Rat Analogy And Over-stimulation

[Dissociated1]

The similarities in victims of trauma never cease to amaze me. I was floored when my therapist pointed out that I often allude to rats during therapy.

Don’t give a rat’s ass; Eat the rat; Smell a rat; Rat on someone; Rat out; Rug rat; Pack rat; Rat bastard; Rat Fink; Rat hole; Rat race; trapped like a rat; Look like a drowned rat; Lying there like a dead rat; Swimming like a rat from a sinking ship; Running like a rat from a burning building; Running like a rat on a treadmill; Pigeon; like a rat with wings.

Dr. Leonard Shengold writes in in his book “Soul Murder” this is common in people who have been subjected to over-stimulation. He has an entire chapter devoted to what he calls “Rat people” noting a “preoccupation, evidenced by the appearance of rats in analytic associations should alert the observer to the possibility of soul murder.”

I am wondering if anyone else has noticed or discussed this red flag of trauma with their therapist?

 

[Powder]

I looked up over-stimulation and just found it is the opposite of boredom. I guess I done understand what it means to be subjected to it.

I do think that is interesting. I'd love it if someone pointed any recurring images to me. They can be helpful.

 

[Dissociated1]

Shengold sees trauma as overstimulation.
I was a bit overwhelmed when my therapist discussed this with me until I saw how well documented it is in the literature. An excellent summary of Shengold's ""More about Rats and Rat People," International Journal of Psycho- Analysis, 52, pages 277-88 on YouTube reads as follows:

Original Link:

Rat people are those with fixations upon oral sadism and masochism manifested as cannibalistic rage fears and wishes of being penetratively devoured and of release through destructive devouring penetration. They seek repetitively over stimulating experiences as if addicted to aggressive penetrative fury. They form a split super ego in order to isolate and contain impulses by which they become blind to connection between cause and effect. The personality is compartmentalized by hypnoid states. He knows things but does not know their significance.

Rat is derived from Latin Muroidea, to gnaw or consume. Rat like man engages in interest specific destructive competitiveness. We share in a collective aggression. Rats tear to pieces rats of other clans by engaging in rat hunts. Rats will eat anything, even neglected babies. They represent aggressive devouring appetite. Rats also represent aggressive reproduction. Man is at constant battle with rats but which is subject and which object? Which persecuted and which persecutor?

Rat represents auto cannibalism. They must constantly gnaw in order not to be consumed by its own teeth. Representing aggressive growth, the constant gnawing of the rat represents omnipresent aggression. The two present as once penetrative and devouring. Cannibalistic penetration rises to the level of valid power. Teething interrupts pleasure sucking. The painful coming in of teeth is a cannibalistic experience as both subject and object of the biting. Pain cause aggression which fuses with the libido as the ego is beginning to coalesce to differentiate between subject and object. The infant identifies with food from the other which once ingested by self becomes self. Aggression is projected upon part object of bad not me or bad breast. Over stimulation and fear of being eating are felt as coming from the out side. The lesson learned is to not bite in order to not be bitten. Aggression becomes repressed.

Rat people lack identity and ability to love without struggle painful subjugation and repeated over stimulation. They compulsively crave discharge as a penetrative devouring act. Like constant teething and the final tooth eruption, they are ever gnawing, like the rat relentless. As both subject and object are equivocal to teeth return to passive cannibalistic terror looms ever present.

 

[Badger]

We have never met, but I have to say it doesnt sound like a very flattering description of you.

 

[franciemarnie]

I don't ever use the term because my father used it in ways that trigger me. But I'm interested in that book you mentioned.

 

[WillyKat]

I talk a lot (well, maybe not a lot, but some) about primates, which is interesting that you have chimps as your avatar.

We did not evolve from apes, you know. We *are* apes.

I tell her that I sometimes find it a helpful grounding technique, not to mention great fun, to pretend I'm Jane Goodall or someone and study the other primates around me, like at work. If you let your mind drift, like in a meeting, pretty soon you don't hear language, just "vocalizations"; then you don't notice them typing on a computer, these things are just "behaviors."

 

[Hashi]

At the very beginning of recovering memories of the trauma when I was 20, I had a dream where I saw a mouse disappearing under a cupboard in the kitchen. I went into the kitchen to investigate and saw five rats asleep in a small basket on the floor [I was attacked by five men]. As I watched, they woke up and started running up and down my legs.

Because of that dream, rats are one of the symbols I use in art to represent my attackers. Nearly all the symbols I use are animals. I have no particular interest in animals, but they seem to be the perfect metaphors for people and feelings.

A few months ago when I was preparing to do some trauma work in therapy, a couple of times I saw - in real life - a huge rat walk across the back garden. I see rats in the city centre from time to time, but I live in the suburbs and have never seen one around my house before, and have never seen one so big. Fortunately I also kept seeing a white butterfly flying across the garden - a positive symbol for me.

Probably there are rats and butterflies in the garden on lots of occasions, but I only happened to see them at that point. Maybe because of preparing for trauma work I was attuned to look at the moment when they were there?

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I find it interesting that so many see a relation between rats and their abuse/abusers. However it is a common thing for humans to have an aversion to rats and as such see them as disease ridden, dirty, unclean, vicious/dangerous wily and vermin, even moreso since the plague but even then the rats were only hosts to the actual plague carriers - fleas.

