Thinking about altruism. Perhaps it is learned by living with others who tend you, who see that you are warm and fed and loved and who provide stability. We become so secure, we automatically know how to take care of others. It's no sacrifice if you have been fed. You have plenty to share.
I liked the story of your youngest at the baseball game. It proves that there are heroes and kind souls everywhere. We still have to watch, but it's so fulfilling when an angel reveals self! Once, when mine were in Little League, the older members of a team used to berate younger ones for striking out. They tore into a younger boy once, and I could see he was barely holding it together. I gestured for my oldest son - he was one of the middle aged group - to come to me and I whispered in his ear, describing what happened. I suggested he tell the young boy that they used to treat him the same way - just keep trying, the young boy was doing fine. He did it, because later the boy's parents called me telling me how much my son had helped theirs. I was simply creating an angel!
We are on the same track with the questionnaires. I was thinking that it would be good to know the type of violence. the source of the violence and the age of occurrence or reoccurrence. I was wondering how different the physiologic effects would be, based on these factors.
What remains most important to me, though, is that we teach people how to identify the violation.
I'm still reading Jan de Hartog. Last night I read a passage from fictionalized Friend's diary that spoke for us...
But one thing is irrefutable: the death of her children and her rape by the soldiers of the Cardinal were given some sense when I collapsed in her arms in the hold of that ship and breathed to her in horror that I had been raped. She could say to me, "Hush, it happened to me, too." And those words saved my life and reason. What resurrected me were her love and understanding, which, clearly were the fruit of her own suffering... -Jan de Hartog
Long day for me. I'm tired...
Love you lots,
Clare
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