Sleep, then no sleep...

I'm in bed, and Mom's cat Sweetie is lying on my butt, conked out and snoring like a pig. I got Sweetie, Meg took Arby. I was asleep for a bit, then I had a nightmare and woke up. I know that these nightmares and times that I can't stop thinking about certain things are the brain's way of dealing with danger and disaster -- our minds replay over and over what happened so that we can remember the importance (that's our glutamate working), and replaying it all over and over gives us a chance to fix things so whatever bad thing it was doesn't happen ever again -- we are basically running through an After-Action Review to critique and improve our performance...over and over again. I know this. I *teach* this. But the process itself is hellish, especially when there *is* no 'be safe' action, or the chain of cause and effect is so entangled that there are too many 'if/then/else' paths for our primitive brain to hold on to.

Basically, our brain wants an easy answer, and in this fucked-up world, few things are as easy as realising that going hunting for lions wearing an antelope pelt is stupid because lions hunt antelope, and that's why our antelope-pelt wearing friend Urg was ripped apart by lions right in front of us.

And that is why such things as post-traumatic stress disorder occur -- because there is a distinct lack of easy answers and simple connections to make any longer, and our brains aren't really *that* evolved. We can 'learn' simple (and often stupid and meaningless) rules through the connections our brains make to try to stay safe -- hating certain smells, an aversion to blondes, refusing to drive through Texas -- but that doesn't *fix* the deficit in our performance, and our brain knows it...so we play incidents over and over in our heads, day and night.

What I am saying is that I am becoming emotionally exhausted from going over all of this again and again. And I know how it works, but I don't know how to make it stop. The truth is, no-one does. There are a lot of theories, but not a lot of *facts*. And I am still tired. Very, very tired.





- Posted using SomeBlogApp that I don't know how to use. o_O