Hand Model Of The Brain – Ep 5

0:00 Kerry

This is my second mental health blog. I’m so excited I’ve actually made a milestone today and yesterday.

Many of you know that for the last two and a half years I haven’t been able to go anywhere by myself from fear of having a panic attack and not being able to bring myself back to some sort of normal state. So I’ve been everywhere with Stephen. Today he was driving a bus up to Zagreb with the softball team and I just knew I couldn’t go on the bus with him with all these strangers. I just knew I mentally couldn’t do that. It would cause too much anxiety. So I chose to stay here at the house of our friends Bexi and Jared.

I really wanted to get my hair cut. Jared helped me make an appointment and I went to the hairdressing shop by myself. I also stopped in at a grocery store on my way back and picked up a few things. For me, that’s absolutely major and a really big breakthrough. I’m feeling quite proud of myself.

I’ve been putting off this blog but after watching Stephen’s overcoming fear video I thought, ok, come on Kerry, you’ve got to do it. There’s always an element of fear as I record these and then post them but I’m so thankful for all the wonderful feedback. There’s so many of you that said, Kerry, thank you so much for being honest and sharing your journey with us. I’m not there yet but you know I’m on the journey and so hopefully this will encourage some people. So, here goes the hand model of the brain…

The Hand Model Of The Brain

The Three Parts Of The Brain

1:40 Kerry

If you look at my hand, this is a representation of our brain. If you look at my wrist that’s like the automatic brain stem and that really controls all of our automatic functions like breathing and heart beat. Then if I put my hand up like this you’ll see that this is my hippocampus and that’s the part of the brain that controls fight or flight. It’s really very much controlling your actions, your reactions, fight or flight continually. Then if you have a look at this bit of my hand, my fingers coming down, that’s representing the frontal cortex of your brain and it represents all your thinking, decision making, memory and anything to do with comprehension and reasoning.

When You’re Brain Flips

2:39 Kerry

How it works, is if you’re like me in a heightened state of anxiety or a heightened state of depression or PTSD or any of those kind of mental health illnesses, what happens is the front bit or your frontal cortex flips and you’re always in the state of this hippocampus. The hippocampus is really controlling you – fight or flight, fight or flight, fight or flight. When that happens your thinking, your reasoning and comprehension that flips and it’s not actually functioning.

This, for me, was a major breakthrough in understanding.

For me, I was continually not able to think. I wasn’t able to function. I wasn’t able to remember. I wasn’t able to comprehend and it was really troubling me because I thought my brain had completely broken. I used to consider that I was quite smart. You know you’re not a school principal for 17 years without having a little bit of intelligence. So, for me, it was very distressing that I couldn’t actually think anymore.

I couldn’t reason. I couldn’t make a decision. I couldn’t read. All of those parts of my brain weren’t working and that was very distressing for me. I couldn’t understand why that was happening. Yes, I’d had electric shock therapy and that contributed. Yes, I was on a lot of drugs and that contributed. However, as well as those things, I just couldn’t make a decision. I couldn’t read and I’d been an avid reader, an avid learner advocating for always learning a new thing every week. I went into a complete state where I couldn’t think, couldn’t read actually. I couldn’t even watch a movie. I couldn’t watch a whole series of anything.

I could actually sit in the hospital room or in my room at home for five hours and just sit there looking out the window with nothing. I remember my psychologist said to me once, what are you thinking and I said honestly, I’m not thinking anything. There’s nothing going through my head, nothing and that was because I was in the heightened state of fight and flight all the time.

I was ready to trigger at any minute. That also meant that I would have panic attacks if I was walking along and someone came up and just walked past me and I wasn’t expecting them or if a bicycle went past, a car horn or one of those V8 motors. Anything like that would send me through the roof and so that’s why I was so scared to go anywhere because I’d be in that heightened state. I’d have a panic attack and I couldn’t bring myself back down. It was actually very embarrassing to go anywhere. I was so scared to go anywhere because if that happened and Stephen wasn’t there how was I going to bring myself back down to some sort of normality.

That was the reality and with that heightened sense of arousal I was stuttering all the time. I couldn’t get a sentence out. I couldn’t get a word out.

Understanding Helps Recovery

5:36 Kerry

So, how did understanding that this is what my body was actually doing help me? Why was it such a breakthrough for me to actually understand what was going on in my brain and it wasn’t capable of it because the cortisone was running through my body. I was on fight and flight all the time and i couldn’t bring myself back down. If I can’t bring myself back down then part of my brain that actually does the thinking, the comprehension, the decision making is offline.

I would do some things to help bring my brain back online like mindfulness and breathing and relaxation techniques to help me re-engage my brain and then I was able to think again. It’s been a journey to understand that.

It’s actually greatly helped me that Stephen understands what’s going on with my brain as well. That he can see the signs. He can see when I start to stutter. He can see when I start to get into a hyper-arousal state and can’t bring myself down. Him understanding that about me has really helped me and given me freedom as well.

I went to the Imperial Centre in Gosford and in the car park they had signs up that said not every disability is visible. When I looked at that I thought, oh, that’s so true because when people look at me they think she’s actually ok. There’s nothing wrong with her but you didn’t see me yesterday when I had a panic attack. You didn’t see me last week when I couldn’t get out of bed for two days. It’s not visible from the outside until maybe I open my mouth or until I have a panic attack or until I can’t go to something or until I can’t remember someone’s name or I can’t remember dates or information people have told me.

Mental illness is a non-visible disability. I used to berate myself and say come on Kerry, you should be better by now. Stephen would say to me, Kerry, if you’d broken your legs would you expect yourself to run and I’d say no, of course not and he said well, you need to look at your mental illness like a disability. You can’t run yet and you need time to heal.

Understanding what I do now about my brain and how it works has given me a freedom to accept where I’m at and to just take the steps that I can take at the time.

I really hope that understanding a little bit more about the hand model of the brain and how the brain works is something that’s going to help you. If you’ve got a mental illness just in understanding what’s going on in your brain and physiologically with your body and your reactions to things. If you’ve also got a loved one with a mental illness I’m hoping that it will help you to really understand where they’re at as well. You know, if that person could will themselves better, think themselves better, work harder to get themselves better, they would. The reality is they can’t. This is a mental illness. it’s a body reaction to the stress and the trauma around them. With understanding from those around them hopefully you’ll be able to take some steps forward like I’m doing as well.

I wish you all the best on your journey and I’m just going to keep telling you there is hope. My goodness four months ago i was lying in a hospital bed I’d been in bed for seven months. Here I am now in beautiful Croatia able to do a vlog every couple of weeks even though it’s quite stressful to do. I couldn’t even talk and here I am doing this and that’s God’s grace on my life, understanding and love from those around me that have helped me move to this point. I’m just so thankful.

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