This Kiss

Last night I was watching a documentary of Icelandic people venting their opinion about the collapsing of the banking system back in 2008. The documentary maker says it shows the revolution of the people there who do no longer bow for the corruption of banks. Indeed, that is where it came to surface, I think, the crisis, followed by the eruption of the volcano with the terrific and unpronounceable name in 2010. Is it typical that I think that that was Mother Earth’s protest?

Hm. There is something else here. I cannot ignore that there is a resonant feeling deep down in me that says ‘hey, what did you say you were doing?’. Suddenly it dawned on me. I was watching a documentary about a dead serious topic ON A SATURDAY NIGHT!!!

Although I do really like serious topics, Saturday nights are by far the nights of having fun. In my opinion. At least of relaxing and let go, re-energize for the next week, that kind of stuff. Until I had met him of course. It was still relaxing and re-energizing with him, definitely, but also, uhm, how do I put this? Well he was the first who made me aware of the madness in the present global financial system. Oh, and many, many, other things as well. He is a walking encyclopedia. No, that does not do him justice, he just really knows a lot. I cannot say that this is what I like most about him because  he is also an enthusiastic kisser. And kissing is something I like even more than elaborating serious topics.

Is kissing not serious then? Cher sings very convincingly ‘if you wanna know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss’. The kind of kissing we are talking about here are the subliminal, pivotal moments shared between a man and a woman (Faith Hill). Not the friendly pecks on the cheek. But neither necessarily French kissing.  Love and kisses are highly correlated and are being sung in an equally number of songs.

Kissing is also topic of science and not exclusively something psychological, it is also biological (evolution of kissing) and neurological (a true firework between neurons in the brain and the senses). But is it equally evaluated by men and women? Women do kiss because it tells them more about the relationship. To see where this is headed. Kissing is important to men, they enjoy it too, but they describe it more as a means to an end, they are more focused on what may come next (Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of "The Science of Kissing").

Contracts used to be signed with an "X" and then kissed to signify their legality. This is where signing a letter with "xxx" comes from (Ben Nadel). To me there is a significant difference in signing an e-mail or text message with one “X” or more than one (xx or xxx or even xxxx).

Without kissing a flirt is just a flirt and friendship remains platonically. A good kiss is the best medicine to make up a fight with your lover. That is why it is a shame that kissing subdues often when a relationship is lasting longer, beyond the falling in love stage. Couples’ therapy should include ‘the Art of Kissing’. After all a wedding ceremony ends with the magical words ‘now you may kiss the bride’.

Although I am definitely a woman I would like to say that I am focused on what may come next as well. So let us make a pledge. To meet in September. And seal it with a kiss (Bobby Vinton). 

Bang Bang

It feels like I am chasing my own tail. There is so much that needs to be done but what I really need is to sit back and relax a little. Last week I needed to clear the closet in the attic where the central heating is stationed because a guy came in for the annual maintenance (for the heater). I store many things in that closet like camping stuff, suitcases and the cradle and pram which belonged to my babies. Before he was finished he called me up there and said apologetically that he had broken the glass of a painting which stood near the wall in the closet. My own fault, I had not seen it when clearing the place. It was the first painting my first love and I had bought a long time ago. A beautiful painting of a sunset colored sea.  It did not suit my living room walls because of the color of the passe-partout but I still feel rather attached to it. I carefully carried the picture frame with the shattered glass down the two stairs. Some pieces were too big to put in the carton box I had found and I shattered them further in the backyard, using a big old towel and a hammer after the guy had left. The frame was not useable anymore and I removed the picture from it. Without the passe-partout it suited my walls wonderful and I decided to re-frame it someday when money is not so tight, with another frame, a silver colored one.

The closet needed some cleaning and vacuuming before I could put all the stuff back but I left that until yesterday. There were so much other things that needed to be done and frankly I could not see the point of cleaning there when the chances are so high that I have to move houses soon. I plucked up the courage to do it yesterday though. The cleaning was not so hard to do. However, when I picked up the cradle a dreadful flash of pain shot through my lower back. Damn, that hurt. I managed to return slowly upright and put all the stuff back and even did some more chores that day. In the evening I could barely make it on or off a chair anymore, frozen halfway descending by the pain. And when I really had to stand up it took me a couple of minutes to walk slightly bended forward. It reminds me of the few other times I had my back hurt. The first time was when I fell off a galloping horse. An even more dreadful experience was after I fell backwards in a stairwell, with my three months old first born in my arms, especially when I recovered from being unconscious for a short while to find my baby was taken away. It turned out that a helpful lady who was passing by took him to the address where I was originally going to, and asked for help. After being collected by my husband we went to the hospital to have the baby’s head examined with x-ray, that was my main concern. He was okay, thankfully, and the following week I climbed and descended the stairs in our house sitting on my bum.  

