Dear Brian:

i just looked at the book I wrote to you about (I agree with only part of it). I will try to relate the part of it that I agree with- to what you wrote about yourself: you (and I and every human) are a human-animal. When you were attacked (abused) as a child, like any other animal under attack, or anticipating an attack, were aroused with the energy of Fight or Flight (or Freeze which in nature is temporary and leads to Fight or Flight after thawing). When animals do either their arousal energy completely discharges and the animal, in the wild, does not become traumatized. Brian in his abusive home was attacked, aroused but did not discharge that energy beccause you did not Fight or Flee. This energy is trapped in your brain/ body and has caused all kinds of symptoms which are like safety valve, where the body will take any which way to (partially) release some of all that excess energy so to keep going.

When you hear the noises from the neighbors, or anticipate the noises, that energy re-activates and you are aroused. Somehow, that energy needs to be released. How? This is where I disagree with the book and don’t even follow the “solution.” But what i do get is that a re-living of the traumatic events of childhood is not effective. This is what I found effective: as I become aroused myself, as the traumatic energy becomes activated, I see in my mind’s eye an image of a mother that I created (recently)- she is there to help me AND I do something else, or I did, the other night: I remembered a traumatic event, was activated but not overwhelmed (the image of the created mother was there to comfort me) and I completed the remembered event by standing up to myself. I augmented the memory with an ending of my choosing, an ending that could have then discharged the intense arousal energy then. By remembering and adding an ending to the memory- i experienced some discharge and slept very well that night.

This kind of discharge, I intend to experiment further with it- but GENTLY, nothing extreme- that will be re-traumatizing myself, so I read. Gentle, like creating an ending to a memory.

anita