What if...

I feel like I must mix in some hope.

There is a certain type of sea turtle that comes together in large groups to lay their eggs. When the eggs hatch there are sometimes hundreds of thousands of baby turtles scrambling for their lives. The survivors are rare compared to how many of their siblings and cousins do not make it. There are many other examples of this in nature. Some spiders lay hundreds of eggs each, and true there are hundreds of spiders laying those eggs, few actually survive to adulthood compared to how many eggs are laid. Trees are the same too. Think of all the seeds a single oak tree produces in its lifetime and compare it to how many trees actually make it to full maturity. How many of those seeds take root? How many actually fulfill their potential and become that great tree that produces millions of its own seeds?

What if those of us who were raised by complete idiots, neglected and abused, those of us who share that experience and become aware of it, what if we are that rare tree? To be clear, very few take this step. Society certainly has made us feel worthless, whether intentional or not, but that does not make it true. What if being abused was our trek across the beach? What if our childhood was the same as dodging predators, which we did, often by luck, just to get to the ocean? Getting to the ocean might seem easy compared to growing up, but in the ocean with no friends or family to depend on the experience seems similar. Every one of those little turtles has to figure it out on their own. What if, those of us who survived our pasts, who are no longer caught in society’s lies, are that rare human, who through great suffering has become free?

It matches nature to think this way. It is our perception that labels the turtle’s plight through a land filled with mass murderers as a struggle. Our society has instilled in us a desire for life to be easy. In reality though, our society seems to be mimicking the ways of Mother Nature. Comparing this phenomenon of suffering with nature itself seems to match up. Everywhere there are examples of great hardship before realizing full potential. It is society that teaches us to think in terms of good and bad. Society does not teach us to try and see it for what it really is.

Look at how many do not survive. Whether there were humans on earth or not, the rest of nature would still be doing what it does. I feel pretty confident saying that even without humans on earth the oak would still be producing tons of acorns throughout its life. Does anyone even know how many acorns an oak will produce in its lifetime? Really look at how many do not survive. It changes one's perception of the survivor to see how many do not make it. We have spent our whole lives labeling ourselves negatively, but it simply is not true.

What if our traumatic pasts make us something different than the rest? What if it gives us an ability to see what is really going on? I know for a fact it makes us more sensitive than others. What if this gives us an ability to actually change it? What if, without those experiences, nothing would ever change? Discontent is the source of all change after all. If change is good, then it must follow that discontent is good as well, even though we have been taught to think of it negatively. Suffering is greater than discontent, so suffering is greater change than the change of merely being discontent. This means suffering is even better than discontent. Yet, we all feel it as a bad thing. When we see the baby turtles being consumed in mass by predators we deem it horrible and sad, some even say gross. When we see the whole though, it is one of the most beautiful things on earth.

None of us think about the seeds that do not make it, but look how beautiful it is to be in the woods. 

My brother read a book about being an adult child of an alcoholic once. We talked about it often while he was reading it. I can't remember the name of it, but it was written by someone who worked with adult children of alcoholics for a long period of time. Something like fifteen years. I have always remembered this; it has always stood out in my mind because what she said perfectly described me. She compiled a list of the things she thought all adult children of alcoholics shared. The thing on the list that stood out the most was the fact that we all feel like no one understands us. Another way to say it is that we feel different from everyone else. Almost all adult children of alcoholics feel like they are different from everyone else. The word feel here is significant. We feel we are different and this feeling causes us great pain. The alcoholism of our parents, the neglect that occurred because of it, makes us feel different than the rest.

You see, at the very base of it all, we are animals. It is so easy to see one's self as a person, a human being, something spiritual, something different than the rest of the animal kingdom, we forget we are actually primates. All our lives our culture has been telling us some god made us, but really we are just evolved animals.  What this means is that we absolutely need social contact and closeness with our own kind on a primal level. It also means over all those millions of years evolution gave us an ability to communicate unconsciously.  It affects our actions way more than we realize. A large part of the unconscious mind is operating on this level of social contact with other humans. It is part of who we are. Our being primates greatly affects how we feel about the thoughts we have about our environment. Removing social contact is the worst thing one can do to another human being, especially a child. This is a sliding scale though. It is not necessarily one or the other, totally alone or not alone at all. One does not have to be totally abandoned to feel abandoned. If a child feels different, more alone than everyone else, this has a profound impact on its development socially.

In the minds of children, all other children have the ideal or "normal" mommy and a daddy. Children are idealistic without realizing it because they receive this information unconsciously. They know it without being told it. Without it having to be explained. Don't you know that all boys and girls have good mommies and daddies? The "norm" projected by this society is that all children should have a mommy and a daddy and that mommy and daddy should be and act some certain way. Every day I deal with a six year old girl who doesn't really have a dad. I mean, there is a guy, he is around, but he is not the ideal. Her interactions with other children make her very aware of this fact. They ask each other about their mommies and daddies. These little children establish pecking order among themselves using familial status. They don't think about doing it, they just do it. Cultural programming on an unconscious level. The kids with mommies and daddies at home are better than the kids who do not. They already have an ideal of how it is supposed to be, which means they know when they do not meet that ideal.

At six she is already self conscious about her familial relations. At six she is already separated from the collective, to some degree, in her own consciousness of Self. She already feels different than the other kids, whether it is true or not, because her daddy does not live at home with her. According to the kids at school something is wrong if one's daddy does not live at home. Every child she encounters faces this same fate; they will all reinforce it, every time they meet. This will affect her for quite some time. It is not that it is bad that her dad does not live with her, but that she sees it as so, that makes it bad. Can you see this in yourself?

