Emotional Memory

    When we are born, our brains are not completely developed and this must be completed outside of the womb. This so that we can pass through the limited birth canal. Elephants do this as well because of the size of their heads, while a horse's head is shaped much differently and they are born ready to go within hours.

    One of the things we develop outside of the body is the Frontal lobe, which is responsible for memory. This makes sense since there is little need for memory at birth. The Frontal lobe completes its development after approximately two years and we be begin to amass memories.

    However, this doesn't mean that trauma isn't remembered emotionally before the age of two. It is remembered emotionally. So is love and protection, or the lack thereof. For better or worse, this creates an emotional responses to situations, which are not remembered and therefore uncorrectable without knowledge of the individual's first two years of life.

    If a child was abused in some way during that time, they might react violently to perceived abuse as an adult, without even knowing why they reacted in this way. Obviously, this is problematic and might represent the source of many psychological problems we see in adults. Each much be treated individually and some answers may lie in the unconscious. We may need to  give these people lots of therapy, or they might end up institutionalized which in 2020 America, sadly means prison.

    I once knew a man who punched anyone in the face if they yawned. Everyone knew this, but me. until I yawned (fortunately, I was unharmed). But, I could tell he wanted to hit me. He just couldn't do it in my house. I was told of my infraction and I asked him why he did this. It didn't seem to be productive and now he had this weird reputation. He answered that he wasn't really sure, but he saw it as an insult, as if he was somehow boring. I explained to him that I wasn't bored, instead I yawned simply to get more oxygen to my brain; possibly so I could pay more attention to him. Once I explained the physiology of yawning, he stopped punching people, because he no longer saw yawning as an insult anymore. I think he was the victim of Proximal Abandonment in which the parents were present, but they generally ignored him at some point during his first two years. His punching was an attention seeking behavior meant to overcome the abandonment he probably experienced, but doesn't remember. I didn't see him much after that and I don't know if he adopted a different attention seeking behavior or not. But, he probably did.

    The lack of attention given to children, especially at this tender age explains much of the attention seeking behavior we see today. We like attention and sometimes it reaches pathological levels.We have just endured four years of this from our leadership. Did this happen as a result of women joining the workforce? Impoverished parents working two jobs? Warehousing children in daycare? In Denmark, they just expanded parental leave to nine months for parents because of psychological considerations. 

    I can think of only one solution to this problem. That is to love, protect, and keep healthy all children until the age of two because on some level they will remember any shortcomings that occurred during that time, without actually consciously remembering them. If this were somehow achieved I believe we could cut mental health issues in half. Otherwise, we will have people in our society who react violently to triggers they themselves are unaware of. 

    This is a decision for the entire society to make and commit to. The rewards will be slow to see. But, when you are old this generation won't abandon you. if they are raised correctly. We understand this now as seen by the actions of the Danes. Therefore, inaction is inefficient and irresponsible. The Human Condition itself can be changed into the Human Experience by making changes such as this.

    We only have to want to change it and do the work.