Change Your Brain Every Day - Daddy Issues: Can We Create False Memories of Our Parents & Childhood?

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

It’s been said that one’s perception becomes one’s reality. If that’s true, could it be that some of our earliest memories are in fact fabrications of our own making? In the third episode of a series based on daddy issues, this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast deals with the memories we hold on to from our pasts, and how sometimes in reality they may not be exactly what we remember them.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back to Daddy Issues Week.

I hope this has been stimulating for you. Fun wouldn't be the word, but stimulating. And not traumatic. But you have a review you want to read. I do. This says life-changing information and entertaining by Eureka kid. Eureka kid. I stumbled onto this podcast after a head injury and learned more from these short stories than any doctor I saw in person.

I love that. Great resource for anyone who wants to protect their brain or improve performance. And the Amon stories are really entertaining. I keep saying you married me for a never ending source of stories. So it's actually not true, but I like the stories as well. You're always pulling them out of me. When I first met you, I wouldn't talk about anything. You remember that? No, I'm a psychiatrist. For whatever reason, all I have to do is just sit there. No. People tell me their whole life story. It's totally why I didn't want to date you.

I'm like, he's going to psychoanalyze me. I don't want to do this. And then before I know it, you're like, oh, why don't you come on stage and share that? No. But you know what they say, pain shared is pain divided. So daddy issues. In the last episode, we talked about the impact of your dad's mental health and emotional health on you in this issue i really want us to talk about how to change the template

and sometimes the template of what you remember is flat out wrong. And I've seen this with my patients over and over again. And I shared a little bit about my dad and how he was never there and he didn't go to any of my games. And I held on to that bitterness for a long time. And then there's the story when I was younger, we had a goat, goat's name was Sugar, White, beautiful, fun, playful, who ate my dad's roses. And then one day, Sugar wasn't there anymore. Actually, Sugar got the death penalty for eating the roses. And we found out that we maybe had sugar for dinner, which was just horrifying. And so I had held on to these bad memories.

I remember when I met you, you said, my dad killed my goat and fed it to me. And I'm like, what? That's like Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, so some of my siblings don't remember it the same way. But that was very traumatic for me me and that sort of fit with him being irritable and not being around but then he he put all the home movies there are a lot of home movies when we were little and there were more home movies of him going to the park with us he was there a lot and i had completely blocked that out because it didn't fit the story I was telling myself about my dad.

And so I really had to sort of back up, reassess that memory is a tricky thing. And memory tends to be filtered by the story you're telling yourself. So I have an example of this. And I want to say two things about this. One thing is, as children, your perception is your reality. But you can change your perception, right? But when you're children, your perceptions of the world is sometimes bigger and scarier than it is, which is why you have parents that protect you. And it's why you need that. It's why when your parents are not there and they're, you're, you know, you have attachment issues and whatever, you need your parents to protect you from this world that feels big and whatever. Um, but I have a funny story about this. So when Chloe

was about six and I was working on love and logic, and that was, those were sort of my nightmare years with parenting. Um, I was learning love and logic and she got in the car after school and just was in one of her moods and throwing the spit and being very, very rude. And so, which at that phase she was, had a tendency to do be very, very rude. So I use one of the love and logic strategies and I probably didn't do it perfectly, but I was doing the best I could. And I pulled over and I said, you know, sweetheart, I don't, I'm not going to drive and keep driving you around. I don't do that for people who are, who I think are rude to me. Right. So you can, you've got choices. So, you know, I'm not going to drive. So you can sit there until you want to be polite. You can step outside the car. We were like right next to a park.

You can step outside the car till you're ready to be polite. Or you can deal with the consequences when we get home. I don't know what they are, but I'll tell you what they're going to be. And much to my surprise, which is typical of my daughter, always surprising me. She got out of the car, but rather than going to the park and like hanging out, like I thought she would, she didn't, she took off. So she takes off down the street walking. And I thought, all right, let's see how far she goes with this. Cause usually she doesn't like to be very far away from

me. Um, she's kind of an anxious kid. So she's walking, walking, walking, and I'm following her in my car. All right. When she gets down to the bottom where the busy street is, I rolled my window and I'm like, that's enough. Now it's a safety issue. You can't go any further. So you can either get in the car and be polite or deal with consequences when we get home. She got in the car, she was quiet. So her recollection of that story is so different. We were talking one day and she goes, yeah, I remember the time you left me. And I'm like, what time was this? I've never, I've never even left with a babysitter, let alone left you. What are you talking about? She's like, no, I remember. You left me.