Just on an different note, I own two pet rats and have had another one in the past, they are the entire opposite of this by being clean, intelligent, kind, caring, affectionate, adventurous, mischievous, strong beyond their size, agile and have very unique personalities. They're a little bit greedy (one more than the other) and hoarders, one of them has absolutely no survival instincts - she likes wrestling - sweet but daft and the other is fat, lazy and anxious - likes a good chase but but has poor eyesight. They both love Chinese, chocolate and cereal.

Just insight and my personal defense of rats, maybe unnecessary and sorry for taking off topic. Maybe it's because they're a different breed and very different to wild rats but I think that these rats given some care can be anything you could think of. Maybe what I'm trying to say is even if you see them all as just rats, one type are dangerous and harmful creatures the other are harmless and as varied as people. I don't think my abusers were liken the majority of the human race, I wonder if they are a separate species somewhat more evil in nature.

 

[Dissociated1]

Dr. Shengold’s views on deprivation and over stimulation as they relate to trauma and his book “Soul Murder” were referred to me by my cognitive psychologist, clinical psychologist and trauma specialist. The connection between rats and over-stimulation (trauma) are offensive to me as a childhood trauma survivor. But the most disturbing part for me is how accurately it relates to me and my condition.

You can preview “Soul Murder” on Amazon at Dead Link Removed

From book jacket:
To abuse or neglect a child, to deprive the child of a separate identity and joy in life, is to commit soul murder. Children desperately need to maintain a mental image of a loving and rescuing parent. Torture and deprivation under conditions of complete dependency elicit a terrifying combination of helplessness and rage- feelings that the child must supress in order to survive. The child therefore denies or justifies what has happened, deadens emotions, identifies with the aggressor, and even takes on the guilt that is appropriate to the tormentor. In this book, Dr. Shengold explores various forms of child abuse and deprivation and the resulting psychological trauma that often surface when the victims reach adulthood. He also describes the abuse suffered by four famous authors when they were children and shows how this ill treatment is reflected in their writing. Discussing both his own cases and some of Freud's, Dr. Shengold clarifies the pathogenesis of soul murder and the psychoanalytic techniques used to deal with it. He supports and elaborates on the frequent observation that those who have been abused as children tend to abuse their own children, experiencing sadomasochistic impulses and a susceptibility to terrible rage as well as a compulsion to repeat the traumatic experiences- both as victim and as aggressor. One optimistic note that Dr. Shengold strikes in this saga of pain is that a terrible childhood sometimes strengthens a person. To survive and adjust, he says, some children develop special gifts and talents; these are demonstrated by his analysis of the early lives and literary works of Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Anton Chekhov, and George Orwell.

 

[Powder]

Thank you for posting this interesting book. I will definitely preview it on Amazon. I'm especially interested in the growth of talents and writing skills from the child trauma.

An an antedote to the depressing parts of studying trauma, I suggest _Man's Search for Meaning_ by Viktor Frankl, who was a psychiatrist in Vienna, who grew up across the street from Freud and was mentored by him. Frankl was placed in concentration camps, extermination camps actually, and managed to survive and write about his experience there. Rather then presenting us with a depressing view of survival, Frankl maintains that there is a way out of disillusionment (the 3rd stage upon release from the camps that, to the modern reader would be PTSD or PTS). According to Frankl, trauma or deprivation (social breakdown) causes people to "unmask" themselves to show who they truly are: "saints or swine."

In his Jewish tradition, It is not a Rat but a Pig that Frankl, a survivor, sees in the evil ones among us, those who's moral centre is actually unclean or void underneath the "masks." Either animal points to the image of an animal that is anti-social, greedy, and lacking in redemptive tendencies toward empathy.

Rather than focusing on the idea that the majority of those who suffer in childhood will go on to impose that on others, I think it's more likely that fewer people than we would like are truly compassionate and moral.

You cannot harm a moral person and cause them to become amoral for long. A seed will grow to become whatever it already is.

 

[Powder]

After posting this, I was also thinking about how, as a survivor, Frankl, himself, may have been subject to splitting, or black and white thinking that can be a symptom of trauma. He does admit that each individual has both good and bad in them, but he observes that one will will out when tested by trauma or power.

I don't want to give the impression that I've decided or totally agree. I'm certainly open to other perspectives as valid. But I have noted that some people manage to maintain a kind and moral life despite all odds. They seem to "get" and not "give" the headache.

 

[Hashi]

Kas, I don't think symbolism is about seeing a species fairly, or even necessarily seeing them for what they are. It's the perception that's important. If there's a general perception of rats as unclean, vile and parasitical, then that's the significance of the symbol. Not every broomstick made out of twigs belongs to a witch, but that isn't the point of the image.

It works in both directions. Many people think doves are romantic and a symbol of peace. But doves are just pigeons. (More accurately, pigeons are doves, but same difference.)

 

[Dissociated1]

Thank you, Muse, for sharing the theories of Viktor Frankl. The cultural substitution of the pig for the rat is fascinating as well as the idea that trauma causes people to "unmask" themselves to show who they truly are. I have read about half of "Soul Murder" and Shengold also discusses how truama can bring out amazing qualities in a person.