Circling Frozen Time In Time!
Part 2

By Dr. Martha I. Russell, CEO
Changing Lenses, Inc.

As I searched for a college for CC, I had three requirements of the college. First, that the college had to be sensitive in dealing with students having Aspergers. Secondly, that CC could continue marching band or jazz band connections and thirdly that the college or university was sensitive to the needs of homosexuals. Yes, at the time, it was my understanding that I had a daughter who was homosexual but ashamed of her sexuality. I hoped that in college, she would be able to come to terms with who she was and this part did happen. However, this did not happen as I thought it would but as God guided this to come to being. Well The Divine blessed us because the college I selected described a very well framed program for students having learning differences with an emphasis on Aspergers and there was a special summer program for the new students with learning differences to attend prior to the official September opening. The problem was that the summer program was already at full capacity and I so prayed to The Eternal that the officials would make an exception and allow one more student to be added to their summer program. While the school was not able to change their precedent for the enrollment, the director of the program contacted me three days later to share that a student withdrew from the program because of his decision to remain with his extended high school program for an additional year. 

As a result, CC went to the program and within the few weeks of that program evolved into a new person (well, new to me anyway). Suddenly, this introvert, who demonstrated very limited social interaction skills and whose only friends were in association with his brother and cousin, became the leader of the learning difference sub-group. CC was one of  five out of the 15 in the program who evolved into a circle of comrades. None of them believed CC was ever Aspergers because of his natural lead of the group. They nearly convinced CC the same. Well it was not long before their precious circle began to shrink as one by one, four of the super five began to drop out of school because of academic failure. Apparently, the college's learning difference supports were severely lacking. The first to leave was a young man who lived minutes from my home. He left at Thanksgiving break, due to their trimester structure, he was already on academic probation and lost his rowing scholarship. Next semester, a second male comrade left again due to poor academic performance. As it turned out only one of the five succeeded whereas she is on the hockey team there and will be graduating in next May the time all of them should be graduating.  The other four in their group, including CC are still floundering or have rerouted their academic plan. Time waits for no one but it seems to stand still for those whose goals stood still.

It was the second term during the second year that CC's very best friend also left. It was then, that CC lost emotional stability and dove into depression deeply. He shared that he had not felt that depressed since he was the sixth grade. Well, that raised my alarm levels up quite high because CC was on suicide watch back then as recommended by his pediatrician. It was when CC shared with me that "she" (the gender we accepted CC as at that time) liked girls and was so filled with hurt and shame because of  it. From that moment forward, we sojourned a journey that I would not wish on any mother and child. Yet, I became the better person for it. At that moment, I felt at the beginning of the nightmare again. Well, CC was 8 hours away from home, so I reached out for the director of the Learning Difference Program and requested an emergency intervention by the campus professionals. My husband considered going immediately to bring CC home but I suggested that we try to get as much accomplished within the hour as we could. I also reached out to the one remaining comrade from the circle of five, the hockey player.  I believe she was the one that helped CC snap out of the deep depression and gave CC a glimmer of hope.  I told my husband that CC seemed to be stable enough to remain at school and he did not have to go bring CC home. I realized then that CC was experiencing the same kind of lost then as he did when he was 11 years old when CC's only true friend left our school.  Here again, his one and true friend left and he was lost because the hockey player had formed a whole new chain of hockey friends.  I thought, if only I could help CC to find a new circle of friends, which coming home will not provide. I aimed to help him find a new circle and trusted that a connection to the Exercise Science department may open new friends for him.  So, I walked CC through registration but he did not follow all of my recommendations. 

In a way I regret not having my husband bring CC home because it was that semester that caused CC's cumulative average to plummet. He just could not beat the depression.  Yet on the other hand, the blessing was that it was also that semester that CC decided to fight for his life and escaped the claws of suicide. Instead he decided to find out why his life was so muddled with confusion. CC began to perform Google research on his feelings of being a man but is a woman. It was doing this research to see if others felt like him, that he discovered a world of people just like him. He discovered he was Transgender. So he came home on academic discharge and shared the information with me on the day after the Transgender Conference in our own town had just ended. To this day, I will never understand why he failed to share prior to the conference, except that I had so many irons in several fires at the time. So he gave me material to read. As I read it, nearly 20 years of "heartstrings" fell in place for me. As insane as the concept first came across in my mind, being born in the wrong gender body made so much sense to me. This is why my child felt so awkward about being considered homosexual or lesbian. The reason being is that CC was a male who liked females. I spent weeks reading various materials and watching videos on transgender. 

