((((((((((((( September ))))))))))))))

I'm going to throw some commentary out there, just feedback, I think the right answers to these questions are what is right to us individually and there are no wrong responses. I'd hoped we might be able to make pottery from clay in this exercize... If my opinions don't fit, by all means, ignore them...

Forr some, even abuse is preferred to neglect, at least it is attention of some kind. As children, we are unable to differentiate between abuse and attention. Ignorance (not knowing) and acceptance is complete until there is something to compare our life to. We are taught that this is our role and there are no other choices. When we try to rebel, we recieve the lesson that we are weaker, and stupider than others. We could feel powerless, weak, an object of others use. A self identity is not encouraged.

By repressing anger and self defense, turning it inward, we deny ourself a basic human neccessity of self-expression. We might become destructive towards those things that oppress. This usually turns up the volume on the low self worth record. As observers of our own behaviour, we begin to feel we are not worthy of kindness after we have lashed out irrationally.

We begin to feed the inner distress. Life becomes a cycle. We are atacked for something, or even no reason at all. We rebel, and we are attacked; we withdraw, and repess our anger; we find some form of release, more often than not destructively; we respond to our release mechanism with guilt; we respond to guilt with self-blame; we begin to believe we deserve punishment, even if the occasion is unrelated, our overall feeling is that we should be punished for something.

We might allow this pattern to go unchecked for years. We might begin to feel numb to life, we might attemt suicide, we might run away, we might physically harm ourselves, but the thought of asking for help might not present itself, we might have issues of trust, or we simply don't know where to turn.

Your analogy of unpeeling an onion is accurate. In recreating the circumsatances that created the dragon, we can see the onion's growth. After 5, 10, 15, 20 years of this cycle, we add layers of self-defense. We might learn to turn our feelings off. We might avoid situations where we are vulnerable. We could withdraw to a private sanctuary, real or imagined. We may take to fantasies of delusion, or use alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, kleptomania, (the list goes on and on) to escape the "real" world.

Like the onions layers, our feelings develop layers and as we learn "triggers" we build walls and defenses. We can be very successful in our construction. We might believe we are managing the dragon. It doesn't trigger as easily as it did before. We might believe we are healing, when in effect we've only added another layer of defense. It's harder for us to get at the heart of the problem through all our own defenses.

We attempt to cure ourselves with therapy, medication. We focus on positive things, believing the positive will drown the dragon. We try to unwind the ball of interconnected, interdependant emotions. We discover the complications of our defense system and conflicting maxims. We want to rush full speed to happiness, but fear and memories intervene.

We need to get to the root again. The actions and comprehensions that put us on this inevitable course. We need to expose the misjudgments and give face to the injustices imposed on us.

Child abuse has not gone away, even though we might have escaped it. What we've been through is the smallest percentage of what still happens everday, and worse. The dragon is the product of abuse, not the cause. If we want to redeem our inner worth, as adults, we have the abitly as children we were denied. We can fight back. We can become a voice against the root causes of abuse. What drives people toward abusiveness? Really? Is it alcoholism? Then what drives us to acloholism? Is it stress? What causes stress? The onion concept is transferred from our own personal situation, to the larger picture. We can peel away the layers of cause in our life, our community, our culture. We can work to expose those causes, for they are the real problem. Not your mother, not your mothers mother, but what made them what they were or are. The social, political, economic pressures they felt and reacted to. And their parents, and their parents before them.

Until we look the bastard in the eye, and direct our anger and energy at the cause, our dragons are only appeased. We have our dragon, and the next generation will have it's dragon, as it has always been and always will be. To the best of our ability, we each have a responsibility to heal the dragon, through our own life, and in natural order, the dragons of every man, woman, and child.

I believe mental illness is often a result of a sane response to a crazy world. The world is populated by people, yet, Human Rights are given inadequate esteem by our governments, religions, societies, employers, service organizations, etc... Is it any wonder this global low self esteem has injested itself into our psyche?

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius