Tag Archives: neurology

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Memory Modalities

I’ve been figuring out some things about SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory) and some stuff about the threshold effect.

A trick I’ve started using for the threshold effect is saying out loud the thing I’m going to do/get as I cross the threshold. So not only am I thinking it, I’m also embodying it by saying it out loud and then I’m hearing it – usually in the new context.

I think that’s all the threshold effect really is, it’s a context switch. In the bathroom you remember bathroom related things, you step out and your brain no longer has that context trigger and loses access to those thoughts.

I doubt I’m the only one who has gone back and forth multiple times forgetting, going back, remembering, rinse, repeat, and again.

The other new term I’ve come across is glimmers – which is being used for when the memories being triggered are pleasurable instead of painful.

My couples therapist asked something along the lines of how do I feel loved or remember feeling loved. With the SDAM I can’t recall/remember/re-experience the feeling but I can recall/know/have the knowledge that I’ve experienced it.

I thought about it more and realized that the only time I can remember what getting married felt like was at someone else’s wedding. I would feel suffused with love and cry at every wedding.

So I can only remember in context.

I can’t imagine going to the beach or some happy place like many people do – I have to actually go and let the experience wash over me.

Often I have to force myself to go do things, but then once I do and I’m there, I’m so glad that I did. Because I can’t remember how good it felt in the past until I’m there doing it again.

I’m realizing I would use books and movies to control the context I was experiencing growing up. When I needed to cry I would re-watch Somersby. I couldn’t just let myself grieve, I had to trigger that release.

I’m working on rewiring some associations like the shower is for crying (I play a gratitude playlist now), the car and kitchen are for arguing. Changing cars might have already helped with that. Kitchen is trickier, mostly I just still avoid it.

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Only the good die young

I wonder how old that saying is?

How long have we known what science only recently figured out?

Here’s how it works: stress hormones suppress the immune system.

The immune system doesn’t just fight off disease. It also cleans up dead, dying, misbehaving and malfunctioning cells.

That means a properly functioning immune system prevents cancer and autoimmune diseases.

There are three ways of dealing with stress.

  • The healthy way.
  • Explode outward.
  • Turn it inward.

The third one results in people pleasers who are too nice for their own good – literally.

The first two both release stress. The third lives with chronic low levels of stress suppressing their immune system.

In Gabor Mate’s book The Myth of Normal it talks about nurses accurately predicting ALS diagnosis based on how nice the person was.

Folks with autoimmune issues talk about “flares” when symptoms flare up after over exertion. The interesting thing is that it happens after – the increased stress during over exertion temporarily suppresses symptoms. When the stress and accompanying hormones decrease and the immune system ramps back up, either ignored issues get addressed or symptoms that were there before but you had acclimated to have to be readjusted to.

So either problems piled up and your immune system has to pull out the big guns or the temporary relief from symptoms reminds you how bad things actually always are and a “flare” is just how long it takes you to readjust/dissociate again.

I like to use the metaphor of shoes sometimes. You put them on in the morning and they fit fine. You walk and stand all day. Maybe they’re a little tired. You finally take off your shoes and it’s such a relief! If you have to put them back on for some reason, now they’re too tight and it really hurts. The thing is, they were too tight and painful before you took them off, you just didn’t notice because you slowly adjusted to it. Even if your feet suddenly swelled – that’s your immune system kicking in and trying to repair things.

I’ve been told that you can actually lose about 70% function in some cases before you start feeling pain.

Human bodies are amazingly resilient and redundant.

Books

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Communicating Stress Levels

I struggle with cPTSD. This is a way I found to communicate with my partner about my status so they can be more considerate without getting triggered themselves.

It’s like living in bear country. People who don’t live in bear country don’t worry about bears at all. I’m always at some level of alertness/activation if I’m not in my safe space.

bear country – I have to be alert for signs of bear, so I can’t be totally relaxed.
bear tracks – I’m relieved the bear isn’t around but disappointed to see its tracks.
audible something – My attention is split trying to figure out if what I’m hearing is a bear.
audible bear – My attention is on the audible bear to make sure it’s not coming closer.
visible bear – Even more focused on the bear and being prepared to move away.
approaching bear – I’m trying to move away from the bear and get safe
charging bear – I’m running away trying to get safe
bear attack – I’m no longer functional (may go non-verbal, etc.)

If you get between me and the bear you’re increasing the danger level for me since I can’t see it. If you don’t move when I ask then I’ll need to move. If you follow me and block my view again then you start to become a bear yourself. If a bear is too close I might become a bear myself in defense.

It has really helped reduce the amount of defensiveness and triggering. I don’t have to explain if they are the bear, I’m the bear or something else entirely (headache, etc.) – I just say “bear” and they give me space.

This is just a metaphor for communication about the sympathetic nervous system and how activated it is — also referred to as being flooded, triggered or dysregulated.

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Post Covid Update

I haven’t updated in a while, mostly because I’ve been focusing on taking care of myself and accepting help.

I’ve been doing EMDR and it’s been helping me reframe my memories. At first I was doing it to recover from the trauma of being hospitalized for bipolar disorder. We’ve started working on my childhood trauma since then. This morning I was thinking about how Penelope said that the biggest impact for kids was when their moms got more support. This has been true for us because I’m able to be more regulated and present for my child, which I’ve written about before is their primary need.

One of the things that has come out of my bipolar diagnosis is being forced to focus on taking better care of myself and asking for or accepting help. I’ve been learning that ignoring my needs, such as disassociating from my pain, is one of my maladaptive strategies I’ve brought from my childhood.

