{"id":43,"date":"2019-12-31T01:09:57","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T01:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/204.48.22.247\/?p=43"},"modified":"2021-06-30T15:05:32","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T15:05:32","slug":"dissociation-weighted-greyness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/?p=43","title":{"rendered":"Dissociation: A Weighted Greyness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Maria Peregolise<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/maxresdefault-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/maxresdefault-1024x576.jpg 1024w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/maxresdefault-300x169.jpg 300w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/maxresdefault-768x432.jpg 768w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/maxresdefault-210x118.jpg 210w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/maxresdefault.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cYour words to me just a whisper, Your face is so unclear, I try to pay attention, Your words just disappear, &#8216;Cause it&#8217;s always raining in my head.\u201d Staind, Epiphany, 2001 <\/em><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_reference_1');\">[1]<\/sup><span class=\"footnote_tooltip\" id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1\"> <em>Artist: Staind, Album: Break the Cycle, Released: 2001<\/em> <\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\tjQuery(\"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1\").tooltip({\t\ttip: \"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1\",\t\ttipClass: \"footnote_tooltip\",\t\teffect: \"fade\",\t\tfadeOutSpeed: 100,\t\tpredelay: 400,\t\tposition: \"top right\",\t\trelative: true,\t\toffset: [10, 10]\t});<\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The URANTIA Book language preaches, \u201cThe family is the fundamental unit of fraternity in which parents and children learn those lessons of patience, altruism, tolerance, and forbearance which are so essential to the realization of brotherhood among all men.\u201d * <sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_2\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_reference_2');\">[2]<\/sup><span class=\"footnote_tooltip\" id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2\">84:7:28 (941.9) The Urantia Book. Chicago: Urantia Foundation, 1955 <\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\tjQuery(\"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2\").tooltip({\t\ttip: \"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2\",\t\ttipClass: \"footnote_tooltip\",\t\teffect: \"fade\",\t\tfadeOutSpeed: 100,\t\tpredelay: 400,\t\tposition: \"top right\",\t\trelative: true,\t\toffset: [10, 10]\t});<\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, sometimes it was a belt, but usually Dad\u2019s redirection was \u2018Big Hands,\u2019 which was my Grandmother\u2019s term for hitting. I received one particular belt-welt on my upper thigh, when Dad had chased me into the kitchen, and I had nowhere to run. I don\u2019t think he\u2019d liked the mark it had left that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Discussing negative tendencies in certain adults, in his book Dangerous Personalities, Joe Navarro suggests, \u201cIf you have children with a parent like this, you have a responsibility to try to provide safety and respite for them. &#8230;everything possible should be done to set boundaries to protect the child and to provide opportunities for relief.\u201d (Navarro and Sciarra Poynter, 2014) <sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_3\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_reference_3');\">[3]<\/sup><span class=\"footnote_tooltip\" id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3\"> Joe Navarro and Toni Sciarra Poynter, Dangerous Personalities: An FBI Profiler Shows You How to Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People, 2014 <\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\tjQuery(\"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3\").tooltip({\t\ttip: \"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3\",\t\ttipClass: \"footnote_tooltip\",\t\teffect: \"fade\",\t\tfadeOutSpeed: 100,\t\tpredelay: 400,\t\tposition: \"top right\",\t\trelative: true,\t\toffset: [10, 10]\t});<\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Granted, my brother and I could fight over anything, which had to be infuriating &#8211; until you consider that Dad would triangulate us against each other to begin with. As my brother grew older and more cantankerous, I, in turn, had \u2018Big Hands\u2019 for him. My parents might yell at us to stop fighting, but they never told us we shouldn\u2019t hit each other. I didn\u2019t realize it was something I should stop and think about, until my Grandma pointed out to me that it wasn\u2019t right. This was My Father\u2019s mother. That\u2019s when I started to change how I reacted to my brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a journal entry from when I was thirteen, I describe myself as a rose, the stem is my family, the leaves that come and go are friends, and the thorns are \u2018conflicts, unseen.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I didn\u2019t realize at the time that dissociation was part of my flight- fight-hide (freeze) response, but I wrote about something else that trouble me. Someone presenting signs of dissociation or derealization may be \u201c\u2026inclined to \u201cdissociate\u201d while you are talking to them. \u2026in so doing, they may appear to be detached from their emotions, body, or immediate surroundings, this experience is called derealization. Dissociation can be caused as a direct result of trauma, often experienced in multiple forms during narcissistic childhood traumas (i.e. physical, psychological&#8230;). The dissociation is an automatic and effective defense mechanism to overwhelming acute stress the child is being subjected to&#8230;\u201d (Louis de Canonville, 2016) <sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_4\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_reference_4');\">[4]<\/sup><span class=\"footnote_tooltip\" id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_4\"> Christine