Hello all,
I've just finished reading Stout's book and it was allarmingly clarifying in many ways. I've come face to face with quite a few examples of the book, without having any idea of the dissociation in process, probably like many here.
I've had many traumas in my life from when I was a kid, have been through abuses of violence of an angry father that would beat me and my brother up out of rage attacks, and I was also beaten up in my school because I was the smaller and weacker, phsically speaking, i my class.
My Father, just like Stout says on the book, was also the product of a violent childhood, having grown up with violence since very early from his own father. So the chain went on.
My mother, in face of these hard reality, would stay quietly in fear, and in wasn't rare to see her talking to herself in a clear dissociative state of mind. She also gained something around 10 pounds.
Our religious background would alow her to divorce, as it was a sin.
I myself got this habit of talking to myself like my mom, and became very timid and insecure, and some people started joking me, saying I was an autist. I liked very much staying alone, and I remember feeling the same crushing fear everytime my father was coming home from work.
He wasn't always mad, he was some times loving and patient, but sometimes he would just turn out to become sothing else, it didn't even look too human sometimes, and in other moments, he would just act like he was a baby.
My brother, who is older then me, would suffer more then I did, and when my father died, a part of him took over my brother, and he started reacting in the same furious ways in many moments. Alcohol and drugs came right after that.
He is a lot better now, have quited drugs, and I have never heard of any rage attacks no longer, but that took a while to leave him.
My mother is altogheter a different person now too, completly independant and definetly stronger.
I've also seen similarities in some of Stout's story with my wife. She have been abondoned in the streets, late at night, by her father more then once while she was very young, and when he left the house, she was the one that had to work to provide for her mother and her younger brothers. She's got a lot of sense of responsability thanks to that, but also some sense of being persecuted for no reason.
She will sometimes become very quiet, and even spend weeks witout speaking a single word, it feels like she is 'empty' when it happens. Needless to say that it makes me mad...I have no idea of what to do or how to act. Makes me feel like I'm invisible.
She has been pretty better now, after realizing that our relationship would simply colapse if things kept going, but she still have her moments, and I guess it's not an easy thing to overcome. Even my own dissociative behaviors are not completly gone.
There's also the case of my neighbours, who reminded me very much the 'Mathew' character from the book. They are a couple that keep fighting all the time, and it's simply discusting just to hear. They shout out very loud horrible names to each other, no respect for themselves, and they have this small kid, listening to everything all the time...I wonder what will happen to him, if he is gonna turn into to 'Mathew'. How can people actually live like that? Don't they ever get tired of it? I guess they don't want to live, just surviving is good enough.
There are many other cases, I could spend hours talking about it, and I know many of you have seen and lived similar things.
But apart from that, the most interesting part, for me, was when Martha explains the importance of self responsability in someone's healing process, and it made me think about the STO x STS issue, and how it relates to a dynamic between control over self x control over others.
It seems that people that do not wish to take responsability for their actions tend to throw it in other peoples laps. So, by trying to control, or influence power over others, they end up losing control over themselves, while people that want to assume their own responsabilities, do not wish to control other people, therefore gaining more control and power over themselves.
The book also made me think about a lot of movies i've watched, like 'Vals Im Bashir', where the main character suffers from a lost of memory of a particularly traumatic conflict, 'Rambo' (many are loughing now!) that is mainly about a guy that comes back home from war and can't seem to fit reality anymore, so ends up triggering a bunch of violent situations related to past traumas, 'Falling Down', which is the story of an ordinary man, that in a very stressful day, becomes a dangerous criminal, and even 'Twin Peaks', whose main character is abused by a father that aparently becomes 'someone else' during the nights (or even something else, as the show was kind of paranormal)
Thank you for the wonderful list of to-read books, and for such a decent learning space that is this forum. Not an easy thing to find in this world.
André
:) Because I am sure there wouldn't be the same level of discomfort if it was a small house. And yes, even if just knowing that there are people nearby helps.
