Teddybears to Bombs

AuthorHouse

Contents

INTRODUCTION.......................................................viiCHAPTER 1. IN THE BEGINNING........................................1CHAPTER 2. WHEN YOU WERE BORN......................................2CHAPTER 3. THE ADHD CONNECTION.....................................4CHAPTER 4. INFANCY AND COMMUNICATION...............................6CHAPTER 5. THE YOUNGER YEARS 1.....................................5CHAPTER 6. THE ADOLESCENT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT.....................19CHAPTER 7. BEING PASSIVE AND LEARNING TO ADAPT.....................20CHAPTER 8. LETS GET EVEN...........................................23CHAPTER 9. LEARNING HOW TO COMMUNICATE.............................25CHAPTER 10. SELF-ESTEEM............................................31CHAPTER 11. LEARNING HOW TO FIT....................................40CHAPTER 12. AGGRESSIVE, WHAT IS IT?................................41CHAPTER 13. UNDERSTANDING ANGER....................................46CHAPTER 14. MARITAL CONFLICT.......................................50CHAPTER 15. REMOTE CONTROL.........................................68CHAPTER 16. THE STORY..............................................72CHAPTER 17. THE TOOL BOX...........................................77CHAPTER 18. THE TEDDYBEAR TO BOMB STORY............................80REFERENCES.........................................................10

Chapter One

You must be a somewhat unique and intelligent person from age 5 and up, because you have started reading this fantastic book. You have an interest in finding out what makes you a teddy bear or a time bomb, nonassertive person, Mr. Milktoast; bully, mean, nasty, fighting, aggressive or passive, wimpy, whiney, pushed around, or pushing around another person.

This book contains proven effective methods and interventions that can help the passive or aggressive person alter their personal ways of dealing with situations within, school, family, job, and community, live more productive, fulfilling lives, and allow you to learn how to continue controlling you.

You may be reading this book to find out how to help someone that you love or care about, or you are a counselor and want to help one of or a group of your clients with one of the most common but difficult problems that exist today in our society.

You may also want to find out why you are either passive or aggressive.

You may also want to know how you and only you can change to be a more consistent, get-along, and get-your-own-way (some of the time) person.

You must have a desire to fit into the world around you, your community, job, school, or family. Fitting in will be discussed later on in the book under its own heading.

You don't need to pick whether you are passive or aggressive just quite yet. Some people are passive-aggressive, too; what a twist that can be! All people have some of both traits of being passive or being aggressive in our internal makeup. At times we can be the caveman and thump our chests and go out into the world to fight and conquer anything that gets in our way, both guys and girls alike. At other times we may want to sit alone and go along with anyone who is around us in a most passive way. You may have a desire to give in because ...

WHY; why will be thoroughly explained later.

Chapter Two

The only thing we know when we are born is to get angry about almost everything. At this stage of development, we must learn to love and be loved by our caregivers. Our most basic need of survival and safety are just emerging. We want for us and only us, we desire all of the most primary comforts until we learn more. Some of these thought patterns came to us prior to our birth in the formation of our individual and unique temperament. As the KJV Bible states in Psalms 139, 13-15: "For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. "

Think back about when you were born or when a sibling or friend's baby was born and how the child reacted to the world situations ... Picture this in your mind: you are now a fetus, surrounded by warm water; all your immediate needs are met. You have all that you need and desire, the warmth, the strange sounds that you hear from outside your womb home. Sometimes the sounds are peaceful as you listen to music coming from a radio or musical instrument or mom singing in the shower, but sometimes you hear loud mean sounds and then you feel bouncing around and thumping. Your heart races as your internal chemistry starts with Adrenaline and Cortosol. Your awareness is heightened, and now you start to feel uncomfortable as you kick and punch within your womb home. A little while later, quiet noises are heard and new chemicals start to calm you down as the Dopamine and Serotonin are being sent to your little brain. Then, one day around the 40th week of gestation, you start to feel pushed around and bothered by more chemicals that increase your awareness and heighten your desire to move. And all of a sudden you feel your head being squashed and your nose pushed into your face, and being grabbed by hands and turned around, your shoulders hurt from being bent around, and then bright lights, VERY BRIGHT LIGHTS, and COLD AIR, and now you have a very heavy feeling as someone grabs your feet and ankles while suspending you upside down. Then something is jammed into your right nostril and then the left nostril sucking like it seems to be sucking your brains out, and then the thing is jammed down your throat and more sucking feelings, and you scream for your life, yelling, getting as mad and angry as you have ever felt. Then your back hits a hard flat surface, nothing like floating in water and, all of a sudden, a very sharp pain, as one of those enormous creatures stabs a needle into your heel. You scream again, fighting for your life as nothing is like it had been, air is cold, stabbing pains; you have never felt this much rage and fear. Anger is the one emotion that all animals use as their first tool in their toolbox of skills that, for the most part, immediately helps to survive.

