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The Void Within

CluelessCatContributor19 Oct 2022, 2:03 am AEDT

The Void Within

I would first like to point out this post is a long overdue course of finding meaning from within. Through sharing with a community rather than withholding the experiences, I believe the information may assist others in their search.

This conclusion was achieved with the support of mental health specialist, close friends, professors, and teachers. By my own accord, I personally believe reaching this answer may had left abandoned like many projects that had started in the past, but unable to complete for one reason or another. no means would I be this far in my journey if I did not seek out professional assistant. This had taken years to achieve and the path I took had been a solitude one. Only through great stress, was I able to reach out to connect and overcome the fear I had entrenched due to my experiences in early life. It is critical to find the right care, and the journey could be lifelong for some. I am struggling in some areas and by having the space to share my thoughts and progress may be cathartic, which could potentially motivate myself to perceive myself in positive light.

Prelude:

Give the uniqueness of the experience each person goes through in life, finding your voice that had been lost over the years and finally providing it in a form of speech is liberating. Often trauma experienced is experienced repeatedly through schemas/life traps or maladaptive behaviours that a person develops at an early age and only through time does those schemas/life traps/maladaptive behaviours becomes inhibiting the experience of said person.

In my younger years, I had experienced a feeling that I can only describe as emptiness within my core being. This emptiness is portrayed by Hollywood in many accounts to explain the motivation behind a character of the story it is trying to tell. Towards the end of the film, the main antagonist would have overcome their emptiness. The issue here is the process is often acquired in a short amount of time. This provides very little narrative of the antagonist’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions, or struggles they must overcome to acquire salvation. This here is where I would like to provide some narrative.

I am curious by nature and from a young age, I wanted or needed to understand, why. Through a complicated life journey where I may share in the future with proverbial breaks to decrease the reactivity of the readers and myself. To summarise, it has been a path of loneliness with many elements of fear, avoidance, lack of nurturing and or toxic environments. To provide one example is the lack of communication I have with family members. By that, I mean the inability to express my own opinion with my parents or sibling due to communication and language issues. Extended families exist, but language, culture and location has always been an issue. To be plain, I only sometimes talk to close friends if I feel safe to do so. Family exists, but in my world, they were the cause of my traumas. The only time I can reveal any form of the real me is through therapists, doctors, and or organisation such as Lifeline. What I would like to share is only a small part of a journey you may or may not discover sooner or later. I happened to be searching it for a large portion of my life to make sense of this world.

Chapter one

There are three major classifications of memory that neuroscientist focus on, Sensory, short-term, and long-term memory. Information from the world around us begins to be stored by sensory memory and would be accessible in the future (Camina and Guell 2017). What I want to focus on is the long-term and especially the sensory memory development. These key memories are developed throughout the first phase of life, via non-verbal environment interaction up till 18 months and by this point in time, infants can string words together in phrases (Graham 2013). There are two power mechanisms of brain functioning that are responsible for translating or encoding from experience; First is conditioning and the second is neuroplasticity. Conditioning, broadly speaking, how the brain learns and stabilises our conditioned patterns of response through repeated experience; Neuroplasticity, is how the brain remains flexible and allows the ability to change encoding, learning, or unlearning patterns of response, growing new neurons and connecting them in new circuits (Graham 2013). Furthermore, there are five human senses: Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. While there is further in-depth explanation regarding the physiology of the brain, what has been introduce is sufficient to describe the process of conditioning and neuroplasticity in this example. (If you are interested, I could potentially provide a summary of how it works, or, I highly recommend you read the book by Graham)

Starting off, Graham provides an example of a simple interaction, “her next-door neighbour has a big affectionate, 125-pound (56.699 kg) malamute named Barney and an eight-year-old daughter who adores him. One day, as Samantha was arriving to visit, I watched her run up to Barney to give him a hug. Barney responded exuberantly, licking her face profusely. He was simply greeting her with affection, but Samantha clearly wasn’t prepared for such rough and tumble love: she burst into tears.”

In the aftermath, Graham provides further analysis of her interpretation of the external event, which trigger a cascade of neural network firing which led to the sympathy she felt for Samantha. This internal process went off automatically in Graham. It can be stated, the event that followed are results of conditioning.

