This is an extra, a spinoff from looking at vids. I got hooked by the woman who attacked Sam Vaknin. YIKES! And then tried to go to Porges' peaceful work on a day when everyone is predicting the president will destroy what he can tomorrow. I'm also writing about childhood (WWII) and about the last big federal scandal which coincided with being divorced. (1970) Dangerous times. Years later I was asked to explain or at least explore. So. . . I write.
At seminary I was in a "ministers' group" (1980) with a huge gentle black Baptist minister as leader. I don't know what I was talking about, but he said, "Maybe you're taking up too much room." No anger or rebuke, just a remark. I came totally unglued. I still don't know what it was about. The other proto-ministers clammed. I think they thought I'd just disqualified myself. The leader was quite opposite. The people in that group have retired or died in the last year or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAqiiOy4IyQ
At seminary I was in a "ministers' group" (1980) with a huge gentle black Baptist minister as leader. I don't know what I was talking about, but he said, "Maybe you're taking up too much room." No anger or rebuke, just a remark. I came totally unglued. I still don't know what it was about. The other proto-ministers clammed. I think they thought I'd just disqualified myself. The leader was quite opposite. The people in that group have retired or died in the last year or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAqiiOy4IyQ
These are two short talks on YouTube I watched because I'm finding Dr. Stephen Porges' research so interesting. What surprised me was my reaction to the beginning of the first one, which is only an introduction by a very nice lady who is a casting director's version of a worker the the field of mental health: counselor, therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist . . . whatever. The stereotype used to be gruff bearded Jewish men who would not look you in the eye, This new one's a type who shows up on cop shows and gives wise advice like, "Talk to your children," or "I see that you're in a lot of pain." The implication is that she can now "fix" you.
That type and this harmless lady give me chills. That's understating: they terrify me. It's partly that they are always so smarmy patronizing, partly that they are so very well-groomed and nicely dressed, and mostly an overwhelming feeling that they mean to harm me, take a knife to me, give me a lobotomy. I wonder whether this is what a lot of "delinquent" boys feel when they're called into a consult room.
Here's another one of those unbearable women, who could just as well be doing the weather or selling cosmetics. Such an icky sticky type that's common in clinics and schools. It's part of the whole suburban Mommy tsunami. She isn't listening -- just looking for a way to shove her own little patter into the clip. I don't believe what she says, what she looks like or her idea of what the task is. That's why I like Vaknin (the cold thinker) and Grannon (the warm and laughing one). They seem to have lives out there somewhere.
The second vid clip at the top is Dr. Porges explaining the physiology of what's happening when a person doesn't feel safe. This incident with the black Baptist was entirely different than anything earlier when I was very much controlled and conscious, unsafe. I did indeed feel this reaction he described (go to ground, shut down) and it has not been helpful, since most of my work in the world has been "professional," intellectual, protected (in theory), and highly creative, meaning getting into the core of motivation. (Teaching, ministry, writing.) But I worry all the time about the punk kid on drugs and the gaunt Ethiopian mother carrying a dead baby and an empty water jug. That's gonna make trouble for suburbans.
Somehow I share at least part of this with my mother -- she's not like this woman on the vid at all, but she felt that she should be like that. Anyway, she's been dead for twenty years. The person who was actually damaged by a brisk, harsh, ambitious woman was my mother's mother, whose stepmother didn't like her. That's all classic. But having a physiological guess at what it did to my grandmother, my mother, and me -- recognizing the shut-down/hiding -- is new. We were saving our lives from Nurse Ratched by backing off, not being stars. But these scary women want to force us out, MAKE us perform.
Churches are full of the type, esp churches based on prosperity, good education, social status. The enforcers are not likely to be the minister -- check the choir master and the Sunday School Superintendent. When my mother was dying, she was terrified one of them would come to the door and find her out, sneering so kindly the whole time.
Churches are full of the type, esp churches based on prosperity, good education, social status. The enforcers are not likely to be the minister -- check the choir master and the Sunday School Superintendent. When my mother was dying, she was terrified one of them would come to the door and find her out, sneering so kindly the whole time.
These days one is supposed to fear and oppose the old white men in suits: paternalistic, political and possibly rich. I'm nowhere near as scared of them as these enforcer women. With the men it's possible to do handmaiden stuff (used to be typing --now I supposed maintaining a database), be funny and teasing, or just dodge between their assumptions. They aren't always very smart since women have done their work. With luck you can be a daughter. (Don't be a mom.)
The problem is those "interface women", the ones who build themselves into the power of the men, the doorkeepers, not the doc but the nurse. Not the superintendent but his secretary. Not the publisher but the editor. Those are the dangerous secondary women who will withhold your prescription, write a damning report, make little hints about your motivation. They do it for the sake of the powermen, who never really understand what's happening. The big guys just want it done -- that's their job.
All this time while bullies and their henchmen have been plaguing modern society, there is another stream of thinking going along in humanistic ways. Third Force psych, indigenous thought, Asian concepts, etc. Even common fiction. One must adjust one's eyes, explore the horizon, listen to other people. When ethnic or indigenous people get involved, they are liable to listen to the enforcers. Since they are vulnerable, it's necessary. I want them to know it's not the ONLY way -- that obedience. They only own your butt at work.
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