Criticism as a primal brain activator

These times I discover things about myself. It’s like treasures deep down. Sometimes they look really ugly, and I hesitate to approach them. Sometimes I cannot avoid them. It’s like they whisper: ”It’s time to see this part of your pattern, this part of your conditioning, this part of your interior world.

And now I’ve found this.

As long as I can remember I’ve had hard times receiving criticism from others. Now and then I’ve found the criticism unfair. And it has saddened me. And also made me cautious - how am I supposed to be and act in this society, in the meeting with another.

Memory

I am nine years old. It’s a Sunday. My parents has a party downstairs. I am up in my room, looking at the yellow flowers on the wallpaper. At a certain moment, as I am standing on the rug in my room, I feel an intense pain. I look at the rug and see half a needle. The other part, the sharp one, is nowhere to be seen. And I know it’s inside my heel right now. I feel the pain of the needle. But its only a slight mark on the heel - no blood.

I go down to my parents, complaining about the pain in the heel. One of them accompany me to the room. They see the half needle, they notice the lack of blood. And the response is:

- You are just complaining, the needle must be somewhere on the floor, keep looking.

But it hurts, I am sure the needle is in the heal.

• We are tired of your whining, go to bed.

Maybe they were giggling on their way down the stairs, to the guests, to the party. Maybe they are saying: ”She always wants to be seen, but this was a bit to much…”

The next morning my heel hurts. I feel the needle. I tell my parents I cannot put on shoes, because it hurts, and it seems like my foot is a bit swollen.

– Put on your rubber boats and walk to school.

I do.

It hurts. And at lunchtime I can hardly walk. One of the teachers phones my mother and asks her to take me to the doctor.

We come to the doctor. They take an x-ray - and there it is, the half needle (think this x-ray stayed in a cupboard the rest of their marriage).

And the doctor wants to operate, take the needle away.

I am terrified of needles, syringes I mean. I don’t want the doctor to give me a shot and then operate me.

So I get transferred to a hospital, 50 km away, and I was anesthetized and the needle was taken away.

So what hurts in this story?

The disbelief.

They didn’t believe me.

They thought I made it up.

THIS hurts.

Sometime I was also accused of cheating in a test in school - because I answered as it was written in the book. (”I want you to learn this by heart, my teacher said, and I wanted to show him I could, so I memorized the entire text, and wrote it word for word in the test. Result: ”You must have cheated”.)

It was eventually cleared up, but for some days I was seen as a cheater by the teachers.

And being abused for cheating, that is, to me, a grave form om criticism.

The good girl-syndrome

I tried, for real, to do good, most of the time. I wanted to do right, answer right, be right. I did my homework, read the papers, saw the news. I tried really hard to be reliable.

One could say that the good girl in me didn’t just want to be good, she wanted to be perfect.

And then…. Criticism came. Surely there must have been times when I deserved criticism, and then I at least sometimes, knew I had done something ”bad” and I accepted whatever punishment I got (usually verbal).

What hurts was and is when the criticism is or was unfair.

My finding

When reflecting on this I just found was this:

I strived to be perfect. I felt I needed to be perfect, to earn love from the persons I loved and was dependent on. I didn’t reflect on what ”perfection” really was, just that I had to be good, and do good… otherwise I wouldn’t deserve love and connection.

Being criticized could sometimes feel like a backstab. And it could feel threatening. My inner truth was: ”If I am criticized, I will not be allowed to be part of the family/group/tribe.”

It felt close to a death threat.

And I realize what efforts I have made to be accepted, and how scared I’ve been to do something that other could criticize… because that would mean sort of death to me.

Today this kind of fears only surfaces when my primal brain is triggered today. Then I go into fight flight mode when I am criticized.

When listening to my daughter the other day, my primal brain wasn’t activated, I stayed present and listening.

But afterwards, there is angst in my system, and I realize that my being easily can see something as threatening these days, then other days. It’s like I am drawn down to the primal brain mode, creating a kind of interior chaos, where I actually feel the nervous and scared energy running in my system.

I am able to write this now, since I’m fine now - meaning, I am not hijacked by the primal brain.

And I think it’s interesting to be aware this: ”When I feel really pressured by criticism, my primal brain is activated, and I have a ”near death experience”.

Is this something you can recognize in your self, or persons around you?