It cannot be understated how important the first eighteen month of an infant and the relationship with their carer/guardian/mother. If the carer were attentive to the needs of the infant, through repetition, it would allow a neural pathway to form with the outcome of the interaction. For example, the infant cries, the events that follows were, the mother came into the vicinity of the infant, starting to hum a melody (sound), picked up the baby (touch), cuddled nearby the armpits (which has sweat glands and each person would extrude a specific smell of their own) and provided nutrition via mother’s breast (taste). In the early weeks, extending to months, the infant is unable to open their eyes for a period. The infant compensates this through forming a visual of mother within their minds. Each alert to mother, the infant is capable in concluding, cries would lead mother to come and provides soothing. This positive interaction can lead to the theory of attachment style by Bowlby and Ainsworth; Ambivalent; Avoidant; Disorganised; Secure. These four different styles of attachment are developed through early life. Unfortunately, the structure is fixed (arguable) until your prefrontal cortex is fully developed. There is further differentiation between males and females regarding the development of the prefrontal cortex, females tend to plateau earlier than their male’s counterpart. Once your prefrontal cortex reaches the plateau, this is where you can use neural plasticity to form new neural pathways, and away from the initial structure that was laid down during your early infancy. This power is available to everyone (subjective). However, rebuilding requires a large degree of trial and error. To use the building of a house as a reference, to destroy the structures that you had relied upon for many years in your life, dismantling the foundation is no easy task. There is no one method and individuals may have different methods that are suited to them personally. This process will take time, and lots of it.

The foundations laid down upon your first early life experiences cannot be mended. This requires mother to be acutely aware of the nuances that governs the neural development of a child. This is something that may be critical in the future on developing your own offspring, but there is no manual, and everyone is doing the best they can, even though, it may not be enough.

The reality of life and the void from within is something that cannot be repaired, as mentioned, it requires mother. The inescapable black hole that you feel within, it drags everything into the hole. Numbness and dissociation are your constant companion. As you stare out from the void, looking for the next external stimuli to possibly engulf the emptiness, nothing will ever be enough. Eventually, you will be back to square one. This transformation must come from within the person. Only they, themselves have the power to overcome the void and transform the life they are given to the one they dream or want. No one is responsible for your journey in life, but yourself. Whether you have the internal strength to overcome these obstacles is a choice. You can acquire people of this universe to assist, guide or nurture you to the person you wish to evolve into. They can provide you the information or “show” you the path, the hard work is up to you.

In my own personal journey, I’ve found the family that I grew up with, all of them had different ideas of living, values, purpose, etc.

(Update 03/11/22)

Apologies for the lack of progress. I’ve been shunted by my own perfectionism, black and white thinking among a list of other maladaptive behaviours present.

I’m going to add the information/message and I’ll have to go back and research specifically where the quotes and explanation I’ve acquire the meanings from.

Reference

Graham L. 2013. Bouncing Back; California: New World Library

Dorwick S. 2014. Solitude and Intimacy. Allen & Unwin

Hallowell Edward M, and Ratey John J. 2021. ADHD 2.0; Random House Audio

Camina E and Guell F. 2017. The Neuroanatomical, Neurophysiological and Psychological Basis of Memory: Current Models and Their Origins. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2017.00438/full

Tolle E. 2010. Power of Now. New World Library

(Apologies for the delay in posting this article. I wanted to post it yesterday, but I found myself stuck and a life trap triggered that halted my momentum. I actually started worrying excessively and gone into a state of panic. I would like to temporary publish what I currently have written and update it regularly to allow myself feel a certain accomplishment. Furthermore, it will allow me to break down the black and white cognitive distortion that people with borderline personality disorder traits have as a core belief. Through the internal struggle and the guilt I felt for being unable to carry on such a heavy task I've set for myself, it was, setting myself up for failure as one of the many schema's/life trap I still currently activate unconsciously. Additionally, there is a podcast from the "Revisionist History", by Malcom Gladwell, a investigative journalist whom I discovered through Audible and help me uncover the truth of the world since I started listening to his content. In his podcast, the particular episode focused on a experiment that was undertaken towards the end of World War 2, Human Starvation. It only started to occur to me after I, once again got stuck and a thought came into my mind. What if hunger has such a negative effect, that it induces me into a state of panic? You see, there was a time in my life where food was restricted from me. It happened for a couple of years through year 1-3. During that time, which there is many memories that had been supressed, many of the maladaptive behaviour I developed were due to those years. In the podcast, the participants were contacted many decades after the experiment, where they were interviewed and provided their experience throughout the experiment. One prominant participant said, "I was waiting at the traffic light and a kid on a bike that were going real quick. I asked a question, where was he going? I answered to myself, he is going home for supper. And I hated him for it.")

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-rise-of-the-guinea-pigs

4 replies

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In response to: The Void Within

wellwellwellnezSenior Contributor19 Oct 2022, 8:14 am AEDT

Re: The Void Within

Holy moley, I think you're onto something. When it comes to being de/re-programming and de/re-conditioning, of course the fact that we have different layers of memory is going to have a bearing on the process. A hard bearing indeed. Heck, maybe all internal conflict is memory vs memory (that's basically how it works with computers).

I like it. I actually feel a sense of peace with this chunk of genius you've presented. My conflicts feel more like innocent misunderstandings.

