A Clinicians Journey from Complex Trauma to Thriving: Reflections on Abuse, C-PTSD and Reclamation

To all those friends, survivors, artists and healers who through my darkest sorrow and despair gave me the strength and courage to persevere. And to my beloved Octavio who has offered me the greatest gift; the breaking of an annihilating pattern that thwarted my longing to fully open my heart to pure acceptance and love.

CONTENTS

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PREFACE

I ABUSE, COMPLEX TRAUMA, & ADDICTION

~  The Trauma of Child Abuse and the Reclamation of the Eternal Child

~   Maternal Deprivation

~  Complicated Bereavement for Adult Survivors of Abuse

~  Complex Relational Trauma

~  Complex PTSD and the Realm of Dissociation

~  Going it Alone for Trauma Survivors

~  Geopolitics and the Psychopath

~ Addiction & The Spiritual Quest

~ Addiction & The Quest for Wholeness

~ Aphrodite’s Wound; Women & Sex Addiction

~ Adult Children of Sex Addicts

~ Character Assassination

~ Trauma & Disillusionment

~ Identifying Ambient Abuse

~ Corporate Stockholm Syndrome

II THE RELATIONAL QUEST

~The Attachment Dilemma

~ Loneliness

~ An Orphans Memorial to her Dying Mother

~ Reconciliation with a Personality Disordered Parent

~ Flattery or Objectification

~ The Decline of Courtship in the Modern Age

~ Lessons in Love from Swan Lake

~ Pathological Envy

~ The Introvert in an Extrovert World

~ Addicted to a Narcissist

~ Growing Into Conscious Relationships

III RECOVERY & TREATMENT

~ Blinded by Darkness: The Collective Denial of Evil and its Impact on Psychiatric Treatment

~  Why Couples Therapy is Contra-indicated with a Psychopath

~ Meaning & Suffering

~ Reading Heals

~ The Economy and Mental Health

~  The Wounded Artist

~  The Dark Underbelly of Psychiatry

~  Navigating Negative Transference 

~  Ericksonian Hypnotherapy

~  Women & instinctual Aggression

~  The Misfortune of the Very Wealthy

~ The Curse of FOMO

~  The Termination Stage of Therapy

IV THRIVING – THE TEMPORAL, THE CREATIVE & THE SPIRITUAL

~ Growth & Camaraderie

~  Creative Expression

~  The Sistah Tribe Phoenix Project – Giving Creative Expression to Childhood Trauma

~  Knowing the Seeker

~ Resurrecting the Great Mother

~  The Alchemical Journey Towards the Self

~  The Elixir of Travel

~ Tis the Season; Surviving the Holidays

~  Humility as the Foundation to Emotional Well-Being

~ The Challenges of living in the Big City

~  The Pursuit of Power

~ Practicing Acceptance

~  Spiritual Materialism

~  Healthy Narcissism

~ The Travails of Transition

~ Healing through Disillusionment

~ To Nurture & Protect

~ The Call to Actualization & Authenticity

PREFACE

One of the fairytales I treasured as a little girl poignantly captured the hardships of childhood.  Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl told of a young abused girl driven to begging in order to survive.  Braving the cold of winter she lights her matches thus illuminating visions and imaginings of a better life. As she slowly freezes to death, she receives a visitation from her deceased grandmother. Her uniting with the one person who loved and cared for her is fulfilled through death. While this might be deemed tragic I perceived it as liberation from life’s intractable suffering. She was free. I was not.

Born into a family plagued by mental illness and generational abuse and trauma largely determined my life’s trajectory. I was either doomed to repeat this tragic narrative or discover ways to transcend my circumstances. Although the lure of death appealed to me, much like the little match girl hopes of a better life took precedence. Unbeknownst to me then, it was the myriad ways in which I endured that would eventually give definition to a deeper meaning and purpose.

The love of my grandmother, albeit ruptured by separation offered me a corrective experience of attachment. My immersion in books and art offered glimpses of beauty. My active imagination helped me escape through daydreams and fantasy and afforded me a tenable sense of agency. The spark of inspiration encouraged me to conceptualize what I desired and incited the impulse to persevere. Jung’s statement, the soul demands your folly, not your wisdom proved true many times over. Countless misguided steps, mistakes and self-destructive exploits ensued, but ultimately these intrepid imaginings and foolish choices led to a more grounded perspective and the fulfillment of ambitions as a psychotherapist and an interfaith minister. It also led to my reclaiming my creative inclinations.