I helped CC find a therapist which seemed to be the first step in transitioning and I made sure it was someone who understood this very well. The therapist, Rik Fire, is also a Transman but even more than that, he is a spiritualist and CC truly needed someone who had spiritual wisdom. Having CC in therapy with Rik was a great help but it moved much faster than I was comfortable with. Before I knew it, my once daughter was taking Testosterone Replacement Therapy and I often wonder if this was the problem. Did this happen too soon? CC was going deeper into smoking weed and becoming more emotionally volatile than ever before. When I attended the TransConference last June, I listened to many who shared how T Therapy had them as emotional wrecks.  I wonder why this has not been addressed.  Well as for CC, he was truly derailing emotionally. It has gotten to the point that my husband and I find ourselves tiptoeing not to get this person too upset. This person is not transitioning into a man but into an adult size brat and I am reinforcing this transition. I came to realize that I can and will no longer become a prisoner in my own home but most of all, I will not help to become the ice maker for my son's life quickly emerging FROZEN TIME. Very recently, I have been reflecting of an article on how African Drumming can help calm the spirit of those filled with emotional stress and I reflected on the fact that over a year ago, I suggested to CC to go to a drumming session and he was drawn to it even though it was whacky. If only I could have connected him to a true African Drumming Circle, I believe it would be healing and therapeutic for him. As I research more on this, the more I am believing this is the Restorative Response for Transmen going through T-Therapy. Its something, I will share with some of the Trans therapy leaders.  Drumming Circles are truly restorative.

I am asking God to show us (all of my family) how to overcome being in FROZEN TIME. It may not be going away to a Rehab Program. It may be becoming our own Rehab Program by Life Coaching our own lives out of the FROST and into the SUN. I thought about the phenomenon of how Restorative Circles break through icebergs of trauma and how circles often help to heal when one has to acknowledge his or her wrong and then determine how he or she will repair the harm to self as well as to others. Does it has to be a physical circle or can we as Family and Friends circle around CC as each one in our own way and in our own commitment to him share with him our honest, heartfelt thoughts, suggestions and guidance on an ongoing basis until each of us begin to see him shake through his frost and begin to move towards a goal? We do not all need to bombard him but select one item of support to offer life coaching with love. Life coaching CC on any of the following or others not mention would be a benefit: Did he take the first step to his name change and get his finger prints? Is he working on his property in order to have income? Is he applying to enter into any school?  If not is he applying for a job somewhere? Is he seeking somewhere to live other than his parents' home? Did he find out about the next EMT test?  December 6th is an opportunity to take the EVOC exam. Is he registered to take it or seeking a obtain the funds to register?  Is he seeking alternatives to Rehab? Will he try out Jiu Jitsu as an art form to help him increase his mental agility and physical endurance?There are only so many many questions only because his life is FROZEN and no progress in any of these areas have taken place.

Can we become his circle of family love and support, encouragement yet hold him accountable for his own mistakes and for his own failures in life? With Restorative Practices, the answer is not to be punished for his mistakes and his acts of violence against his own mother but the answer is to hold him accountable to repair the harms he caused against his own life first and that is all I as his mother needs in return for the hurts he caused me. And only he can tell me what I can do for the hurts that I have caused his life. Yes, he too has a voice and his voice need to be heard and respected by both of his parents and all of siblings but most of all by himself. I am believing in this Circle of Hope, which today I am forming on behalf of my love for the youngest child that I birthed. I believe Circling can melt our lives out of FROZEN TIME.  My greatest concern is that the longer family wait to form the circle, the more FROZEN TIME retracts penetration of sunlight.  One can die in this state. We have seen it before and must do wall we can to prevent it from happening again.

May we continue in raising horizons for the suffering of humanity!

Circling Frozen Time In Time!
Part 1

By Martha Russell, Ph.D.,

CEO of Changing Lenses, Inc.

Raising Horizons for the Suffering

How does one begin a nonprofit purposed to help the suffering of humanity when one's own family is suffering? Consequently, I acknowledge and address my own trauma and that of my family as I press forward to emerge as one of the most effective trauma reducing advocates for trauma victims due to racism and other cisms of America. So let Our Circle be formed.

This morning I made the decision end a vicious cycle of being a codependent to my youngest son's emergence into the state of FROZEN TIME. What is FROZEN TIME? When months pass by and one has made little to no progress in their life, I view this as one evolving into a state of Frozen Time. Now when years pass one by and one cannot show any visible progress or goal attainment in his or her life, then this person is succinctly lost in the frost of FROZEN TIME.  FROZEN TIME is often associated with some form of unhealthy addiction, which places a person on an unending treadmill of walking through life daily making no progress outside of feeding the addiction. Many of us have been there and some are unknowingly even with habitual treadmills on social media or in  "churchianity"; however the most dreadful FROZEN TIME treadmills are related to alcohol and drug addiction because these often lead to prison or death. 

