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'.

I HOPE FOR NOTHING. I FEAR NOTHING. I AM FREE

Epitaph on the tomb of Nikos Kazantzakis in Heraklion: Δεν ελπίζω τίποτε. Δεν φοβούμαι τίποτε. Είμαι λεύτερος; I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. Kazantzakis was an amazing man who lived from 1883 to 1957. He is probably universally, best known for his novel Zorba the Greek. While his philosophy reflected the religious and psychological times in which he lived, he left us with an epitaph of inspiration to us all.

In these trying political times in the United States, as I have stopped watching our American media, for the most part, other than our local news, because of the biases that are just too infuriating to bear, the epitaph seems most fitting. The three thoughts all have to be seen in connected fashion. People have embraced an Audicity of Hope. It is not clear what it means that audacity and hope are seen as mutually inclusive. Hope is best when ingested with reality. Kazantzakis freed himself of the two greatest elements to pull one down, disillusionment and fear. Indeed, freedom comes with knowing yourself, being independent and unafraid. To stay unafraid, one must accept reality in the same way one can accept what is now known as the Serenity Prayer. The most famously known part is the first paragraph: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

This has brought on parodies like the Senility Prayer:

Lord, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the people I do like and the eyesight to tell the difference.

To me, the central theme in all of this: we all long and wish for some control of our lives, the quality with which we live them, the gratifications we require to carry on living with a sense of self-esteem, and freedom from fear, panic and anxiety. While Kazantzakis has this on his epitaph, we assume that all of us might reach this state upon our deaths. However, to achieve this in life is a real challenge, a goal for which we may all strive.