Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before the night very silent because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s heart is fully of pity for us: it cannot ease our aching; it takes our hand and the little World grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on its dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than its own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life likes like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but the Angels of God.  We now know that more than half the people who seek psychiatric care have been assaulted, abandoned, neglected, or even raped as children, or have witnessed violence in their families. However, these experiences are not always talked about during therapy because most are trying to manage their suicidal thoughts and self-destructive behaviors, rather than understanding the possible causes of their despair and helplessness. They shared memories of lying in bed at night, helpless and terrified. And very little attention is paid to their accomplishment and aspirations.  #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6

WHITE SQUALL

The best thing to do for people who have experienced extreme trauma is to keep them involved in normal activities such as eating at the local pizza parlor, attending an Oakland A’s or Golden State Warriors game, or camping at the beach. It helps to talk about whom they care for, love, or hate; what motivates them and engages them, what keeps them stuck, and what makes them feel at peace—the ecology of their lives. One doctor admitted that when he was doing physical examinations of patients, he would look up from their charts and asked them about their lives. Many of them spilled out stories about painful marriages, difficult children, and guilt over not being able to provide for their families like they wanted to. As they would speak, he noticed the patient was visibly brightened and often thanked him for effusively listening to them. A male patient talked about having his semen drawn off and painful erections being stimulated and also feeling sensations (such as abdominal pain) that had no obvious physical causes; and hearing voices warning of danger or accusing him of heinous crimes.  #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6

Peter was a handsome seventeen-year-old Saint Thomas Choir School student who usually sat alone at his father’s house, looking frightened to death and was virtually mute, but whose reputation as the son of an important Manhattan Mafioso gave him an aura of mystery. After he refused to eat for more than a week and rapidly started to lose weight, the butler decided to force-feed him. It took three people to hold him down, another to push the rubber feeding tube down his throat, and the maid to pour the pablum into his stomach. Later, during a midnight confession, Peter spoke gently and hesitantly about being sexually assaulted, and that because he was black and white, people would accuse his light skin to be a produce of bleaching and not genetics. I realized then that our display of “caring” must have felt to him much like a gang rape. This experience, and others like it, helped me formulate this rule: If you do something to a patient that you would not do to your friends or children, consider whether you are unwittingly replicating a trauma from the patient’s past. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6

In my role as Peter’s recreation leader I noticed others things, he was strikingly clumsy and somethings physically uncoordinated. When we went camping, he would sit helplessly by as I made the beds in the cabin and unloaded the food and supplies. However, when I would take him outside and walk through the forest with him, he seemed much more at peace and relaxed. Another characteristic was that even his most relaxed conversations seemed stilted, lacking the natural flow of gestures and facial expressions that are typical among friends. It is almost like he was preparing for our good conversation to turn into a person criticism or that I was going to beat him up for looking at me in the eyes too long or for saying something silly. All pains are ever most acute in the time of suffering: for how easy sit upon the reflection the heaviest misfortunes when they have been surmounted! #RyanPhillippe 4 of 6

We need to be aware that we have unwittingly become injustice collector. The media reports are full of this form of chronic resentment. We see injustice collecting in interpersonal relations where making the other person wrong is actually a primary objective. We are unconsciously programmed to believe that injustice collecting is normal. In contrast to this habitual pattern, which is destructive and weakening, the letting go technique frees us from keeping close account of the wrongs made against us. Our time and attention are freed up to see the beauty and opportunity around us. Anger is binding, not freeing. It connects us to another person and holds them in our life pattern. We are stuck in the negative pattern until we let go of the energy and anger and its little payoffs of righteous indignation, feeling wronged, and the desire for revenge. It may not be exactly the same person who constantly recurs in our life. If not that person, the others will appear who have the same quality that triggers our anger and resentment. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6

This pattern of attracting these people into our lives that trigger the trauma will keep recurring until we finally handle our inner angriness. Then, suddenly, people with that quality disappear from out life. Therefore, anger may force someone to be physically distant from us, but physically binds them to us more closely, until we fully relinquish the anger and resentment. Relinquishing anger brings us many benefits. We are really to experience emotional comfort and ease, gratitude for the daily opportunities to grow and heal, mutual caring with another without subtle strings attached, improvement in health, and more life energy. These breakthroughs allow us to move up to a more effective and effortless state of inner freedom. There are two lights in my memory, which are your eyes with deep love. Your eyes seem to speak to me, night of missing will go by, please greet the dawn when we will meet again. Real love is devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust, and belief against yourself and against the whole World, giving up your heart and soul to the smiter. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6