Change Your Brain Every Day - Growing up in Chaos: How Does It Affect Your Brain & Thought Process?

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen share some of the biggest lessons learned from Tana’s new book “The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child.” Tana discusses such topics as suffering silently with an eating disorder, grocery shopping with a gangbanger, and how growing up with constant trauma in her life changed her perceptions of other people, and why she needed to overcome those biases.  For more information on Tana's new book, "The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child", visit https://www.thomasnelson.com/9781400220762/the-relentless-courage-of-a-scared-child/  

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. We are still here talking about my journey in my memoir, The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. And we're talking about the

lessons, the lessons that I learned along the way that I wanted to share with people and just the process, which wasn't an easy one to write, but just I'm enjoying so much now. And, you know, we left off at the Salvation Army where this woman raises her hand and said, how would you know about my life? And I'm like, oh. Yeah, they were pretty shocked. You know way more.

Yeah, they were pretty shocked. About their lives. And you talked about the scared child. Yeah. In fact, I wanted to call the book One Less Scared Child because I love this story so much. And I love the title. The title is actually better, Relentless Courage, because you'll see through the book the different challenges a scared child had to face. But, you know, one of the first lessons I think is when you argue with God, you lose. If you win an argument with God, you lose. If you lose an argument with God, you win.

And so that was one of the lessons. And I, what really came to me, because I ended up really bonding with these people. And I mean, I knew that I had grown when I went grocery shopping with a gangbanger. And just loved it and just came to really appreciate him and what he was going through. And if you know my story, that was hard for me. At one point, I wouldn't have been able to do that. Just because of my self-protection. As you point, I wouldn't have been able to do that just because of my self-protection. As you started, you wouldn't have been able to do that. No, my self-protective facade and mechanisms would have just kept me from doing that.

But I learned that it's easy to call people bad. It's harder to ask why. And when you grow up in trauma, and so now we should tell them a little bit about the trauma, you become judgmental because you've been hurt. You have been scared. So I had this weird teeter-totter of how I handled it. It was like on one side, I had this facade. Nobody was going to see through it as long as I look put together, as long as the makeup's on, the hair is done. As long as I'm successful in my career, nobody's going to notice. But on the other side, I put out this very tough.

When you mentioned ADD, I'm like, ADD is nonsense. Or if you said, you know, you were traumatized, or you just said to me about me being molested. I'm like, I wasn't molested. And like, I, I couldn't acknowledge the past trauma. I was very tough on the outside. Problem is, I was actually suffering still on the inside, even as an adult, and couldn tell anyone. And I was suffering silently with an eating disorder just off and on for years. So, and I would manage it in all sorts of weird ways and I would white knuckle it and I would use exercise and, but I never really got to the core issue and couldn't tell anyone. And so let's just tell them a little bit about what you told that audience about the scared child.

So people really understand why the book is called The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. Actually, my first memory that I remember clearly was almost drowning when I was two. And then my dog saved me, which is why there's a dog on the cover. I just was in love with my German shepherd. Um, he saved my life. And then my next memory was the day that my uncle was murdered. And I remember my mother and my grandmother falling to the floor screaming. And when I tried to like run over and like, you know, mommy, mommy, I love you. You know, I got pushed away. Of course I couldn't realize they were trying to protect me, but I was shoved aside.

And so I figured out then that like hiding was safer, like just not being seen fly under the radar. Don't speak up. If you go hide in your room, build a little pillow fort, like no one will see me. She still builds the pillow fort. Every night she builds the pillow fort. I still sleep with like six pillows. And so builds the pillow for you. Every night she builds the pillow. I still sleep with like six pillows. And so like, where are you? So I think I sort of lost my voice at that time. I became very timid for a long time. It took me a long time to find my voice again. And it was

always, our house was always like, when is the next thing around the corner going to jump out at you? It was never just a peaceful place. There was always yelling, screaming. You know, my dad left when I was two months old. My uncle, who was a heroin addict, lived with us. He's not the one that was murdered, by the way. But it was because of him. Yeah, because of his connections. And so there was, you know, we had strangers living in our house.

Like my mom wanted to rescue people that just all of a sudden there'd be people in our house. And it was just a little crazy. My mom was a 16 year old runaway who never finished high school, but she's tough. And she was determined to, you know, we were going to survive. So, and then some of my trauma was self-induced later on. I mean, let's be honest. Let's stay because one of the things that happened when you're four years old, so your uncle's murdered and a drug deal gone wrong,

very upsetting for you, your mother, your grandmother. And then all of a sudden you're having stomach issues. Yeah, I'm four years old and I'm in the hospital having upper and lower GIs. I don't know. I mean, I was always sick. I remember like one of our early dates, you were, you know, I told me about your uncle and then you told me about the stomach issue. You're like, don't you think they're connected? And I'm like, no, that's ridiculous. That's psychobabble.

