You can only give from a cup

that is overflowing, so

for Pete’s sake don’t spill it!

If you spilled it we’d both be needy

and thirsty and pitiful.  So if you have

a cup that is overflowing, hold onto it

with both hands!

We can soon anticipate more new fathers than ever, what with the limitations                                                                                                                                                          on birth control in different states and religions and varying limits on abortions.

Fathers Day is coming up on the calendar and a multitude of new fathers may                                                                                                                                                        celebrate that day for the first time.  Or not.

An article on the front page of the                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Athens Ohio Messenger last week

announced the arrest of a young father for                                                                                                                                                                                                                          physically assaulting his newborn son.

naturalparentsnetwork.com

AFTER FIVE DAYS no one has wanted to read “Fathers Day.”   Does that say something about fathers?

Who am I writing this?

What am I doing and why?                                                                                                                                                                                                             Where is my mind focussed?

What is my mind?

How do I deal with randomness?

Confabulation’s the great sanity survivor.

If that tree is conscious, what is it doing?

If I am conscious, what should I do?

And who, pray tell, are you?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    https://www.youtube.com/ Rihanna

Monkeys as Judges of Art, 1889. Retrieved from WikiArt.

RELATIONSHIPS

Anthropologists tell us that  mutual needs have been responsible for indviduals banding together in search of mutual support and protection..  (“I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine”).  Underneath it all there’s kinship selection at work, another motivation for bonding with others.  Today, if we can bring ourselves to honestly look around us at the quality of our relationships, we might be led to reassess them or at least to assess them for the first time.  True, there are various levels of relationships. One’s closest relationship–the husband—unfortunately does not necessarily carry with it a high level of trust.  Too many conflicting needs, too much “keeping the peace.”   Many of our relationships , to coin a phrase, don’t hold much water.

To be absolutely fair, let’s start with ourselves before throwing stones at other dear friends. How many acquaintances drive you up the wall by their manner of speaking or repeating topics to speak about? Are you honest and forthright with them about their annoying habit?  (You don’t if they’re still an “acquaintance.”)

To what extent do you trust them?  Well, there’s everything from trusting them not to shoot you or burn down your house to running off with your husband to not molesting your child or, for all that, not to commit patricide, matricide, infanticide. There’s cheating at poker or bridge, not keeping a secret you’ve confided, not gossiping behind your back, not buttering you up to their advantage, and not swindling you.  And all the things left unsaid due to “politeness,” or is it just cowardice? We call it “non-assertiveness” these days.

To what extent do you even like or enjoy them?  What reservations do you have about them?  Do you respect them?  Look up at them or down upon them? Do you “pay your own way” in the relationship—that is, give as much as you take?   How about flattering a friend while feeling critical? How high do you rank the need for honesty?  In graduate school we actually had a habit, when someone expressed displeasure to us, of saying, “Thank you for the gift of your anger.”  Incredible to remember it, but I kid you not.

Well, I’ve raised enough questions and probably hackles for today.  One word of what I consider wisdom before I close, however: If you can neither feel real enjoyment, empathy or respect for a “friend,” drop them, (if they haven’t already dropped you).

I had my little guess a couple of days ago (“I May Be Criticized for This”) but now I’ve discovered an excellent discussion on a (horrors) non Word Press site, to which I’d like to refer you anyway. The author is an author, Rod Fleming,  http://rodfleming.com/transgender-really-increase/

The road ahead for those who long remain in the role of sexual abuse victim is long and hard, and is usually accompanied by increasingly heavy loads of guilt and feelings of rottenness. Victoria Kepler (One in Four, 1984) has outlined several increasingly heavy levels of possible guilt. Knowing that these unfolding levels of  shared phenomenon with many victims may bring comfort and reassurance to those who feel the “worst of the worst.”

She calls her first level “Damaged Goods,” and  relates to the victim’s belief that she must have done something to cause the abuse.  The second level is the “whore phase,” and occurs when the victim becomes aware of feeling some pleasure from the abuse.

A further level of guilt is the “fair game” phase,  when she is further abused by another (who possibly has heard of her earlier abuse).

If the sexual abuse continues, a fourth level of  guilt is the “switch phase,” more prevalent  among older victims who have been engaged in ongoing sexual abuse  by an adult. When the “switch” occurs, the victim realizes that she can benefit from the abuse by bargaining for special favors.

In the fifth level, or “know better” phase [which Kepler later inserted into the list] a victim revisits the web of her abuser, resulting in further abuse of her or her children.*

Finally, the “Crossover” phase occurs if the victim should begin to molest others.  Feelings of guilt from crossing over the line is considered appropriate (and referred to as “cognitive dysphoria” by Linda Sanford).

(The above photo used by permission of Faisal Jawaid.  The text reprinted from Fallout: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders, by Nan Mykel, 2014.)

*(Incidentally, it is my experience that a victim is more likely to report incest when the family member –usually the father–molests her child, not earlier when she was abused).

Sure, I’m a patron of the library and used bookstores too.  I even buy extra copies of books I love, and already own,  like Denial of Death; Consilience; Illusions, Who Dies and The Individual and His  Dreams.  But  fate  has to bring us together again via yard sales or  give-aways.  Buying more than one new copy at a time would be tacky. I take so much solace from books that it’s sorta frightening to think of being totally bereft of them.  I never  claimed to be  high-brow but do try not to be tacky.  And though I’m blushing now to admit it, there are no classics at bedtime, but only suspense/mysteries/who dunnits and other escape reading.  What I have to escape from is the theme of another missive.  But I know and do reckon that some of my sleep problems stem from reading through the night, for upon awakening I panic, not knowing if it’s last night or tomorrow morning.

Imagination

the oasis wading pool

awaits the diver.

I’ve attended a number of NAMI presentations and felt comfortable with their acceptance and belief that psychosis is a disorder of the brain.  Now, on Word Press, I read that many folks are insulted that their pain is attributed to a physical malfunction.  I wish the two groups would meet together and thrash it out!  That’s the way I used to feel in college, that I’d like my rat lab  professor to sit down with my Gestalt professor and clarify and iron out their differences, which were a little difficult for the students to accept both approaches as gospel.

Now what I’m about to say will earn me arguments (I can feel it coming) without any malice on my part.  My thoughts follow on the observation that there seem to be thousands more transgenders than ever.  Maybe…just maybe…it’s due to the support movement and relaxation (in some states) of  social phobias.  But then I recall reading about the great increase in our culture of estrogen additives, and also of reports that the sperm count has nosedived.  Could the huge increase in the various gender continuums be in part the offshoot of  various kinds of changes in the environment?  I’m not saying that the increase in transgenders is bad, but they seem to derive a lot of emotional pain from it, and I don’t know what most of the pain springs from.

Now understand that I’m using the word “transgenders” loosely, because I know there’s a glossary of various terms in use.  In some species (I’m too lazy to look it up) evolution, or just nature somehow, limits over-population. It would seem than one result of a burgeoning of transgenders might have the side effect of population control.

Even though I quiver at the thought of being castigated, go ahead and let me hear from you: everybody, anybody.

Nan