Louis de Canonville, The Effects of Gaslighting in Narcissistic Victim Syndrome, June 10, 2016 <\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\tjQuery(\"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_4\").tooltip({\t\ttip: \"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_4\",\t\ttipClass: \"footnote_tooltip\",\t\teffect: \"fade\",\t\tfadeOutSpeed: 100,\t\tpredelay: 400,\t\tposition: \"top right\",\t\trelative: true,\t\toffset: [10, 10]\t});<\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was sitting in class and trying so hard to pay attention. The teacher was a kind man, who always had a smile. As he walked the front of the room, speaking about his chalkboard outline, fog-like grey matter kept blurring my vision. I widened my eyes and tried to blink it away. A whirring of sound filled my ears. I shuffled in my seat to ground myself and I cleared my throat to overpower the sound, but the roar and darkness remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With my pencil, I colored the entire notebook page on the desk in front of me completely grey to represent the derealization I was experiencing and begged myself to keep trying to fight my way out. Then, I wrote down my thoughts in a free-verse poem about this feeling I had of being immersed in a weighted greyness. I tried to describe the sensation of being enclosed in this thick, grey film that I couldn\u2019t escape. It seemed like something I literally had to tear open. I also drew a scribbled cloud of pencil and black and red ink, with the words \u2018Chaos\u2019 and \u2018Mind\u2019 written across it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mind <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCan you see? Do you hear? Do you want to see?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are you afraid to break the shell?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I try hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s very hard to pull it and dig it away. Sometimes it works, but not always.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes it\u2019s easier to hide in the gloomy depths of the mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fight your way out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To spring!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To freedom!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fight ahead not backwards! You can slip backwards! It\u2019s easy to remember (how to slip backwards)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the real pleasure is the color and openness of reality!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around the same time, I also wrote a whimsical essay called <em>Ball Point Wisdom<\/em> in which I recognized that the only way to \u2018think\u2019 was to let my pen talk. \u2018My eyes fog over with the damp breath of reality,\u2019 speaks to my experience of the \u2018weighted greyness.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, hyper-vigilance kept me cautious not to immediately react to a situation. I can\u2019t scream back at someone. I can\u2019t act like something is wrong. I have to nervously laugh it off to ease someone\u2019s embarrassment or anger. I\u2019m not allowed to think on my feet. My pen has none of these constraints and \u2018thinks of things I can\u2019t think of.\u2019 In this way, I describe how my pen becomes my voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy pen wanders, aimlessly caught up in a doodle in the upper corner of my note paper. I think it feels caged-in by the first two blue lines, the pink margin, and the jagged edge where the spiral wire bites into the page. Perhaps it feels I may have forgotten it there, twirling in anxious scribbles in a square quarter inch of space. And, what kind of life would that be for a creature of such caliber?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The truth is, I too am a little afraid of the tricks reality can play on the maturing mind. It cajoles you into following rigorous routine. It calls your thoughts to attention in neat, calculated columns. It organizes your life into patterns of plaid, blacks and grays. It tempts you to drop your pen and stand in line with chin up, shoulders tense and arms at your side between Mr. Seven-million-six and Ms. Seven-million-eight. It demands of your eyes a straightforward, blank stare. It asks of your imagination\u2026 Nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As my eyes fog over with the damp breath of reality behind them, my pen breaks through the margin. It scurries across the page in frantic fantasy, whim, folktale, and lyric. It scolds, preaches, and pours out it\u2019s very blood in an effort which I finally understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Awed by this comrade, I hear its plea\u2026 \u2018The only boundary that may contain your soul is your very fear of boundaries!\u2019 It cries boldly, almost tearing the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems that once again my pen is correct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now you know why I write. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because most of the time my pen has a much quicker wit than I do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It can think a lot faster than I can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And sometimes of things I might never have thought of myself! