Filed under: Uncategorized
Psychiatrist finds that trauma crosses generations.
Filed under: Abandonment, Complex PTSD, Mentally Ill Children of Divorce, Mentally Ill parents, PTSD, self injury, Stepfamilies, Suicide, therapy, Trauma
Borderline Personality Disorder is an unwanted diagnosis. Therapists dread treating it. If you want to know more about it you can google the endless entries on the web. It’s kind of like being trapped in a kid’s mind as an adult because the personalities swing back and forth between hot and cold feelings very quickly. There is a fear of abandonment, a lot of self injury and suicidality. Sound like Child of Divorce issues?
While looking up well-known people who struggle with this disorder I found that a huge percentage come from divorced families. I also noticed that children who are diagnosed as Borderline have step-parents which could indicate they are victims of stressful homes.
Here’s is an article which says that Children of Divorce are more vulnerable to Borderline Personality Disorder. Here is a quote from the article on research from back in 1996:
JoelParis(1994,1996)suggested that biologicalvulnerabilityis necessarybutnot sufficient to cause BPD. Varying psychological factors can precipitate BPD inthe presence of biological vulnerability. Paris maintained that the impact of socialdisintegration and rapid social change, such as breakdown of the traditional familyand changing social norms, are nonspecific risk factors in the etiology of BPD.Cross-cultural studies reveal the possibility that structured traditional societiesdiminish the emergence of this disorder.
(PDF) Children At-Risk for Borderline…. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257827646_Children_At-Risk_for_Borderline_Personality_Disorder [accessed Jul 22 2018].
I wonder if this is one of those psychological diseases which could be deactivated if the therapist could actually talk about divorce. It really doesn’t take much. If you’ve read about how the ACE study brought remarkable results for adults who had traumatic childhoods, you will understand that often the practitioner just has to mention the problem, maybe fake concern, maybe add a couple of knowledgeable details. But, denial is the reality of growing up with leftover divorce trauma.
Filed under: Abuse, Bankruptcy, biological siblings, Birth Order, Blame, College Drop Out, Complex PTSD, creativity, Custody, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Extended Family, Half-siblings, Long Term Fallout, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., Relationship with Father, relationship with Mother, step-siblings
The numbers of Children of Divorce who are included on Time Magazine’s 100 People of the Year Lists has gone up. I forgot the exact count, maybe 11 to 13. Plus about 5 more people who grew up in a single parent family where the parents never married. I couldn’t find out information on about 20 of the people on the list so I’m not taking these numbers too seriously. What I’m really happy about is the quality of the Children of Divorce on this list because many included are probably not really very impressive leaders in my opinion.
Elon Musk is one of the super impressive ones. Musk is a visionary who takes big risks like creating car company Tesla and turning space travel into a tourist industry. He must have watched a lot of “The Jetsons” when he was a kid. Actually I think he was busy doing other stuff. According to Wikipedia Musk read a lot. Became interested in computing at at 10. That’s just a year after his parents’ divorce so maybe have a lot of time to himself contributed to this. Must taught himself programming at Age 12.
According to this article from BusinessInsider, Musk describes his childhood as “excruciating.” He grew up in South Africa. His Mother was a Model from Canada and his Father was an Electromechanical engineer. His parents divorced in 1980 so Musk would have been around 9 at that time. After two years he lived exclusively with his Father. He says that this was a mistake and that his Father was emotionally abusive. They are currently estranged. According to People Magazine Musk’s Father had a child with his step-daughter who is, of course, his step-daughter, but is also 40 years younger. His Father calls Elon a spoiled child…..ah, hahahahahahahahahaha. How appropriate for a Child of Divorce. What a lovely man, and how many of these idiots are out there?
Musk’s Mother is the covergirl of a company. She talks about how she created the entrepreneurial spirit in her children in this Businessinsider article.
Musk is the oldest of 3 children in his first family, a brother and sister. He also has a half-brother and half-sister.
Musk was also deeply affected by bullying at school. During one episode he had to be hospitalized. He was knocked unconscious when some boys threw him down a concrete stairwell.
The Month that Musk turned 18 he got out of dodge and moved to Canada where he was able to get a passport because his Mother was Canadian. He finished two Bachelors degrees in Physics and Economics and then moved to California to get a Ph.d at Stanford. But dropped out after 2 days in order to start businesses. He partnered with his brother for his first business (funded at least in part by hs Mother) and has since started a series of successful companies such as PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, the space rocket company.
According to Wikipedia Musk has been married and divorced three times, but the last two were to the same woman. He had 6 children with his first wife, but the first baby died of SIDs after 10 weeks.
According to this article in SiliconBeat someone got onto Musk’s Twitter account and asked him if he is Bipolar so he may have some issues. Musk answered “yeah” but qualifies that as not clinical.
Spoiled Children of Divorce 