Outposts

It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.  Sally Kempton, Esquire, 1970

"If I were you I should not worry with de Caussade and his ilk. Most books of that sort are written by and for religious (monks and nuns), and once they have made a clean break from their family and the world, they have not got the same kind of troubles that we have. It is much easier to be "abandoned" when you are not tied up and twisted and rooted into those you love; and if you are a married woman with a family, you must love your family and you must mind what happens, and whether you can pay the rent, and whether there is anything in the larder, and so on. Your sanctity comes from putting your trust in God for yourself and your family, and you are not expected (by God) to be indifferent to those whom He has given to you to be loved by you! If you try to apply (as many do) ideas which even in a monastery are difficult to practice, to life in the world, it will end in depression.

It's not wrong to worry or fear, but it is wrong not to accept worry and fear if they are your personal cross. Only hand out the worry and fear to Our Lord; ask Him to bear it with you."   --Caryll Houselander, Letters

                      

"No greater love has any man than this that he lay down his life for his friend."

Jean Pierre de Caussade, in case you are not aware of him, was an 18th century French Jesuit who for a time was spiritual director to a congregation of nuns, and wrote (for them, I assume) Abandonment to Divine Providence.

                         "The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath." -Jesus

Making of a perfect victim

     It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.  Sally Kempton, Esquire, 1970 
"A child comes into the world with no preconceived ideas about how to go on.  They might come with their own energy levels, little quirks, or a tiny personality but for the most part they don't know what to expect from this world.  Caregivers are in a position of establishing life long habits and expectations.  Hundreds of articles tell parents how formative and powerful their influence is during the first 5 years of life. A toddler screams when it is hurt, cries when frustrated, uses anger to get their way.  Punish a toddler for screaming when hurt, spank a child that cries, and punish their anger and above all else do not give them what they need or want.  To really finish the job, tell them it is because you love them that you did this.  As a child grows use selected and out of context scripture to back up twisted behavior.

 The Mill Stone
Soon the lectures, berating, and twisted thinking takes up an outpost in the child's head.  Once there, the caregiver is free to do almost anything they want with out retaliation because the child believes they deserve it.  A child is hurt; they hide their shameful reaction; a child is frustrated; they blame themselves for being stupid; they no longer believe they will get what they need and what they want is no longer considered. 

I tried a group counseling situation shortly after starting counseling.  One of the sessions they were trying to get us to try different things and realize how outside influences can confuse us.  My turn came and they blind folded me then asked me to walk across the room with chairs placed in my way.  I could only hear the instructions called out by my friend.  I was stressed to the max.  I hate being blind folded.  I am partially deaf.  Fear of falling and really getting hurt had me nearly out of my skin with anxiety.  Then one of the leaders of the group stood in my way.  She kept standing in front of me giving me counter instructions.  First I froze, not being able to sort out what I was supposed to do.  The leader taunted me.  I finally grabbed her and shoved her out of the way to finish the task.  The group leader than chastised me for my violence.  I didn't say it, but I thought, "Bitch, you are lucky I didn't put you in the hospital and traumatized all the other women all over again." I complained bitterly to KavinCoach at the next session.  He asked me, "Why didn't you take off the blindfold and say you can't do this?"

He may as well have grown two heads.  What he proposed was so outlandish to me that I would never consider not doing what I was told to do.  I was indeed a perfect victim.  Easily manipulated and twisted as the other person desired.  I could not convey to KavinCoach how completely I didn't consider that as an option.  I brooded about it for a week until the next session with KavinCoach.  I finally came up with an answer for him.  "I would no more think of quitting than you would think to strip naked right now and run down the street for two miles."  He stared at me to process what I said.  His answer, "You are right I wouldn't even think of that."

Ten years of counseling and still my greatest enemy is still inside my head.  If a computer has faulty program, I can rewrite the hard drive.  If a person has faulty thinking, first they must unlearn the false, then relearn the truth.  I needed to realize that the twisting of scriptures was done by taking things out of context and distorting meanings.  I needed to accept that my childhood wasn't the ideal that I believed at one time that it was.  I totally restructured my thinking.  I am a work in progress and continue to struggle with believing in myself and destroying the enemy outposts in my head.   

I mulled that over for a couple of days and then I watched the documentary Camp 14: Total Control Zone (directed by Marc Wiese). The story is all there, and amplified (there were parts I couldn't watch).
But to me the most haunting segment occurred at the end, as Shin reflected on his life of "freedom" in South Korea:
When it comes to my body, I live in South Korea, but in my mind I still live in the camp. I still feel I haven't quite managed to leave the camp for good. I would like to return to North Korea, my home. If it wouldn't be a labor camp any longer, I would like to live in the home where I was born. I want to farm there and live of the fruits of my own labor. Even if I would have to grow corn. [Prisoners at Camp 14 ate cabbage soup and corn three meals a day, seven days a week]. If the border to North Korea ever opens up, I want to be the first to travel back there. I want to live in the camp where I was born.

When I lived in the labor camp, I had to suffer a lot of pain. I had to go hungry and put up with beatings and punishment because I didn't do my work well enough. But in South Korea you have to suffer when you don't have enough money. It's exhausting. It's all about money. That makes it tough for me here. When I think about it, I rarely saw someone committing suicide in the camp. Life was hard and you were an inmate your whole life. But in South Korea many people attempt suicide. They die. It may look like the people here don't want for anything. They have clothes and food. But there are more people committing suicide here than in the camp. There are news reports about that every day.
Interviewer: What do you miss of the life in North Korea?
[Shin gets out a phone and starts tapping. Looking down at the screen--]
I miss the innocence and the lack of concerns I had. In the camp where I lived I had a pure heart. I did not have to think about anything. I didn't have to think about the power of money like I do in South Korea. Though I don't miss everything from that camp, I miss the purity of my heart.
I don't know how else to say it. I miss my innocent heart."

~Ruth, We Are One

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"I lived in the camps my whole life. That is what my family life was--the camps.  Degradation, abuse, lying and weeping...weeping...The outer scars, like these(he showed me.), heal but not the inner ones.  I don't always know about the inner scars until they bleed."   ~Jesse