Is it possible that parents can be the cause or the promoter of adult children being caught up in Frozen Time? The answer is yes. Yet, that “yes” has a caveat of spiritual wisdom to it which asserts the cliche “You reap what you sow”. When parents sow seeds of fortitude, harmony and prudence, they generally reap children who display attributes of fortitude, harmony and prudence, for the most part. When parents sow seeds of sluggishness, strife, and squandering, they tend to raise children whose lives are plagued with challenges related to sluggishness, strife and squandering. This is not just the science of agriculture where apple seeds produce apples but it also supports the family dynamics proverb that Children Learn What They Live. In the case of my children, their lives experienced wholesome and dysfunctional family ethics. As parents, our squandering may have overwhelmed our attributes of fortitude and our relentless strife may have overwhelmed our sincere love and compassion that we had for all four of our children. Regardless, each child individually gleaned what life skill set, emotional intellect and resilient rising above it all schematics,  at differing levels as each one navigated through life's ups and downs from Thouron to Rabbit Run (street names of our first and last home as a family).

Today's message focuses on creating a circle around our youngest son, CC, whose major struggle in life was that he was born as our youngest daughter. We discovered his true gender identity only two years ago when he returned home from the overwhelming pressures that college life - overshadowed by gender confusion, experiencing lost, battling depression and addiction to pot - brought to him. When CC arrived at home, he desperately sought help and shared his turmoil with a need to be whom he was born to be, a male person. He also asked for help for his pot addiction which appeared to be his only scaffold to assist him with his transitioning from female to male; however, it is now his detriment to his transition and to achieving all of his life goals. As a typical controlling mother I immediately pressed into my favorite  “I can make it happen” role but I did not succeed. I immerse myself in the study of transgender just as I did ten years prior with the study of homosexuality. I contacted so many places to address the pot smoking issue, only to discovered that he could not get the help he needed for pot because it is not deemed an addictive drug by mainstream medical and therefore, our insurance would not cover in-house treatment. I now realize it was my linear vision that Rehab = overcoming addiction that caused this failure in helping him with his pot addiction. I failed to look at the obvious in that our extended family had a number of family members over the years who did go to residential drug rehabilitation who did not succeed. My two brothers both died in their addictions and my beloved nephew at age 26 also died in his. All three been to drug rehabilitation centers. Notwithstanding, there were others such as my own husband who did succeed. Although they may have relapsed after Rehab, they were able to gain control over what could have caused their lives to be left in FROZEN TIME.

CC's life appears to be rapidly evolving into FROZEN TIME and I believe my husband and I are actually increasing its refrigeration process. CC seems to be on a very dull treadmill of sleeping, smoking, eating, strolling through our premises a few times a day and sleeping again. He has stopped doing all of the important steps achieving goals in his life.  He failed to sign up for his EMT test after spending 10 months completing the coursework.  He simply stopped doing the necessary tasks required to have his name changed and his gender officially changed on his driver's license. When questioned on these things, he constantly points the finger away from self to blame something or someone  for each item he fails to accomplish. Just yesterday, he blamed me because he was unable to enroll in school due to his failure to raise $250.00 needed for his transcript to be obtained. His view was that I did not want him to go because I did not want him to attend school in Ohio in January and therefore, he could not get the financial support from family members.  This is the kind of logic pot addiction offers. He completely ignored the fact that there were so many missed opportunities for him to have raised the funds but he opted not to labor when was called.  What is even more frustrating to me is that he never attempted to obtain the transcripts until the day before the class was to begin. I sincerely believe he thought I was going to make magic happen for him and because I made no attempt to do the magic, I was at fault for him not getting enrolled. Perhaps, he is correct. I finally have to accept the fact that this child has never taken the responsibility for his own failures. He has conveniently blamed me for his numerous disappointments in life and I accepted them. Yes, I made many mistakes beginning with not having a clue to his gender identity, even though he provided so many clues as young as three years old. He even had to deal with being placed in an ALL GIRLS classroom from second grade to seventh grade at the school where I was founder and administrator.  Furthermore, in my zealot mother role to help him navigate a life as a teenager who had no friends, I continually guided him into school and out of school activities where he may can connect socially. I spent tons of dollars on activities such as horseback riding and ice hockey and ice skating lessons and none of which he completed. I allowed him to quite when things got to challenging or uncomfortable for him. My greatest mistake was to force him out of school because I believed homeschooling would shield him from his inability to socialize with his peers. That failed miserably but was fortunately short lived. He returned to school and became part of the school band. That was his best connection to a social life in high school. So I accept my part of the foundational problems but I cannot continue to build on these problems. 

Now that CC is 21 years old, we as parents and he as our son must begin to move to an adult relationship where we support and respect one another. Restoratively speaking, CC also needs a platform to share the harms we as parents brought to his life and how I and my husband can repair the harms we committed. Yet, CC also has to be willing to acknowledge and repair the harms he has committed to his own life and harms he has committed as a member of our household. Restorative Justice is justice that heals but it can only succeed when all parties involved can face their own demons and offer a commitment to acknowledge the wrongs, repair the harms and celebrate every victory on the way.  How will Restorative Practices look for us?  We will reflect more on how we got to where we are today and address this question in Part 2.

Thank you for taking time to visit with us as our endeavor shall be to continue:

Raising Horizons for the Suffering through Restorative Approaches!