Childhood Trauma – Page 15

DO BULLIES HAUNT YOU? BY ART SMUKLER MD, AUTHOR & PSYCHIATRIST

All day in the office, I listen to people who have been abused, bullied and devalued. Battling evil and insensitivity in the world is a never ending battle.

The camp was idyllic, on a lake, cabins scattered among tall Pine trees, with dirt trails connecting everything to ball fields, the dining room and a recreation center. There were 12 waiters, 16-17-year-old boys, who were housed in the cabin closest to the dining room.

Rocko, the leader, was 6 feet tall with a physique that suited a Neanderthal. He was assigning jobs to the 11 boys who were all in various stages of making their beds and unpacking their trunks. The first day of camp was filled with learning dining room protocol, and that evening the boys were organizing their personal belongings.

“Hey douchbag, you’re not listening to me,” Rocko yelled to the slim boy at the far end of the cabin.

“I’m making my bed,” the boy said.

Seconds later Rocko was standing chest to chest with the slim boy. “I said I was talking to you! When I talk, you stop everything and listen.”

The boy stood still, a hard expression forming around his mouth and eyes.

“Are you deaf or just a dumb shit? Answer me!”

The slim boy stood very still, not moving in the slightest.

“Say something asshole.”

He chest butted the boy and put his face just inches from his face.

“If you don’t like it, do something about it,” Rocko spat out, his 200 pounds of muscle tensed for an onslaught.

The slim boy regained his balance and just stared back.

“Chicken shit! Do something or do exactly what I say.”

The boy just stood and stared, not moving a muscle, not blinking.

Rocko pushed the boy and walked away. “Chicken shit.”

It was 11 years before they spoke again. The slim boy, now a doctor and a resident in psychiatry, was moonlighting doing insurance exams for a friend, an insurance agent who had been a fellow waiter that same summer. The patient he was paid to examine was no other than Rocko, who was 30 pounds lighter, had pale skin and a dead look in his eyes.

The doctor asked all the appropriate questions and did a careful physical exam. Rocko had Hodgkins Lymphoma, a serious form of lymphatic cancer. The 2 men never referred to the decades-old altercation and never would. Rocko died a few years later.

The doctor experienced no joy in observing Rocko’s terminal illness or any sense that justice had been served. There was only the feeling he had failed himself by not handling the old situation with more courage.

Now, decades after Rocko’s death, there is finally closure for the slim boy who became a psychiatrist. Joe Belmont, the main character in his novel Chasing Backwards, doesn’t let people push him around, even if those people are the police or professional criminals.

It feels good having your character do what he needs to do.

It always feels good to not be afraid, whether in fiction or more importantly in real life.

Please feel free to leave any comments.

If you enjoyed reading, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist, you might also enjoy Dr. Smukler’s novels, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, Skin Dance, a mystery, and The Man with a Microphone in his Ear. All are available as paperbacks and eBooks on AMAZON, iBooks and http://artsmuklermd.com

Let’s not dwell on the past

We’ll start from now and go forward.

Sometimes clichés are just shorthand for inane assumptions.

Not using information from our past is like trying to build a hi-rise and leaving out the foundation. It looks good until that first Santa Ana wind hits it’s eastern facade. Boom. No substance. All show.

The problem, and it’s a big one, is that our past is often hidden from our conscious thoughts. It’s there directing what we do, and we’re blithely assuming that we are making logical, conscious decisions. The truth, as difficult as it may be to accept, is that the child part of us, the infant, desperate to have his needs met, is often the puppeteer controlling our “adult” behavior.

One major example that I see all the time, is how we “adults” choose our spouse. On the surface, it’s all so straightforward. We meet someone, feel attracted and connected, and make a conscious decision to spend the rest of our lives with this person. Simple, right?

Not in my opinion. We handpick spouses who unconsciously meet a deep need from our childhood. For example, we consciously pick someone who we love, yet so often, our choice has many of the same flaws that our father or mother had. The same hurt is now re-lived, here in the present, just like it happened when we were little. Over and over, like a Chinese water torture, until the pain is so great you join 50% of your peers and get divorced.

What’s the answer? How do we stop being driven by the baby puppeteer?

Ah, we need a super-hero to help us.

Enter Freud, wearing a cape and driving a black Freud-mobile (an eco-friendly, convertible Tesla). After carefully removing his cape and settling into his well-worn, easy chair, what does the great man do?

He asks about your past. He helps you see the similarities between your life as a child and how you are now reliving that same life with your wife. Most importantly, he helps you see YOUR part in perpetuating this flawed reliving of an old bad movie.

It takes a while to tease out the past from the present, but eventually the immature puppeteer is exposed, and then the REAL YOU can make healthy choices and not be driven by a past that you can’t understand.

If you enjoy reading, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist, you might also enjoy Dr. Smukler’s novels, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, Skin Dance, a mystery, and The Man with a Microphone in his Ear. All are available as paperbacks and eBooks.