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That was powerful HannahOne, thank you.
 

 

Charlie Brown always cried, "Good grief!" Funny, I just thought of that. Yeah, it's good. I've started crying three times today, two on reading things here on the forum. How bad was your Trauma? Well, no matter how bad... grief is one of the ways in which reconciliation has come to me. Every time I cry, I see, feel, hear, sense, love, know and embrace that little baby that I was. It's part of my healing. A big part. I am still reading Lisa Feldman Barrett. But beyond that, I am very slow on therapy books. I am highly dubious of my prefrontal cortex. I now believe in Emdr, nervous system re-regulation (will continue learning about that), abdominal strengthening (realized today that my irritated bowel syndrome has pretty much gone away, its been a long time since I have felt intestinal pain. Hernia pain has also reduced.) Where was I?

I want to mention, I feel there's a link between Emdr and Grieving. When I do Emdr with my therapist, it is intense. Each time (twice now) I have cried my guts out. (I think I scared my therapist the first time, that's how intense it was.) Not that it "should" be intense. I also listen to binaural sounds, and I never cry with that. But I do cry when I watch children. And I watch them often. There's a group of school kids that often pass underneath my window certain mornings. And I love watching them. There's also a church in front of my apartment, and for some reason passing kids love to climb the steps up to the church. Today, I watched a little boy, maybe five, pick up his little brother (three?) and carry him down the steps like a sack of potatoes. It was cute as heck. No tears there, but a few days ago I saw a kid crying in the street and his mother picked him up and that brought tears to my eyes.

Crazy, yeah. I miss the love I had in my relationships. That loss makes me sad, reminds me of something.

No, I think Grief is pretty high up there in importance for me. I really stuffed it down for those years of daily trauma, and then even after. Something about crying makes it all make sense... like something that makes no sense whatsoever, and just letting go to the unknown and impossible to conceive and letting the stress pour out through the tears... it somehow lightens after, starts to break apart. Yeah, I'm glad San brought up Grief. Funny how you can already know something, but hearing it again changes it somehow, augmentation of a Truth.

I love you all. Thank you.
 

Yeah, it was that bad. I think it's especially important to realize that a developing brain cannot put things into proper context. All children need and deserve: Safety, respected Boundaries, and Love. If any of that is missing in the child's life, and for the entirety of their development, there will be difficulties. There is a fundamental reality of good parenting, and when things go against that, it's very hard (impossible) for a child to understand. So the obvious answer is: It's not that bad... and probably my fault...

As the baseline standard, this is hard to fight against.

But we are, and we do. It WAS that bad...
 

Dalloway... Your post has brought tears to my eyes. I so very much understand that broken child. You ask what to do with the pieces? Pick them up. Put them together, no matter how broken, and hold them in your arms. Love those pieces. Love that little girl who never had a mother. She's alive and well and needs love. No one else can give it to her now, except you.

I've found my prefrontal cortex, rational and conscious, is good for very little, but does excel at one thing in particular. It's capable of stopping the voice of my past, my mother, my uselessness, my existence... I say NO to all that. It feels false, wrong, dumb, totally against what I am feeling. But I've learned... on this ONE thing, my prefrontal conscious mind is actually right.

Dalloway, your philosophy teacher is not wrong. Take that information and force it on yourself. That is the beginning. It takes a Loooooooooooong time to believe the message, the message that goes to the depths of our souls. But the New Word is that we are okay, we are good, we are lovable. We just never got what EVERY child deserves...

I go to playground and watch the children. The younger the better for me. I watch kids fall and see their mothers run to them and pick them up and talk to them and sooth them. I watch other kids hug each other. Sometimes they push, sometimes they laugh, but they are all beautiful and I rejoice in their joy at being. I watch how it was "supposed" to be for me, and often I cry like a madman. Like now. It hurts so much. It goes so deep. I make sense of it all through my tears. And slowly, ever so slowly I feel put back together, I feel more an more whole. I've still a long way to go. I'm still terrified. But day after day, week upon week, it gets easier. I start to believe what was inconceivable two years ago: I am loved. Now by many, and especially by me.

