Thriving Without Abuse...

[lost4awhile]

Does anyone else find it easier to cope when you are in the state of mind that you may be in danger? Whenever everything is going well I do poorly, yet when I am around my childhood abuser or those who have traits of my abuser I feel like I am normal. I suppose this is because it was all I knew growing up?

 

[Innordinate]

Weird. I was thinking about that today too.
Maybe its because we know/knew what to expect? In a really kind of f*cked up way we were 'safe'?. I don't know.
Rules used to be really clear for me, now they aren't. Maybe that's why.

 

[lost4awhile]

That's what I was thinking...I feel safe when I am around the same situations, people, places, etc. It actually gives me strength to accomplish what is necessary in life and that is what concerns me. I am confident in myself when I am around the similar situations. There is control, or at least it feels that way...but how can it when it was always abuse?

 

[lost4awhile]

It is strange. It's as if there is no constant and we become confused and unable to thrive in a mundane environment. It's as if you are always waiting until it surrounds you and then you can relax. Yeah pretty messed up.

 

[maddog]

I think it's very easy for us to mistake familiarity for control in these situations. From a developmental perspective, when we live with constant abuse as children, our minds learn to process and understand the world in the context of constant threat and danger. Our developing minds literally take on board these abusive environments and all of the negative destructive feedback and input, and they integrate this into the fabric of the meaning of life, and it becomes your internal reality.

As we grow up and move away from those abusive situations, we often find ourselves in a world that is no longer abusive and that may in fact be supportive, safe and nurturing. And we have no idea how to live in or interpret that world! My T explains this in terms of neural pathways, the connecting mechanisms within our brains that link observation to experience to understanding and interpretation, and they run along tracks that are familiar and which have been reinforced. Where there is no precedent or learned association, such as in the face of positive and affirming feedback or input, we feel lost, confused, alien and desperate to seek familiarity. This inevitably leads to situations where we are inclined to seek out old destructive patterns, or to feel oddly comfortable and safe when surrounded by them, even if the adult cognitions are telling us that it's bad.

And so in that sense, it makes perfect sense to feel "normal" and comfortable in the company of abusers. This allows the deeply ingrained neural pathways to fire in a way that is familiar.

That's why "healing", in whatever form that takes, can be so traumatic and confusing and even negative-feeling in the short term. Rewiring your brain is no small task, but until or unless we go there, good things will never feel good or normal, and we'll never really be able to challenge or step away from the negative learned behaviours and being states of the past.

Maddog

 

[lost4awhile]

I think it's very easy for us to mistake familiarity for control in these situations. From a developmental perspective, when we live with constant abuse as children, our minds learn to process and understand the world in the context of constant threat and danger. Our developing minds literally take on board these abusive environments and all of the negative destructive feedback and input, and they integrate this into the fabric of the meaning of life, and it becomes your internal reality.

As we grow up and move away from those abusive situations, we often find ourselves in a world that is no longer abusive and that may in fact be supportive, safe and nurturing. And we have no idea how to live in or interpret that world! My T explains this in terms of neural pathways, the connecting mechanisms within our brains that link observation to experience to understanding and interpretation, and they run along tracks that are familiar and which have been reinforced. Where there is no precedent or learned association, such as in the face of positive and affirming feedback or input, we feel lost, confused, alien and desperate to seek familiarity. This inevitably leads to situations where we are inclined to seek out old destructive patterns, or to feel oddly comfortable and safe when surrounded by them, even if the adult cognitions are telling us that it's bad.

And so in that sense, it makes perfect sense to feel "normal" and comfortable in the company of abusers. This allows the deeply ingrained neural pathways to fire in a way that is familiar.

That's why "healing", in whatever form that takes, can be so traumatic and confusing and even negative-feeling in the short term. Rewiring your brain is no small task, but until or unless we go there, good things will never feel good or normal, and we'll never really be able to challenge or step away from the negative learned behaviours and being states of the past.

Maddog

Thank you for the information, it is so accurate! I really appreaciate that you connect with the biological aspect because we are born with so many neurons and they are cut and trimmed according to what surrounds us so that we are able to thrive. All the talk and meds is mundane and unrewarding. I keep hoping that a pill will fix all of this, but the sad part is that I do not know what is normal. I learn from co-workers, childhood friends& doctors about what is normal. There are so many irrational thoughts that I wonder if I can ever overmap the hardwiring of my childhood 'normalcy'

 

[maddog]

I think that it definitely doesn't happen quickly, or easily, or perhaps even completely. I suspect that those old neural pathways and ways of relating to the world will always be there. The goal is just to develop new ones, and to reinforce them as alternatives, and to teach the old patterns to fire less spontaneously and the new ones to take precedence. Modelling positive behaviour from friends, coworkers and other "healthy" people in our environment is inevitable - it's what we do as children, it's just that as children it's usually our family network that has the strongest and most direct influence. That's why it's really important to surround ourselves with "healthy" people now, and to maximise the positive lessons we're learning.

Makes us sound very passive and childlike to speak about in such terms, but in a sense I think that's the way of it.

Maddog

 

[Helliepig]

There's a theory about learning that says the neurones with the most myelin wrapped around them, (the sort of insulating material like round a pipe) fire the quickest and thus become the default route for any particular "message" Experiments suggest that concious repetition increases the myelin around new neurone pathways, and sooner or later (after 38 times if you believe the old myth about creating a habit) the nervous system finds it easier to use this new pathway and the old one becomes relatively de-myelinated.

If you want an example of how nerve functioning is impaired if a nerve loses its myelin, think of mutliple sclerosis. - definite reduction in that nerone's firing ability.

So the idea is that you can probably erase pathways pretty completely, it's just repetition

I learnt this theory in relation to trying to change my habitual riding position, but it relates just as well to any sort of learning. Trauma is learnt behaviour/response/affect just like anything else in the brain, it only feels "resistant" to change because it's habitually avoided due to its high emotion content. Your brain doesn't let you near it without "red light warning warning!avoid avoid!" so when you finally hit it, it is fresh and new, alien and full of nasty feelings. Doesn't mean you still can't demyelinate it with your 38 repetitions....................

However, trauma is relatively more complex than a simple neureon, as pathways may be being triggered by more than one thought process and experience - you have to reroute them all, over time, to get that pathway to become redundant. Hence the need for long therapy..

Certainly my experience is that old thoughts I used to have readily can now feel very alien. The brain is very plastic in its function but you have to work hard at it.

Nothing we didn't know!

 

[Helliepig]

PS Stress hormones temporarily can sharpen up your thinking - like at an accident when you dissociate from what's happening and think very clearly. Not so much if its long term. Some people find that "stress" clear thinking a bit addictive.