after our conversations.

Jenn was the purest person, charismatic to a fault that I have ever come across.

She always had a different perspective, outside the box.

Here is an example:


“Pray for yourself to find peace and healing, pray for them to do the same, pray for forgiveness to release yourself and forgiveness to release them. Pray for an opening in your ego to allow the heart to temper it all with love and grace.”


We all feel blessed to have known her and feel a void now that she has passed.

I will miss her.
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4 Oct

Implicit memories bring intrusive thoughts

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , .

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How do we define PTSD fear?

Our fight or flight mechanism firing is what we think of normal fear.

Cortisol, adrenaline gets dumped into our bloodstream along with bp, heart rate, and respiration increasing.

That deep thud in our solar plexus freezes us temporarily.

Some of PTSD fear uses the same mechanism when a trigger fires.

Other PTSD fears are more abstract, they are connected to past violent trauma

I think these are implicit memories, subconscious and abstract.

“Implicit memory relies on structures in our brain that are fully developed before we are born. Because it’s an unconscious, bodily memory, when it gets triggered in the present, it does not seem like it’s coming from the past.

Instead, it feels like it’s happening now.

Thus, we react as if we are back in the original situation.”

From These Invisible Memories Shape Our Lives
Lisa Firestone, Ph.D.

This is why PTSD feels so alive, so ever-present.
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18 Sep

Healing spiritually

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

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A decade of therapy helped me but did not stop the demon from doing damage. My spiritual healing offers me hope, calming what therapy could not.


The online kundalini group is doing a 40-day meditation on positivity (love).

Ten minutes of breath work: Inhaling for five seconds, a short pause, exhaling for five seconds followed by a 15 second pause, then repeat.

Thoughts subside with intense focus on the breath like this.

Next, we chant for ten minutes. Chanting is new for me.

We rarely chanted at the zen center, silence was cherished.

We finish with ten minutes of deep breathing.

Instructions are to think of ourselves in the most positive, healthy, and happy way.

This is a task for us. No negativity, no gossiping all day.

I am working on opening my heart and trying to heal more spiritually.

Our job is to continually find new ways to improve, then take action.

The act of trying, and never giving up sustains us during the rough times.
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11 Sep

PTSD: trauma over time

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

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Childhood abuse impacts our life and does the most damage by repeatedly exploding month after month, year after year.

This strengthens the symptoms of PTSD and makes them almost a habit. We adjust our behavior, avoid triggers, while trying to limit the danger we feel.

Then, we start to anticipate danger, it feels like real fear.

It sure secretes our fear drugs (cortisol and adrenaline) numerous times a day.

We navigate life by avoiding triggers and danger subconsciously. It becomes a habit over time.

Hypervigilance becomes a way of keeping safe.

Avoiding calms our hypervigilance for a while but narrows life.

Hypervigilance happens quickly without thought, every time I go out, enter a building, or plan an outing.

I have never been able to stop my hypervigilance from happening but I can ignore the danger as not real at times.
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10 Sep

Things to repeat for us and others

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , .

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May you be happy

May you be healthy

May you be safe

May you be at ease
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28 Aug

Our small bodies are marinated in those chemicals.”

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

https://unsplash.com/@othentikisra


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This sentence about child abuse and kids of alcoholics shocks me, “As children, our small bodies are marinated in those chemicals.”

It explains more accurately how PTSD impacts my body and nervous system.

We carry these hypervigilant drugs at higher resting levels than normal people without realizing it.

That makes sense.

I can not remember a time when my body was calm.

Our brains developed while we were in these hypervigilant and survivor modes.

Our brains were wired under duress and abuse, in a state of fear.

This is why we focus on spotting danger, why we worry constantly.

We live with that tightness in our solar plexus, it feels like fear, and we read it as danger.

When you value safety over all other desires, life becomes more and more narrow.

We find it extremely difficult to trust.

It is all stored in our cells and brain, our own body and mind carry PTSD through life.

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