March
11
Giving Your Amygdala a Timeout
Disclaimer: I am not a neuropsychologist (but if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll remember that I had an epic bad date with one several decades ago). So I’m going to try to share with you something I learned at a lecture last night about neuroscience but bear in mind this isn’t my area of expertise.
So it turns out the amygdala is quite the trouble maker. The amygdala is that part of the brain that allows 120 lb moms to lift cars off of their children who are trapped, soldiers to respond to threats and people to flee when they sense danger. When the amygdala is engaged — for fight, flight or freeze — the frontal lobes of the brain (the part that makes good and thoughtful decisions) take a little nap. Some researchers refer to this as Amygdala Hijacking. “Oh jeez. He comes the amygdala, always the drama queen! I’m outta here for awhile.” So when you panic in a large or small way, your frontal lobe and your ability to make good decisions is compromised for about 20 minutes. The amygdala, once activated, clouds your thinking and decision-making for that 20 minutes. So, for example, if you oversleep and freak out, racing around the house cursing and throwing you clothes on in a panic, you will not physically be able to think clearly for 20 minutes.
This is a life-changing concept, this isn’t just “don’t be a drama queen.” This is how can you and I change the way we react to frightening, frustrating or upsetting things so we make better decisions and act appropriately. How can understanding the power of the amygdala help us better manage stress? Without knowing about the amygdala I began last year taking a deep breath last year before I reacted to upsetting or frightening news. I’ve been trying to consciously question myself when I feel the amygdala beginning to take over. Before I react, I ask myself, what needs to be done at this exact moment? Is this a serious situation or am I just frustrated that I lost track or time and now am running late? What I’m finding is that I can “talk myself down” or at the very least, not allow my amygdala to compromise my good judgement, dignity and energy.
yes. it's my real name. 
I spent a year with an amygdala freak-out, with my emotional response completely overwhelming my intellectual response. I could recognize them both, but the intellect wasn’t in charge… Glad that’s over.
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Thank you for this timely post apropos of nothing related to what I expected, but containing everything I need right now. This Sunday night I brought my daughter home from Smith College a week early, departing from the ER. She had been drugged and sexually assaulted at Amherst College in Pond Dorm very early that morning at a party attended by most of the football team. Some of her clothing was missing. She pressed charges, a brave thing to do for a 19 year old. Especially since, just two months before, she had finally told someone (me) that her father, my husband of 21 years, sexually assaulted her when she was in third grade, and she was just getting her steadiness back from finally letting THAT secret out, and we had gotten her a specialist and a survivor’s group up at school.
Her younger daughter’s response (who is 16,) instead of keeping her head low and attending school and generally not causing disruption (she’s been hospitalized in the past and has deep emotional troubles) took every opportunity to return the narrative to her own issues — avoiding school, picking fights when she was called on things she said that were harmful to her sister, then telling her therapist team that she felt “unsafe” at home and creating a whole explosion requiring my attention to be on her instead of her sister. Her regular therapy team had worked with me and the school to close her “bullshit loop” quite well but recently we had to put her in additional treatment, an Intensive Outpatient Program that has turned out to be mediocre in their sophistication at best. So yes, the bullshit loop gaped wide open again. Suddenly I am getting voice mails from them stating sweetly that “they want to hear my side of the story,” and that if I don’t provide it they will be reporting to DDF. Oh my word, this young woman is 16 and has cost me a mountain of money and pain to get treatment for. I have loved her unconditionally throughout amygdala to prefrontal cortex. Yet still, when HER amygdala takes over, it goes for DAYS. How can I bear this right now, and protect her sister and my new husband and my own sanity? Her glee at a new adult audience to believe her lies is evident: she is demonstrating her cleverness at escalation, power plays, splitting, disruption, being in-your-face, etc.
So last night I finally called DCF and calmly ASKED them to take her, for the sanity of the rest of the family.
They can’t. They have no place for her. So even though she says she is “unsafe here” all because she refuses to get into my car (she doesn’t want to see her own therapist, who will call her out on all this.) Yet it is actually US who feel unsafe, it seems the only option will be a psychiatric hospitalization again (last one was in August.) This will conveniently get her out of her finals, and also the college preparations she was supposed to be doing, which are paralyzing her.
Yesterday I did just one thing for myself — I saw a therapist I had found only two weeks ago to help me deal with my older daughter’s earlier news about her father. The therapist barely knows me and at the end of the session said, “we’ve talked 50 minutes and haven’t yet talked about you and how you are going to survive all this and care for yourself.” I thought and said the only thing I knew how to do: “I will be putting one foot in front of the other.” What I didn’t say was that I would also need to email to quilting groups to tell them my mini quilt swap wouldn’t be ready and my blocks for the Bee Hive wouldn’t be, either. That somehow this was the cruelest part, this denial of the time and focus that I need to keep myself sane and cared for. The soothing color combinations, the feeling that something pliable will give to my wishes and form into a beautiful thing I can put out into the world and share with it. Just as I have for so long wanted to do in raising young girls.
Deep breath and off to make another call or two, one to the detective about the scene of the crime documentation (he found my older daughter’s clothes, another to the school to be sure she goes to IOP, and then to the IOP program itself, dupes and derelict professionals that they are — never getting this kid’s background from her caregivers of record before she had created a crisis there and here — to make sure she gets in my car tonight without issue.
Please amygdala. If I give you two clonazapam, will THAT sate you? Breathing doesn’t quite seem to be enough right now.
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