·Rabbit Hole Drama Club First Recruitment See Nijo ·
Some time ago, I watched an issue of "Lu Yu Has a Date", and the guest was Xu Zhisheng, who stood out in the talk show competition.
He made the audience laugh out loud when he spoke on the stage, and there was an unknown heartache behind him.
He said that he had suffered severe school violence, which left him deeply traumatized, and he felt safe through laughter and good grades through hard work, but when he was admitted to graduate school, he found that the source of security disappeared, so the pain of the past reappeared.
He said don't have to be thankful for the pain, which has no meaning in your life.
The biggest shadow left by school violence is that when he sees the violence happening, he does not dare to rush up, he will flinch, which is what we often call PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
With the attention paid to psychological problems, PTSD is being paid more and more attention to, which refers to a series of mental disorders that persist after a person has experienced trauma. Many of our unexplained behaviors and emotions, looking back, may be related to some of our experiences:
Why are some people repeatedly attracted to abusive and violent relationships and can't get out of a vicious circle?
Why do some people fear and avoid intimacy and set up defense mechanisms for themselves?
Why do some people become pleasing and flattering personalities, constantly obeying the demands of others and trying to do many things just to avoid conflict?
The answer comes from "what have you been through".
01
A traumatic conversation between a talk show queen and a psychiatrist
What have you been through? is the title of a book by American talk show queen Oprah and child psychiatrist and neuroscientist Bruce M. Co-authored by Dr. D. Perry.
The book is a collection of ten in-depth conversations between two people, centered on the themes of trauma, healing, and resilience, and tells the stories of many patients dr. Perry has treated.
Oprah was abandoned by her parents at birth, experienced abuse and sexual assault when she was growing up, and once entered a juvenile shelter. As an adult, she had a very cold relationship with her mother, and it was always difficult to let go of the hurt of the past.
When her mother's life was in danger, she returned to her hometown to visit her mother, who was in the same room, and after talking about room temperature and weather, she could no longer find anything to say.
Oprah Winfrey
In August 1974, a young medical student Perry quarreled with his new wife over trivial matters, and the wife went to church alone to pray, where she was brutally murdered, but the police did not find the murderer until 44 years later.
Dr. Perry has spent a long period of painful and incomprehensible time. He dropped out of Stanford to study neuroscience.
The death of his wife became a turning point in his life, and he devoted all his energy to finding answers to the questions that tormented him. He later became a well-known child psychotherapy specialist in the United States. He spent his wife's life after her departure studying and treating traumatized children.
Bruce P. D. Perry
02
All our trauma
Both the brain and the body will remember deeply
Many traumatic experiences begin in childhood, with a "adverse childhood experience" questionnaire (ACE) that includes 10 questions about unfortunate experiences that may occur before the age of 18, and the correlation between ACE scores and the nine leading causes of death in adult life.
This means that the more misfortunes you experience in your childhood, the greater your health risks. Subsequent studies using the same data showed a similar correlation between adult ACE scores and suicide risk, mental health problems.
Being born as a human being does not mean that we can all grow up smoothly. Early in life, we may be ignored, belittled, treated with indifference, lack of support and affection; growing up, we may encounter violence, betrayal, control, hurt, breakup, loss of loved ones... These bad events or experiences are called trauma.
Everything we experience shapes who we are today and defines every relationship, every interaction, and every decision we make.
The boy Samuel has a violent father who punches and kicks him when he gets drunk. He went through 12 foster homes, changed 12 schools, and was forced to leave each time because he couldn't get along with people.
He was taken to the hospital for treatment at the age of 11, and in the following three years Samuel made tremendous progress.
But just when everything was getting better, he and his new teacher had serious conflicts, there were many violent acts, and the school authorities had to use coercive means to tie him up.
After careful inquiry, Dr. Perry found that the antiperspirant used by the teacher was the same brand as Samuel's father. More than a decade later, the smell awakened Samuel's childhood memories and triggered his excessive stress response.
This is typical of the symptoms of re-experiencing PTSD and the symptoms of over-alertness.
03
Psychological problems and behavioral abnormalities
It turned out that it was all because the brain had changed
Some people will say: Can we actively forget this painful memory?
The answer is: no.
Dr. Perry, a child psychiatrist and neuroscientist, dissects the brain science logic behind all psychological problems and abnormal behaviors from the perspective of the brain.
Our brain is like an inverted triangle of four-layer cake, topped by the cerebral cortex, which is also the smartest part of us that helps us think rationally. Our beliefs and values are also stored here. It is also important to note that this part can identify the time.
When the cerebral cortex is online and activated, we can think back to the past, look to the future, and know what happened in the past and what happened in the present.
At the base of the brain is the brainstem area. Sometimes we call this part of the brain the reptilian brain. Think about it, what can a lizard do? They don't plan and they don't think. They basically just live in the moment and respond to immediate stimuli.
The hierarchical structure of the human brain. Image source: "What Have You Experienced?" 》
All of our sensory signals go into lower areas of the brain first, not directly into the cerebral cortex. Signals are processed after they enter the brainstem. The brainstem matches the input signals to previously stored experiences.
For example, the boy matches the smell of the teacher with the memory of his father, because the brainstem cannot recognize the time and does not know that many years have passed, so it will immediately activate the stress response and respond to external threats.
04
Mend broken hearts
Start by mourning and saying goodbye to the past
The good news is that the human brain is uniquely adaptable and malleable.
The second half of the book is about healing and resilience. When we understand how the brain works, we can go back to the source and find out what the problem is.
Trauma arises from people, and the key to healing is also human.
Through scientific healing methods, such as reconstructing interrupted emotional connections, group therapy, "appropriate dose" conversations, the correct revisiting of trauma, integrating memory fragments, rhythmic movements, finding a sense of security and being loved...
We can return to normal stress patterns, construct new brain circuits, and let the cerebral cortex function as it should. If trauma brings us a sense of powerlessness, loss of control, and uncertainty, then what we have to do is to strip the past from our present lives and regain control of our lives.
10% of life depends on what you go through and 90% depends on how you cope. The more we deny ourselves, the more we cannot reconcile with the past, and confronting the past will consume us enormous energy.
If we do not allow ourselves to grieve over past experiences, we are doomed to relive those wounds constantly. Because the residual emotions of the past will always follow us.
If we really want to know ourselves, we need to know our history — our true history.
In this way, we can not only know ourselves and heal ourselves, but also empathize with and understand others, reducing prejudices and misunderstandings.
Yesterday's abyss, today's talk. This powerful resilience will help us say goodbye to the past, get out of the darkness, and gain post-traumatic wisdom.
What have you been through? 》
Bruce by D. Perry Oprah Winfrey