sometimes, change is highway traffic on a cottage weekend

There is an inspiring story in The Brain That Changes Itself about a man who lost almost everything before he turned four--his mother died, and then his father, overwhelmed by taking care of seven children, shipped him off to the opposite coast to be raised by an uncle and aunt when he (the man in question) got very sick. He had no memories of any of these events, and was unable to connect them to his lifelong inability to form relationships with women or be close to anyone. Until he entered therapy at the age of 58. It enabled him to eventually understand the impact of these non-remembered events on his personality and undo their effects. It took him four years.

Four years.

Four years to learn it. Four years to unlearn it. Fifty-four damaged years in the middle.

That depresses me.

Why does change have to take so long? Why can't there be a pill, an antibiotic for the mind, something to selectively wipe out unhealthy patterns over the course of a week or so, with a handful of side effects? Why does it have to take us so long to decide to change in the first place? Why can't human beings come with service lights, like cars?

Give me one good reason. Except that we're not cars.

Did you know that, according to studies quoted in the same book, oxytocin may be less of a bonding hormone than an unbonding hormone? When you look at its role in other species where a mother and her offspring imprint on each other, such as sheep, oxytocin is not released for the first litter, only subsequent ones. The theory is that oxytocin allows the brain to reorganize itself, unlearn all the other patterns of affection and association, thereby making room for the new litter. In human beings, oxytocin is released during labour, breastfeeding, and orgasm for both sexes (men experience the release of a different hormone on the birth of their children, to similar effect). Think of the implications: oxytocin might allow you to unbecome the person you used to be, in order to allow you to become the person you are going to be next. If you are a mother and you recall those first few months after your first child was born, and remember that sense of not being the same person, of being reorganized and essentially turned upside down and shaken out by the feet, that feeling is very close to the actual neurological truth. Oxytocin rewrote you.

It does the same thing when you fall in love, by first enabling you to unfall in love with the last partner, allowing you to change to accommodate the new connection.

What I want to know is, why can't there be an oxytocin for other times when you need your brain rewired? Why can't there be a pill or a shot of some other hormone that will make your brain plastic and flexible enough to unwrite old damaging scripts so that new scripts can be written over top of them, in less time and with less struggle? It would make everything so much easier. Just think: I'm sick of losing my temper this way. Or, I'm tired of falling in love with jerks. Or, I don't like how needy I am. And then you get a jolt of a little something that doesn't just paper over it or mask it with chemicals, but gets rid of that part of you a little faster and a little easier so you can replace it with who you want to be a little sooner than you otherwise would.

I don't care if it's cheating.

Change is always a tough, long slog; but there are times when it doesn't feel like it, and other times when it really, really does. You end up being a little kid in the backseat of your own head, going, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" And at the same time, the driver shouting "No!" for the ten millionth time and acutely aware of the five hundred miles left before you can next get out and pee.

Sometimes it doesn't help that you've already driven a thousand miles, all you can see are the five hundred left to go. And there you are, putting along in your fuel-efficient car at a responsible speed, thinking, "Where is my jet car? Weren't we all going to get jet cars in the 21st century? Where is my transporter? Why can't I travel faster than the speed of light?"

At those times, even seeing all the people stranded outside of smoking cars in ditches on the side of the road, having a picnic with apparent unconcern, will not appease you.

Posted by Andrea at July 8, 2008 10:27 AM under Change Addict

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