The Elusive Truth

I often write that the simple truth is revolutionary.  But where is that truth?  How do we recognize it when we find it?  It is often not a truth we seek out; it is a truth that hits us from inside.    A truth that can rattle our bones and can alter our thinking.   I will often an example from my life.
I have been trying to have an MRI for a long time but I cannot make it.  When I undergo the scan it seems likely my whole birth history arrives intact.  And I fall into an anxiety state that is as spooky as anything I have ever undergone.    It is not anxiety; it is terror of approaching death.  So why is that?  Because we carry it around all of the time, and when the circumstances are right it can be triggered again, especially when your head is not allowed to move, one cannot see out and breathing is more and more difficult as Primal suffocation raises its head.  The baby feels all that and is in pure terror with no help, no one to ease the pain and no one to explain.

It takes place on the deepest levels of the brain where no concepts for understanding exist.  And it leaves a trace, a methyl trace (called methylation).   That marks the spot and indicates how painful it was and is.   It  agitates us so that we cannot think clearly and concentrate.  We have to keep moving.  I call it an “imprint” and it stays embedded in the brain and affects our anatomy, biology and neurology.  It later drives our adult behavior and symptoms.   If we do not recognize this we are doomed to not understand any of this;  nor the origins of our compulsive behavior and recurring symptoms.
Our lives remain a mystery.

Anthony Weiner had an imprint that drove him to act out in exhibitionism.   Once the imprint was there the act-out had to return in force and it did. No different from a severe physical symptom; once treated it remains a danger for years to come. It is an ineluctable force from which there is no escape.  We cannot run from the imprint; it is part of us.  On the contrary, we must run toward it, experience it and then be done with it.  It has been part of our lives; only now it must be part of our conscious lives.  My belief is that the earlier and more powerful the imprint the more like it will dog us for a long time. It is that recurring nightmare with the same demon chasing us. I know, I owned one for years.  It never let me be free.  I was living in a nightmare and never knew, but my whole system knew it well and expressed itself every night in those nightmares.  How did I find their origins?  When I travelled deep in the brain to where those deep imprints lay. I relived all the origins and my terrors disappeared. They were allowed to rise above the gating system to be faced head on, and I do mean “head on”. I then knew immediately why I had to sit in a restaurant with nothing over my head. I had to drive  a convertible for the same reason; and that reason was so arcane as to remain unbelievable .  When patients started to tell me, “It feels like I am living my birth.”  I told them, “Enough of that nonsense, let’s stay rational and away from booga booga explanations.  That means “I” the discoverer of this whole process, did not believe in the most important part of it, until, the evidence became overwhelming.  So I fully understand when it is poo-pooed and scoffed at by others. If we do believe in the imprint there is no way whatsoever to understand mental illness. Imprints are the safe haven for the secrets of the unconscious.