THE BRAIN AND ME

In previous blogs, I have attempted to give you some idea of the issues I have struggled with, or still am struggling with, but it is getting time to move on to how to deal or live with these, as well as understand the issues better.

Just to recap in my case I have struggled with:

Intense fear of people: I will try to clarify this, at least as much as it is clear to me. Because of my childhood situation, I never learnt to bond or trust. Instead, I developed an intense fear of violence, rejection, humiliation, punishment. Because of this, my brain’s survival response in the amygdala became hyperactive. It started seeing and experiencing threats everywhere. My brain associated my surroundings as major threats which it had to take action upon. Which is what we now call the Fight-Flight-Freeze response. Since I was still a little child when this first started, the fight response wasn’t really an option. That left the flight or freeze response. These two became my brain’s automatic responses to perceived threats, which, as described above, were numerous, almost constant. In fact, it got so bad that I rarely ever felt safe at all and was almost always in one or the other of the threat responses.

The Fight-Flight-Freeze response is a natural survival strategy you will see by animals (which we humans belong) and in nature. At the sign of threat, it switches on, takes precautionary measures, and once the threat has passed, switches off again. With us humans, there is a very complicated, although lightening fast, procedure as our (animal) brain assesses the threat and decides on a response depending on the type of threat and the immediacy of the threat. I won’t try to explain how I understand this to function at this moment. However, let’s say if the brain assesses that there is a chance of not being seen (for example by a nearby lion) then it might choose the freeze response. If it thinks this might not work, it might choose the (attempt to) flee response. With a large predator such as a lion, it is unlikely to choose the fight response unless it sees no other option, but with a smaller predator, it might choose to fight.

Once it has decided if the threat is a genuine threat, it will then start the response preparations. This involves shutting down all body systems that are not required for the response. The energy saved from these shutdown systems is pumped as extra energy to the systems needed for the threat response. The needed extra energy response systems are things like heart and blood flow, muscles, lungs and breathing, and so on. Not needed systems that get shutdown are things like major areas of the brain (that use up substantial amounts of energy), digestion systems (another major energy user), and such like. All the while, it is continually assessing the threat and, finally, it will activate the chosen response. All done at lightning speed. During such a process, the survival response cannot allow any interference, such as from our rational brain, as any interference may slow down or delay the speedy response required and lead to our death. So our rational brain area is shutdown at such moments. At such moments, we are fully under the control of our animal brain’s survival response.

Once the threat has passed, either by carrying out a chosen response and we have survived this, or by a decision that the threat is not really a threat at all, or not an immediate threat, the animals brains survival response will switch off the threat and switch all body systems back on and return us to a normal functioning state.

However, if the threat response is being activated constantly, it will become hyperactive and start experiencing (learns) the surroundings as just being one enormous and almost endless threat. Especially is such situations where the threat becomes associated with objects, such as people, who are all around you almost continuously. This can spread to similar situations. The result being that you become trapped in an almost continuous threat response and your body is constantly being switched into the threat response state. This causes not just physical difficulties, such as trouble with your digestions or breathing system, but also mental difficulties because of the switching off of your brain. Your rational functioning abilities are massively affected. In early life, this is increased because your rational abilities are not yet developed (last part of the brain to develop) and are extremely limited. In early age, you are closer to your emotional functioning rather than the rational functioning, which is barely there, and the survival response is centred in our emotional brain. So you are already closer to your survival response.

Unable to bond or feel safe and feeling almost constantly threatened (home, school, local) my survival response became super hyperactive. Since childhood is also a time of brain development and learning, my brain’s survival response learnt this to be a “natural” state of being (in the threat response state).

This situation was made far worse because of other disorders, which I do not know if they were inherited or caused by my childhood situation. So besides the almost constant fear, I suffered from attention and learning disorders and autism. I also developed many physical issues related to the continual shutting down of bodily systems which I was, of course, unaware of. Just as I was unaware of the attention and learning deficiencies or the autism. It would remain this way almost all of my life.

With a mother who was almost solely focused on her own issues, a father who acted as though I did not even exist, at least as far as he was concerned, a sister trapped in her own issues, and while suffering immense aggression, humiliations, ridicule, punishments, emotional hurts, rejections, and suicidal actions I lived in the almost constant state of fear and insecurity. With no other choice, I learnt to live with, adapt to, this kind of life. Since this started from early childhood, I passively took whatever was thrown at me and just tried to survive, simply because I knew no other way and had no other (known) choice. I learnt this was how life was. At least for me. Although I did not understand it. Being hit, beaten up, ridiculed, humiliated, punishments and living in fear and insecurity became (believed) natural ways for me and my life. I was also violently brainwashed into believing it was all my fault because I was stupid, useless, pathetic, a fool, thick, and a massive failure. A hopeless and worthless animal. As this happened during the time my brain was developing, being constructed from experiences and emotions, these formed the substance of my brain formation. They became my guiding life template, which my brain continually referred to and acted upon.

Since we humans are social (group) animals, this is programmed into our genetics. However, a split, a divide happened between this genetic programming and my childhood brain construction (one built on fears). Consequently, I was to suffer an almost constant sense of excruciating loneliness and longing for closeness and warmth (love) while also colossally fearing these. The same applied to all forms of relationships. I learnt how to survive near other people, but not how to become emotionally close to them. All forms of social interaction were such a challenge I avoided them as much as possible, despite a deep and painful longing to belong. The fear was just too powerful. Hence the excruciating loneliness that has followed me throughout my life. I learnt to work alongside others without becoming involved. I’d become a loner out of necessity, although a deeply suffering loner. Life was agony, but through this agony, I learnt to look deeper into life as I searched for an understanding of (and freedom from) my predicament. Denied an education I had to teach myself everything, in my way, and this enabled me to see riches of life I might otherwise not have seen, or experienced.

Eventually, in an act of utter desperation, I turned to creativity to help me. With a damaged brain, the constant fear issue, the excruciating loneliness and longing to belong, the overwhelming sense of shame and guilt I felt about myself, how I looked, my illiteracy, things I had done out of total desperation, and my inability to satisfactorily communicate, or express myself, and verbal words that continually failed me, and unable to turn to anybody to help me I finally turned to the newly discovered creativity for despairing help.

In future blogs, I will look at creativity as a means of self-help, relief, and far more.

I will also look at the brain and psychology.

(PS: If you would like to know more about my life, please read my book: The Incurable Weight of Love.)