For a long time I could not recall the event of falling backwards without  feeling as if there still was a huge well behind my back, and my body reached automatically forward, like to prevent me from falling again. Last week, before I hurt my back this time, I was clearing my email inbox. An email from two months ago was about various podcasts about trauma therapy. One of the renowned specialists in the trauma field is Babette Rothschild and I own a book from her:  The Body Remembers, about the psychophysiology of trauma and trauma treatment.  I decided to re-read that book.

The book explains how the body responses to threat through the limbic system in the brain and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) with fight, flight or freeze. Once the traumatic incident is over and the fight or flight has been successful, the natural hormone cortisol will halt the alarm reaction and helping the body to restore to homeostasis. Sometimes this goes wrong and the adrenal glands do not release enough cortisol to halt the alarm reaction. On a chemical level the continued alarm reaction typical of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is due to a deficiency of cortisol production. Throughout the book a story is woven of a boy who was chased and bitten by a dog when he was riding his bicycle. This boy functions normal when he grows up except that he keeps avoiding dogs. This is where PTSD is distinguished from Posttraumatic stress (PTS), traumatic stress that persists following (post) a traumatic incident. It is only when posttraumatic stress accumulates to the degree that it produces the symptoms outlined in DSM-IV that the term posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be applied. PTSD implies a high level of daily dysfunction. The chronically aroused ANS causes the traumatic event to continually float into the present perception, as if it were occurring now, rather than occupying its locus in one’s past. That is where carefully carried out trauma treatment come into hand. I have experienced that myself a couple of years ago for overcoming the feeling of being pulled backwards when I recalled the falling event. Now I can talk or think about it without the bodily reaction I have had before.

Yet, I don’t know if and what my body is telling me know, as I crawl from my chair to my kitchen. Maybe just that I am forced to sit back for a while and stop chasing my own tail.

Girls talk

This semester is finally over. At last I am having time again to catch up with my friends. I arranged to meet with four of them for a good old fashioned girls night in town last night. We had not seen each other for quite a while and I was looking forward to hear all their whereabouts. Compared to them my life as a student is very bleakly. Karin has been dating a new guy, and last time I had spoken to her she was completely over the moon. She had met him through a dating site and after a couple of e-mails with, in my opinion, too many smooth lines she had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. Silvia was in a new job recently, which had been very promising. She was working long days but that would soon be rewarded they had told her. Mandy is pregnant so she would be driving us home later that night. And of course, good old Caroline who would meet us later that night because her plane would land around seven and she needed to go home and change first. That girl is very hard to catch, next Tuesday she is leaving again, so we were quite lucky that she would be there at all.

Mandy and Silvia were already there when I walked into the pub. They were seated at a small square table in a quiet corner of the back garden and had texted me where I could find them. I was greeted with a warm embrace of both of them and after I took my seat I ordered a red wine from the waitress. Mandy looked like she was almost ready to give birth, her huge belly prominent, but she does have to wait for at least six weeks she told us. I asked Silvia how she was doing in her new job, expecting she would be thrilled about it. Her bright face clouded for a moment when she answered, “I should be enjoying myself,” she said, “but the whole experience is proving as pleasant as colonic irrigation during an A-level math’s exam,” she sighed. I couldn’t suppress a smile at this typical way of expressing herself but I asked her what happened with the huge responsibility she was promised to get. “Well, that will have to wait until I have proved myself with the ‘routines’, meaning archiving, taking care of lunch for the big boss and cleaning the office space,” she said with a slightly sarcastic intonation. That was ridiculous, because Silvia  had been head of accountancy in her former job! “Didn’t you speak to your new boss about it?” I asked her. “Yes, of course I did. I asked him after a week if I could have a word with him. He turned away from his computer, brows frowned, peering over his glasses, two hands clasping together and inhaling so deeply through both nostrils that I thought he was trying to hoover up dust on his desk. What is the problem, young lady? he had said. And I said to him that I was wondering when the real job would start.” Mandy and I nodded approvingly and Silvia continued with: “It is all a matter of the right attitude, he said, and as soon as I had shown him that I was qualified enough for what he was asking me now, the job would increase in responsibility. And with that he dismissed me by turning back to his computer again. I was stunned and raged with fury. But what could I do?” Before we could think of an answer Karin rapidly made her way over to our table. Her cheeks were flustered and she was panting a little. She was greeted with mischievous smiles from us and Mandy vented our thoughts. “Hard to release yourself from mister Perfect?” “Sorry guys,” replied Karin, as she descended on an empty chair at our table. “How are you girls doing?” “We’d better ask you,” said Silvia. “Still gobsmacked darling?” Karin just smiled before turning her attention on Mandy’s big bump, asking if she was sure she really wasn’t carrying quadruples. Karin ordered a red wine as well and we decided to have some of the tapas of the menu as well. Just when we were ready to order for the third time, Caroline emerged from the backdoor and greeted us with her usual loud  “Hiyaa girls!” This woman is always full of energy, no matter if you meet her at the crack of dawn (however, I experience that never) or late at night. “You must have had an easy flight then,” I greeted her. “Ha, don’t make me start on that, sweetie,” Caroline replied, but apparently I had done that anyway, as she extended. “I was seated next to a very big woman, even bigger than you, Man, except that she carried it more broadly. I would be the last one to discriminate, you know that. But this has been the most uncomfortable eight hours in my whole flight experience. I kept on shifting in my seat in a vain attempt to make myself comfortable. I bet I had so little place that it would fail EU regulations for transporting poultry, never mind people. I’ve lost all sensation in my bum cheeks there and I am not likely to get it back any time soon. So, how are you lot doing?” She made us laugh out and the tears were ruining our mascara.

