Why It Can Take Us So Long to Understand How Unwell We Are

a lot about our Behavior doesn't make sense until we can take on board a basic idea about the way that we humans are built that our biology privileges survival over self-awareness in other words the most important priority for members of our species is to live and to keep going not to pause understand and take stock place any new human in a terrible circumstance let's say in a home with a violent or alcoholic parent or an abusive or depressed one and it won't as one might imagine it could be able to focus clearly on what's gone

wrong or mourn its condition it will simply as we've ascertained it must keep going in order to do this it will call upon a range of innate survival techniques it may start to think surprisingly well of its parents declaring them justified in their beatings selfishness or humiliations it might assiduously blame itself rather than sparing any pity for its own deprivations let's remember that a sense of self-compassion can be a very dangerous thing indeed when one is 5 years old and no one would listen even if one yelled or else it will ward off despair through

activity it will overachieve at school or break windows or become obsessed with drugs or sport or politics anything not to have to listen to The Buzz inside the bited child can't look back it can't glance down it must simply stare ahead at the main goal survival this priority can last for a very long time indeed after all a sense of external security isn't remotely assured for most of us until we've settled in a career built up some Capital bought a home found a spouse maybe had some children by which time we might be in our

40s or 50s yet our Excellence at survival doesn't take away from the basic fact of our situation we've been born into a mess we have the ingredients of Madness inside us we've been unmowed by cruelty we are quietly in the recesses of our soul close to Insanity at points the inable result of too much suffering encountered too soon but as the external world gets ever safer for us the internal world has a chance to feel as troubled as it's always been we may feel far stranger inside at 40 than at 20 even though the causes

of our disturbances lie in events far closer to the latter date than the former eventually the pent up fear and sadness are liable to find a way through will start to do something odd write long letters to strangers or crash the car or SOB in public or develop a certainty that the government is following us the legacy of the unkindness of which we've been the recipients begins to emerge with any luck we may soon enough wind up in a clinic or the Consulting room of an experienced therapist and here have a chance to find out

more about the sadness and loss that have been inside us since the start we may finally feel safe enough to let out a very long scream and meet with a love and understanding that were UE from the start