Journal Entry
From the journal of Minnow Gray
Memory is nonlinear and is strongly tied to our emotions. It is commonly believed that when we experience a highly emotional
event, our brains are more likely to encode and store it vividly. Our amygdala and hippocampus working hand in hand. Yet it
also turns out that some memories are so painful, they hide out in our brain, unable to be accessed. This dissociation is
designed to protect us, but it also causes distress down the road.
My therapist says that we need to root out the memory of my father’s death in order for me to fully heal, but my question
is: Does anyone ever fully heal? I really just want to know what happened. I know that’s probably simplistic, and there’s
got to be all kinds of trauma and weirdness buried in my subconscious mind that I’m scared to set free. When I think about
all this, what stands out the most to me is that our brains are little miracles (I say little because an adult white shark brain is about two feet long). They are imperfectly perfect and I love mine for fighting so
hard to keep me safe.
I think Emily Dickinson said it best: “The brain is wider than the sky.”