(((Big Mama))),

Well, it isn't necessarily "training" in the sense you might think. I did suffer abuse as a child, a disfunctional environment as well. But there was somehow enough in the way of "positive" messages that I was able to grab onto somehow and have it be a reminder to "keep trying".

One of the messages that always stayed with me is "forgive them father, fore they know not what they do". And I cannot remember when that message came into my life. But every single day when I climbed onto that school bus and witnessed so many children bullying my brother who I knew had something wrong with him I had that constant burning desire to understand "why". I was exhausted by the time I got to school, struggled to stay awake and be able to learn, and part of that was because I also knew that I had to endure that same upsetting bus ride home, know my brother was near his breaking point, and how that was going to be taken out on me.

I hit the ground "running" and mom was not home, I was often left with my older brother alone for a couple of hours. I was running one day and so frightened (i always felt if he caught me he might kill me). One day I was running and saw a group of very tall and thick evergreens in front of me. I ran to them and once I got inside them I could see all the branches that showed me a ladder I could climb and so I did. I climbed to the very top, they were very tall trees too. And there was enough thickness to the greens that I truely was hidden. I can remember being so high and the trees swaying back and forth and how soothing that was. I could see my brother wandering around calling my name out, and he never found me. I felt that "god" had lead me to that place and I prayed the whole time I was up in these limbs.

When they talk about how the monks that pray deeply can produce warmth to their bodies inspite of the cold, I believe it because in a way, my praying helped to warm me somehow too. I often hid there in the cold and didn't have enough warm clothes on.

My focus on "learning" was more about "observing" people. I grabbed onto anything that talked about "understanding people". While most children are distracted and into themselves etc, I was different, I was observing and looking for anything I could find about "people and how they are and whys". It could be in a Bible, a history book, a story, something a teacher says, and my brain held onto all these messages. And when I was up in the trees, I prayed and constantly asked for help so I could learn how to survive and not be so scared. And somehow I learned that my answers would come if I kept observing too. I could even come from another child that asked me a question or said something I never tought of or considered before.

Children listen to stories and they like it. But I listened differently, very intently to the messages and I sent them deep inside me. I was so challenged every day that I had to focus on these messages so deeply to help me keep going somehow. However at the same time I was so stressed (I didn't know what anxiety was) that I struggled to learn like other children were learning. I did learn but I always felt I was way behind, like I missed something that I should have had, the beginning part a foundation was not there somehow. I always felt like I had to do my best to keep up without that foundation. And I felt like that most of my life, but never quite understood what it was or meant.

I understand that now, I see it and it is sad and I cry alot and sometimes I feel like maybe it would be better if I didn't know it like I know it now. My early childhood years were so tramatic to me that that foundation I needed was not there for me.
That bus ride began when I was just turning 5 and was way too young to understand that tormenting atmosphere and how it would not just be on that bus but after and how I never felt safe. So in Kindergarden when other children were getting the basics, I could not just sit in class and be calm and pay attention, I was too stressed out and distracted. It was so bad that when I went to first grade, I still could not pay attention and it was too hard so I was sent back to Kindergarden and because my brother stayed back too, I never got a break of having time alone on that bus without him there and being tormented.

I grew to believe that I just was not smart enough and that I would have to "fake it" and do the best I could anyway. I did learn and pass, I didn't realize that it was actually because I was very smart that I did learn even though I was constantly tramatized. I never saw myself as smart, I just thought I was just good at being
resourceful somehow, but not the real deal smart.

It was not until I saw my records from psychiatrists and therapists that I saw myself described as "extremely intelligent". Every time I was told I was smart or talented I never accepted that as truth, I just felt I had fooled them somehow and they didn't see that I was not very smart.

My therapist has told me that I was the "gifted child" that never got seen or helped or valued or recognized. Because I was the youngest child my siblings controlled me and I was also abused so I never got a chance to take real advantage of being a very smart and talented child.

