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brokencompassbrokenperson-blog · 7 years ago

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Negative environments, and the adverse consequences

Have you ever been in a situation, where you felt so undert threat, that outof no where you have a feeling that doesn't come around often? That feeling that your safety is in so much peril, your brain distinctively goes into a mode where there are two options. Fight or flight? You fight the threat to defend your well being, until your brain perceives that threat is no longer, and you calm down. Or flight, as you could accurately assume, you run away from the perceieved threat. The different between these two, doesn't question your "man hood." Just because you run, doesn't mean your weak or anything less. It's just simply the way you feel is the bestway to resolve your current safety concern. And the categories or how you react (fight or flight) isn't neecasaily definintive, in the fact of if you choose one of the options, fight or flight, that isn't how you're going to react everytime,you ina situation, where you question you safety and wellbeing. Sometimes, you may choose to fight, othere times you may choose to flight.

Moreoften than not, you don't really have a say in how you react, You just react. Sometime your reaction maybe "socially acceptable," other times your reaction is not. Theres a reason for this, its how the human brain is structured and how the mechanism works, and how sometimes you may overreact. Many times, the reason one over reacts is based simply on hyperarousal in our brain. This hyperarosual can cause hostility and or anger towards loved ones, you can't control it.

One factor is stress. Stress is quite influencial, when you look at our human brian. So, we basically have two major parts of our brain that contribute to our actions, and behaviours. One part of our brain however, is more prone to be affected by stress. Stress is something we don't really think about, it just happens. We have no say in it, stress is just a reaction to the envirmoent around us.

So the two major parts of the brains we have are called Cerebral Cotex and subcortialcal brain.

The Cerebral cortex, is the more "thought oreinted" part of the brain. Its where the majoirty of decisions are made. (well thoughtful decisions.) This basically the is where our individuality is housed. This part of the brain is where we decide what we like. Perhaps what music you prefer, what kind of people your attracted too, what you want to eat etc. All of our sensory information is taken and processed in this part of the brain, we need this part of the brain to take action. Infact the largest part of our brain, is infcat the cortex. and ebcause of the size of our cortex, it us allows to be on the "top of the food chain." There are animals that are bigger and stronger than us humans, so how does it make sense, that we remain at the top of the foodchain? Simple. We have the largest brain, we have the largest cortex.

But we, are animals aswell. We do everything animals do. Some of us have a little bit of slothe in us, so we like to sleep. Some of us have alpecca moments, and run around in circles in parking lot, watching law enforcementtrying to catch us. You get the point, we eat, make babies, hunt etc. And because of that animal part of our brain causes us to act like animals, to survive. Some of these reaponses trigger bhavious that we're ot too keen of.

So the primitive animal does a lot, without us knowing and without seeking approval from the Cerebral cortex. Basically, the primitive brain, isa badass, and likes to do what it wants. And usually just reacts to the envirmoent. For example, if we went on a bike ride, and I said to you, "don't sweat at all" Would you be able to do that? Of course not. Thats the Primitive brain.

Its a very interesting thing when you think about it. The primitive brain from day one, controls your heart, blood pressure, weather you sweat or not. And another good example would be... If you wanted to stop your heart for small intervals, to lower your blood pressure, you couldn't do it. This how powerfur the primitive brain is. And you know, as I've noted in my examples, youclearly see the strength of the primitive brain, when it comes to "standing up" to the Cortex. So those are things the primitive brain benefits. But like everytihing in life, theres a flip side. A side that isn't always good.

But in an everyday context I want you to present you with another example, of how it works in a "everyday" type of sitution. Imagine you with your pals, doing whatever your and your pals do. But for the sake of this, I want to throw in a certain location. Say your at a park. Being a man myself, and knowing men, I only know a mans view of things. But whatevr.

