I'm really sorry about what you went through. You were dealing with extreme mental illness (in your stepfather) at an age and during an era when kids lacked the resources to deal with it and the system was often useless. Incredible kudos to you for surviving and turning your life around and getting to the place where you are now. And also for not passing it along and continuing the cycle and becoming your stepfather.
How do we make sense of this stuff Ellen? Where do we place the blame? Harvey was badly damaged in the Korean War including catastrophic TBI. Surgeons at the time did what they could, years of physical rehabilitation did nothing for his psychological damage, his disability benefits were never upgraded from conflict to war status; a pittance which kept us in poverty since he was unable to retain a job. He then went on to damage my family for generations.
Incest, sexual deviance, pedophilia, abuse were all prevalent at the time and still prevalent today. Protections might have improved but the population has rendered those measures diminishing returns. These are social issues.
I was one of the lucky ones. I for some reason decided something was wrong from the age of five and resisted. That led Harvey to hate and fear me. I couldn't prevent the damage though, instead I made a contract with myself that has never been broken.
Finding solutions involved a lot of self-improvements and therapies, navigating in society while maintaining my liberty took a lot of work. No one solution works all the time; the one that works the most is being able to talk about things most people are afraid to. Still, certain parts of my past are discussed only with representation.
I will add that I just turned 70, which means that my record stands the likelihood of being expunged and destroyed, restoring civil rights that were lost. I'll be hard at work in that process, and that process is improving. A full pardon is possible (a legitimate one).
Although there was trouble in my past, what is left of my future looks bright.
I think you've put your finger right on two key causes for psychosis and psychopathology, David, which are TBI and childhood abuse. Brain imaging has shown that many inmates with serious felonies had brain injuries, often from abuse or neglect leading to head trauma. And you're right that there's more recognition of this now and more protections against abusive parents, but less against bad foster care, pedophiles, and sex traffickers. Social media and the deep web, mass migration, and wars have enabled crimes against children on a massive scale.
My childhood was marred by trauma but not poverty, and I too was angry about it and kept my defiance, and then spent many years seeking understanding and healing through all sorts of therapies and self-help programs. So I can relate to the journey that you've been on and the power it gives you to confront and speak about things most people are afraid to face or would rather keep buried.
Imho the way to navigate through the darkness is by becoming a beacon of integrity and light and illuminating the truth. The people of the lie, as M. Scott Peck calls them, thrive in the darkness and shrivel up like vampires when exposed to the light. What the powers-that-be don't want is for people to believe their eyes, ears, other senses, their intuition, and their feeling that things aren't right. They want us to believe what we are told. We need to say 'show me the evidence' for everything and be vigilant against all the deep fakes that are issung forth in a steady stream. We need hard, i.e. real and in-person, evidence before we believe something. Back to basics and first-hand experience.
I think the majority of people have cottoned to the fact that almost nothing is as it seems and are waking up. But many don't want to admit that things could be rotten in the state of Denmark. It violates their need to believe that people are basically good and decent. Those of us with authority figures who failed us know that it doesn't pay to ignore reality and pay the heavy cost of protecting exploiters and abusers. There's no upside or benefit and you're putting your health, well-being, and even survival at risk.
I'm a believer in a higher power, so do tend to live in optimism, hope, and faith.
You are a wonder, and I very much appreciate your support. I should write more about a broken justice system and the willingness to manipulate it for political motives; though it's not comfortable for me. I'm only now starting to let my guard down a bit and never discussed the topic with anyone but with an attorney present or privately with a family member. The wonder is how I was able to maintain a defense career; again, I was lucky enough to have powerful advocates and people who believed in me, still do.
As for my family, these are damaged people, some of them hide it fairly well unless confronted, which is my role. I will then be met with outrage and abuse; there is no reasoning with them, they're not having any of it.
I had to escape my family, and have recently decided to set boundaries and cut ties, a forlorn exercise but one for my own well being.
You might want to check out Decarceration's substack https://substack.com/@fromtheyardtothearthouse in which he writes about his experience with prison and the justice system, using films to talk about the issues. He definitely considers it broken, unjust, and just plain inefficient.
I understand the family thing as I spent years avoiding mine by living overseas. My family members are willing to talk about it, but of course it's hard to get away from the repercussions. Dealing with family stuff is a tough one!
I've bumped into that writer, though I won't engage him, too much political rhetoric. The infatuation with personalities is a turn-off for me. I'm an investigator and take a more global view, there are much more pressing issues. Trying to get to a truth is a deep well, better to focus on issues.
People are highly programmable; propaganda works and media influence is all too effective.
Meanwhile we're into the eleventh hour and facing a very dark period, not a time to stay in our bubbles. I still appreciate your input.
Lastly, you know Ellen, I've paid attorneys, and I've paid accountants; I've had to do their jobs for them more often than not and they are wrong a surprising percentage of the time.
It's about time you started writing about the hard stuff. Thanks, it kinda eases the pain we went through.
I can recall all the painful stuff, my memory lives mostly with all the good stuff.
