Saturday, October 19, 2024
Another sleepless night. I figured out what had changed. Terror has been reinstated. Is terror too strong a word? Perhaps. I inherited the fear from my mother, who suffered truly terrifying experiences by anyone's standards. Her PTSD is well-founded. There is no miscellaneous drama here, like my mommy didn't love me. That's more like what mine is about.
In the book The Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, my mother is described to a tee. My parents provided close to perfect physical support. My sister and I were well cared for. My parents weren't wealthy, but we never lacked food or shelter. We were always clean and neat. If we were sick, we got the best medical care possible. In fact, when we were sick, we got the best attention from my mom. She was solicitous, kind, and almost affectionate. My sister said it's surprising neither of us is a hypochondriac. I learned from the book that this is a typical pattern for parents uncomfortable with their emotional lives and those of others. They can only show personal care for their child when they are sick.
In defense of all parents who are overburdened with the demands of modern parenting, keeping the kids alive was the original expectation of parents. Physical contact was incidental. Hunter-gatherers didn't leave their babies living out in the open while they did something else. An animal might come along and eat it. Due to their negligence, the baby would have died. Babies would have been carried by the mother at all times. The baby wouldn't have had a separate sleeping space, no less a separate room. The baby would have slept with the parents. Physical contact would have been almost constant. The mother would have had no choice but to be constantly aware of her baby's every mood shift.
There are still tribes that don't diaper their babies. The mother has to know when her baby needs to pee or poop. She then holds the baby apart so she doesn't get soiled. An observer asked such a mother how she knew when her baby had to pee. She looked at him quizzically. "Don't you know when you have to pee?" The baby was a physical appendage. She was aware of the baby as she was of her body. Such physical contact precludes feeling alone and uncared for.
We have finally figured out that skin-to-skin contact between a child and an adult has a soothing effect. Whadaya know? Who would have guessed? But our material abundance makes it possible for us to provide our newborns not only with their own bed but also with their own room down the hall, and we are so proud of ourselves.
My blood pressure was 117/75 in the evening, down from 170+/101. How's that for a change?
You can find anything on YouTube. I came across a video on the squat. It points out the importance of having flexible ankles when executing the squat. Otherwise, you put a strain on the knees.
Damon called; he said he had bad news. He hesitated to tell me. The man makes movies. He's become the expert on creating suspense. I said, "For God's sake, tell me. Rip off the band-aid." The fifteen-year-old son of one of Cylin's best friends had committed suicide. That was indeed bad news, but it wasn't personal for me. It was and is for Damon and Cylin. Cylin has known the mother since her early twenties. Damon and Cylin have known the boy since he was born. Even from this distance, it's a tragedy to hear of a young person so desperately unhappy they feel they need to kill themselves. This is the second suicide of a young person I have heard of in two days. I dreaded learning of a third under the theory the bad news comes in threes.
Later, I learned the eleven-year-old girl may not have committed suicide. It may be an incident where children played with a hunting rifle, and something went wrong. Either way, an adult is in trouble. Then, Mei told me several teenagers were involved in a fatal car accident with a semi-truck. They weren't partying. They were driving to school one morning. That's the third. Ah, at least the third shoe has dropped.
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