I watched “House of Cards” at Ramona’s tonight.  As sad and as alone as that little girl was, that is the way I was.  But there was no one there to love me.  I just stayed there.  What did that do to me?  I can’t imagine.


tangent, touch, juncture, hinge


I lived in a world of waiting and not waiting at the same time.  I anticipated danger constantly, but was always surprised anew every time she came at me.  Why?  I don’t understand that yet.

My childhood was just a string of events, disconnected, I would say none contingent.  No cause that ever was known to me.

I could not protect myself because I wasn’t able.  I wasn’t enabled to.  And I could never anticipate anything.  I had no alternatives and no options to choose from.  No choice in that chaos.  I could not control anything or change it.  There is “no time” in peritrauma – and certainly no time to be prepared, even if I could have been….and prepared for WHAT?

It was a world where every contingency had a contingency, and then none at all.  Never that the “same thing” would happen again, though it did continually.  I was never guarded or shielded.  I had no internal structure or shelter, either.  I did not exist and could not protect my non self.

Now, continuing on TIME, noting the root words “JUNCTURE” and “TOUCH.”


JUNCTURE related to


[L junction-, junctio, fr. jungere to join – more at YOKE]

1: an act of joining:  the state of being joined

2 a: a place or point of meeting  b: an intersection of roads especially where one terminates  c: a point at which dissimilar metals make contact


1 a: JOINT, CONNECTION  b: the manner of transition or mode of relationship between two consecutive sounds in speech

2: an instance of joining:  JUNCTION

3: a point of time; especially:  one made critical by a concurrence of circumstances

syn JUNCTURE, EXIGENCY, EMERGENCY, CONTINGENCY, PINCH, STRAITS, CRISIS mean a critical or crucial time or state of affairs.  JUNCTURE stresses the significant concurrence or convergence of events.  EXIGENCY stresses the pressure of restrictions or urgency of demands created by a special situation.  EMERGENCY applies to a sudden unforeseen situation requiring prompt action to avoid disaster.  CONTINGENCY implies an emergency or exigency that is regarded as possible but uncertain of occurrence.  PINCH implies urgency or pressure for action to a less intense degree that EXIGENCY or EMERGENCY.  STRAITS applies to a troublesome situation from which escape is extremely difficult.  CRISES applies to a juncture whose outcome will make a decisive difference.


EMERGENCY applies to a sudden unforeseen situation requiring prompt action to avoid disaster.  My childhood was from birth an emergency, but there was no action I could take – prompt or otherwise.

CONTINGENCY implies an emergency or exigency that is regarded as possible but uncertain of occurrence.  Always was possible.



All of these applied in the way I DID NOT perceive time.  How does the night pass for a child who has just turned 6, and who spent the entire night alone on a stool in a dark room, who has to go to school from then on and be careful getting on and off the school bus?  Be careful on the playground to stand in the center and not touch anything so the white ruffs on the coat wouldn’t get dirty?  So I wouldn’t be beaten again, and not get supper, and no sleep, not be able to go to the bathroom, and then go to school again?

How did time pass having to stay in bed for weeks, having to stand in corners for hundreds of days, having to spend the night in the car at 16 or 17 with my head bent under the steering wheel?

How does time pass when it has happened since birth, this trauma and abuse?

It doesn’t.


To have order in one’s brain-mind-self, there must be some order in the way things are put together and linked there, and that has to be considered in relation to time and predictability.  Order as a noun, order as a verb.

Also, having to do with proper development through time and in order and in an organized fashion…….without temporal order, without properly orderly development….it is like a scavenger hunt where we skip stages and skip clues, and may up further on down the line AS IF we went through the process correctly – when in fact we did not.  We then have to go back and pick up the clues, find the missing clues, put the pieces back together with the missing linking pieces included, and the missing linking stages!

Otherwise we have, what it seems to me at this moment, like floating pretty colored bubbles of patterns and assemblages and groupings – little packets of in-formation or organization or order – that are floating and separate from one another.  Not connected into a whole of any kind, not linked to one another at the junctures, not hinged, and not grounded in MATTER.  Not related, not relevant, no relevancy – therefore not true meaning or value-laden.  And not connected to SELF.

Things need to BELONG and to be sequenced and patterned and organized by PRIORITIES.  Prioritized.



