I wish I knew the answer.

When I was a child I bit my finger nails.  Sometimes I would bite them till they bled.  I am a worrier.  Born anxious.  It is not rare at all to see me pacing.  I prefer a short pace.  Eight feet or so.  Sometimes I will walk the inside of the house, back and forth, but my favorite spot to pace is barefoot on the rocks down by the lake.  I have always been this way.  Sitting still is one of the hardest things for me to do.  Relaxed for me is not the same as relaxed for most people. 

It turns out that when certain situations occur while a woman is pregnant the child is forever after operating at a different energy level than a baby who did not experience those same situations.  We are alive while in the womb you know.  We are already adapting to our environment the second that sperm penetrates an egg.

It turns out that if a child experiences violence during the first years of its life, it will forever operate at a different level than a child who did not. 

Say for instance, that a mother pregnant with child experiences violence.  Say it happens repeatedly, the effects are even more pronounced.  Much like energy from the sun, if someone stands in it for too long they get burned.   I think drugs have similar effects on the energy levels of these children too, but not the same as violence.   I would say a mother detoxing off of something harsh or in the throes of addiction would be very traumatic for a child's energy.   The mother would be focusing all of her energy on a drug and not life, or family, or baby, or anything.  Her whole psyche would be focused on the substance.  These children have no choice but to develop addictions. 

Instead of society helping them with their addictions they are generally locked up and criminalized when it is their parents who fucked them up.  It is a vicious cycle. 

I watched something once were a scientist was showing the effects of weaning pigs too soon.  They filled a tank with water and would then place the piglet in the middle.  There was a spot on the side of the tank where the pig could get out and also a spot in the water where it could stand safely if it happened to find it.  By the way pigs are pretty good swimmers.  The baby pigs that stayed with their mother the full eight weeks, or whatever time it was, just swam around and got out of the water once they found the step.  The pigs that were taken from the mother before the specified time immediately freaked out when placed in the water and instead of finding the step would just continue to squeal constantly and stay in a state of what seems to be panic while swimming all over the place. 

Obviously human beings are not pigs, but we are both animals, with feelings, intelligence, and consciousness.  We both have an affinity for our mothers.  A connection.  Children of any animal do not do well when their early life is stressed.  I personally believe that because our minds make us, or so we think anyways, so much more complicated than the pigs, it stands to reason that the damage from such trauma is as equally complicated.

Please remember there are millions of people whose mothers did not take care of them.  Being beat.  Doing drugs.  Insane emotional situations.  It is everywhere.  They, just like me, feel really fucked up from it all and none of them know what to do.  This culture has them so fucked up they are literally in the dark.   Many of them are doing exactly what their parents did; they are doing it to their children too. 

I know a few like me searching for a way out.  We will make it. 

Did you know I cannot grow a beard for any length of time?  I pull it out.  I will literally pull the hair out of my face.  Right now there is a bare patch of skin under my jaw line where I have pulled all the hair out.   I had to shave it off the other day.  I was looking mangy.  I woke up feeling really anxious so the beard went to shit in a hurry.  As soon as it is long enough to get a grip on you will see me pulling onk it.  You cannot stop me either.  You could sit next to me all day long and smack my hand every time I do it, but as soon as we focus on something else my hand will be there pulling.  If I am not anxious I do not do it nearly as much.  Sometimes I can go a month or two and not pull it out, but as soon as I am in a car, alone and anxious, half my beard will be out the window thirty minutes.  I cannot let the hair on my chest grow out either; I will pull it all out.  I have to keep a shirt on when I am anxious. 

I was in a situation when I was younger where I was extremely stressed out and was being forced to sit in a chair for hours at a time.  I pulled most of the hair off of my lower legs.  From my perspective, the energy cannot be contained, so if I am forced to stay in one place, the energy must escape somehow.

It is even worse internally.  Our minds do not ever shut off.  Like I said, it creates a different energy.  A forever anxious, I must be doing something, must be doing something, must be doing something.  It never goes away. It never goes away. It never ever goes away.

Theirs does not either and this helps me feel not so alone knowing they have this same phenomenon.

In my twenties I learned to focus this energy.  Remember when I said I wanted to know the truth?  I wanted to know why.  I used this energy to do just that.  I try to help my friends see that they can do the same thing.  Although the energy cannot be turned off, it can be focused to a certain degree.  There is some choice in how it gets directed.  I could let it consume me, or I can consume it, but no matter what it is getting consumed. 

It was a bit freeing for me later in life when my grandmother ended up being a school bus driver.  I say that like I am old or something.  She worked for a small town elementary school as a custodian for a long time.  Her health forced her into driving a school bus.  She was no longer able to stand on her feet all day long anymore, but still wanted a part time income.  I used to talk to her on the phone once in a while and we would always talk about the kids who rode on her bus.  How bad they are.  She was forever unable to control them.  Her outlook on those children completely changed when she became a bus driver though.  Now she has to see where they live.  She has to deal with them outside of the school setting.   She gets to see who the parents are that are raising them.  Those kids are not bad. 

The reality is their parents are not handling business.  Every single one of these small mid-west towns has these children.  Some of them are full of these children.  In the town I am currently living in there were over fifteen pregnant kids in the school last year.  I do not know how many there are this year.  I see young fifteen year old girls all the time in public pregnant as can be.  They all grow up together and just think that that is how it is.  As if a fifteen year old is capable of being a mother.  Even having a child in one's twenties is too soon, but around here it is almost expected.

My grandmother sees it now, but it seems too late.

It was quite freeing for me to say to her, "Yea grandma, I was one of those kids."  I was that kid getting kicked off the bus in kindergarten because I could not sit still.  I was that kid driving some bus driver fucking crazy.  All my life she has told me I need medication.  I find this very offensive and I do not speak to her because of this.  Medication?  I needed a fucking mother. 

I went home to insanity every day.

I do not know how she lives with it.

I wish I knew how to calm down.  Most of my life I just wanted to be like everyone else.  Now I know the truth.  There is no “everyone else” to be found.  This culture makes people crazy.   It effects every last single one of us from the top to the bottom.

I wish I knew so I could help my friends.  They, like me, did not deserve it, and there has never been a single wrong righted.  It is happening now just like it was in 1975 when I was born.  This sense of wrong, deep down creates an awesome amount of energy.  I believe most people label me as intense.  My friends are equally as intense.  We often laugh with each other about our other levelness, because we are on another level.  We were injured on another level. 

This culture will never heal until this issue is addressed.  How can it heal if it continually pumps out the same old thing?  It will not be addressed by politicians, or city councils, churches or psychologists.  They might help us along the way, if we are really lucky,  but it can only be taken care of by us.  Those without the experiences cannot even know what to address.  We must carry this burden ourselves.  We must right the wrong ourselves, individually. 

I will continue to pace until that day comes.  Honestly, I do not have a choice.  I will pace until the wrong has been made right.   That energy is there, in us, because there is a wrong that needs made right.  It has nothing to do with genes, or biology.  Nothing to do with our opinions either.  It has to do with the soul. 

When you see that child who is out of control.  Say a prayer.  They are going to need all the help they can get.