If you enlarge this picture you will see the reddish glow.

My Psychology of Attachment in Childhood class is giving me a new perspective. We know that abuse and neglect in childhood can impact later development, first of all by undoing previously completed developmental work; if that initial work was accomplished in the first place.  A person who is not securely attached cannot safely explore. My question is, “How do we repair the damage?” A child who grows up repressing or suppressing emotions, who is taught that emotions are sissy stuff and wrong, is a child likely to grow up without skills in emotional regulation. This lack can lead to difficulties in forming healthy peer relationships. A young child’s schoolmates  are not likely to be attracted to a child who has issues with trust and who cannot identify or deal with emotions, and therefore lacks empathy to understand anybody else’s emotions. Peer relationships under these conditions are under strain.  Later on, an adolescent’s boyfriend or girlfriend should be a peer, not a substitute parent; not the very first person who has ever demonstrated love and caring. If this is what is happening, then these couple relationships are also off balance.

My question is, how should the missing work be accomplished? How does a person catch up? Who will assist? Is it to be expected that a professional counselor will be available for each person experiencing such difficulties? Is a person with developmental lacks necessarily aware that this is a problem? Will such a person seek assistance? Can we assume that a person who has been taught to disregard emotions has intact introspective skills to process life events? I think this is highly unlikely.

When a person appears to be an adult and is chronologically an adult, the expectation of the public is that this person will behave like an adult. Perhaps the survivor of trauma appears to be coping well.  Often, masks are in place to hide the person’s true status, and a highly-refined skill is in operation, presenting the outward appearance that other people expect. Later developments in relationships will reveal severe gaps and lapses.

Who among the survivors is walking around out there without a single clue to what is wrong? Wouldn’t you guess that there are many?  How many of the developmentally-compromised are victims of depression? Which have sought peace through addictions? Which have become abusers themselves?

Please write to me if you have  ideas about how missing developmental work can be accomplished later in life, long past the time when these lessons would normally have been learned.

When I was 15 years old and in the ninth grade I took the Kuder Preference Test, supposedly showing me the careers at which I might succeed. My results came back in a bar graph, with “Mechanical” as a skyscraper towering far above “Literary,” “Artistic,” and “Musical;” all with bars about the height of an apartment building; and “Social Services” ranking as a squat little hut down at the bottom. In retrospect, I interpret my test results to indicate that if I ever want to give up writing, painting, singing, dancing, sewing dolls, and knitting and get myself a Real Job I should not consider something like Nursing but enroll instead in the Volkswagen Automotive School and learn how to fix cars.

The thought makes me cramp up in terror.

I view car designers as persons with evil imaginations who enjoy tucking vulnerable parts like heaters underneath heavy engines that have to be removed before repairs can be made. They also delight in hiding important parts of vehicles in places where ordinary people can never find them, especially latches to unlock the front hood. Beware ~ sometimes they hide the battery under one of the back seats! You might not necessarily want to sit there!  I remember the old two-toned Dodge, the first car I ever owned. Was that the car with the hidden headlight switch, eventually located on the roof near the sun visors? And then there was the car I walked around and around, looking for the gas tank. Nothing! Eventually somebody pointed out that the little door lay hidden behind the license plate! How could I have missed it? I drove a sports car of Chris’ one day and all went well until I tried to remove the ignition key. I must not forget to mention the SUV I recently rented that had no markings to show what gear I was in! They turned out  to be numbers on a lighted screen on the dash, that also showed me whether I was heading north, east, south, or west, handy to know if I ever lost my way. The same vehicle gave me a bad surprise when I returned to it after a medical appointment and put the key into the door lock. Ear-piercing emergency sirens sounded! Another example of Evil Design mischief occurred in an old station wagon Anton and Naomi owned. I was supposed to drive granddaughter Nadia in it to her ballet lesson, except that the car designer had hidden the emergency brake. I never did find out where it was tucked away. Time ticked by with a little kid patiently waiting in her car seat while Grandma looked everywhere for the hidden button or lever. Eventually someone else drove her without revealing the secret.

The kind of professional person to whom I offer hats off, and who most mystifies and impresses me is the Valet Parker, the guy who can hop into any vehicle and in two seconds whizzes away to park it into a tight space. How does he gain his expertise?