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Should I forget, as on occasions such as this, and lose my footing, my pen at least &#8211; if no one else &#8211; will keep me from falling into the trench of the straight and narrow. Together we will go to an incredible place they call, \u2018Astray\u2019 which is over the horizon, far beyond the view of the people in line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After my Grandma\u2019s advice, my intense feelings for my brother Joshua helped me to recognize that there is no one who can irritate, upset or worry you as deeply as the person you love the most. This is the person with whom you can most easily overreact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is where the fine line between discipline and abuse will lie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is how you can lose your cool on your little brother or your own three-year-old, if you don\u2019t remain cognizant that it\u2019s how much he means to you that is causing such intense emotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The communication I began to develop as a big sister certainly made a difference in our respect for one another. It would help me to keep myself in check with rambunctious toddlers of my own. It would be in large part, the communication I would use with students in my future classroom. After all, when you have twenty-eight students, you can\u2019t spank them into submission. So, there must be another way to communicate with your own sibling or with your own child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not that my children never got spanks if they needed a redirection. But, if reasonable communication of incentives and consequences wasn\u2019t working, a good ear-flick mid-grocery store could get their attention pretty quickly, too \u2014 later followed up with a conversation about rules, consequence, and most importantly, the correct manner in which to conduct oneself in that situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The URANTIA Book preaches, \u201cFarseeing fathers also make provision for the necessary discipline, guidance, correction, and sometimes restraint of their young and immature offspring.\u201d * <sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_5\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_reference_5');\">[5]<\/sup><span class=\"footnote_tooltip\" id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_5\"> 142:7.9 (1604.4) The Urantia Book. Chicago: Urantia Foundation, 1955 <\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\tjQuery(\"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_5\").tooltip({\t\ttip: \"#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_5\",\t\ttipClass: \"footnote_tooltip\",\t\teffect: \"fade\",\t\tfadeOutSpeed: 100,\t\tpredelay: 400,\t\tposition: \"top right\",\t\trelative: true,\t\toffset: [10, 10]\t});<\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\">\t<p><span onclick=\"footnote_expand_reference_container();\">References<\/span><span style=\"display: none;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[ <a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"cursor:pointer;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container();\">+<\/a> ]<\/span><\/p><\/div><div id=\"footnote_references_container\" style=\"\">\t<table class=\"footnote-reference-container\">\t\t<tbody>\t\t<tr>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_index\"><span id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_1\">1.<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_link\"><span onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_tooltip_1');\">&#8593;<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> <em>Artist: Staind, Album: Break the Cycle, Released: 2001<\/em> <\/td><\/tr><tr>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_index\"><span id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_2\">2.<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_link\"><span onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_tooltip_2');\">&#8593;<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">84:7:28 (941.9) The Urantia Book. Chicago: Urantia Foundation, 1955 <\/td><\/tr><tr>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_index\"><span id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_3\">3.<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_link\"><span onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_tooltip_3');\">&#8593;<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> Joe Navarro and Toni Sciarra Poynter, Dangerous Personalities: An FBI Profiler Shows You How to Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People, 2014 <\/td><\/tr><tr>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_index\"><span id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_4\">4.<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_link\"><span onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_tooltip_4');\">&#8593;<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> Christine Louis de Canonville, The Effects of Gaslighting in Narcissistic Victim Syndrome, June 10, 2016 <\/td><\/tr><tr>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_index\"><span id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_5\">5.<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_link\"><span onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor('footnote_plugin_tooltip_5');\">&#8593;<\/span><\/td>\t<td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> 142:7.9 (1604.4) The Urantia Book. Chicago: Urantia Foundation, 1955 <\/td><\/tr>\t\t<\/tbody>\t<\/table><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\tfunction footnote_expand_reference_container() {\t\tjQuery(\"#footnote_references_container\").show();        jQuery(\"#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\").text(\"-\");\t}    function footnote_collapse_reference_container() {        jQuery(\"#footnote_references_container\").hide();        jQuery(\"#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\").text(\"+\");    }\tfunction footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container() {\t\tif (jQuery(\"#footnote_references_container\").is(\":hidden\")) {            footnote_expand_reference_container();\t\t} else {            footnote_collapse_reference_container();\t\t}\t}    function footnote_moveToAnchor(p_str_TargetID) {        footnote_expand_reference_container();        var l_obj_Target = jQuery(\"#\" + p_str_TargetID);        if(l_obj_Target.length) {            jQuery('html, body').animate({                scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight\/2            }, 1000);        }    }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maria Peregolise \u201cYour words to me just a whisper, Your face is so unclear, I try to pay attention, Your words just disappear, &#8216;Cause it&#8217;s always raining in my head.\u201d Staind, Epiphany, 2001 [1] Artist: Staind, Album: Break the Cycle, Released: 2001 The URANTIA Book language preaches, \u201cThe family is the fundamental unit of fraternity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}