We chatted on for another hour or so before Karin hesitantly asked us if we perhaps could give her some advise. She said she was having a little trouble with mister Perfect. For a couple of seconds we were silent. Then Mandy asked her if she dumped him. “No, no, of course not”, replied Karin. “He is a very nice guy and he could really be the one. But I would like to ask something, to you in particular Deb, since you were doing that sexology course lately, and I consider you as an psychological expert anyway”. Omg, although that sounded very flattering  I did not know what to think about it. Sexology has very little to do with regular couple’s sex and besides I barely past the exam. Maybe Karin meant to say that mister Perfect is not so perfectly equipped. Maybe she has found out he has a micro-penis, that was something I definitely remembered from the course next to some heavier stuff. The absolute minimum size of a penis is 2.5 standard deviation of the mean, and the mean size is….Before I could even try to remember the mean penis size, she said: “He has lied to me about his age. I have found out on our first date that he is in his late forties, and, to be fair, he is looking well on it. Yet he is one of those men who, while technically good-looking is simultaneously deeply unsexy without his clothes on, as I discovered after date three.” Oh boy, what was she thinking? That I’ve been there, done that, or something? The only time I had experienced a complete anti-climaxing encounter was with a guy who has had ‘Mother’ tattooed. Right under his belly button. And that was enough for me to make the quickest escape ever without even caring about my knickers that I left somewhere in his apartment. But I was not even sure I confided my friends in that story.  “Don’t expect too much from me, but go on, spill the beans, Karin”, I said to her. “Er…, okay, well, I am wondering if you could give me some advice. You see, I really would like to marry this guy. I am hitting thirty-eight next month and you know I desperately do want to have kids any time soon”. She then told us how their third date, unexpectedly ended rather disastrous. They have had diner in a romantic restaurant before they ended up in his house on the couch. She knew that they would sleep together that night and she was very ready for that, after all she fancied him a lot. The sex with him was supposed to be the cherry on the cake that night, Encouraged by a couple of glasses of wine too many and us as her supportive audience, she then filled us in with a minute account. “We were just snogging as he pulled my skirt and knickers off with all the romantic flair of someone stripping a bed, I quickly realized he wasn't a foreplay man. Suddenly he rolled off me and walked to the refrigerator where he was fumbling with something before returning back to the couch. He was having a small needle and syringe in his hand and said that he needed a little help to perform. I must have had a quizzical look on my face to say the least, so he explained that he has had to inject himself  to have a hard one. I really felt sick in my stomach when I realized where he had to put the needle in.” All four of us gasped in horror. She was unstoppable now. “And even more when he would like me to witness that. It did work though. Within a few minutes I could see his penis standing up in full erection. He didn’t want to waste much time, because it would not last very long, he told me. So, after a couple of seconds grunting and pushing, he was inside me, thrusting back and forth. Instead of enjoying it, I felt strangely disassociated, like it was happening to someone else. He tweaked one of my nipples like trying to tune into Qmusic Then he grunted some more and that was it, it was over”. Expectantly she was looking at me. What could I say, except that I had heard about those self help treatments? Questioning I looked at the other girls first, but their jaws were still somewhere near the floor. I wondered what kind of advice she wanted from me and to buy myself some time to compose myself, I took another gulp of my wine. She would probably wanted to know how she could make their sex more satisfying for her, I thought. Although, in my opinion you cannot really change a guy’s behavior ever but no matter how dysfunctional his penis is, he could have pleasured her in many other ways to start with. While I was still debating how I would bring this up to her, and to give her the careful consideration to end this relationship before she would be too far into it, she launched the question that was bothering her: “Do you think that he can still make me pregnant?” I spluttered my wine. “Uhm,…. Yes, sure.” I muttered and I realized I would never be a sexologist. 