Some children want to have that "mommy and daddy" image so badly that they tell themselves what they had as a child was ideal even if it wasn't. Read that again. They lie to themselves their entire lives so they don't have to feel the pain of it not being true. It is extremely painful emotionally to deal with. Such is the life of being a primate.

When we are abused as children, it literally does make us different, whether we know it or not, and whether we want to admit to it or not. The people who have never been abused do not admit to this, they can't. They don't know how. They simply cannot understand. All they know is that they do not want to feel separated from the rest. I have spent most of my adult life knowing I was messed up, but I had no idea how to bridge the gap. I had no idea of how to communicate it so that someone else would understand what I felt. It is easy to say, "I don't want to be messed up anymore." It is another thing all together to undo it; to not be messed up. Those not abused have the same issue though, they don't know, but the difference is they never want to bridge the gap. It generally takes something quite traumatic to wake up the "normal" or "raised appropriately" person up. This makes the gap even bigger. Who would willingly choose to go through that? Certainly not someone who has never actually had to struggle for their life, these people generally make for some of the laziest, spiritually speaking. If one believes they suffered but really didn’t, it is virtually impossible to get them to not be lazy.

Those who don't know always claim that all human experience is equal. They, like us, do not want to feel different somehow, and they will go to great lengths to prevent feeling that way. But that doesn't make their statement completely true. They claim that no one can ever actually know another, it's universal. This again has nothing to do with equality in every sense of the word. That everyone's past experience is unique, and that no one can actually know another; true, but I would like to see someone raised by decent people from where I live, who have never been in a fight stand in front of Alexander the Great, or Adolf Hitler, Marcus Aurelius, or Gandhi, or Christ and then say that we are all equal. If I have experiences and someone else does not, we are not equal. That means, in this sense, no one is equal. I am not saying one is better than another; it simply means we are not equal. A lot of people struggle with this concept. We are the same quality, yes, but we are not the same quantity. Without the experience, one cannot understand, and those without the experience never like hearing that. No one likes to feel excluded.

Having been abused, I can still know what it is like to be loved, to have loving experiences. Maybe not fully, but I have a good idea of what that is. One can say they have seen mountains from afar.  On the other hand, the one who has never known abuse, or even seen from afar, does not know what it is like really at all. Is imagining the mountain and seeing the mountain the same thing? What about climbing the mountain?  If one has never even seen a photo graph of real abuse can they know what it is?  Can real abuse even be captured in such a way?  I do not think so.

The worst feeling in the world is when someone literally takes advantage of you to the point where one is completely helpless to do anything about it. I'm yet to experience anything as bad.  Like being a child at the mercy of humans four times your size. Also, the one who has not been abused doesn't have experiences that no one else can understand. They, for the most part, can be understood. All of their experiences are quite imaginable and relatable. This is critical. You see, those raised appropriately are lacking experience, yet still claim they are equal. This is unfair and we sense it as children even if we cannot explain it as such. If someone was raised lovingly, by good parents, we can all empathize with that to some degree, we can all understand that somewhat, even if it did not happen to us directly. The one abused, rarely if ever, has someone to share a sense of belonging with; no one else understands.

The person raised appropriately has a permanent feeling of connection with other people even if they are not aware of it, even if they don’t see it that way, it is still there. That is often the part they don’t understand. Even when they are alone, they don't really know it.  The animal in us knows when we are connected or not. You see, if they didn't have that sense of connection, they would act much more like us. The abused one has very little feeling of connection with anyone. When we do not feel connected self destruction mechanisms engage biologically. Does not matter how old one is, what gender or belief system. When we hate ourselves, when we feel cast out, or that we don't belong our bodies respond by self destructing. The body does what the mind thinks/feels/knows.  This makes the fight to the sea incredibly difficult. It is bad enough mass murderers are running around everywhere, but the human can hate itself; the human can destroy it's self.

Abuse and neglect makes us feel terribly alone. Not only do we feel left out, but we are also very aware of the unfairness of it. It makes us alone. Ultimately though, this is a gift. Becoming aware of this fact within ourselves is part of the journey. The spiritual path requires that this lesson be learned in life. It is not enough to intellectualize that one is alone. It is not enough to think about it. One must do more than ponder how alone they are in the world. The person who has never struggled is stuck pondering. If they think about it enough though, it will come to be. One must actually feel it, know it, deep in their heart; I am alone.

The person raised appropriately was all alone too, in reality, they just never knew it. We were gifted with the experience of being able to realize it fully at a very young age.

There is great freedom in this realization regardless of how painful it is to actually realize it. It is like climbing a mountain just for the view of a lifetime. All the work climbing is worth the timeless moment of being struck with awe because of a view that cannot be communicated. It can only be known by observing personally. One cannot communicate the beauty of standing at the top of a mountain. No one ever has to descend back down this mountain though. It is only this current society, and how it came about, that makes this journey seem so painful. Other cultures have cherished the path to enlightenment. One cannot fulfill potential without this realization. The realization that one is a pure individual is just as important as realizing one is part of the whole. The spiritual path is rife with suffering. Discontent is the source of all change. It sucks really bad to feel like there is no one on the whole planet that understands. When it feels like there is no one to relate to, it is agony. Feeling it for long periods of time changes one’s life.

Despite whatever opinions we may have about it. It seems quite natural that suffering leads to freedom. It is everywhere in nature. It seems to be the way the universe works on a fundamental level. It is our society that taught to us to think in the terms we use now and unfortunately those terms have little to do with reality.

We praise the inventor who gets it right the first time. We say that is genius. In reality though, the inventor who fails fifty times first knows much more about success than the one who got lucky the first time in.

While we may not be able to express what happened to us, this does not mean we are alone. It only feels that way because we have not come together yet.