It has been difficult to understand that "victims are not stupid" and often they can actually be very intelligent. I have cried so many times because I see how hard I tried and how sad it really is. I learned so much about being "assertive" too, and I often had to be strong too. But that often invited in more abuse and I was often put in a position of having to accept it on some level to survive.

My survival turned into seeing many things that others often missed but I had to know about to survive. I developed ways to "self empower" without realizing that it was because I was smart.

My business that I built up was all about that and I did that inspite of a lot of disfunction and a very difficult marriage. When that was destroyed I thought I could get back up again like I had done so many times in my life. But it never came, and I developed PTSD.

When I went into the psychward I kept asking for rest and grief counciling. But I was so angry too. I talked about having some time at a beach somewhere, a vacation or something because that is how I was able to bounce back from that whole colonoscopy debacle I had just been caught up in. But the psychiatrist thought I was just some narcisitic lady who felt entitled to some get away.

When I talked about the value of what I had, how it was priceless and so important to me, a therapist didn't get that at all. And I did have some very "valuable" animals lost, never thought I had to have the appraisals with me. She totally misunderstood me and said I had "illusions of grandeur".

No one understood how I valued what I had, no one. It had nothing to do with me thinking I was above others or grandios. It represented something I had managed to create in spite of so much abuse, something that was "good and productive" and allowed me to be even more "resourceful' and help my daughter have what I never had. There was no "illusion or bad" there, everything I built up was all about helping others in very "genuine and selfless ways".

I had a child that I loved soooo much that struggled with "dislexia" and having a father that put a healthy home and safe enviornment at risk. I worked very hard to help my daughter learn and grow strong IN SPITE OF HER HANDICAP and even that she may have inherited her fathers genes to become and alcoholic which could really be the case as he too has dislexia.

When I had my daughter, I thought it was the most beautiful thing, this amazing human life. I never wanted her to ever feel like I felt growing up. She was the most beautiful child, so alive and active in mind and smiling and alert. I wanted to do everything I could for her.

I have made it a point all my life to observe, learn and use it all to "survive".

It isn't really one source or teacher. I took every single postive from everyone I met, every different enviornment I was in. I don't think there really is "one source" that trains truely professionally. It is an accumulation that allows that real abiltiy to happen. And it also comes for engaging and utilizing it all in your own way to find ways to "self empower" in life.

There are so many ways to pick up information about people and how they form skills that can even manipulate. I learned all about that when I decided to try selling vacuum cleaners at a young age. Yes, there is a whole way of "sales" and tricks to that job. I didn't like the job, but I learned so much about "manipulation and what sales is all about from that experience". I tryed sales a few times and kept learning more. Success to me was not about the sales at all, it was learning about what that "human interaction" was all about. And even "business" and how it grows from that. Being a waitress? So much to learn there too, so much interaction in that enviornment. I went to business school and learned about the people there too, and I spent time not in one job but as a temp and wow I learned so much from so many different enviornments there too. I spent time working for a top psychiatrist doing research at yale that revolved around studying criminals that commit crimes because of social situations that were stressful where they could not produce enough means to survive and thrive.

Actually in my own small business, I was in so many different enviornments all kinds of different human classes, cultures, and places. I learned so much it was really something I thrived well in doing. There really was no real way of placing a "value" on that, not that I could seem to explain. This is the first time that I think I might be "understood" in trying to explain it all.

And I included my husband and daughter in that environment and I watched them also grow and learn and it was all soooo good for my family. My daughter has a much more broad understanding to her than a lot of other girls her age all through her teens and even now.

My husband stopped drinking and went to AA, but he also got to learn in my business and it helped him gain and start to learn like I learn and it all was so healthy. How could I explain what I had created that was so good in so many ways. It was not in my check book but there was so much there, the farm and a healthy way to look at life and actually have "self esteem". How can anyone put a dollar value on that?
But it all got destroyed so badly and I didn't have the answer for it all. That all took years for me to build, and it was just gone.

Open Eyes