Brain health a personal journey: Part I
This is a very personal blog because my Mom recently was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. My Mom has a doctorate in education that she earned after we lost our father. She has been a wonderful role model and inspiration for me. As a grant writer she wrote million dollar grants for community colleges all over the country. She was the president of a local chapter of the United Way. She was a Dean at Mount Wachusett Community College. She was the valedictorian of her class at Gloucester High School. Needless to say I am quite proud to be her daughter, and I am doing everything I can to support her brain health. I used to call her while in Chiropractic school which is a very grueling program of study; and she would say remember this: “obstacles are what you see when you take your eye off the goal”. After I got off the phone, (I was in my early twenties, and all of my friends were going out doing fun things), I would hit the books and push on. In a way she was helping me re-frame my experience and re-wire my brain. In those times neuroplasticity was not well understood yet, but she was already using it.
My Mom endured a lot, she had six children that were all born within a ten year spread. My Dad had earned his doctorate at Harvard and had big ideas to change the world. He wanted to apply all of the things he learned and researched in his program. In doing so he ran into quite a lot of opposition. He wanted to support eliminating racism with busing, he wanted to implement regional schools so that kids had more access to art, sports, and music. He tried to change the way kids were taught. Because of this he was perceived as a threat; and was fired every three years. My Mom stood by his side and supported him. He would have loved Barack Obama. Mom learned a lot about the politics of our school systems by listening to my Dad when he came home from school committee meetings. My Dad had grown tired of jobs that did not allow him to fulfill his visionary dreams. He became headmaster at American International School in New Delhi India. All eight of us moved there; the oldest kid being 17, and the youngest (myself) being 7. We adapted well, and Dad began to settle, and slow down; his spirit began healing from all of the job trauma he had gone through. On June 9th, 37 years ago, he was suddenly killed from a car accident. Needless to say we all moved back to the states overnight. My mom managed to keep it together as best she could, amidst our whole family being in shock and grief. We had no community to support us, since we had moved to a new place: Amherst Massachusetts. We moved there so that Mom could start her doctoral program. Today I think; ” how did she do that? Wow!”
Soon after my fathers death a University of Massachusetts professor that taught a class my Mom was in; started an affair with my very vulnerable Mom. He was still married to another woman at the time and had three kids. He had none of the boundaries or integrity that my father had. Under the guise of helping our family; (in such a vulnerable state) he took the opportunity manipulate us. My Mother was blinded by his narcissism and her own vulnerability; and they married shortly after they met. After a few years he began having an affair with my Mom’s boss and good “friend “who was quite a bit younger. This woman was also a single mother. He soon left my Mom for this person. Gladly I have not seen him since. I watched my Mom get crushed again by loss, and this time betrayal. My stepfather was a pedophile, he reasoned his inappropriate behavior with his over-intellectualizing; which negatively affected my family. To this day he continues to have no remorse for the pain and suffering he has caused my family. I needed to say this because my voice was never heard publicly about this. His career, and social standing were never influenced by his damaging actions. I think it is important to bring these dark facts into the light.
Needless to say my Mom suffered a lot of trauma. I think this has influenced her brain today. I have been reading: The Brain that changes itself; a book written by Dr. Doige. It talks about the neuroplasticity of the brain and how neurons that fire together wire together. The brain changes from its environment. This can be good and this can be bad. We can change our brains with our thought patterns, but we cannot erase what happened. Trauma has a high impact on our brain, especially when we are younger and our brains are more “plastic”. So, to circle back around, I think what my family endured imprinted all of us for life. However, those imprints have been re-wired by those of us who chose to work with the trauma. Some of the positive tools and resources my family has incorporated knowingly or unknowingly are: sports, art, studying healing arts, pets, and higher education, understanding the neurophysiology of trauma, and seeing helpful practitioners. Others in my family have resorted to more negative tools such as: drugs, alcohol,emotional shut down, and denial. These negative imprints have been perpetuated in my life in some relationships. I did not always know when a person was trustworthy or not. I am learning day by day to re-wire myself in each moment. Each moment we can choose how to be with what is. That is empowering! This is what changes your brain. Re-wiring ourselves is possible. My next blog will cover nutritional information about brain health.