Love yourself Dalloway. You absolutely deserve it.
Sending love, lots of love, Chart
 

Chart: Sorry I sort of hijacked your journal. I'm moving my comments over to mine, but thank you for giving me and Dolly and San a place to reflect on the values and dangers of AI "therapists."

PC, as an incredibly wise and intelligent person once said to me, "Mi casa es su casa" And I'd like to add how honored I am at your presence. :-)
 

I agree with everything you've described, PC. I think there is a place for Everything we're doing. But we need to understand the impact of each modality, AND just how far it can take us. We all need (slightly) different things, or the same things in different measure. AND we need to understand how it all fits together, which is not exactly the same for everybody either...

Finally, we have to understand things on a relatively cerebral (prefrontal) level... AND THEN experience it in our bodies... and finally begin sensing it through our very SOUL.

Ha! There's a lifetime of learning in all that :-) Alice went through it too. Getting out is nowhere near the same as how we got in.

I think San's observation about grief is a good one. But I'd add, grief can't be forced. It has to come when our bodies are ready. But too, my personal experience has been, once I opened the spigot, the frickin' dam literally burst. I sense there's a whole lot more to come out.

 

So after I did that last post I, I did my PMR. While doing my PMR a thought wafted across my consciousness... about AI. I finished and reflected on the stuff I've been looking at these past few days and feeling my way through my AI usage. I realized a subtle element, but that I think is important.

AI "feels" empathetic. Which is fine, in fact it's great. Geez, what a change from the ordinary... Someone or something actually being understanding and reflecting back to me my struggles? Incredible. But it's a little more complex than that, I think. AI is designed to provide me, as close as possible to the reality, with the answer that "best suites me". That is to say, the designers of AI know that if the reply to a question is already something the person believes, then the positive feedback loop is reinforced. Thus I feel good, I feel smart, this is what I expected (no prediction error...) Awesome! Right?

Sure, why not... I'll take a free shot of dopamine. But here's the thing: It's important for me to understand that I am being slightly manipulated. And AI will not necessarily give the same response to someone else asking EXACTLY the same question. The response is dependent on the questioner.

No paranoia here, just awareness. My friends do the same thing. I do the same thing. We all give responses that we think/hope the other person wants to hear. That's why bad news is so hard to deliver. So all that can be taken into account. But it DOES need to be taken into account. AI is NOT 100% objective. Which is probably why it's such a great therapeutic tool.

Ok, now maybe I need to work a little... work... ungh. Wanna go back to bed!!!
 

Hey PC, yeah, the whole AI Therapist subject is incredibly enticing. From all my research and given the absence of good trauma-informed human therapists... it's a hands-down win for AI.

There're a couple documentaries out there already. As well as a fictional film treating the subject of AI-Human relationships titled "She".

A very good friend of mine literally fell in love with the AI personality he'd created. He even went so far as to begin building an autonomous version, robotized and capable of being "offline" from the internet. Not sure where he's at with the project, but I find it fascinating just how strongly we humans respond to "understanding"... it's insanely powerful. It's clearly what the designers of AI intended and one of its main selling points. But even knowing that, personally, I love AI and use it constantly now... for everything. Just waiting for the day it's no longer free... that day's gonna bite hard.

I would say YOU GO GIRL...but it would be weird, wouldn´t it?      So maybe leave the "girl" part out. I´m very happy for you and pass me some non-alcoholic alternative please. 

