It’s about starting over . com

Landsman: (From Yiddish): 

“A person from the same town, geographical area, region, etc., as another; compatriot.”

Or, in my words, someone who has travelled the same ground that you have.

I have a friend who is a landsman. I’m referring to the fact that we are adults who were violently abused as children. We, unfortunately, sometimes refer to others as being “one of us” meaning that they are adults who were also abused as children or, simply put, landsmen.

There are things about us, things we all have in common, that others just can’t understand. They say things like, “okay, so you were abused…big deal. Move on. Get over it.” Obviously, not a landsman.

One of the things we have in common is a sort of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) thing where a trigger will set off an old reaction. If you’re a landsman, this will sound familiar. If you’re not, then here’s your chance to begin to understand.

Here’s a recent example of how it plays out for me, along with a solution that someone, an aMAZing someone, suggested to me.

Cause (trigger) and effect (reaction), plus a simple suggestion from an amazing person.

One of my private teachers is an astonishing teacher, but she’s a real tough cookie. She’s relentless during our lessons and her tone of voice often conveys frustration, disappointment and/or increasing anger, all things I don’t particularly enjoy but I put up with them because she’s otherwise, such an outstanding teacher. She is also what she calls, “allergic to being recorded.” Now, I’m paying her a lot of money for these lessons, and it’s important to me to review them during the one-to-two weeks between each lesson–something I can only do if I have a recording or notes. Since I can’t really take notes during this type of lesson, recording is my only option. In my last lesson, I tried to explain this to her with the utmost respect–her reaction was to yell violently and say nasty things. My reaction to this onslaught was tears–uncontrollable tears. I don’t do it, it just happens. And when I cry like this, I find it hard to speak, extremely difficult to concentrate, and impossible to sing. It’s not a contrived or intentional reaction–I really would rather handle it differently. It’s simply a physical and emotional reaction that I cannot control. In truth, it’s an old reaction to something that happened in the past.

Trigger: Yelling. Old reaction: Uncontrollable tears. Plus, it takes me three full 24-hour days to pull myself back together. Landsman, does this sound familiar? So, where to go from here?

Comfort the child within

This amazing person I mentioned earlier is a Tui na practitioner. I spoke with him about this trigger/reaction thing. He said that the reaction is that of the child that exists within us all: the child that we once were. In my past, this child had no one to protect her. So when the verbal onslaught (which always lead to physical beating) began, the child (the real child, that is, me when I was growing up) had no one to protect her, no one who was willing to stop the cycle of violence, no one to help her. Now, as an adult, the child within still feels this way and it’s this child who feels threatened, cries and shuts down when people yell or speak harshly to me. He then suggested the following:

Next time someone yells at me and I feel the tears coming on, have a conversation with myself (preferably silently). The conversation will be between the child within and the adult Joanna. The adult, cuddling and comforting the child, will say, “Look, I know that in the past, you had no one to guard you, to help you and protect you from abuse, but it’s different now. I’m here, and I’ll protect you and take care of you. You’re in my hands and no one will hurt you.” This will put my adult “me” back in charge, and I should be able to proceed from there.

I like this idea very much and I’ll certainly give it a try. At this point, my reaction isn’t so overwhelming that I wouldn’t be able to have a conversation with myself while inside the situation (in the past it was), so it’s entirely possible. Until now (with one exception), due to my decision to not spend time around people who tend to yell or behave in a way that doesn’t harmonize with my lifestyle I would have just packed up and walked away, now I’m actually looking forward to having the opportunity to try this conversation thing out. After all, people do have their buttons and the potential for accidentally pushing them is always there. It would be really nice to be able to cope with other people’s anger instead of having it dominate me. Of course, I will never tolerate violence, verbal or otherwise. And I will continue to carefully choose the people with whom I spend time and share friendship. But especially in the case of an exceptionally good teacher from whose teachings I can benefit immensely, it would be very nice to be able to cope. And most of all, it would be wonderful to be able to sing even when my emotions run high. After all, this will happen.

And the question:

Landsman, do you have a child within who needs comforting and reassurance?

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