brains

Brains are amazing things. In the world of psychology, looking into how brains work is becoming more and more important.  Understanding the impact of brain function and the role it plays, has become another layer in assessment and therapeutic treatments.  Having MS and attempting to understand the mechanics of the disease has also allowed me to become a little better versed in overall brain function.
When you become a little bit educated about something, you begin to realize how very little you actually know.  Brains are incredibly complicated things.  But they are also amazing.  What I know about the brain in comparison to what there IS to know about the brain would fit into a thimble.  The very most educated brain scientist would know would probably fit into a mason jar in comparison to what there is to know about the brain.
Remember the human genome project a few years ago?  The one where they were trying to figure out what all of the different DNA building blocks of the human were?  And they said we've got it figured out.  Well, they left off about 90% of what actually was there.  Basically what they said was the 10% that they figured out was important and the other 90% wasn't.
Now, I believes that men are amazing.  You know, "What a piece of work is man.  How noble in reason.  How infinite in faculty's...", but I think that it is arrogant of us to think that we have anything figured out, really.
The one thing that we can know, is that brains are wired for connection to other people.  Infants are wired to be cute so that they will be appealing and people will like to take care of them.  They are also wired to believe that somehow bears or tigers will come and eat them up if they don't have a connection with someone.  That's why attachment is so important, and why attachment disorders occur in infants who are neglected.  I had an argument with a colleague once regarding whether someone who had been neglected as a child could be just as screwed up as someone who is beat up as a child.  When you look at brain functioning, a neglected brain is atrophied and underdeveloped.  I'm not saying that abuse is not incredibly damaging, but normal functioning becomes impossible when your brain is damaged.
So brains are massive and amazing and fragile.  It's all over the news right now how football players are so negatively impacted by all the head trauma.  Protect your children's brains.  Tell coaches to quit allowing children  to head the ball in soccer and quit rewarding the most violent athletes in football!  We need to have more ping-pong team's out there and reward that!
All of this rambling about the brain, leads me to my next silver lining and the most important one.  That is, I have the opportunity to allow people to help me.  We are all so proud and independent in this country and while I think that is a good thing, I think we have gotten way too far away from recognizing how important every other person is in the world.  And we have forgotten how important it is for us to give to each other.  You know that statement about it is better to give than to receive?  Well in some ways it is better to give for your brain.  When we freely give of ourselves, we are creating more and more of the connection needed for our survival.  It is no accident that connection is one of the crucial C's that I mentioned before.  Whenever I need help, although sometimes it hurts my pride, I see it is a way for me to connect with someone else and provide them with the opportunity to connect with me.
It is so important for people to get to know and understand other people who don't look like them!  I was  fortunate to be able to work for an agency where I was a serious minority.  Not only were the clients mostly African-American , but most of the staff were African-American.  I had to prove every day that I wanted to to get to know my colleagues and to understand their American experience, which was so different from my own.  I thought it was funny that they had some preconceived notions about my life as well.  They all figured I was rich and that my daddy  put me through school and provided me with my car my home education... now I love my daddy, but rich he ain't!
Once I got to know everyone and they get to know me, the differences disappeared.  My clients were foster children and their families.  One of my African American child clients  touched my hair.  Most of my African-American kids were from the inner-city of Chicago.  While Chicago is incredibly diverse, it is also incredibly segregated.  Many of my child clients had never been out of Chicago, and their understanding of white people was what they learned from the television.  Many of them had never been so close to a white person.  When the child touched my  hair she recoiled a little and said, "OOO!  You're hair is hard!".  I said Yeah , white girls have to use a lot of hairspray sometimes.  She looked at me and said,   "you are not that white".  Now I practically glow in the dark I am so white.  But what she was really saying was that she did not see the differences between us.
That was before I had MS.  And I didn't stand out from the rest of the people in this relatively white suburb.  But now I walk funny and use a cane and it sets me apart from other people.  I am hoping that when people help me they will recognize that people who look different are not so different after all.  MS is giving me an even greater insight into what it's like to be a minority in this country. And it truly is a silver lining because it has been an experience outside of the norm and I think my brain has developed because of it.