I was reading an article a month or two ago about the effects of adrenaline and long-term memory. This article says the same basic thing if you're interested. It was saying how when you have an event that produces adrenaline no matter how insignificant, it will more likely stick in your long-term memory and vividly so. This is why I can distinctly remember the day my aunt and I were in a car accident. I was the passenger (about 12 or 13 maybe), and she went to turn left and didn't see the car hiding beside another car until it was too late. I hit my knee pretty hard but the adrenaline was high, and I ran 1/2 mile back home to my mom who was coming out of the house to leave. I didn't feel my knee pain at all, I remember every detail. That is something you'd expect to stick.
I also remember being a kid and my dad yelling at me and calling me a not so nice name when I accidentally conked my little cousin on the head. I immediately apologized to her and gave her a hug but dad yelled at me in front of my uncles, and I felt even worse and ran upstairs crying to my mom and told her what happened. My uncle (her dad) came up and said she was fine, I didn't hurt anything, and my mom let my dad have it for what he said to me. (A VERY big thing for her at that time.) To this day, I remember how I felt when he called me that, and I don't know if he'd remember it if I brought it up.
Additionally, I remember something much less significant in the scheme of things, but because my adrenaline kicked into overdrive, I remember it very vividly. My parents were in the middle of their divorce, and my mom wasn't eating at the time and was crying a lot but trying to hide it from me. On what I can only assume was a bad day for her, I asked her if I could make a tuna fish sandwich for lunch. She said that was fine but only use half the can. Well, I never used half the can that's like nothing in tuna fish terms, even for a 9-year-old. I, of course, used the whole can and added my tons of Miracle Whip as usual ala "would you like some tuna with your Miracle Whip?" and went out to watch TV beside her. She laughed and said "God, did you use the whole can?" Being stupid, I said yes. Well, she went off and yelled at me saying she told me not to, and I did it anyway and why didn't I listen...blah, blah, blah. I don't remember everything she said, but I remember how I felt. I felt fat, I felt like I couldn't do anything right, I felt like I wasn't a good daughter because she was already going through enough and I made it worse. I know she was probably worried about how she was going to be a single mom and support us on a retail salary, that food wasn't cheap, and we needed to make things stretch, that she didn't want me to have the same weight problems she had and all kinds of things. She didn't handle it well, and it made an impression and is burned in there forever. I guarantee you if she ever read that paragraph she'd tell you there's no way that ever happened.
All kinds of things stick in our heads for things that are trivial to others but become significant to us because of adrenaline. After I knew that because of that article, we were walking on one of our last morning walks for a while. I almost stepped on a frog, and the Mr saw it before I did and yelled at me to watch out. It kicked up my adrenaline really high because he scared me by grabbing me when he did it. I looked down and saw the frog on it's back in distress. It had obviously been hit, but because of the adrenaline, I could actually feel it being seared into my mind. (This kind of thing happens with horror movies or scenes I find disturbing like an abandoned animal that makes me cry.) After having just learned my new factoid, I knew I did NOT want that image burned into my brain and tried very hard to calm myself but felt like it was too late. So I tried a different approach. I pictured the frog flipping over and hopping away. I did this over and over again as I was still adrenalized but coming down from it. A few days later when I saw a flat frog on another part of our walk, I thought of that frog, and you know what? I remembered it "hopping away" more than I remembered the blood and stuff that was starting to sear in there. This also shows how 10 people could go through the same event like say a bank robbery and all tell a different story. You could have people that process it differently or people who start to add in things that didn't actually happen based purely on adrenaline and what they were thinking at the time.
Cool, weird and scary, huh?
What insignificant to others moment is burned into your brain because of adrenaline?
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I remember my first car accident. I was a fairly new driver and had a 1980 Camaro. I was coming home at night kind of late after being at a band practice (rock band, not marching) and I had a green light but suddenly saw a car crossing the intersection on a red light and I still remember the helpless feeling of having the wheels lock up as I slammed the brakes, as it was a car without antilock brakes being that old. I ended up hitting their front tire so the damage to my car was actually minimal but I did hit my steering wheel and I remember it being all bent up because I guess it was kind of designed to do that, since the car had no air bags either. I will never forget that feeling, though, of being so helpless as the car did what it was going to do. If it had locked up and skidded to the right there was a chance I would have avoided hitting them but of course it locked up and went left toward their car instead. I believe it's an accident I could avoid now with todays tech and with more than 30 years of driving experience but you live you learn. As for the other car, they were driving without insurance, of course, and tried to say they had a green light. But the thing I remember most, because of my adrenaline, was after getting out of my car I looked up at the light and saw it just as it went from green to yellow. I never questioned myself because adrenaline made me remember that moment.
ReplyDeleteUgh, there's nothing worse than having no control in a car accident. All you can do is brace up. I still have a queasy feeling when we're in the city and are at the intersection where that kid's car spun into us.
DeleteI have a snake phobia. It's not debilitating but I freak out when I see them in the wild and am wary when they are behind glass. Just seeing them pumps my adrenaline so I can remember rather vividly my wild snake encounters and many zoo ones. It's a reinforcing cycle causing the panic to increase each time I see them. I've learned that if I spend more time watching them behind glass, and watch the occasional snake related video online or TV documentary, I can reduce the panic response. I learned this the hard way though when after a wild snake encounter I avoided the sight of them and the phobia got worse to the point I couldn't watch that damned Nivea commercial that had a python in it. Bio-feedback, meditation, visualization, they all sound a bit new-agey but can be very powerful tools in helping the mind process things.
ReplyDeleteSnakes are the worst. That's good you can reduce your panic response to them. That stuff doesn't sound new agey at all. It might've 10 years ago but thankful we've made great strides in that department!
DeleteI remember car accidents and our house fire in great detail as well as some other things I'd rather forget. Doing the EMDR reprocessing has helped immensely with that where with some things, instead of having that fight or flight reaction kick in, it's more woven in to my story and the physiological response is much less intense. The driving one in bad weather is what I want to work on next because of the timeliness of that.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that EMDR is helping you with that stuff. Yes, it would be great if it could help with bad weather too!
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