1: a number designating the place (as first, second, or third) occupied by an item in an ordered sequence

2: a number assigned to an ordered set that designates both the order of its elements and its cardinal number


[ME, fr. LL cardinalis, fr. L, serving as a hinge, fr. cardin-,cardo hinge]

1: of basic importance:  MAIN, CHIEF, PRIMARY

2: various serious or grave



1: a number (as 1, 5, 15) that is used in simple counting and that indicates how many elements there are in an assemblage

2: the property that a mathematical set has in common with all sets that can be put in one-to-one  correspondence with it


(Noun) (bef. 12c)

[ME, fr. OE prim, fr. L prima hora first hour]

1 a: often cap:  the second of the canonical hours  b: the first hour of the day usually considered either as 6 a.m. or the hour of sunrise

2 a: the earliest stage  b: SPRING  c: YOUTH

3: the most active, thriving, or satisfying stage or period

4: the chief or best individual or part:  PICK


6 a: the first note or tone of a musical scale:  TONIC  b: the interval between two notes on the same staff degree…

(Adjective) (14c)

[ME, fr. AF, feminine of prim first, fr. L primus; akin to L prior]

1: first in timeORIGINAL

2 a:  of, relating to, or being a prime number – compare to RELATIVELY PRIME  b: having no polynomial factors other than itself and no monomial factors other than 1

3 a: first in rank, authority, or significance:  PRINCIPAL b: having the highest quality or value  c: of the highest grade regularly marketed – used of meat and especially beef

4: not deriving from something else:  PRIMARY


[ME, fr. LL primaries basic, primary, fr. L, principal, fr. primus]

1: first in order of time or development:  PRIMITIVE

2 a: of first rank, importance, or value:  PRINCIPAL b: BASIC, FUNDAMENTAL….e: expressive of present or future time

3 a: DIRECT, FIRSTHAND  b: not derivable from other colors, ordors, or tastes  c: preparatory to something else in a continuing process….f: belonging to the first group or order in successive divisions, combinations, or ramifications


[ME primat, fr. AF, fr. ML primat-, primas archbishop, fr. L, leader, fr. primus]

3 [NL Primates, fr. L, pl. of primat-, primas] : any of an order (Primates) of mammals that are characterized especially by advanced development of binocular vision, specialization of the appendages for grasping, and enlargement of the cerebral hemispheres and that include humans, apes, monkeys, and related forms (as lemurs and tarsiers)


(Adjective) (14c)

[ME primitif, fr. L primitivus first formed, fr. primitiae first fruits, fr. primus first – more at PRIME]

1 a: not derived:  ORIGINAL, PRIMARY  b:  assumed as a basis; especially:  ANXIOMATIC

2 a: of or relating to the earliest age or period:  PRIMEVAL  b: closely approximating an early ancestral type:  little evolved  c: belonging to or characteristic of an early stage of development:  CRUDE, RUDIMENTARY  d: of, relating to, or constituting the assumed parent speech of related languages

3 a: ELEMENTAL, NATURAL  b: of, relating to, or produced by a people or culture that is nonindustrial and often nonliterate and tribal  c: NAÏVE  d (1): SELF-TAUGHT, UNTUTORED  (2): produced by a self-taught artist

(Noun) (15c)

1 a: something primitive; specifically : a primitive idea, term, or proposition  b: a root word

2 a (1): an artist of an early period of a culture or artistic movement (2): a later imitator or follower of such an artist  b (1): a self-taught artist  (2): an artist whose work is marked by directness and naiveté  c: a work of art produced by a primitive artist  d: a typically rough or simple usually handmade and antique home accessory or furnishings

3 a: a member of a primitive people  b: an unsophisticated person


[ME, fr. AF, fr. L principalis, fr. princip-, princeps]

1:  most important, consequential, or influential:  CHIEF


usage see PRINCIPLE


[ME, fr. MF principe, principle, fr. OF, fr. L principium beginning, fr. princip-, princeps initiator – more at PRINCE]

1 a: a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption  b(1): a rule or code of conduct  (2): habitual devotion to right principles  c: the laws or facts of nature underlying the working of an artificial device

2: a primary source:  ORIGIN

3 a: an underlying faculty or endowment b: an ingredient (as a chemical) that exhibits or imparts a characteristic quality

PRINCE (13c)

ORDER (13c)

{ME, fr. ordre]


1: to put in order:  ARRANGE

2 a: to give an order:  COMMAND  b: DESTINE, ORDAIN  c: to command to go or come to a specified place


[ME, fr. AF ordre, fr. ML & L; ML ordin-, ordo ecclesiastical order, fr. L. arrangement, group, class; akin to L ordiri to lay the warp, begin]

1 a: a group of people united in a formal way ….

