Dr. Paul Conti

was was it says very dramatic but but i wasn't acknowledging it right because i didn't know what to do about it and i felt guilty and i felt responsible and i felt ashamed so there was a an avoidance inside of me so so i didn't see that the change was in me but i was taking care of myself poorly like there was enough going on that was unhealthy that i couldn't avoid the realization that like hey i'm different

now and in these ways that are automatic, you know, my reflex to, can I make my way in the world?

Can I have a good life?

Can I be happy?

Well, my reflexes to that were all different and they were coming through the lens of heightened anxiety, heightened vigilance, a sense of guilt, a sense of shame, and a sense of non-belonging in the world and was ultimately good and helpful people around me and my own realization and, hey, things are not going well, right?

that led me to then get some help and to be able to talk about it and realize like, oh my gosh, I need to face these things that are going on inside of me.

There's something adaptive that has happened in us through evolution that now becomes maladaptive in the way we live in the modern world, right?

So if you think of through most of human development, people weren't living that long, right?

And the idea was to survive and reproduce.

So traumatic things that happen to us, it would make sense for them to stay with us.

So if you ate a new food and got really, really sick, it's like you better remember that.

If you see someone from the group of people a couple of miles away and one of those people attacks you, it's like you better remember that.

So the traumatic things that are sort of emblazoned in our brain

are built to last right things that are positive will generate some emotion inside of us but things that are profoundly negative are much more likely to stay with us and i think that that was adaptive right when all of that was about survival right and i think the same thing is true with with say shame the limbic system right the system often is called the emotion system right in our in our brains has actually of course varying function right and

One aspect is affect, right?

So affect is aroused in us.

It's created in us without our choice, right?

So if we're walking down the road and someone jumps in front of us or pushes us, right?

Then there's a response of fear, anger, right?

Heart starts beating faster, you know, more blood to the muscles.