On Being Non-Functional

We can easily understand when all kinds of things are happening around us and we get confused and don’t know what to do first. But suppose all kinds of thing are happening not around us but inside us, things we cannot see or even imagine? And we get all confused, cannot concentrate or focus and stop functioning. Too much input, but from where!? Let’s see, hummm, maybe from inside? From all those imprints down low in the neuraxis that are constantly sending messages to the top cortical level, trying to inform us about danger down below. So many strong messages from preverbal imprints, messages with no special content but simply high-level electrical charges to try to enter our conscious-awareness, only to be rebuffed by the gating system.

So now imagine when there is all this current tumult going on that sets off the internal tumult and begins to overwhelm us; we can no longer focus and get immediately overwhelmed by the simplest of tasks to be done. It is all too much. We imagine it is because we are being pressured by domineering bosses but in reality we are being pressured first and foremost from inside, by importuning painful memories hidden away seeking exit and surcease. They are groping for priority, for access to top level processes that will allow for some peace. But they are competing with other external priorities that must be done…..now! Who wins? No one; nothing gets done as we break down and become non-functional.

Primal memories don’t just go away; they are as yet not connected, held back by the gates and so are unresolved and non-integrated. And the biologic system “knows” that connection means liberation. So they continually send their message higher up for connection. Alas, it is not to be. But those inchoate messages enter the cortical arena and create chaos because of their inability to connect. They have no specific content to allow them to be relived and be done with. They are preverbal, by and large, and can only be relived and resolved after many higher level imprints are integrated. And then, as we relive lower level, earlier imprints there is a resonance effect, a kind of dredge which raises up the earlier imprints. They now merge with imprints from infancy and earlier childhood providing the energy component to the feeling and making the reaction all the more powerful. Making a rather banal feeling incredibly strong. We may not understand what is going on because we have neglected the resonance factor that makes similar feelings connection or bind with each other, remained stored in memory and tend to rise together when the time is appropriate. So we feel disappointed at age seven but that triggers off the preverbal sensation of deeper aspect of the feeling, which can be many things but often is simple hopelessness. They now rise together and, as the reliving goes on there is a simultaneous reliving of the preverbal, energy part of the feeling, as well.

That same resonance goes on all of the time, higher level deception can trigger off deeper feelings but those feelings do not get resolved and simply create burgeoning chaos and tumult. They do not get resolved because not enough of the less powerful feelings have been integrated as yet. The system is simply not ready yet. And that sometimes can mean pockets of insanity as the system struggles to hold back feelings or perhaps tries to make sense of them, but to no avail. Enough premature breakthroughs and we have frank psychosis, which is when painkillers are necessary. And those same painkillers can, paradoxically, make us functional, as the painful imprints are held down below, out of harm’s way. It is when the pain is so strong, so many imprints that tranquilizers can no longer do their job. So we have to titrate the dose to make sure the patient gets enough to hold back the input from inside. After more pain is felt the person will need less and less painkillers.

Those early pains broke open the gating system initially because serotonin supplies could not keep up with the demand. So what is in those tranqs? Serotonin. All the pills are doing is doing what the system could not do at the beginning because it ran out of supplies. And it ran out because those early life endangering events demanded too much of the gating system. Don’t be afraid of offering chemical help because the system is demanding—non verbal therapy for non verbal pains. We just need to understand and comply, and above all, to tell our patients what is going on inside them. We are only boosting repression for a time until their system can take over.