The Power of Habits

Clare,

First things first, it was my big dog who had the seizure. There have been no more since Thursday night. Today I picked up phenobarbital which I will have to give her twice a day for the rest of her life. I was considering waiting to see if/when she had another seizure, but decided to go ahead after reading about your border collie. The techs at the vet assured me that she would not be sedated by this dose, so I started it.

I do believe that we all split ourselves to some extent. I think it is a normal response to the stresses of the day. Think about the relationships in your life, personal and professional. I project a very different persona to my students than I do to my supervisors or to my kids and husband. For the students, I let them see that I am competent but very capable of making a mistake and correcting it. For my supervisors I try to always be in control and on top of everything. I can joke around with them but would never have a discussion on a subject that was personal to me. I am different with each of my kids, depending upon the setting.

I have often marveled at how much energy, intelligence and coordination has to go into dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities). On some level there has to be one personalty that is aware of everything that is happening. In the case of the young woman I knew, that personality was a female, older and very detached. She reported on horrific experiences with almost no emotion. She seemed to feel sympathy for the other alters, but did not relate to them on an emotional or personal level. But, when I needed to be certain that something was done I called on 'her' and asked for her agreement, then I knew what I needed would be taken care of.

I have wondered, because of my memory has periods of amnesia, if I didn't 'split' at times when abuse was happening. I have considered hypnosis to retrieve those memories, but after careful consideration felt that those memories will unlock if, and when, they are necessary. I don't need to open Pandora's Box with my activities...it opens up enough on its own.

I remember, several years ago when I wrote my first letter to the family, you knew and verified many of my partial memories. That meant so much to me. I seriously questioned my memory, and sanity because our family members seemed to be well adjusted and how could they carry similar memories and not be effected by them? I remember husband saying to me, "Just because no one else remembers these events doesn't mean they didn't happen." He felt that I may have been singled out, and that all of you could have had a normal childhood. I still felt such relief when I started talking to you and you said that you thought it was B#1&2. I knew that to be true in my heart of hearts...but never would have said it aloud. But you made that real for me, and opened up other memories and this path to discovery and healing. Now, we know that probably none of us had a 'normal' childhood, despite some of our rewritten versions of it.

I just finished a book, The Power of Habit. It was pretty good, although not my usual genre. The take home message was that over 90% of our activity is habitual in nature. we don't even think about what or why we are doing things.
There is a cue...we respond...and there is a reward that makes us do it again and again.
It is interesting to look at the brain areas active in this.
It turns out that the primitive brain is activated, once again bypassing the prefrontal cortex...
the part that processes, considers and chooses.
This is a similar type of circuit that is activated when we Fight or Flight and reinforced when we ruminate on our stressful memories. When we ruminate we are reinforcing our reactions to stressful situations that we've experienced. We are creating habitual reactions so that the next time we face a similar threat we can react even quicker. This helps us in some cases, but it makes it difficult to get out of a rut when it comes to stress.
When we feel stressed we go to our ingrained response...alcohol, drugs, carbs and fats, exercise.
We don't think about what the cue is that is setting off the chain reaction, we just know it's worked in the past and will certainly work again...
and we remain numbed.

I feel as if I am getting sick. I have that burning sensation in my throat and upper chest. I am trying to drink plenty of liquids today and ward it off. I hate being sick, almost as much as being injured. Either way my schedule doesn't go as planned and I get frustrated. Oh well, only time will tell.

Love and Light,
Maggie