RA>Very good idea!  I'll admit that I'd been neglecting that since the
  >pharmacy I go to gives you a computer print-out that lists various side
  >effects of the medication.  Last month I also got the insert that comes
  >with the medication.  It listed twice as many side effects, including
  >several I had noticed, but had not connected to that medication.
I think those computer print-outs just list the most common side
effects.  We get them with our meds here, too.
  > SB> I've noticed that people with a traumatic childhood have trouble
  > SB> getting it together younger than about 25; and often not even then.
RA>I'd say 25 would be the earliest and older more common--mid to late
  >thirties.  I'm an entirely different person than I was at 25, did an
  >awful lot of changing in my thirties.  When I look back at some of things
  >I did when I was young, I'm quite embarrassed.  Of course, I still have a
  >tendency to shoot myself in the foot big time on occasions.
I'm not at all convinced that the tendency to shoot oneself in the foot
comes from a traumatic childhood.  I think it comes from being human.
I've noticed it's a rather universal trait.  Even folks from nearly
ideal pasts do it.
I read a study done recently (one of those longitudinal studies that
follows a groups of kids from infancy well into adulthood).  They said
that the kids that had abusive situations in the home that had adults
they were close to outside the nuclear family were far more apt to grow
up into normal adults than those who did not.  Apparently, it's not the
presence of physical and emotional abuse that is most damaging to a
child.  It's the absence of love and positive adult role models.  There
were some kids with horrendous childhoods who came out quite OK.  Every
one of those "at risk" kids that made it in the study had a grandparent,
an aunt or uncle, or an adult neighbor who took a special and long range
interest in the child.  In some cases, the child was *at risk* because
of situations happening over which the family had no control: extreme
neighborhood violence, multiple deaths of family members, etc.  Again,
it was those children who had on-going close relationships, either
inside or outside the nuclear home, that were most apt to make it.
I'm not sure we have cause and effect totally correct here, however.  I
think love *is* essential for healthy growth in children.  But, in
reality, it is precisely those kids who are empathetic and kind who are
most apt to find long term loving support outside the family.  So,
maybe, the kids who are going to make it through the traumas do so
because they make the choices that cause others to want to support them.
Cause and effect are such difficult things to determine.  Recently, I
was talking with a psychologist who works in the prison system with
criminal adults and youths, as well as maintaining a private practice in
the non-criminal world.  He says there doesn't seem to be any real
determining factor that decides whether a person will or won't be a
criminal.  But the adult criminals he works with have an *attitude* of
never being wrong in what they do.  They justfy anything they do: rape,
robbery, murder. When he encounters young people in the system who have
that attitude, he has noticed they generally become adult criminals.
The youngsters he works with who are in trouble with the law and who
have an attitude of "I *did* do it, and it was wrong"; generally outgrow
their criminal behavior.
RA>And the ones who are very bitter can be very dangerous.  My friend in
  >Pennsylvania says it's got a lot to do with whether or not one has
  >learned empathy as a child, something that frequently does not happen in
  >abusive situations.  He says that the ability to learn empathy tends to
  >be lost between the ages of 10 and 12, and that if it hasn't been learned
  >by then, it probably never will be.
Did you know that recent studies have indicated that teaching young
children to play musical instruments increase their capacity to have
empathy with others?
                             Sondra
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 þ SLMR 2.1a þ Poets just go from bad to verse.
--- Opus-CBCS 1.7x via O_QWKer 1.7 
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