So your in a park, and withyour married pals, and a gorgeous girl walks by, wearing little to no clothing. Whats going bound to happen? The boys are going to look. Why? Not because there out looking for ladies, but we will we react instinctivelt to the Sexual attraction, thanks to the primitove brain. But by time your cortex has time to process what your seeing, you may look away...And say "hey, what am I looking for? I have gorgeous wife at home" and you look away, and reengage with the topic or thing you were doing, prior to seeing that unknown female strust besilde you. Due to the primitive animal brain, a sexual intict is a major part of our behavious, and how we act on a day to day bais. Sexual attration is a animal instict.

Now a more powerful primitive instict we have is surivvial. As mentione above, in practically every situationyou have two options...Fight or flight. And that in itself is a VERY VERY powerful instict we posess. So far we've determind that the primitive brain does alot of good. With respect to things we barely notice on a day to day basic. (eating exual attraction breathing etc.)

The cortex is the thought orinted part of our brian that mkes deicions, and ensures out well being, while taking in all sensory information and prosession all out our mememories.

Now with that said, the primtitve brain can have negative affects. It can be shaped and changed. Based on your enviroment, the physiology of the brain can change.

I don't want to get into specifics about me, so I will elaboarate based on a hypothetical situation. The Canadian Forces, who have usually be regarded as non agressive nation, with respect to starting wars. Sometimes are forced to go into them. After 9/11, being a member nation of NATO, which was enacted on August 24, 1949. The United States became the first and only member nation to invoke article 5 of the NATO treaty. Wherein it commits, that each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state, in Europe or North America, to be an armed attack against them all.

After 9/11 the Canadian Forces, were called in battle, a battle that we now understand to be quite questionable, and not worth the harm...in my perspective, on our troops.

Despite the events that occured, our troops were called into battle in a hot zone. In left withwounds that left some of our men and woman in uniform dead, or invisibly wounded. Personally the latter, is worse in alot of case. So when your in so much danger day in and day out, it will affect your physiloigy... Which it did, and many at the time wouldn't have noticed the affects until they got home.

In a military "hot zone," what is there to be expected? Well considering most troops write goodbye letters to there loves ones, it doesn't take a genius to understand the risk. the risk is possible death. They go over seas knowing that the enemy is going to have one objective. Kill them. Shoot them.Blow them up. Mangle them, or do any atorcious acts possble. And the affects you, weather you want it to or not.

Its impossible to prepare for such hositility. So there fight or flight bcause hyper aroused, and the prmiitive brain(animal brian) and accelarated... BIG TIME. Where usually your fight or flight response may happen for 5 minutes here, and 5 minutes there. It all of a sudden is active 24/7. I'm not entirely sure on the length of our deployments(shifts that last monthes) for our military personal. But the whole time they're there, there hyperaroused 24/7.

But being in combat, the hyper arousal is good. it saves alot of people. An instant reaction to the quickly changing, can save your life and/or your crews life. If you hear a grenade whats the best thing that could happen? You autmoatically, wihtout thought hit the ground to avoid shrapenal, and possibly the bullets that will be wizzing by your head, in the seconds after the intial grenade exploding.

All of a sudden, mothes later, your stilll alive. Depending on what solider you ask, they may claim that them being alive is a bad thing, some where see the light, and see there life as a good thing. You don't noitce the wounds until your back home. Home, in our country... we're pretty safe. We don't have to worry about hitting the ground if a explosion happens. The worse thing we have to deal with, is have a rouge timbit flying through the air at our heads.

So when they return, there cortex recongizes, there boarding a plane, and it reecongizes being home. The cortext understands "were safe." But again, the cortex is the thoughtful part of our brian. The cortex to back seat while the person was in harms way overseas, when being shot at. Thankfull, the cortex let the premitive brain, take decicsive action, that quite possibly saved the cortex brains life. Again, that is a good things.

But the premitive brain, who doesn't give a shit about any sensory information, is still hyperaroused. The primitive animal brain or the scientifically called "subcortical brain", or more specifially the amygdala structure of the brain is still hyperactive. Remember, that triggers fight or flight. Without consulting the cortex.