Actually Dalloway, my feminin side absolutely appreciates that expression! And I'm so happy for your comment because I somehow missed this party when SO brought it to light. Not sure how that happened, but even late to the party I appreciate it beyond words.
And me I drink a lot of bubbly water... even that, with good friends, makes me act silly :-)
 

Hello Ollyollyoxford, Your name reminded me about when I was a kid and we'd play hide-and-go-seek with the other neighbor kids, the person who was "it" would count to forty or fifty, then shout at the top of their lungs, "Olly-olly-in-come-free!" To this day I have no idea why we shouted that... But thank you for bringing that memory back to me. And welcome to the Forum. I think you'll find a lot of understanding here. That's been my experience, and more. I had a baby snapping turtle when I was a kid. He hibernated the first winter we had him, and my dad added a captured lizard into the terrarium which was half water, half dry land with a big branch. We figured the lizard was way too fast for the turtle to ever do him any harm... boy were we wrong. Woke up one Spring morning to find the poor little lizard floating in the pond with several chunks taken out of his body exactly the size of the turtle's mouth. It was pretty shocking for me as a young sensitive kid I remember. But it taught me explicitly not to get my fingers anywhere near Mellor's (his name was Mellor) mouth :-)
  

I've been reading and re-reading the ChatGPT info. If you have the wherewithal, I strongly suggest putting the following question into ChatGPT: Please explain how prediction error relates to trauma, CPTSD, and nervous system dysregulation.

I'm finding the explanation extremely clear, thus very coherent and, for me and my own needs, organized. Especially the explanation as to "why" trauma is stored in the body and talk-therapy is limited in affecting deep change...

And now I'll stop :-)

Now what strikes me is the statement, "In a healthy environment: The brain updates its models"

For me, this makes a clear distinction between "healthy" and "unhealthy". These are EXTERIOR conditions, outside of the control of the individual (note, they may also be outside the control of the person inflicting the conditions, environment or behavior, which is not so say this person is not responsible, only an explanation for why the pattern seems to repeat over generations...)

As Shakespeare said, "Therin lies the rub..." It is VERY VERY difficult to "explain" what is an "unhealthy environment" because everyone seem to think they know already... And no one likes being told something they are pretty sure they know already... The brain doesn't want to waste energy learning something it has already learned... or thinks it has learned...

Here, on the Forum, we don't have to jump that hurdle. When we talk about an "unhealthy environment/circumstance/person" it is understood. This is a shocking situation, especially at the beginning. But even later, it remains very hard for me to "reverse" my mental prediction error as it is presented to me by other Forum members. I just have to keep banging away at it.

(BTW, I hope I don't sound like I'm giving a lesson here, I think everyone already knows pretty much everything I'm talking about here... I'm just writing all this out for my own clarity. When my brain seems to be functioning relatively well, I find it a good opportunity to take advantage and put it in words for myself... I've had a heck of time really getting the concept of "prediction error", it just never made sense to me. Anyway...)

Thank you all, especially if you made it this far :-)
 

So I asked ChatGPT the following question: Please explain how prediction error relates to trauma, CPTSD, and nervous system dysregulation.

Response:
1. Prediction error: the brain's basic job
At its simplest: The brain is constantly predicting what will happen next.
Prediction error = what actually happens − what was expected.

If prediction error is small → nervous system stays regulated

If prediction error is large or repeated → nervous system adapts

In a healthy environment: The brain updates its models

Safety predictions become more accurate

The system stays flexible

2. Trauma = extreme, uncontrollable prediction error

Trauma is not defined by the event itself, but by this:
An overwhelming prediction error that cannot be resolved or escaped.

Examples:

You predict safety → danger happens

You predict care → neglect or harm happens

You predict "this will end" → it doesn't

Critically:

The nervous system cannot update the model

Because updating would require safety during learning, which is absent

📌 The result is protective overlearning, not learning in the healthy sense.

"Prediction errors aren't problems. They're a normal part of the operating instructions of your brain as it takes in sensory input. Without prediction error, life would be a yawning bore. Nothing would be surprising or novel, and therefore your brain would never learn anything new. Most of the time, at least when you are an adult, your predictions aren't too far off-base. If they were, you would go through life feeling constantly startled, uncertain... or hallucinating."
-Lisa Feldman Barrett, p. 62, How Emotions are Made

Two things: One, Lisa Feldman Barrett clearly doesn't have the faintest clue what the experience of developmental trauma is like for adult survivors... And two, developmental trauma has apparently provided my brain with the most excruciating opportunity to experience and understand the most extreme limits of the concept of Error Prediction.

I don't know whether to celebrate... or cry...