Now that I hear about the third loop called "Social Communication" of the Vagus Nerve system, I understand more. One part of this loop originates in the brain, in emotions, and directs things like the heart rate. When we saw Whitaker's flop sweat, that was the vagus "affective" part at work. Unconscious, uncontrollable. In my father's case, when he began to be irritated and then angry, he turned red, puffed up, lost control. Abused kids see that all the time. We think of this change as sort of a "fault", not a thing that's organic, but a source of moral blame. "Control yourself!" More likely it is the residue of trauma, the instinctive triggering of danger compensation by attempting to dominate or wave off other beings.
In those days we hadn't yet discovered and didn't understand compensations like pair-bonds or a place in a stable social group or self-recovery strategies. Most of us still don't know this stuff, much less how to feel the need for them coming in time to compensate. Now it's suggested that learned trauma reactions can even carry across generations through the epigenome. When it happens, it must feel like a mysterious capture and loss of control. Because it is.
As soon as I started learning this stuff, I quizzed my mom about our own family, our susceptibility and possible causes. She was reluctant -- the family strategy is not to admit anything, to deny it all. Don't look down -- it will make you fall. Counselors told me I had symptoms of sexual child abuse, but I couldn't think of anything sexual that happened, nor could she. From the violence side, the family believed in spanking, switching with a yardstick or a dog leash, very occasional slaps, but it was always in the heat of the moment and never raised questions in a community with the same standards. We were not very "fond" and never used terms of affection, so that even now I'm startled when someone says, "I love you." I don't know how to respond. I don't like the familiarity of servers who call me "honey." My family never hugged.
On the few occasions when I really was weeping with total despair, my mother's response was to get as far away as she could -- like the back of the yard -- so as not to hear me. (The despair was not from abuse, but from having to give up a beloved place where I had been happy -- like graduating from college.) If she had tried to hold me and comfort me, I would have fought it, feeling captured and stifled.
Given the pervasiveness of children being sexually misused in every society, there are bound to be some relatives of mine who were molested when small. I suspect two of them, one on the maternal side, and one on the paternal side. They don't know each other and are quite different, except that both of them were truly beautiful little girls. It's possible I'm guessing wrong.
One confided that she was scared all her life. She had an uncle who was totally rejected, denied, removed from family trees online, photo taken down, made invisible. He was a diagnosed schizophrenic usually confined to an institution. Those cousins had orders never to let him in the house, unreal in a rural place where doors were never locked and danger rarely came. The girl was very sexual, always in an exclusive relationship with an Alpha male like her dad. Totally faithful. No one ever said anything about it.
The other was a girl who was impossibly droll and athletic even as a baby when she crawled out of her crib, made it over the sill of the open window (first floor, thank goodness) and went strolling through the neighborhood in her nighty. In photos she is always making a face, standing on her head, and being scolded by her mother. One thinks of Oppositional Defiance Syndrome. Where does that come from? It seems like a good trauma antidote.
As an adult she is a perfect lady who dresses well, enjoys expensive haircuts, and taught special ed for years. People love and trust her almost immediately. A very bad case of flu in early teen years killed her sense of smell. (The operative nose is part of the brain.) She faked it for a long time, talking about the smell of chocolate chip cookies or sheets dried in the sun. She was quoting other people. Her shield is literacy, reading, and the pretence that all is well. If you push her hard enough, you smell sulphur. The younger nuclear family has autistic traits and tendencies, aside from the usual drug and alcohol symptoms, but stabilized as everyone aged and got professional help.
In casual contact these cousins seem far more normal and attractive than me, who is described as warm but surprising. "Colorful," one employee mediator put it. But a whiff of trauma in the air puts me on point and I mobilize. It takes me a long time to recover by figuring it all out. I'm not inclined enough to reward myself for surviving. I'm intrusive.
When my little brother was in earliest grades, he had trouble learning to read and a year or so later he got into trouble because he kicked a girl who was tormenting him. (Why was she doing that? He was a quiet, serious boy.) My brothers had metal plates on their shoe-soles to make them wear longer and the girl's resulting wound to her leg became infected. There was trouble.
My mother went into what in some birds do, called "mantling." That is, she put her emotional wings around him as a shield to make a safe space. I felt it and wanted some for myself but didn't get it nor any explanation. (My mother was very concerned that she "raise boys" properly since she had only female sibs. Girls, like herself, were tough and just take care of themselves.) That boy always tended to roll up like a pill bug when he was hurt or offended. But he was okay as a high schooler: wrestled, debated, made radio shows. He got along fine as a drafted Marine. My father, as usual, was gone.
Now I remember a time before we were in grade school when a house near us stood empty because the old lady who lived there had died. Two boys had put up a pup tent in the backyard and they dragged my bro in there. I don't know what happened, but he was different after that. He wouldn't talk. Pill bugs don't talk. The boys were only passingly interested in me. "Show us your pipi!" they said. I didn't know why anyone would be interested in such a featureless part, but okay. Shrug. They didn't touch me. Then the boys were gone. Was that enough to put me on the list?
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