As we now know, its wonderful thing when your combat. I want you to imagine something. Imagine you in the woods, all alone. All of a sudden, this furosios majestic lion looking creature is walking towards you. I say "looking like" because chances are, you've never seen a lion in your life and you don't know what they look like. Back on point, you immediate response is going to be... "how the hell do I get out of this situation?" Do you fight the lion? or Do you run from the lion? Personally, I'd stab my friend in the leg, and take off running, it would up my chance of survial. I'm kidding. But the fight or flight response is beautiful in this case. This is potentially life thretening, a lion would whoop your ass.

So imagine the fear you have at the time. It could arguably be good, and could save your life. But I want you to take the fear you have... and take the lion away from the scenerio. Imagine you that fearful 24/7. It woudn't be easy.

Now, our troops have learned to react to explosin by hitting the ground, without thought. That instict has saved there life. Now imagine the troop going to a nickle back concert or something. And all off a sudden, a firework work goes off...*boom* He's on the ground in miliseconds. Without thinking, he has thrown himself out of fear, and animal instict on the ground to save his life. Two seconds later, the cortex catches up. And is like "bruh why you on the ground? Were in Canada, were safe" He didn't even hear the explosion and say "hey maybe I should get down, take cover" He reacted without thought.

So theres another important part the structure of the brain and how its all tied together and how it deals with sensory information. We can see, hear, touch, smell and taste. This infomration is sensed in our respective organs, and it sent to the brain. But smelling stuff, is kind of wired differently, because it goes directly to the cortex. Because of where its situated...But everything else has to go to a "switchboard" type of thing, called a thalmus. And the thalmus just sends information to the two parts of the brain, the Primitive subcortical animal brian, and the cerbral cortex, the thought oriented portion of the brain.

In the case of the concert, where the firework goes off, The explosions gets to the cerebral cortex, where the infomration is first processed. And you think is the bomb? Within seconds later, the cortex says "no its not a bomb we're back in Canada you fool." At the same time, the primitive brain lights up, and goes back to defcon five and reacts like would over seas and immediately reacts "this must be a terroist bomb." But within seconds the cortex catches up and says "chill, we good."

So why did that happen? Why did he hit the ground so quickly? Its simple, as I noted above, the primitive subcortical brain doesn't understand geography and stuff like that. All it knows is im hyperactive, to stay alive. And The primitive brain is very hyperactive to certain things or "triggers". Personally, my triggers vary to my expierences. I have many, but just for example...I had someone yell at me on the phone not too long ago. And to be compltely honest it was two monthes ago, and I still have nightmares of that person everynight. And the reason that is, is we draw many connections with things. So, in the case of the solider when he hears an explosion, he doesn't just hear "bang." He hears death, blood, body parts, heavy gunfire upon him. As you could imagine. it is not an easy thing to deal with. Especially, when you have no control over it. The Subcortical brain does what it wants.

Another important thing about the primitive animal brain Is the geography... One, as I mentioned above it doesn't understand geography in the sensory sense. But something that also is different is, the primitive animal brain is faster the cerebral cortex. Its literally wired to respond faster than the cerebral cortex, the smart brain. So in the case of the solider at the concert, before the solider can even think, and pondr if thats a fire work or not. The Animal brain has already reacted. And which is good in a hot zone. But by time your on the ground, the cortex, is going to feeling stupid, because, your on the ground, but your the only one and everyone else is having a great time. So that is a prime example of how a hyperactive braincan affect someone without, that person having a say. Because it was a non-thinking response.

Non-thinking response ar triggered by the primital animal brain which is wired to respond faster. When you think about it from a safety perspective, in a safe or survivial perspective, the faster we react heighten the greater of the out come. So, humans have not been around for as long as animals have. Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. But Animals have been around for hundreds of million years. But fo over 300 million years animals have had the fight or flight response. Animals have learned The faster they react the more likely they are to survive. And we continue to carry that... We, have perfected the fight or flight response, weather we like it or not.

