(no subject)
Last winter I read some case study style books and saw a lecture about trauma by a neuroscientist named Bruce Perry. Ever since then there is so much of it that comes up all the time in my work, my own head, my interactions. He wove a lot of research findings with stories of children he worked with, all of it underlining some basic tenets of trauma informed thought and the ways that persistent childhood trauma deeply change brain development.
One of the more resonant statistics and diagrams of his that I've seen has to do with mapping the average number of small positive to neutral human interactions children were exposed to and looking at later outcomes. Addiction was one of the factors that much much higher in those who had lower incidence of positive interactions, things like being greeted coming home from school, asked about tasks or things of interest or homework, being addressed in simple, human ways. Pleasurable things with higher octane could fill gaps made by starvation of day to day reinforcement of a person's humanity.
I've been thinking a lot about various spaces in the grey scale of this idea. Specifically I've been trying to come to terms with some of the damage of having been a bullied child both out in the world and at home. I am relatively privileged, and though my parents were laissez-faire 1970's hands off parents, I wouldn't say they were neglectful, though we did watch way too much television. There was a normal level of banter and I was told I was loved. Some of that was more out of balance for me because i got many more and louder negative messages every day. I'd be curios to know how that kind of thing shakes out in this mode. In some ways I have a high capacity for delayed gratification. This particular slice of grey scale does not really have to do with addiction per se, but a response i notice in myself when i have access to moments of intense feeling (for me, usually not drugs or drinking, maybe it's connected to states that could be classified as symptoms of mental illness). There are these heightened things that threaten to fill all the gaps in my trust that i can just be safe and ok, and in those moments it's so difficult to have any connection at all to the mundanely pleasurable.
I also wonder how much of this relates to the broader experience of growing and living in a society with priorities almost completely defined by capitalism. The kids who grew up in homes and had no protective repetitive interactions of basic connection are the ones I worry about the most, of course. I work with many of those people who have now become adults; i marvel at their resiliance and recoil at the challenges of their lives. It's important not to usurp that oppression, and that's not my angle here, so I hope it doesn't read that way. I do think it's useful to notice the spectrum that spreads from that experience. Mainly, for me finding some wholeness (and therefore ability to be accessible to people who are fighting much bigger oppressions), i wonder how useful it is for me to recognize those moments when i absolutely can't self soothe without rockets going off in my head as a lesser product of a similar phenomenon. I wonder if there is a way to reopen a childhood pathway and tell some new stories. Over and over and over again.
What does it look like to create a world in which none of us are starved of enough moments of mundane positive contact? Can I use my own little brain as an experiment?
One of the more resonant statistics and diagrams of his that I've seen has to do with mapping the average number of small positive to neutral human interactions children were exposed to and looking at later outcomes. Addiction was one of the factors that much much higher in those who had lower incidence of positive interactions, things like being greeted coming home from school, asked about tasks or things of interest or homework, being addressed in simple, human ways. Pleasurable things with higher octane could fill gaps made by starvation of day to day reinforcement of a person's humanity.
I've been thinking a lot about various spaces in the grey scale of this idea. Specifically I've been trying to come to terms with some of the damage of having been a bullied child both out in the world and at home. I am relatively privileged, and though my parents were laissez-faire 1970's hands off parents, I wouldn't say they were neglectful, though we did watch way too much television. There was a normal level of banter and I was told I was loved. Some of that was more out of balance for me because i got many more and louder negative messages every day. I'd be curios to know how that kind of thing shakes out in this mode. In some ways I have a high capacity for delayed gratification. This particular slice of grey scale does not really have to do with addiction per se, but a response i notice in myself when i have access to moments of intense feeling (for me, usually not drugs or drinking, maybe it's connected to states that could be classified as symptoms of mental illness). There are these heightened things that threaten to fill all the gaps in my trust that i can just be safe and ok, and in those moments it's so difficult to have any connection at all to the mundanely pleasurable.
I also wonder how much of this relates to the broader experience of growing and living in a society with priorities almost completely defined by capitalism. The kids who grew up in homes and had no protective repetitive interactions of basic connection are the ones I worry about the most, of course. I work with many of those people who have now become adults; i marvel at their resiliance and recoil at the challenges of their lives. It's important not to usurp that oppression, and that's not my angle here, so I hope it doesn't read that way. I do think it's useful to notice the spectrum that spreads from that experience. Mainly, for me finding some wholeness (and therefore ability to be accessible to people who are fighting much bigger oppressions), i wonder how useful it is for me to recognize those moments when i absolutely can't self soothe without rockets going off in my head as a lesser product of a similar phenomenon. I wonder if there is a way to reopen a childhood pathway and tell some new stories. Over and over and over again.
What does it look like to create a world in which none of us are starved of enough moments of mundane positive contact? Can I use my own little brain as an experiment?