This compilation of essays and articles is a tangible expression of decades of relentlessly seeking healing from complex trauma, and eventually attaining a life immersed in thriving. It is my offering to those who bear the scars of complex trauma and are courageously dedicated to the process of restoration. No doubt healing from complex trauma is an arduous journey often tremendously challenging and tragic, but it is a noble and necessary undertaking worthy of one’s suffering.

Intellectually understanding my struggles was critical to my stabilization. I needed to know what I was dealing with before I could attempt to mend my difficulties and exhume buried parts of me. For that reason it is my deepest wish that this anthology of articles will assist both survivors and healers with better comprehending the travails of trauma so as to lay the foundation for navigating the process of reclaiming those parts of the Self that for the sake of survival were disowned. All the more so, I hope these readings encourage you to embrace that sense of wonder that got obscured and seemingly annihilated by traumatic abuse. Let it guide you. It is a vital pathway to your sacred essence. Without it there is no purpose. We merely exist.

REV. SHERI HELLER, LCSW

New York, N.Y. July 2017

ABUSE, COMPLEX TRAUMA & ADDICTION

IN THE FACE OF PAIN there are no heroes.  ― George Orwell, 1984

The Trauma of Child Abuse and the Reclamation of the Eternal Child

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.- Kahil Gibran

Carl Jung said: In every adult there lurks a child – an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed and calls for unceasing care, attention and education. That is the part of the human personality which wants to develop and become whole. (Jung, C. G. Development of Personality in Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.17, Princeton NJ : Princeton University Press; 1954) Healing from trauma is a complex and courageous journey back to the eternal child. It is a returning to the inherent longing for wholeness.

Trauma is a penetrating wound and injury, which threatens one’s life. Trauma arrests the course of normal development by its repetitive intrusion of terror and helplessness into the survivor’s life. Chronic child abuse results in fragmentation of the overall personality. Under these conditions identity formation is stymied and a reliable sense of independence within connection is ruptured.

Judith Herman, M.D., wrote, repeated trauma in adult life erodes the structure of the personality already formed, but repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. (Herman, J. L. (1997). Trauma and Recovery. New York: BasicBooks.) The child trapped in abusive circumstances must find a way to preserve a sense of hope, trust, safety, and meaning under terrifying conditions, which contradict those basic needs. To survive, the traumatized child must resort to primitive psychological defenses. The abusers, who the child is unconditionally dependent on, must be preserved in the child’s psyche as caring and competent, so as to ensure survival. The primary attachment must be preserved at any cost. As a result the child may deny, wall off, excuse or minimize the abuse. Complete amnesias known as dissociative states may occur. Dissociation can be so severe that a fragmentation of the personality can result in the emergence of alter personalities. 

The pinnacle of tragedy is that the child must conclude that it is her inherent ‘badness’ that is responsible for the abuse. Paradoxically this tragic conclusion offers the abused child hope that’s/he can change his/her circumstances by becoming ‘good’. Yet despite the child’s relentless and futile efforts to be ‘good’, deep within she feels no one really knows how vile her true self is, and if they did it would certainly ensure exile and ostracism. For children who are sexually abused this perception of self as damaged goods is particularly profound. The sexual violation and exploitation by the abuser becomes internalized as further evidence of her innate badness.

As much as the child struggles to deny, minimize, bargain with and co-exist with the abuse, the impact of chronic trauma seeps into the deep recesses of the psyche and in the body. Psychologist and author Alice Miller states, our childhoods are stored in our bodies. (Miller, A. (1984). Thou shalt not be aware: Society's betrayal of the Child. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.) What the conscious mind refuses to ‘know,’ the psychological and physical symptoms express. The body speaks of the abuse through chronic hyper-arousal as well as through difficulties sleeping, feeding, and overall disruptions with biological functions. States of dysphoria; confusion, agitation, emptiness and utter aloneness, further amplify the disregulation of the body.

Long after the danger is past, traumatized people relive the events as though it were continually recurring in the present. Traumatic events are re-experienced in an intrusive-repetitive fashion. Themes are re-enacted, nightmares and flashbacks occur, and there is a persistent state of danger and distress.  States of denial and numbing alternate with the intrusive flooding of memories. The stimuli associated with the trauma are avoided through denial and numbing The survivor experiences restricted affect, no recall, diminished interests, and an overall sense of detachment.