4 a (1): RANK, LEVEL  (2): CATEGORY, CLASS  b (1): the arrangement or sequence of objects or of events in time


Note reference in the root to weaving!

ORDERLY (1570)

1 a (1): arranged or disposed in some order or pattern:  REGULAR (2): marked by order:  TIDY  b: governed by law:  REGULATED c: METHODICAL

2: well behaved:  PEACEFUL


[ME ordinarie, fr. L ordinaries, fr. ordin-, ordo order]

1: of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events:  ROUTINE, USUAL….

3 a: of common quality, rank, or ability  b: deficient in quality:  POOR, INFERIOR

(Interesting that “ordinary” and “common” were suspect in my mother’s vernacular.  They were connected in her mind to “suburbia” and the “rat race,” and that we as Alaskan homesteaders were better than they were, better than the “lower 48” – which was common in Alaskans’ thoughts back then.  ORDINARY was not a sought after quality for mother….and yet within the concept is the order needed to be functional in any meaningful or substantial way.  Without order, and some element of orderliness and ordinary, a system either does not exist or is formed at the edges of chaos.  Mother held DISDAIN for ordinary – and obviously did not value order, either.  And I have a great deal of trouble with it as well!)

There was no order and therefore no hope of peacefulness in our family or home.  She was not REGULATED and neither was anything else – certainly not my mother’s mind or actions – and mine??)

SYSTEM (1603)

[LL systemat-, systema, fr. Gk systemat-, systema, fr. synistanai to combine, fr. syn– + histanai to cause to stand – more at STAND]

1: a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole….


3 a: an organized or established procedure  b: a manner of classifying, symbolizing, or schematizing

4: harmonious arrangement or pattern:  ORDER

Seems to me that either things move forward in the process of development as a “unified whole” or they don’t.  Is there such a thing as a “disunified” whole?  I certainly was not included in the WHOLE that was supposedly our family…I suppose FAMILY SYSTEMS approaches come from these concepts…


{LL systematicus, fr. Gk systematikos, fr. systemat-, systema]

1: relating to or consisting of a system

2: presented or formulated as a coherent body of ideas or principals

3 a: methodical in procedure or plan   b: marked by thoroughness and regularity

4: of, relating to, or concerned with classification; specifically:  TAXONOMIC

UNTIY (14c)

[ME unite, fr. AF unite, fr. L unitat-, unitas, fr. unus one – more at ONE]

1 a: the quality or state of not being multiple:  ONENESS  b (1): a definite amount taken as one or for 1 is made to stand in calculation  (2):  IDENTITY ELEMENT

2 a: condition of harmony:  ACCORD….

3 a: the quality or state of being made one:  UNIFICATION  b: a combination or ordering of parts in a literary or artistic production that constitutes a whole or promotes an undivided total effect;  also:  the resulting singleness of effect or symmetry and consistency of style and character

4: a totality of related parts:  an entity that is a complex or systematic whole


[ME, fr. L universum, fr. neutral of universus entire, whole, fr. uni- + versus turned toward, fr. past participle of vertere to turn – more at WORTH]

1: the whole body of tings and phenomena observed or postulated:  COSMOS:  as a:  a systematic whole held to arise by and persist through the direct intervention of divine power….


WHOLE (bef. 12c)

[ME hool healthy, unhurt, entire, fr. OE hal; akin to OHG heil healthy, unhurt, ON heill, OCS celu]

1 a (1): free of owund or injury:  UNHURT  (2): recovered from a wound or injury:  RESTORED (3): being healed  b: free of defect or impairment:  INTACT  c: physically sound and healthy:  free of disease or deformity  d: mentally or emotionally sound

2: having all its proper parts or components:  COMPLETE, UNMODIFIED….