I'm really sorry about what you went through. You were dealing with extreme mental illness (in your stepfather) at an age and during an era when kids lacked the resources to deal with it and the system was often useless. Incredible kudos to you for surviving and turning your life around and getting to the place where you are now. And also for not passing it along and continuing the cycle and becoming your stepfather.
How do we make sense of this stuff Ellen? Where do we place the blame? Harvey was badly damaged in the Korean War including catastrophic TBI. Surgeons at the time did what they could, years of physical rehabilitation did nothing for his psychological damage, his disability benefits were never upgraded from conflict to war status; a pittance which kept us in poverty since he was unable to retain a job. He then went on to damage my family for generations.
Incest, sexual deviance, pedophilia, abuse were all prevalent at the time and still prevalent today. Protections might have improved but the population has rendered those measures diminishing returns. These are social issues.
I was one of the lucky ones. I for some reason decided something was wrong from the age of five and resisted. That led Harvey to hate and fear me. I couldn't prevent the damage though, instead I made a contract with myself that has never been broken.
Finding solutions involved a lot of self-improvements and therapies, navigating in society while maintaining my liberty took a lot of work. No one solution works all the time; the one that works the most is being able to talk about things most people are afraid to. Still, certain parts of my past are discussed only with representation.
I will add that I just turned 70, which means that my record stands the likelihood of being expunged and destroyed, restoring civil rights that were lost. I'll be hard at work in that process, and that process is improving. A full pardon is possible (a legitimate one).
Although there was trouble in my past, what is left of my future looks bright.
Happy 70th birthday!
Good luck on getting a full pardon and getting your rights back. That would be a fabulous present.
I think you've put your finger right on two key causes for psychosis and psychopathology, David, which are TBI and childhood abuse. Brain imaging has shown that many inmates with serious felonies had brain injuries, often from abuse or neglect leading to head trauma. And you're right that there's more recognition of this now and more protections against abusive parents, but less against bad foster care, pedophiles, and sex traffickers. Social media and the deep web, mass migration, and wars have enabled crimes against children on a massive scale.
My childhood was marred by trauma but not poverty, and I too was angry about it and kept my defiance, and then spent many years seeking understanding and healing through all sorts of therapies and self-help programs. So I can relate to the journey that you've been on and the power it gives you to confront and speak about things most people are afraid to face or would rather keep buried.
Imho the way to navigate through the darkness is by becoming a beacon of integrity and light and illuminating the truth. The people of the lie, as M. Scott Peck calls them, thrive in the darkness and shrivel up like vampires when exposed to the light. What the powers-that-be don't want is for people to believe their eyes, ears, other senses, their intuition, and their feeling that things aren't right. They want us to believe what we are told. We need to say 'show me the evidence' for everything and be vigilant against all the deep fakes that are issung forth in a steady stream. We need hard, i.e. real and in-person, evidence before we believe something. Back to basics and first-hand experience.
I think the majority of people have cottoned to the fact that almost nothing is as it seems and are waking up. But many don't want to admit that things could be rotten in the state of Denmark. It violates their need to believe that people are basically good and decent. Those of us with authority figures who failed us know that it doesn't pay to ignore reality and pay the heavy cost of protecting exploiters and abusers. There's no upside or benefit and you're putting your health, well-being, and even survival at risk.
I'm a believer in a higher power, so do tend to live in optimism, hope, and faith.
You are a wonder, and I very much appreciate your support. I should write more about a broken justice system and the willingness to manipulate it for political motives; though it's not comfortable for me. I'm only now starting to let my guard down a bit and never discussed the topic with anyone but with an attorney present or privately with a family member. The wonder is how I was able to maintain a defense career; again, I was lucky enough to have powerful advocates and people who believed in me, still do.
As for my family, these are damaged people, some of them hide it fairly well unless confronted, which is my role. I will then be met with outrage and abuse; there is no reasoning with them, they're not having any of it.
I had to escape my family, and have recently decided to set boundaries and cut ties, a forlorn exercise but one for my own well being.
You might want to check out Decarceration's substack https://substack.com/@fromtheyardtothearthouse in which he writes about his experience with prison and the justice system, using films to talk about the issues. He definitely considers it broken, unjust, and just plain inefficient.
I understand the family thing as I spent years avoiding mine by living overseas. My family members are willing to talk about it, but of course it's hard to get away from the repercussions. Dealing with family stuff is a tough one!
I've bumped into that writer, though I won't engage him, too much political rhetoric. The infatuation with personalities is a turn-off for me. I'm an investigator and take a more global view, there are much more pressing issues. Trying to get to a truth is a deep well, better to focus on issues.
People are highly programmable; propaganda works and media influence is all too effective.
Meanwhile we're into the eleventh hour and facing a very dark period, not a time to stay in our bubbles. I still appreciate your input.
Lastly, you know Ellen, I've paid attorneys, and I've paid accountants; I've had to do their jobs for them more often than not and they are wrong a surprising percentage of the time.