My Secret Grief
I have an embarrassing confession. I am envious of my four-month-old grandson. Dash is generously loved not only by his mother and father but by his extended family and in fact, by everyone he comes in contact with. He is handsome, intelligent and loves to be around and reacting with people. He even loves traveling in an airplane, looking all around and being coo cooed by the stewardesses, while other kids his age are crying the entire way. He lacks Grief.
Dash
Young children cry to alert parents to come and rescue them. Their cries alert the mother where her baby is to be found. The security and survival, of the infant is linked to its cry and the response of its mother. Without her caring succor, and love, the baby will pine away and even die. Obvious as this seems, maybe this needs to be taught as part of a required parenting curriculum in high schools. My parents and so I would have benefited immensely.
Dash’s parents know this instinctively. His father said, “I will never allow my son to cry and not comfort him.” The philosophy was so different when I was an infant. Parenting books focused on not spoiling the baby and making it independent and strong by not coddling AT ALL.
I am envious of my grandson’s infancy since he is not ignored and picked up only to be fed and cleaned. So he did not end up crying for hours, angry and frustrated at being isolated and ignored.
When infants have secure attachments to loving others they are granted a lifelong gift. But when this all goes awry, the psychic pain can lead to chronic feelings of Grief and distress throughout life. Grief is the most powerful affective network of the human brain.
Mapping the PANIC/GRIEF System
The PANIC/GRIEF and other six systems are prime because you can stimulate the PANIC/GRIEF system with an electric current in the brain and the person will feel PANIC/GRIEF and even cry. These prime affect systems are deep in the midbrain and are not controlled by our executive higher cortical brain. Of course, once they reach the cortical level you can decide whether to cry or hold back. And with most men the decision becomes automatic. “Big boys don’t cry.”
Researchers mapped the seven primary affective systems by stimulating points in the animal brain with electricity. Antonio Damasio published PET scan images of human beings feeling very sad and the same areas light up in PET scans as the ones stimulated electrically in animals.
The stimulated regions of the GRIEF system are the anterior cingulate (AC), involved in coordination of affect and cognition, the dorsomedial thalamus (DMT), involved in memory, and the periaqueductal gray (PAG), the control center for pain modulation.
opioids
Before the present era of psychopharmacology, the effective psychiatric medicines available to psychiatrists were opioids. Their patients were mostly socially isolated and social isolation is similar to maternal separation. When babies bond with their mothers this stimulates endogenous opioids in their brain and makes them comforted and happy. Lucky for Dash. He bonded with mother and father, so he gets a ton of endogenous opioids.
When psychiatrists gave opioids to their unhappy patients, it made them happy. When bonding and social contract breaks down, so do opioids, leaving GRIEF in their place. Replace the opioids and feelings are good again. Either endogenous or pharmacological opioids make people relaxed and happy.
I did not bond with either parent, so I lacked endogenous opioids and experience lots of Grief. This puts Dash and me on opposite sides of the happy/Grief spectrum.
Endogenous opioids
Three neuropeptide brain chemicals (endogenous) strongly reduce GRIEF. Strongest are endogenous (the body produces) opioids. The two others are oxytocin and prolactin, both important in the Care system. So when brain opioids, oxytocin, or prolactin are elevated in distressed infants, they relax and exhibit signs of comfort. So they get coddled and then are bathed in these happy endogenous chemicals.
Brain imaging studies confirm that depressed people who lack adequate social support have low levels of these social-affect endogenous molecules in their brains, making them more likely to abuse addictive drugs. I got hooked on the gamut of addictive drugs and finally burnt to a toast and could not work anymore.
When infants and young children experience separation from their mother and poor attachment, they experience chronic anxiety. GRIEF comes mostly later in the higher cortical thinking level of the brain. When older people are deprived of companionship they tend to feel lonely and sad rather than panicky like little children. Adults have had the time to reflect and ruminate and cognitively adjust to social loss.
I wanted Dash to recognize and know me as his time-traveled wrinkled and wisened dopleganger who had come so far to soothe his grief-stricken soul. But I might be asking a lot of my four-month-old grandson. And it’s not going to happen as long as I’m envious.
But I can identify with him now. He cried and screamed as I did. But he screams until he gets comforted, and that is where we go down two separate paths. He gets his full measure of endogenous opioids. And now, I think that is a very good thing.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
