Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2002. Mattie was 6 months old. Back then, I think he looked a lot more like Peter. One of the things Mattie loved playing with were cups. He was captivated by their colors, that they stacked, and he could put things into them. Mattie was still finding his balance, so I propped him up on the couch with all sorts of pillows. But no matter what I put in front of him, he was always more interested in tracking me.
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- number of people diagnosed with the virus: 7,417,872
- number of people who died from the virus: 209,802
I think the flu shot has slowed me down today. I am still functioning, but not myself. In between walking Sunny, I devoted about four hours to continuing education today. I enrolled myself in a 12.5 hour certification in trauma, grief, and loss course. As for today, I am halfway through the class.
I have to say that this class is exposing me to the new philosophical approach to trauma. At one time (though the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders still insists of this criteria), we thought of trauma as a reaction to an event. These two leaders in the field are explaining the science of trauma and how it is a physiological disease and not a mental health issue. In essence it is the central nervous system's arousal that is experienced in the body. In fact, our brain can get conditioned in a way to responding with arousal (you know heart racing, stomach aching, blood pressure rising, etc) when we are faced with similar stressors in our lives. A rather frightening notion, to think our brain has a memory for trauma.
The instructors went through an exercise with the class, asking us if we felt 100% safe now watching this class session? Two people raised their hands yes and the rest of us were on the fence. So the instructor pursued why we felt unsafe. He got us to see that we were bringing in our past experiences into this situation that caused us to feel unsafe now. But in all reality, if we wiped our memories clear or were in a relaxed state, we would see there was no imminent danger sitting in this virtual class.
The course is encouraging us to apply what we are learning in our own lives. Naturally, I have always viewed childhood cancer as traumatic. However, today, I learned it is just the trigger that caused arousal to my sympathetic nervous system. It's this aroused state and my body's reaction that is the trauma. In fact, I would say my body is used to living in that aroused state, which may explain some of the physical illnesses I live with. In any case, there is a part within the brain that acts like radar to assess the immediate threats around us and then activates the body to run to protect.
Mattie has been gone for 11 years. Yet if you ask me to get a scan in a hospital or a procedure, I can go from seemingly normal to agitated very quickly. After participating in this training, I see that my brain and body are conditioned to providing this arousal response, even when potentially I am not in danger. How to break this cycle, it appears to be learning to self-regulate my body so that I can release the muscle tension within and thereby free myself to have the insight to evaluate the situation appropriately.
I am still trying to absorb the whole notion of trauma as being defined physiologically. What I absolutely agree with them on is that when in this heightened aroused state, NO cognitive work can be done. You just can't think logically. It is like trying to rationalize with a child during a tantrum. The child is on overload and no amount of talking is going to help rectify the situation. In a way this is also like trauma. Until one gets into a more relaxed and calm state, nothing more meaningful will arise. Any case, I see this class as applicable to my life and also if I knew then what I know now, it was very evident that Mattie showed many signs of arousal (tantrums, crying, angry, hostility, sleep disturbances, etc) early on in his cancer treatment, and sadly the notion of trauma never crossed his doctors' minds.
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