I walked by myself. And I was mind blown that she can't remember me following her. Mind blown. And I have memories like that as well. So it's her interpretation of what happened. Now, there's something very important I want you to think about. When you have children and they're at these ages, whether it's 2 or 7 or 14, unconsciously, you are going back in your childhood and reliving what was life like for you at that age. And a lot of parents, they have no idea this is going on. And if it was an age you got bullied or an age you had body image issues or an age you had public speaking problems, unconsciously, you're beginning to feel anxious and upset, and you actually have no idea why.

And then you're becoming more reactive with your own children, and that dynamic becomes more problematic. So the important thing that I learned about that thing that happened with Chloe was it made me stop and ponder how many details from my childhood were distorted because I was scared, because I was alone. How many of them got distorted? And so, you know, they feel very real. They're my perception. They're my reality. And I even started fact-checking some of the big things with my mom. She's like, yeah, no, that's accurate.

No, that's accurate. But those little details in between matter. If I was distorting those like Chloe did, then that means that I can change that perception. You can always change your perception, but it just cracked that idea that it's set in stone, that that's what happened. I think that that's a really important thing to think about. So here's the big aha that I found, is that when I started looking at the brains of my patients, it began to dramatically change their perception of their parents. That when they went, oh, my dad was a

Vietnam vet and he had PTSD and a traumatic brain injury. I wonder what his brain would have looked would look like even now to explain his erratic difficult behavior and I have seen so many tears happen when people realize it wasn't that he just didn't like me because I was inferior it was because his brain had been hurt. Yeah, no, I like that. Now, if you had a father who, let's say he didn't have a brain injury or something, let's say that he just grew up, he grew up in that environment. And so it wasn't because he was an alcoholic. It wasn't because he had a brain injury, but he grew up in the environment. It was modeled for him. What about, What about someone who just kind of is a jerk? What do you do?

So this is the discussion my wife and I have virtually every day. Don't throw me under the bus. Do not throw me under the bus. I would go back to how would you ever know unless you looked? Because one of the things- My dad didn't have a bad brain though. Your dad did have a bad brain. Well, he did.

He had the, because he was beginning to not remember stuff. Didn't have a brain injury. Your dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease when we met. Yeah, but that was many years after I, yeah. And he actually had pseudodementia, where his emotional brain worked way too hard. Right, but that's when I was 38. If we go back in your dad's family. Depression.

Right? You are so hung up sometimes on, he was bad. No. When in fact. No, no, no. He was sick. And if you look at his family history, he's loaded for depression and difficult behavior. Now, it doesn't excuse everything. And that's where you and I often fuss about things, right?

What about responsibility? What about free will? What about you should have done better and perhaps he should have right right he didn't have a terrible right his emotional brain work way too hard putting him at risk let me finish putting him at risk for depression yeah when we when you're at risk for depression you're at risk for negativity you're at risk for the world the glass the sky is falling the sky is falling which then puts you at risk for substance abuse or puts you at risk to actually flight into religion you know i'm like a huge fan of religion but he used it as a weapon almost often used it as a weapon yeah and i just

the scans taught me that there that behavior is complicated and i rather than judge people as you know good or bad it's i just when people behavior's off and his behavior was off, it's why. And if that's the one thing I take away from the imaging work, it's rather than judge people as bad to just go, I wonder why that happened. No, I like that. I like the curiosity. As we've done, we've talked about forgiveness a lot right and the scans have just been sort of a gateway for me i totally agree to and when i scanned my dad so you know my growing up my dad's two favorite words were bullshit that was number one and number two was no anytime you ask him a question the answers no i mean it's just an automatic response.

He's hilarious, though. And so when I asked him to be scanned as part of my normal group, because he's normal, he's actually highly successful, he said no. For like 12 years, he said no. And when he finally said yes, because I think my mother withheld sex from him or something. He finally said, he finally said yes. Uh, my mother's like, why don't you help your son? What's the matter with you? Um, his cingulate was overactive. It's the most overactive cingulate I've ever seen in someone who is 72. And, and what people have an overactive cingulate, worried, rigid, inflexible. Things don't go their way. They get upset.

And their favorite word is no. No way, never. But I have to say, your dad is actually also one of my favorite people. He's hilarious. He's actually hilarious. He is. He's awesome. I love him.

All right. So if this has been helpful for you, please write down that one idea that you got from the podcast that maybe maybe is more complicated than you know. And my challenge is ask yourself, is it possible that your memory, that there's a crack in it? Is it possible that it's not exactly how you remember it? Is it possible that because you were a child and the world seemed big and scary that the details are distorted? You don't have to even answer what they were. Just, is it possible? And we'd be grateful if you left a review, hopefully a great review, and you shared hashtag Brain Warriors Way on any of the social media platforms. Thanks so much. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always

know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.