Attachment

Last September when I was doing my grocery shopping I noticed a woman carrying her baby wrapped up in a colorful African cloth on her back. The baby was very relaxed and the mom (Melissa as I learned then) had both her hands free for the shopping chart and her toddler. I admired both the baby and the convenient cloth and Melissa told me that it is a traditional way to carry your baby in such carriers in her homeland Zimbabwe, Africa. She was very proud to tell that she produces those carriers and sells them through her own business: a combination of Bereka (Zimbabwean for carrier) and Draagdoek (Dutch for carrier), (facebook: www.facebook.com/bereka.draagdoek,  her website: www.berekadraagdoek.nl).  She was so enthusiastic about the product and the business that I almost regretted not having more babies. It was the kind of talk to a person you do not know that gives you a contented feeling, if you know what I mean. I felt inspired. After that we became Facebook friends and I like her frequent updates with pictures in beautiful colors.

While I was reading in the last couple of weeks about disorders from the psychopathology, diagnostic and treatment course, I discovered a striking similarity in personality disorders, depression and anxiety disorders. In one way or the other, in all three textbooks a disturbed attachment in early childhood was subject of the possible causes of sensitivity for these disorders. No, this is not about blaming the mom, which was a trend for severe disorders in earlier years. It requires a quick overview of what is theorized about attachment before I continue. Bowlby (1958) is well known for his attachment theory. This theory is that an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development. Infants become attached to adults who are sensitive and responsive in social interactions with them, and who remain as consistent caregivers and are in close proximity of them for some period of time. When the infant begins to crawl and walk they begin to use attachment figures (familiar people) as a secure base to explore from and return to. Parental responses lead to the development of patterns of attachment; these, in turn, lead to internal working models which will guide the individual's perceptions, emotions, thoughts and expectations in later relationships.

Close proximity means real close, as in skin-to-skin or fur-to-fur, as another well known researcher in developmental psychology, Harlow, proofed with his research on baby rhesus monkeys. Those babies were more likely to prefer a soft surrogate mother to find comfort above an iron surrogate mother machine that provided milk. When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their soft surrogate, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they occasionally returned to the soft mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their  mothers acted very differently. They froze in fear and cried, crouched down, or sucked their thumbs. Some even ran from object to object, apparently searching for the soft mother, as they cried and screamed. Monkeys placed in this situation with their iron mothers exhibited the same behavior as the monkeys with no mother.

Civilization in Western countries dictated a rather harsh rule until the 60s: when babies were crying it was no good to pick them up instantly. That would make the child spoiled and demanding. Crying for one or more hours was considered to be good for babies’ lungs until it was time to feed them. More ‘primitive’ cultures like Native Americans, African and Asian knew better, they carry their babies in a carrier attached to their own bodies. 

Children who are safely attached feel free to explore their environment. I must have done something right as part of secure attachment of my children although I do not feel always that comfortable to let them trot the globe. Yesterday my second child, Tabitha took off for a 6-week backpack trip to Ghana, West Africa with a friend. After returning in 2009 from being an au-pair for a year in the States, where she traveled a lot in her free time, she made trips to Uganda, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Morocco and France. She did some pretty uncommon things (in my opinion) like rafting on the river Nile, rowing on the river Donau and she and her friend took part in the annual tomato throwing festival (Tomatina) in Spain. Oh, and not to forget riding a tandem bike in New York City with another au-pair, especially when rain was pouring down while they cycled in Harlem and they took that huge bike with them in the subway. When she was a toddler she used to love climbing on my lap which I loved very much too but always  after a few seconds she was ready to jump off again to do something else. Now that I mention it, I suddenly realize how different all could have turned out when I had had a Bereka at that time. I would still have her (and her siblings) wrapped upped against me, I am afraid. That would have restricted both our explorations, I can see that, only it feels so good to have them near me. But as in secured attachment they will return to their secure base, that is what I keep in mind when I let them fly on their own.