June 26, 2014

June 26, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Yesterday night this writer opened a box to look for some pictures to decorate his office. In the box was a photo album with pictures of his parents. It hit him like a ton of bricks and he broke out in tears. Seeing them and thinking about how far removed he feels, triggered an emotional outburst. 

Early this morning this writer woke up from a nightmare. He was walking in a war-ravished area with only collapsed buildings. He was holding a naked baby boy in his arms and he did not know what to do with him. Although the baby was calm, he felt very worried about it and he didn't know how to protect it. There was no good place to lay it down anywhere, so he carefully held it in his arms, because all around was nothing but dirt and chaos. 

The discriminative stimuli for this dream were probably these pictures of his parents. An instantaneous response was the deeply felt sadness about not being with them. The dream was also likely a consequence of what happened yesterday night. About a week ago, this writer reread a dreadful poem that had been written by his father. In the poem he described an event that had shaped his life. During the final year of the Second World War he and his one year younger brother had been send away to an aunt in the north of Holland, because there was nothing anymore to eat for them. He traveled on a train which was full of German soldiers and reached his aunt and survived the war in this way. It had been a terrifying experience for him about which he would have nightmares for the rest of his life. 

This writer was never able to connect with his edgy father, who is still alive. Since he wanted to connect with him so badly, but couldn’t, he decided not to contact his father anymore. Ever since he has decided that, his life has been much better and without the emotional turmoil, which was there as long as he was still trying to keep in touch with his parents. His father has impacted him in complicated ways, because he used to say: whatever it is we can always talk about it! Only now he knows that his father was unable to have SVB with him.