This week I finished an audiobook I had checked out on Libby (a free online resource available at the public library). The book was entitled “What Happened to You?” by Bruce D. Perry, MD, PHD and Oprah Winfrey. It’s about how our brains react to trauma, self-regulate, and heal. It reminded me a lot of the training I received at a school I worked at that was developed by Dr. Becky Baily, Conscious Discipline. Both outline how our brains react when we don’t feel safe or experience a traumatic event, and how we react and rebound from those events or experiences. What I learned that was new to me in “What Happened to You?” is that many of our unhealthy emotional responses to life events are behaviors we learned as a child to protect ourselves. These responses can easily be triggered by anything our brain recognizes as a threat, real or perceived, even as adults. Healthy, supportive connections to people are the way we as humans navigate through these experiences and feelings. When those are not available, the brain looks for other ways to protect us.
For me, it brought home the reason why, even now, I have difficulty developing close relationships. Having been brought up in a single-parent home by a caring, but struggling, alcoholic mother, who also was raised in a single parent home, relationships with substantial connections were few to nonexistent. I have never understood why it’s hard for me to just be myself. I seldom laugh out loud with others and feel fearful and anxious when meeting new people. Sometimes I can quickly push past these emotions and other times it can cause me to reevaluate the cost of making new friends or being in small groups. Something my brain recognizes from my past may be triggering the “flight or fight” in my subconscious.
At eleven years old I turned to drugs to cope with my unstable, sometimes scary, home life. By the grace of God, I didn’t continue down that path of destruction that helped me to self-regulate those feelings from my childhood. At 23 years old I gave my life to Jesus. My born-again experience introduced me to the One that would never leave and would always love me, a forever connection. My newfound relationship with Him led me to a community of people that would become my support system and lifelong friends. I may still experience the feelings I felt as a child at times, but had I not met God in a personal way, I might not even be alive today.
Another takeaway from the book is that connections with others are more than just communication. It’s having dialog face to face, it’s hugging and touching, playing, eating meals together, laughing and crying together. It’s talking… and listening. It’s making those in our lives a priority, for them, and us. And for me, it’s recognizing and identifying the uncomfortable feeling that may be hindering me from being a fully vested participant in new relationships and investing more time intentionally with those already in my life.
Family and relational community was always God’s plan to help us navigate the hard places in life. Our modern society has torn apart the family structure and advanced technology distances people on multiple planes, isolating individuals and leaving many without any emotional support systems in place, resulting in what we see as a mental health crisis in our nation.
I have a saying in my living room stenciled over my family pictures that says, “Family makes life worth living.” I can add to that, without family we can’t even live. My children, grandchildren, extended family, and friends that I call family are truly what makes life worth living. And I can now say, science confirms it.
Resources:
What Happened to You?
Bruce D. Perry, MD, PHD and Oprah Winfrey
Conscious Discipline
Dr. Becky Baily