One of the first stories I reframed with EMDR was about my elementary school worms.

The school I went to had one of those red dirt tracks out in the field. Whenever it rain the track would be covered in worms. During PE if it wasn’t raining, we would be told to run the track. It took me forever because I was avoiding stepping on the worms. Eventually I’d get in trouble for being squeamish. I was the only one reacting that way, so I was the wimpy freak. Re-examining it I realized that I was the only one sensitive and caring enough to want to avoid killing the worms by stepping on them. And instead of my kindness being honored it was dismissed.

I didn’t find out about the trait of high sensitivity until my late 20s or early 30s, so while I was able to do some reframing on my own, I didn’t realize how many formative memories I had with negative interpretations. And it was only recently working with my chiropractor that I realized how disassociated I was from my body and its pain signals.

I wouldn’t say I feel lucky to have bipolar, but I do feel lucky to have such a large caring network of friends and family to support me while I rewire my brain.

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Ehlers Danlos & Neurodiversity Research

I’m so excited, a friend of a friend just shared all this:

Dr. Eccles specific research areas are Neuroscience, Psychiatric and neurodevelopmental features of connective tissue disorders, Mechanisms of chronic pain and fatigue.

The quickest way to see a summary of all her 67 published medical research with active links to each is here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica-Eccles-3

Some titles of pubs just within the last 2 years:

  • Towards a Neurodiversity-Affirmative Approach for an Over-Represented and Under-Recognised Population: Autistic Adults in Outpatient Psychiatry
  • Joint Hypermobility Links Neurodivergence to Dysautonomia and Pain
  • Variant connective tissue (joint hypermobility) and dysautonomia are associated with multimorbidity at the intersection between physical and psychological health
  • Connecting brain and body: Transdiagnostic relevance of connective tissue variants to neuropsychiatric symptom expression

You Tube Videos:

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Names, Face Blindness and Gait

Are you bad with names or do you have face blindness?

What is face blindness anyway?

Depending upon the degree of impairment, some people with prosopagnosia may only have difficulty recognizing a familiar face; others will be unable to discriminate between unknown faces

Some degree of prosopagnosia is often present in children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, and may be the cause of their impaired social development. 

…treatment should be to help the individual with prosopagnosia develop compensatory strategies. Adults who have the condition as a result of stroke or brain trauma can be retrained to use other clues to identify individuals.

Prosopagnosia can be socially crippling.  Individuals with the disorder often have difficulty recognizing family members and close friends.  They often use other ways to identify people, such as relying on voice, clothing, or unique physical attributes, but these are not as effective as recognizing a face.  Children with congenital prosopagnosia are born with the disability and have never had a time when they could recognize faces.  Greater awareness of autism, and the autism spectrum disorders, which involve communication impairments such as prosopagnosia, is likely to make the disorder less overlooked in the future.

Prosopagnosia | National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (nih.gov)

I don’t know if I can recognize faces or if I rely on gait, silhouette, voice, hair, clothing (accessories or style).

I can’t tell if my kiddo has it because when we look at photos either the kiddo doesn’t know who is it or someone has said who it is once ever and now it’s memorized.

Is that why my kiddo had such a strong aversion to live action tv shows and videos for so long?

Is that why I hated when my mom changed her hair style growing up – in addition to it being change, did it also make her harder to recognize?

Is that another reason that a limited wardrobe or a signature accessory is useful/preferred?

Do any of you recognize people by their gait?

This study is telling clinicians to look at how autistic kids walk to figure out how they feel since autistic people have such a hard time saying how we feel.

A friend said: faces have so much information on them that I can’t sort fast enough and I like recognizing people by their gait.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050915038065

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Microbiomes

Small ecosystems.

Our bodies as galaxies or universes.

Our organs as planets in a star system.

The biota as the inhabitants of the planets.

We are as gods to the bacteria and cells in our bodies.

They can tell there is something more, and they do not know what.

They can only respond to the environment around them.

They must do the best they can in each moment.

Each has a task they were born for.

They do their tasks to the best of their ability.

If they are not able to, they let that be known.

If the system is functioning properly, they will either get the support they need or be released from their duty.

If the system is not functioning properly, it will ripple outward until the entire system collapses or the impact is large enough to get the attention it needs.

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Focus of Attention

Focus is a skill.

Focus is how we direct our attention*

Attention is the process by which we make observations.

Observations are the process by which one question is answered and another is identified.

I choose to focus internally to be ready to focus externally. This is self regulation.

Dec. 17 2022 log:

*Attention is the most valuable thing anyone can possess.

More valuable than time, money, power and perhaps even love – depending on your definition of love.

The ability to control our attention is the most powerful ability any human has. And perhaps that’s the defining trait of humans. Free will – the ability to choose what to pay attention to and when.

My knowledge of Christianity suggests that at least one religion agrees with that assumption.

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Thinking Thoughts

Thoughts are stories we tell ourselves.

We use thoughts to understand the signals our brain sends us.

Not every thought we have is true.

“I’m having the thought that….”

Thoughts have power. Consider the placebo effect.

The way we have thoughts is that there is electrical activity in our brains. Electricity is energy, energy can also be called power.

Thoughts have power.

Will you control your thoughts, or will you let them control you?

We have free will.

We can choose to control our thoughts.

Our life is only predestined to follow the path set for us by our predecessors if we do not pause, evaluate, and choose.

If I am choosing, I can choose to make it harder for my descendants to choose, or I can make it easier.

I choose to make it easier. This is my intention.