(Would go from here both to HARMONY and to HARM)


COHERENT (ca. 1555)

[MF or L; MF coherent, fr. L cohaerent-, cohaerens, prp. of cohaerere]

1 a: logically or aesthetically ordered or integrated:  CONSISTENT  b: having clarity or intelligibility:  UNDERSTANDABLE

2: having the quality of cohering; especially: COHESIVE, COORDINATED

3 a: relating to or composed of waves having a constant difference in phase  b: producing coherent light


[L cohaesus, pp. of cohaerere]

1: the act or state of sticking together tightly; especially:  UNITY

2: union between similar plant parts or organs



[ME integrite, fr. MF & L; MF integrite, fr. L integritat-, integritas, fr. integr-, integer entire]


2: an unimpaired condition:  SOUNDNESS


INTEGRATE related to

INTEGER (1571)

[L, adj., whole, entire – more at ENTIRE]

1: any of the natural numbers, the negatives of these numbers, or zero

2: a complete entity


1 a:  essential to completeness:  CONSTITUENT …

2:  composed of integral parts

(the word INTEGRITY also comes from the root word for ENTIRE)

(Integrity sounds like whole and healthy….)

ENTIRE (14c)

[ME enter, entire, entire, fr. AF entire, fr. AF enter, entire, fr. L integer, literally, untouched, fr. in– + tangere to touch – more at TANGENT]

1: having no element or part left out:  WHOLE

2: complete in degree:  TOTAL

3 a: consisting of one piece  b: HOMOGENEOUS, UNMIXED  c: INTACT


An infant in peritrauma from abuse cannot differentiate the caregiver’s mind from its own.  It is also not being given the “mirroring” that it needs to differentiate its own feelings or its own states of mind.  There is, therefore, a “sharing violation” going on.  The infant’s brain is given mixed messages – meaning that the caregiver’s brain-mind is contaminating the infant’s.  The infant should have an ENTIRE brain-mind-self of its own.  Untouched, whole, total, “consisting of one piece,” intact.

But what it is getting is the opposite!  The infant will be “mixed up” being raised in peritrauma by a “mixed up” caregiver.  Order and organization cannot exist in these states.

Thus, the bubbles.  Separated  packets.  Adults will then be similar, as in assimilated,  with/by mind of caregiver.  They are in fact being “absorbed.”  Differentiation and distinction will not ensue.


To me, when we talk about “association” we are talking about “social issues.”  The infant’s brain is formed in a social situation from interactions that it has with its caregivers.

This file is about TIME:  so to look at association & dis-association in that light….



[ME associat associated, fr. L associates, pp. of associare to unite, fr. ad- + sociare to join, fr. socius companion – more at SOCIAL]

1:  to join as a partner, friend, or companion

2:  obs: to keep company with:  ATTEND

3: to join or connect together:  COMBINE

4: to bring together or into relationship in any of various intangible ways (as in memory or imagination)



: to detach from association:  DISSOCIATE


[L dissociates, pp. of dissociare, fr. dis– + sociare to join, fr. socius companion — more at SOCIAL]

1:  to separate from association or union with another

2:  DISUNITE; specifically: to subject to chemical dissociation


1:  to undergo dissociation

2:  to mutate especially reversibly


This would be perhaps the only survival tool a severely abused infant could use – to separate, detach from association with its caregiver.  And if the caregiver is terrifying, mad, enraged, out-of-control, the infant has never been able to “attach an association” with the caregiver in the first place so that they can undo it!

Something else is going on in these cases.  No JOINING happens, no uniting with.  These infants have no COMPANIONS.  They are left in a social void, and the development of their brain-mind-selves pays a price.  A substantial price, for it is from social interactions that the brain is formed and ordered.

But their peers?  THOSE companions?  What of those relationships?


This term has to do with movement in space rather than specifically movement in time…only an implied movement backwards in time…..because we can’t physically or literally do it?  How about to regress?  How about when memories from the past form the present reality of a caregiver?  There IS a time twist there.  And a reversal when the caregiver is consuming resources FROM the infant rather than providing them TO the infant.



(Adjective) (14c)

[ME revers, fr. AF, fr. L reversus, pp. of revertere to turn back – more at REVERT]

1 a: opposite or contrary to a previous or normal condition b (1): having the back presented to the observer or opponent….