The animal brain is fast not smaty... it’s fast. The quicker you respond to dangerous threatening situations the more likely you’re to survive. And so, A child that grows up in an abused environment you could take them out of that home or school and put them somewhere else, but if he or she has experienced significant abuse in that home or school, that abuse has impacted their arousal system, their primitive animal brain, no matter how much in their cortical brain they may want to overcome that they are still reacting to situations programmed in that primitive animal brain which you can’t change by thinking, any more than you can change your speed of your heart or your blood pressure, eat and hold your food your belly for four hours before you digest it. It is fight...A fight to continue, despite the change of envirioment, nothing really ever changes. Sometimes you may find yourself in a "catch 22." Yes, you could leave your bedroom, but you risk having a flashbacks, or having your fight or flight take over. Or the other side of the coin, is you could stay in you room, and feel safer, because you know what triggers you'll face that day.

I wanna mention a little bit about irritability. So there was a girlfriend and man at home. And the girl asked her boyfriend “yo, can you take out the trash for me?” and he's like “Sure no problem. I’ll take out the garbage. I mean youv've housed our kids.” So the guy got up, took out the garbage and without the girl noticing, he came back in the house and sat down.

Now meanwhile the girlfriends walked into another room where the two kids were. And the two kids had spilled juice all over the brand new carpet. She was pissed she’s got this new carpetw with a huge stain, she’s pissed. Yelling to no one in particular..."Why these kids spilled juice here", "why did we re-do the carpet" so with this nasty stain on the floor, she angry. But she’s not mad at her boyfriend... but she comes back to where she and her boyfriend were sitting moments prior with angry look on her face.... Now, perhaps her boyfrined is tired or stressed with work stuff on or whatever. He's not particularly in a great mood. She comes back to him now and she got an angry look on her face and she goes, did you take out that trash like I asked you?(with audible annoyance in her voice) He starts cursing at her and yelling at her. so what happened? How did she approach her boyrfirned? Annoyed? angry? Hosile?

What’s the fastest part of the brain that responds to sensory information coming in as an angry face and angry tone of voice? The fastest part of the brain that respond is what the primitive animal brain, in order for that man to recognize hey that my little boo boo bear talking about the garbage, he needs his memory and his cortex to recognize his girlfriend and to recognize thewords "did you take out the garbage?" When he responded he didn’t respond to his girlfirned, he responded to the aggressve percieved threatenging tone of voice and the hostile face that she presented. Now of course when he yells at his gal, she yelled like that back now all of a sudden And now they’re in a big argument over nonsense. Their intelligent cerebral cortex brain made a decision hey I love this girl. Let’s get married and live happily ever after. Let’s have a wonderful life together. You’re awesome. and they say all the other cheesy shit happy couples say to one another. But in the heat of the oment, the intelegence of the cerebral cortex was gone. And the subcortical brain was reacting, causing them to get into a situation that is not only stupid, but an argument, that you would have never had, should your cerebral cortex brain be the one in charge. So what I'm getting to when the brain is hyperarousd, or if its stressed out, you can say things or react in ways that make no sense. The hbyperarousal, of personal sitation, is something I will never speak of, because its one of the most consistant battles I continue to fight. The ever so present fight or flight in my life, interferes with other parts of my life. keeping me up, usually takes over my memory, because I'm thinking of all stress, and situations unknowingly. Its very hard. And I'm not talking about my conscious brain. Where I'm thinking about things, and plotting life out and my goals, using my thought oriented brain. I'm talkling about the hyper arousal brain, thats been stimulated by stuff that, most people will have no clue of. To be honest its hard to manage sometimes, because of the stress hormones that are seemingly always being released, it justactivates parts of the brain and memeory because very difficult for me, Concentration and attention is also a constant problem. The problems are not because I have a shit memory, or it could be debated I'm a shit person...But I think its more of problem that my attention is always being diverted to stresss and other factors I continue to battle.

So for anyone, ive ever offended, or let our relationship die. I apologize.

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