So a lot of what's going on with you physically may have historical connections and knowing about them and then reprocessing them from an adult perspective can just be so helpful. Well, and now that I've really done a lot of work and a lot of people think that I do my work and write my books to help others, which I'm, I've really done a lot of work and a lot of people think that I do my work and write my books to help others, which I'm glad I turned that pain to purpose, but I went on that journey to heal myself, to save myself. Um, because now I actually realized I was always sick as a kid. I was always on antibiotics, always going to the hospital, high fevers. I had mono had my tonsils out. I mean, it was just like one thing after another. So your immune system. That's,

I think it was the stress. Yeah. And some of your best friends were the tiger, the leprechaun, and the cat. Oh, yeah. My mom was just doing the best she could. And she didn't know. So she was just, you know, whatever food she could put on the table is what she was putting on the table. And she's off and running to work. Well, I think those of us that also grew up in the 50s and 60s like I did, our parents had no clue. And so,

frosted flakes and Aunt Jemima pancake syrup. But when that's your breakfast and your dinner, you're having school lunch. It's a bad thing for anybody, right? To get loaded with that much sugar. But we're already listening to chronic stress, intense trauma, antibiotics, which also damage your microbiome, right? For those of you who are brain warriors, I hope you're listening to the story through the brain warriors way. It's no wonder that when you're 23, you get diagnosed with cancer. So it's like not a big surprise when you understand the history. So as we go over the next six weeks and we talk through the book, we'll also give a commentary on how it fits with the Brain Warriors Way podcast. And, you know, we're like up to four years old. Right, right. We haven't even gotten into, you know, teenage years yet.

We will. Stay with us. There's a lot coming. And I remember, because, you know, when we first met, I just adored you, right? I mean, you're beautiful, you're smart, and I'm listening to the history and I'm like, EMDR, I'm going to get it. Oh yeah, my first gift, my first gift, only a psychiatrist would give as a first gift. She almost canceled her first day. Oh yeah, because I wanted a psychiatrist. I wanted to be psychoanalyzed. Yeah, she desperately needed it, by the way.

I mean, this is obvious here. My first gift was 10 sessions of EMDR. I was like, okay. And I literally, I walked into the office and I'm like, I'm not going to bang my head up against a wall for three years and tell you how screwed up my mother is. So this needs to work fast. Which is why I knew, because she's a neurosurgical ICU nurse.

It's like, come on, let's get this done. And it was transformative. It was life changing. Yeah. Right. And in the book, there are lots of lessons, but recognizing, remembering, and then processing. So that's the beautiful thing about EMDR, which is different than most therapies. You just don't go and talk about how stressful your childhood is, is you process it.

And then you see, well, what are the good things that happen because of that? And a lot of Tana's strength is really built on the trauma that she has experienced. And again, I'm just so proud of you. Thank you. And you can pre-order the book at relentlesscourage.com. It's pretty much sold wherever books are sold, but for pre-ordering relentlesscourage.com or Amazon. And there are all sorts of gifts. Oh yeah. Like $400 worth of over $400 worth of gifts. And one of them, one of my favorite is the course we created. So it's just an amazing course. It's, it's, it's not long, it's not burdensome, but it's very impactful.

So we have a video course that we created for you. And there's worksheets and- Yeah, journaling. There's a digital journal and all sorts of fun stuff. And then come to the event and send the link, tanaayman.com forward slash event to all the people you know that have struggled with trauma.

And guess what? During the pandemic, it's all of us. Yeah, I didn't plan for this book to be released at this time. I didn't know there was gonna be a pandemic. I finished the I finished my first draft right when the pandemic hit, right when quarantine hit. And I was like, whoa, I mean, timing. I don't believe in coincidence.

So it was a little weird. Yeah. My goodness. All right. Leave us a comment question or review at brain warriors way podcast.com. What did you learn? And I think, you know, one of the big lessons you talked about just now is it's easy to call people back it's harder to ask why yeah that would be a great lesson to write down post on any of your social media sites if you got another lesson please do that when i heard some of the stories when i really got to know

some of the people at the Salvation Army, and I heard their stories, what they went through as kids, I'm like, wow. I mean, it's just, it really changes how you see people. And I began to see people who suffered rather than addicts. I began to see people who were just struggling to get by. And we're doing way too much labeling in our society now. You're a Republican, you're a Democrat, you're liberal, you're conservative. You know, you're this ethnic group or not. And we need to stop that

because all of our genes are 99.97% similar. Stay with us. 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.

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