In response to: Re: The Void Within

AppleblossomSenior Contributor19 Oct 2022, 10:24 am AEDT

Re: The Void Within

Interesting and thoughtful @CluelessCat

I now interpret both my parents' diagnoses as consequences of substantial and significant lack of access to food. Different contexts, different personalities, different language and culture, but they had the same diagnosis.

In response to: The Void Within

Unknown userMember19 Oct 2022, 6:20 pm AEDT

Re: The Void Within

Wowza @CluelessCat! there is nothing I appreciate more than a well researched piece of work. Well done, firstly for that.

I also always benefit from understanding what is happening and why. This has helped me to overcome things or at least manage them in a more helpful light. If it helps to understand - keep going!

Also, I think that big feelings and complex issues and matters are best dealt with in small doses. Otherwise, you are absolutely right, it can become overwhelming and can actually hinder your understanding and efforts. I once thought that I would write a book about all the things that I have experienced in my life, but I did not do it for years, because I was worried about doing it in chronological order (something I thought would be a simple way to approach it). Last year, I had some advice to write it in bits, as they come to me, or as I face them. this was much less daunting, and much more beneficial. The person giving me the advice told me that if I write them down, I can always rearrange them as I need to. Maybe you could do this too? I think your plan of doing this in bits is very admirable and maybe something more long-term will come from it.

I can’t wait for your next post!

In response to: Re: The Void Within

CluelessCatContributor27 Oct 2022, 4:04 pm AEDT

Re: The Void Within

Be careful when going through the history of your parents and the way they brought you up. There are many factors at play that could cause events or actions that occur over the time you were in their care. Things that you believe you "should" receive is something they may or may not be able to provide due to the lack of resources or knowledge. This is the difficult part of revisiting your past. For example, my parents never had the finance to attend school. From what I was told by my mother, she had to drop out halfway through her first or second year to care for her younger sister. My father went for a few days and then required to work to support the family. On the surface, it wouldn't be as noticeable, but their lack of critical thinking or ability to think through a logical and rational manner is very limited. Therefore, it is incredibly difficult to have a conversation with them, especially the language they speak, I no longer care to learn. Maybe one day when I am in a better situation, I would be able to return, and on my own terms, go forth and learn. Now this means I cannot communicate with my parents and that is my fault. However, given they did not want to learn English, it is also their fault. There needs to be a compromise on both parties and that is one example where no one wants to meet in the middle, therefore, both are at fault in this situation.

If I wanted to expand on this “reason”, I can dive deeper into their life situation. For example, when we acquired VISA, or permanent residency, they were able to enrol into English learning classes. As I mentioned earlier, my parents never attended school. Therefore, they never acquired the ability to learn by themselves and on their own accord. It is subjective, and I could mention they then had the opportunity, but did not take it. Compassion is required to be applied in this scenario because through my experience, attending primary school, you are taught through various years and various difficulty in digesting the information provided. Similarly, the analogy of learning to walk before you can run. If you never learnt to walk and you go straight into running, is it possible? Yes, it is. But you are required to fail many, many times. That is a liberty they may not understand or have the patience for, given there are no one available to financially assist them in this city, state, country, because they are all back in China. Furthermore, I could even dive into the family dynamic of each parent and learn more of their history and reasons for coming to Australia as a refugee. I do not know the main goals, but it would be something like, sending money back to their individual family members.

This was their parent’s idea of upbringing and was taught to my parents. One more so than the other. It is contradictory and illogical for a parent bringing in a child into this world to “support” them to live a better life. I would even say it’s selfish and narcissistic. However, it is interpreted, there are pros and cons. From my perspective, it is condemning the child more life pressure than they already are. If you provide the bare minimum or care, and expect higher quality than what you provided, it is downright delusional. It is narrow thinking, it can restrict the growth of a child, and it places extraordinary pressure onto that child. Unfortunately, this one of the many ideologies that exist on this planet.

Epigenetics is something I would like to add to the topic. There is evidence of changes in gene expression, when people are place under extreme pressure, such as the lack of access to food that you mentioned. It’s rather complicated, but something that can be very interesting if you have the desire to explore on. This is partially one of the many factors that contribute to the person they are to this day. I can certainty attribute some experience onto this topic. When I was young, I too did not have access to food. It would be more correct to say, I was not allowed. After experiencing this consistently for a couple of years, the body adapts to survive. One key difference I notice is the lack of signals from my body when I need to nourish it. Nowadays, when or if it occurs, the neural pathway that was created and utilise repeatedly in the past would activate and trigger. Thus, a cascade of effects occurs. Those effects severely limit the functionality of my body, and it can trigger past trauma conscious or unconsciously. Luckily, through the latest research on neuroscience, neuroplasticity provides the possibility to rewire your brain and form new healthy habits. You can do this by accessing your prefrontal cortex, where you are required to be aware of your automatic behaviour and therefore, apply a new approach. Through repetition, you could create new neural pathways and override the previous one.

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