Dear Tony:

You are welcome. Do take your time re-reading and considering my previous post. For now, I have a couple of comments regarding your reply:

(1) “perhaps some childhood mental trauma. Perhaps it wasn’t even trauma”- we tend to think of trauma as something involving blood and gore, and you have such images I imagine, being a volunteer paramedic, and/ or watching certain TV shows and genres of movies. But young children get traumatized every day while there is no blood or broken bones to indicate the trauma. Young children feel an intense, uncompromising attachment to their parents, and a threat of permanent separation from a parent, a threat that does not end soon enough, is a trauma for a child.

(2) “being able to see that pattern, is definitely a leap forward. Not saying that it won’t happen again”- it will happen again for sure. Being able to see/ becoming aware does not undo the physical, neuro-chemical processes involved in that emotional memory, the memory that gets activated in small and big ways. Awareness is only a beginning in the process of healing.

anita