Now you can probably see how you began from the beginning, and all of the information and life experiences really add to how our individual personalities or masks are developed. But, there is more to come in the next chapter.

Chapter Three

Another scenario: as you're forming within the confines of the womb, mom loves to drink coffee and, as the caffeine passes the placental barrier, you too get to have your morning cup of coffee. Your brain surges with adrenaline and other stimulants causing you to have a heightened awareness of your world. After a very short period of time, you become used to having coffee every morning with mom as she drinks her three or four cups of "Joe". Then, when you are born, HOW MANY moms PUT COFFEE IN THE BABY'S BOTTLE?

The first few days after being born, the withdrawal symptoms of headache, fatigue, lethargy, and tiredness continue for a lifetime as you are a caffeine addict from before birth. Your brain gives off beta waves in this time of sluggish functioning, just like when we feel we need to take a nap. This sluggishness with brain activity will continue through a lifetime and never cease until we have our daily stimulants. In the 1930's, coffee became a beverage of choice and, in the 1950's and 1960's, it became a trend that moms and dads drank all over the United States. And now in the 1990's and 2005, coffee stores are all competing as coffee is the United States' most popular drink, or a soft drink that has caffeine in it is the second choice. And then there are HIGH ENERGY drinks that have too much sugar, ginkgo baloba, and caffeine too.

Have you ever heard of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)? The children in the 1970's first learned that they may have a disorder, and the cause was unknown. In the 1990's, almost 50% of all children have ADHD. And we continued to wonder where and why all of a sudden lots of people had ADHD and never had it before. Human beings require their brains to operate in the alpha stage to give us enough brain energy to concentrate and use self-control doing away with immature impulsive behaviors. In the 1970's, physicians started using Adderall and Ritalin to help those children's brains reach the Alpha Brain Wave stage of awareness. Today in the year 2006, children are most commonly diagnosed with a level of ADHD due to their Beta Brain Wave emissions, lack of self-control, impulsive behaviors, twitching, jumping around, off-task behaviors, not paying attention, failing to complete tasks, and forgetting what the tasks were that had to be done, like homework. Today there is an epidemic of caffeine abuse and ADHD children in America.

You may be asking "So what does this have to do with me?" ADHD is one of the most common diagnoses in the United States of America, and it most likely has always existed and in other countries, too! Self-control is of the utmost behavior to learn, and there are no classes or trainings that have existed before this book.

Chapter Four

Back to the infancy stage. The infant that is just born desires to communicate. They don't know how to speak English, Spanish, or any other language, but they do know infant communication skills like crying and screaming. The new infant wants to be changed because it is uncomfortable and hurts; what does the infant do? He cries and balls his tiny fists in anger. According to the KJV Bible anger is "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that, which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

The infant is at the mercy of anyone that can help it. Think about it; when the infant is hungry, what does he do? He screams and cries to get attention and is angry and, if left alone, will continue to scream and cry and get angrier until someone or something takes care of his basic need. The reason I use the word something in this sentence is to point out that it may not be mom or dad or big brother or sister that will be the one to take care of his need. Do you remember hearing about the boy who was found in the woods by a wolf pack, and the mother wolf raised the child to be a fine puppy? The mother wolf took the infant in as if it was its own, and cared for the infant. The wolf mother cleaned it, kept it warm, and fed the infant as if it was one of its own puppies. This human infant learned to trust the caregiver, and she was the most important being in his life. Some years later, when the child had grown up, he was found by people and removed from the natural woods setting that all wolves live in, and placed in a shelter within a town. At that point, the child was being transferred into human civilization and had to learn the social skills of humans; however, he was doing just fine as a wolf; he thought so, anyway. This child was given everything that it needed: discipline, love, warmth, affection, food, and anything else he needed by the wolf pack and his mother wolf. We all can learn to be successful and attach and bond to another person but only up to approximately the age of 24 months. After 24 months of age, we have a difficult time learning to trust our caregiver if we have not learned to TRUST. Trust and mistrust are learned by the infant from birth to approximately 24 months of age.

