The "Oh, SHIT!!" Response

I hope y'all will bear with me in this entry. I'm starting with some of the stuff I've been reading about that's made some more sense of things for me. I'll get to the more personal, applicable-to-real-life stuff in a little bit. Hang in there, OK?

As human beings, we've essentially got three brains crammed into our skulls. The first one I'd call the “Amoeba Brain.” This is the oldest part, the one that's responsible for keeping us alive. It does things like make sure that our hearts keep beating, we keep breathing, we absorb nutrition and get rid of waste, etc. Any living thing that has anything like a nervous system has this part. If this part breaks down, well, we're done. Pretty immediately, too. The next part that evolved is what I've heard called the “Puppy Brain.” This is the part of the brain that focuses on things like knowing to be afraid of dangerous things, getting angry to deal with threats we don't need to run away from to survive (or can't run away from), and to want to have connection and interaction with others of our kind, and dealing with more than just making copies of ourselves. Among other things, this is where emotions live and do their things. This kind of brain is present most obviously in mammals, though some of those functions can also be seen in some other animals. The newest part of the brain is the “Person Brain.” This is where we actually think about things, we compare memories of how things were to what's going on now, to consider the possible outcomes and consequences of potential courses of action. When people say that you should “use your head,” this is the part of the brain they mean.

The piece I've been thinking most about lately is the “Puppy Brain.” We developed those functions and parts because they'd give us an edge with regard to survival. If we hang out together, we tend to have better odds of surviving. Groups can handle bigger threats better than single individuals. It's also more likely that our young will survive and grow. It also means that we don't have to have everything hardwired into our DNA. See, that emotional stuff lets us learn things from others. When we're young, we pay attention to others around us. If they get scared by something, we learn to be scared of it, too. It makes us more flexible and adaptable than, say, plants, which have to have all of that stuff coded into the genetics. Incidentally, it makes sense out of why plants in general have so many more genes than we do. And that part of the brain keeps on learning throughout our lives. That way, we can continue to adapt to and deal with novel circumstances and situations.

Where it can get problematic is when the “Puppy Brain” creates what I call the “Oh, SHIT!!” association with something. See, that response makes sense in regard to real threats to our survival, like suddenly walking up on a tiger. When a threat's that strong, that emotional coloring gets stamped hard onto those cues and memories. The problem for us is twofold. One is that a lot of stuff we deal with in day-to-day life isn't really that serious of a threat. There's actually relatively few things we run into as we go along that's likely to kill us quickly. Not like when we were still hanging out in the trees or living in caves, anyway. So having that permanent stamp on there isn't as adaptive as it used to be. It's especially problematic when it's not just that specific set of circumstances that evoke that response, but things that we see as similar enough to remind us of them. The second part of the problem is strongly related to that. No other animal really thinks about what's going on the way we do. So those “Puppy Brain” responses are only based on what it's got going on around it at the time. Our ability to think and remember, though, means that it's more likely a wider range of things can spark off that “Oh, SHIT!!” response. Seeing or hearing something that reminds you of a particularly intense crisis can be enough. For me, one time it was seeing someone in an airplane who, at least at first glance, looked just like my late wife. Suddenly my heart was pounding, I was sweating, my muscles were shaking and my guts tied themselves in knots...all the same things that physically get the body ready to either run from or fight off a real danger. She was about two-thirds my size and didn't even know I was there. She was no danger to my continued life. But the “Puppy Brain” reacted anyway.

That leads to two points. One of them is that trying to be rational and reasonable doesn't work in dealing with those responses. Look on the Internet and it's easy to find videos of puppies and kittens freaking out over their reflections. Now imagine trying to intellectually explain to a small animal about the principles of reflection to get them to calm down. Yeah....good luck with that. Well, guess what? We've got that part of us, too. And, when it sparks off the “Oh, SHIT!!” response, trying to intellectually explain things is just as useful. To me, that makes a lot more sense out of some of the reactions I've had that have made me wonder sometimes if I've been losing my mind. Walking through a grocery store she and I had gone to twice suddenly sets off panic. Well, my “Puppy Brain” got reminded of losing a critical connection, which it interpreted as a threat to survival, and suddenly I'm caught halfway between a panic attack and a psychotic episode. And much though people around me care and want to help & be there, it's not always easy to get it that the usual, rational way we talk about and deal with stuff just isn't going to make a difference.

The other point is that it's made a lot more sense out of some of the things I'd found myself doing over and over again. It seems we all have them, even though they vary from person to person. The common ground in them all is they bring a sense of safety and comfort. There's good reason why some things are called “comfort foods.” They're the ones that have associations of safety and good times for us. Just the taste and texture is enough to evoke that feeling that things are OK. Not the thought that things are OK, but the feeling. The “Puppy Brain” doesn't get thoughts, but it does get feelings. Same with sitting on the couch watching TV or staying in bed under the covers and reading. For some folks it's shopping. For others it's going to the gym and working out. Yet others find it in getting to talk to people, especially those who'll listen and validate what we feel. That's why sometimes we just need someone to hear us out; no advice or fix-it required. Depending on the severity of the crisis, it can take a long time to get the “Puppy Brain” calmed down again. Making the time and space for those things can be critical.

In walking through Hell, we don't just face challenges and barriers that come from outside of ourselves. Some of the torments are driven by parts of who and what we are. To the extent we don't know and understand and accept ourselves, those parts can be turned against us. “Accept” doesn't mean “like.” It just means acknowledge what's there so we can know what it is and how to deal with it. So it's one less thing in the way as we walk down to get out.