MATURITY: MAKING ALL PARTS OF SELF CONGRUENT

If a child's world is laden with violence, both witnessed and directly experienced; if there is inadequate nutrition and emotional nurturing; if the child's world is totally unpredictable as are the people in it; if the child is unable to read social and facial cues (eg. Asperger's, schizophrenia, and other conditions); if the child has never had to face frustration tolerance or amuse itself; if a child is never taught to take care of any of its own needs; if the child has witnessed murder of a parent or other extraordinary trauma, to name only a few factors, their mental, social and emotional development will be compromised.

Treating adults becomes complicated. If it is truly PTSD that keeps an adult unable to control feelings and behavior, brain changes have occurred that prevent the normal talk therapy, insight oriented or cognitive-behavioral, from being effective easily, if at all. Otherwise, trying to help a patient make their child-part (not really understood as it happened) and adult-part (now seen through more mature eyes, hopefully) merge, the goal of whatever therapy is used.

However, when the child and the adult stay as two separate entities with no hope of joining, the mental and emotional tug-of-war the person experiences is painful to them as well as others forced, helplessly, to view it. It is truly like talking to two people in the same body. Even knowing what is best, this person gives in to that which is tempting and easy to do, while denying consequences, only to be hit with excruciating guilt and disappointment to self while feeding their injured ego with more loss of self-esteem.

Longing and desire become obsessional. Getting the voices and directives out of one's head is difficult, if not impossible. Many who experience this want to run from it, mistakenly assuming the triggers are outside self. Obsessiveness follows you wherever you go because, like so many other things, it lives in your head.

Many people continue to assume that just telling people what they should do or say is enough. If they don't follow that 'good' advice, forget them. Life just is not that simple, nor are people, least of all people who have been compromised by not having the good luck to be genetically strong, raised with love and nurture, and exposed to those things that precipitate growth instead of, simply, pain.

If only more people could understand condition and respond with empathy and patience, how much better our human world would be. Many people seem to care more for animals than humans because they feel an unconditional love from their pets. All animals are not as loving to humans. Even animals who have been rescued from traumatic lives often can not be rehabilitated to give up their fears and unacceptable behaviors.

Another side effect of this war is that we are going to see a generation of traumatized children from the middle East who will have hardened their emotions with denial and projected hate to the supposed perpetrators of their misery. We will have hundreds of service people return with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) unable to sleep without recurring nightmares and fearful of life as they no longer know it. One can only sadly wonder how many people cannot easily be fixed by therapy, prayer, or 'good advice'.