As survivors attempt to negotiate adult relationships, the psychological defenses formed in childhood become increasingly maladaptive. The survivor’s intimate relationships are driven by a desperate longing for protection and love, and simultaneously fueled by fears of abandonment and exploitation. From this place, safe and appropriate boundaries cannot be established. As a result patterns of intense, unstable relationships occur, in which dramas of rescue, injustice, and betrayal are repeatedly enacted. Hence, the survivor is at further risk of repeated victimization in adult life.

Recovery from chronic trauma and abuse cannot occur in isolation. The trauma survivor requires a reparative, healing connection with a therapist who will bear witness to a history fraught with inhumanity, while offering empathy, insight, and containment. Through this relationship healing can occur. Control can be restored, along with a renewed sense of personal power and connection to others. For progression in recovery to occur the capacity for self-care and soothing needs to be established. The ability to create a modicum of predictability and self-protection are also necessary. Developing these life skills may entail the incorporation of medication management, relaxation techniques, bodywork, creative outlets, and establishing a replenishing home environment and a responsibility towards basic health needs.

Traumatic losses also require a bereavement process. The survivor must fully face what was done, and what the traumas led the survivor to do under extreme circumstances. The survivor is challenged to mourn the loss of one’s integrity, the loss of trust, the capacity to love, and the belief in a ‘good enough parent’. The survivor now has the ego strength to face the profound level of despair that would have shattered her in childhood. Through the mourning process, the survivor begins to reevaluate her identity as a ‘bad’ person, and in so doing begins to feel worthy of relationships that allow for authenticity and nourishment. Eventually the survivor experiences the traumatic experience as a part of the past, and is ready to rebuild her life in the present. The future now offers possibility and hope.

Jungian analyst Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote, "Being able to say that one is a survivor is an accomplishment. For many, the power is in the name itself. And yet comes a time in the individuation process when the threat or trauma is significantly past. Then is the time to go to the next stage after survivorship, to healing and thriving." (Estés, C. P. (1992). Women who run with the Wolves: Myths and stories of the wild woman archetype. New York: Ballantine Books.) At this stage the trauma survivor is ready to move beyond survival to express freed up potentials. Engaging more actively in the world requires the survivor to identify and pursue ambitions and goals that were previously dormant. She is now able to connect beyond the wounded self/ego and engage in life from a place of Divine creativity. She is ready to love beyond the personality and extend herself through empathy and service. Rather than struggle with resisting loneliness, fear, powerlessness and myriad forms of suffering, she is open to and accepting of all that life contains. She is aware that the lessons towards growth are many.

Much of the reparative work at this stage of recovery involves challenging nihilistic and fatalistic assumptions about the self and the world. The trauma survivor intent on thriving, is challenged to give life to a perspective, a philosophy that goes against her internalized beliefs, and to reconstruct a reality that makes room for the existence of faith and hope. For this to occur the ego must attach to the abstract for a deeper transcendent meaning. Creativity, spiritual belief systems, philosophy, mythology, ethics, service, personal integrity, are all part of this exploration. This process of exploration lends itself to the survivor discovering a spiritual perspective that is sustaining and affords connection to others.

Integral to this spiritual perspective is the journey towards healing and actualization. This journey has taken on a deeply complex metaphysical meaning, and it informs one’s sense of pride and purpose. It is a journey towards wholeness, where the Divine Child archetype is encountered. Embodied in this archetype is the totality of our being and the transformational power that propels us along the path of personal growth. It is here that one discovers one’s true Self.

MATERNAL DEPRIVATION

Mother, you had me, But I never had you / I wanted you, but you didn't want me/

So I just got to tell you/ Goodbye -—John Lennon

According to the maternal deprivation hypothesis infants regardless of whether they are puppies, monkeys or humans will not develop normally unless they receive the warm loving attention of a mother figure to who they can become attached.

Psychologist Lytt Gardner has studied the development of children who are socially and emotionally deprived by hostile and rejecting parents or by parents who are apprehensive about playing with their infants or showing them attention beyond that required for routine caretaking activities. Gardner’s findings correlate with the behavioral patterns of the foundling home children Rene Spitz studied.

Spitz’s term anaclitic depression describes the apathy, social ineptitude, physical morbid rigidity and absence of verbal expression prevalent in these foundling home children. Harlow’s term, catatonic contracture; a bizarre form of social apathy found in rhesus monkeys raised in isolation, is similar to anaclitic depression. Harlow conveyed, "The animal exhibits