“The limbic system is shaped in response to experience, in partnership with
the infant’s own genetic makeup and inborn temperament. (As all parents of
more than one child quickly notice, babies differ from birth in the intensity and
nature of their reactions to similar events.) Whatever happens to a baby
contributes to the emotional and perceptual map of the world that its developing
brain creates. As my colleague Bruce Perry explains it, the brain is formed in a
”5
“use-dependent manner.”5 This is another way of describing neuroplasticity, the
relatively recent discovery that neurons that “fire together, wire together.” When
a circuit fires repeatedly, it can become a default setting—the response most
likely to occur. If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in
exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it
specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment.” The Body Keeps the Score

In my quest for answers to explain my overreactions, compulsions, and poor choices, even to myself, The Body Keeps the Score is igniting my brain with possibility. How many years have I questioned my own behaviors and choices unable to figure me out? Could it be as simple as early childhood trauma did the wiring? Probably not. But it seems a good starting place.

Of course, lots of people have painted my life as idyllic, free of any calamity except poverty. They would rather believe me cruel, callous, and indifferent to all human suffering but my own. But they did not live my life, I did.

Trauma is a relative term with as many different levels as there are victims. No one can compare whose was worse, it is individualized like custom made stationary and the lessons trauma prints on the brain.

At times my search for answers feels revolutionary after believing for so long in my own weakness to change behaviors which continually ravaged my world and that of those around me. Other times I am engulfed in the bittersweet that life is prone to offer. Sometimes I am free, other times I feel a great weight upon my shoulders. I get mentally tired trying to put 2 + 2 together to create a picture I can understand.

I plod on. There is no easy answer. But I feel certain there is one, so I read on.