2: coming from the rear of a military force

3: acting, operating, or arranged in a manner contrary to the usual

4: effecting reverse movement

5: so made that the part which normally prints in color appears white against a colored background

(Verb) (14c)

1 a: to turn completely about in position or direction  b: to turn upside down:  INVERT  c: to cause to take an opposite point of view



1:  to turn or move in the opposite direction

2: to put a mechanism in reverse

(Noun) (14c)

1:  something directly contrary to something else:  OPPOSITE

2:  an act or instance of reversing; especially: DEFEAT, SETBACK


: capable of being reversed or of reversing:  as a: capable of going through a series of actions (as changes) either backward or forward b: having two finished usable sides  c: wearable with either side out


This makes me think of the “false self” which might simply be the reverse of the “actual self.”  An inside-out-self.  Wearing the self, rather than having a self.

What do we think we get when we provide an infant with abuse rather than nurturing?  When they experience the opposite of what they are SUPPOSED to normally have given to them?

Is that how they solve the unsolvable problem?  They can’t return to the womb….is this “attempt” what they see in “dis-associated” infant states?


REVERT (15c)

[ME, fr. AF revertir, fr. L revertere, v.t., to turn back & reverti, v.i., to return, come back, fr. re- + vertere, verti to turn – more at WORTH]

1: to come or go back (as to a former condition, period, or subject)

2: to return to the proprietor or his or her heirs at the end of a reversion

3: to return to an ancestral type


Perhaps this TURNING is a TURNING away from companionship, a turning from one’s species, which includes the evolving SELF of a person.  It is a reversing from being with the mother back to being alone at the moment of birth.  Having no companion and nobody to unite with.

Mother was alone.  I had siblings.  Crucial distinction here…I know it.



(vi) (bef. 12c)

[ME, fr. OE weorthan; akin to OHG werdan to become, L vertere to turn, Lith versti to overturn, Skt vartate he turns]

archaic:  BECOME

(Adjective) (bef. 12c)

[ME, fr. OE wearth worthy, of (a specified) value; akin to OHG werd worthy, worth]

1 archaic: having monetary or material value

2 archaic: ESTIMABLE – for all one is worth:  to the fullest extent of one’s value or ability

(Preposition) (13c)

1 a: equal in value to  b: having assets or income equal to

2: deserving of – worth one’s salt: of substantial or significant value or merit

WORTHFUL (bef. 12c)

1: full of merit

2: having value


1 a: lacking worth:  VALUELSS  b: USELESS


WORTHY (13c)

1 a: having worth or value:  ESTIMABLE  b:  HONORABLE, MERITORIOUS

2: having sufficient worth or importance


1: to cause to turn over:  UPSET



Here is a distinction mother made with me being worthless, and Cindy in particular being worthy.  Siegel uses VALUE in regard to the brain, but not worth.

Something that kills or poisons us we assign an avoidant response to, it is therefore worthless to us.  Something that gives us life or sustains our life we approach as worthy…it has value.  Mother did this to me…..I was worthless….worse than worthless.


“Repeated patterns of neuronal activations help to establish continuity in the individual’s representations of reality across time.  Siegel/tdm/161”


  1. excellent. i can relate. i cant remember my childhood but short scenes, nothing of my life comes to sequence. i too remember now, only, standing in corners, made to be still and quiet, ++++++
    i love your blog.
    thank you

    • I found it intriguing that even though I ended up with piles and piles of my mother’s correspondence to her mother from my age 5 through my teens, and as I transcribed them, I did not have one single memory appear during that process that I hadn’t already always had.

      I do believe we remember what we do for a wise reason and forget what we do for a wise reason, as well!

      I am so glad to hear from you and so glad you are visiting! all the best, Linda – alchemynow

  2. I cannot imagine that scenaro (S) you lived in. Made to sit on a stool all night? Standing in a playground afraid to move…in case you get dirty?
    I can;t even try to imagine what that must have been like for a small child. It all makes me sick.

    • And, oh dear this is where I am heading in my writing come this Tuesday — well, I guess probably just before age 6 for this next question #5. It’s hard working with myself toward being open to what may/needs to come for the story – and at the same time being downright scared of same.

      It’s the light of peace and love that needs to surround that little girl — because what few memories I do have are just ‘drops in the bucket’ — I wish to give this story its own life, start to finish, so that something good can come of it all – I truly hope so!

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