In an attempt to manage overwhelming thoughts and emotions while maintaining function, the brain acts as a super-filter to keep memories and emotions in a tolerable zone or obliterate them altogether. The prefrontal cortex, the locus of decision-making and control, takes a backseat, and the limbic system, where our survival instincts operate, drives the car. The pathways you relied on for most of your life take some massive, but mostly temporary, detours and the brain shifts upside down, prioritizing the most primitive functions. Each day, reminders of the loss trigger this stress response and ultimately remodel the brain’s circuitry. If these things can happen to a neurologist who understands brain biochemistry, what hope was there for me? The Grieving BrainĪfter a loss, the body releases hormones and chemicals reminiscent of a “fight, flight or freeze” response. She pulled off the highway and had to use her GPS to navigate back home. Once, after running an errand, she drove to an unfamiliar place and ended up unsure of where she was or how she got there. On several occasions in the months after her husband’s death, she lost track of time. In her book, Shulman, whose husband died of an aggressive cancer, describes feeling like she was waking up in an unfamiliar world where all the rules were scrambled. The brain rewires itself - a process called neuroplasticity - in response to emotional trauma, which has profound effects on the brain, mind and body. Scientists are increasingly viewing the experience of traumatic loss as a type of brain injury. “The emotional trauma of loss results in serious changes in brain function that endure.” “The problem isn’t sorrow it’s a fog of confusion, disorientation and delusions of magical thinking,” writes Lisa Shulman, a neurologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in a blog post for Johns Hopkins University Press about her book Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief and Our Brain. But I know now I was not alone: Frequently, humans who have experienced grief can recall incidents in which their brains seemed to stop functioning. I was embarrassed, ashamed and, most of all, in despair - not just because my dad was dying, but also because I was losing my mind. When I stopped the car, an onlooker who had watched the nozzle fly out of my car’s gas tank said smugly, “You’re lucky it snapped off.” I paid for my gas, got back in the car and drove out of the gas station - with the nozzle still lodged in my tank. Standing at the pump, I thought about how he would never visit our new home. Three months after heart surgery, his newly replaced valve had begun driving bacteria into his brain, causing multiple strokes. I stopped at a gas station to fuel up before heading to the hospital to see my father.
THOUGHT TRAIN TRIGGERS PHYSICAL DISORIENTATION FULL
It was a crisp night in June, the sky bright from the light of the full moon.
This story appeared in the September/October 2020 of Discover magazine as "The Mourning Mind" We hope you’ll subscribe to Discover and help support science journalism at a time when it’s needed the most.
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