Even though you can't go back and change your knowledge of trust vs. mistrust, how well did you learn it? The future development and success of those infants that you come in contact with as a caregiver are up to you.

Recently, I was speaking to a new mother, and she said that she was a daycare baby who was in day-care from one week old until she started school. She said that her parents were never together as they parted ways before her birth. Her mother had to work all of the time, and she was in a daycare setting throughout her infancy. I asked her if her mother checked out the daycare center to learn if the caregivers had been employed there for a long time and almost never were replaced. She didn't know, and asked why. I told her that most parents think that their infant is okay if care-giving is done by a variety of people, and what would it matter who feeds the infant, who is the one that plays with the infant, who is the caregiver that meets the immediate needs of the infant? However, it is very important during the first year to have the same consistent caring and loving caregiver so that the infant can learn to trust that caregiver for all of their needs. It is the only time that trust can be learned, and that the trust level of achievement is the one thing that will affect their job stability, learning ability, marriage and relationship stability, and other stable, continual growth factors of being a successful adult.

The era has changed, and people have grown from the prehistoric man through the era of mechanization, and have continued on into the 21st century, a time from hunting and barbaric styles of survival and little communication into the current days of microwaves, televisions, computers, fast foods, cell phones and little personal communication.

In the beginning of our lives and throughout our lifetimes, we require having many needs met and obtained. Those are as follows as Maslow stated in his theory of the Human Hierarchy of Needs:

1. Biological and Physiological needs:air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc. 2. 2. Safety needs: protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc. 3. 3. Belongingness and Love needs: - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc. 4. 4. Esteem needs: - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc. 5. 5. Self-Actualizationneeds: - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states:

1. That we must satisfy each need in turn, starting with the first that deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself. 2. Only when the lower-order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we concerned with the higher-order needs of influence and personal development. 3. Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower-order needs are swept away, we are no longer concerned about the maintenance of our higher-order needs.

First examine those Basic Safety Needs of the Prehistoric Cave Man Era.

Biological and physiological needs of the cave- man and cavewoman

The caveman and/or cavewoman needs are: air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc. Relationships were formed by a cavewoman and cave-man in the simplest forms of human bonding. The man was chosen by the woman because of his being smart and well built, showing that he could hunt and catch food in addition to his ability to protect himself from hungry lions and tigers and other cavemen. Food: fresh killed animals, nuts and berries that the cavewoman found on the ground. These skills of hunting and gathering were performed by the two genders appropriately: the male hunted, and the female, being smaller built, gathered berries and nuts while staying close to the cave (shelter). As God stated in the KJV Bible for man and woman to replenish the earth:

Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. In the caveman times, relationships were formed without very much communication. Pictures were drawn on the ground in the sand, and cave pictures were drawn on the cave walls as we have seen in history books. The cavemen would adventure off into the wilderness to hunt and bring back meat to the cavewoman and family for them to eat.

Safety needs

While the caveman would be away, the woman and children would scurry around picking up berries and nuts to eat while staying close to the cave for protection and safety. Upon his return with the killed animal, the family would feast and feel safer within their organized cave dwelling. The caveman was the leader of the home, and kept order and safety precautions for his cavewoman and cave- children.

Belongingness and Love needs

Before the cave child was born, just like today, the couple would spend countless hours being close and experiencing each other in kind, and meeting the emotional needs of each other. Mankind yesteryear and today continues to have the NEED for closeness, love and emotional ties.

Esteem needs

The caveman had the need to be recognized as a good provider and safekeeper. The cavewoman had the need to be recognized by her partner as the helpmate, gatherer of nuts and berries, supplier of the basic emotional needs of the children, and the caveman.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Teddybears to Bombsby E. Thomas Carroll II Copyright © 2011 by E. Thomas Carroll II, M.A. LMHC. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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