Cats, Cucumbers, and Your Amygdala

Hey, flashy guy here.

Thanks for starting this third episode in the series, “Some Adults in Your Life are Really Messed Up.”

The script is available as a blog post at GoodMentalSoil.com

In this video I’ll explain why I had the instant urge to assault an older woman whom I had never met before.

Before I do, let’s recap the last two episodes.

In episode one, I talked about the difference between really messed up adults and those who are just messed up… like I am…and almost every other adult I know.

In episode two, I talked about how people can become really messed up adults,

and that the best revenge you can take on the really messed up adults in your life is to *NOT* become just like them.

I also talked about The Awakening in someone’s life when they’ve been trying to fit in with really messed up adults.

This happens when they look more closely at what those adults are actually saying, doing, and not doing, and they think to themselves,

“What the crap? What the crap!”

Unfortunately, this usually is not a one-time occurrence.

Given the adults around you and the situations in which you find yourself, you may be asking, “What the crap?” all day every day.

What matters most is your reactions and responses to these situations because that is what determines the path of your life.

As I always do, I need to point out that this video is for educational purposes only. I’m not providing you with counseling.

My views are my personal opinions based on my experiences. If you find them helpful…Great! If not, ignore them completely.

If you want to understand your reactions to these “What the crap” moments, it helps to understand a little structure in your brain called the amygdala.

Now when I say reactions, I’m not talking about when we see an unjust situation and think, “Oh, how terrible. That makes me mad.”

I’m talking about how cats can react to a cucumber.

You’ve seen the videos, right?

Someone sneaks up behind a cat and places a cucumber just out of its field of view.

The totally unsuspecting cat eventually turns around, sees it, and instantly jumps into the air scrambling for its life!

While everyone is laughing hysterically, most cats hit the floor and run off looking back thinking…you guessed it, “What the crap?!”

We’ve all had similar experiences, but probably not with cucumbers, and our reactions are usually not to run away.

Someone says or does something, and we get triggered.

We’re instantly angry…perhaps even furious.

Some cats in these videos take a much more measured approach.

They’re only mildly startled. Then they start sniffing this stumpy snake to figure out what it really is.

By the way, please don’t do this cucumber experiment to your cat.

Now, I did approach my cat with a cucumber in hand and held it in front of him. He sniffed it and looked at me like, “What’s your point?”

So why the difference between “What the crap?” and “What’s your point?”

The difference is because of a structure in your brain called the amygdala.

Its purpose is to keep you safe.

Unfortunately, its efforts to keep you safe can also be deadly to your future and your relationships.

That’s why you need to know how this reactive little guy works.

The amygdala has many functions, and I’m only going to focus on safety and protection.

I need to warn you that the following explanation is very general and will cause you to fail a course in neurophysiology. But here goes.

The nerves from your senses such as sight, taste, hearing, touch, and smell, eventually lead to an area in your brain that sends copies to both your cortical thinking brain, that uses logic,

and to your amygdala, which influences your emotions. It has no sense of time or logic.

It receives these patterns of sensations and keeps track of the outcomes such as pleasant, neutral, safe, or dangerous.

As far as its concerned, anything new is bad until proven otherwise.

And anything similar to bad…is just as bad.

But why do some cats immediately jump into the air when they first see a cucumber, even though the cucumber is harmless?

Their amygdala receives the nerve impulses first and is already reacting before the cortex even gets the message.

If it doesn’t have experience with cucumbers or has actually been attacked by a cucumber-like being such as a snake, it reacts to this shape as a threat.

That’s why we can have an immediate reaction to something or someone before we even know what it is.

And this determination of whether something is dangerous or not is largely based on experience.

If the sensory input is similar to a previous threat, the amygdala reacts immediately with a fight…flight…or freeze response.

I’ll give two examples. One that is very common in relationships, and the other occurred when I had a very brief urge to assault an older woman whom I had never met.

The first example. Think about a relationship in which one person comes from a family of yellers who love verbal debate,

and the other person grew up in a family who very rarely raised their voices. And when they did, it meant there was a severe crisis.

When the first person starts yelling during a disagreement, they think nothing of it. After all, isn’t that how everyone does it?

Unfortunately, the second person’s amygdala senses extreme danger which can trigger an immediate fight, flight, or freeze response.

Any of these three responses are not helpful in resolving a disagreement.

This means that the immediate reactions of your amygdala can have an upside or a downside.

On the upside, its immediate reaction to REAL danger can save your life.

On the downside, its immediate reaction during a disagreement can ruin a relationship.

Side note: Conflicts in a relationship are mandatory…arguments are optional.
Now for my cucumber reaction to that woman whom I had never met before.

It happened about ten years ago before I even knew I had an amygdala.

I was sitting in an auditorium on the aisle seat. It was morning, I still wasn’t quite awake, and I was looking down at the floor.

I noticed footsteps approaching up the aisle and I slowly looked up.

I instantly had the urge to attack.

Yeah. Me. Right?

I thought, “Dude. Get a grip. What’s wrong with you?” I felt instant shame.

That’s when it hit me.

This woman was the spitting image of my second-grade teacher,

who from my perspective saw it as her purpose to crush every bit of creativity out of me that she could find.

In her defense, many of my classmates had a different experience.

So, when I thought I had never seen this woman before…I was wrong.

My amygdala recognized her face, height, weight, body conformation, and walk perfectly…

And, according to its experience with my second-grade teacher, this approaching figure was far more dangerous than a cucumber.

The good news is that the amygdala can learn through new experiences…and mine did.

For a couple of weeks, I beat myself up and felt ashamed for being so ridiculous.

How petty could I possibly be for not getting over something that happened in second grade?

Not to mention I’m supposed to love others…not attack them.

I tried to think my way through it, but even with all of my reasoning, nothing changed.

Remember, this all happened before I knew I had an amygdala.

So what did I do?

I knew I had to do something, so I started looking for her each week until I didn’t feel the same impulse.

Even so, just seeing her still made me feel uncomfortable.

Eventually, one morning at the coffee bar, I tentatively walked up to the side of her and had the courage to say,

“Good morning.”

She turned towards me and looked directly into my eyes…which wasn’t especially comforting.

Then she gave me the warmest most beautiful smile and said, “Well, good morning to you.”

That’s when my amygdala was finally convinced,

“It’s not her.”

I‘m fine with her now, and she has no clue about my struggle.

What I had inadvertently done was to retrain my amygdala through positive experiences, which therapists have been doing for decades in various forms of therapy.

It’s only relatively recently, however, that the role of the amygdala in this process is more fully understood.

In retrospect, I didn’t have a character flaw, and the shame I felt was inappropriate.

What I had was a very protective amygdala that helped me survive a schoolyear of trauma, and it had no intentions of ever letting me go through that again.

You can talk to your thinking cortex until you’re blue in the face about these kinds of experiences, and it will not change your amygdala.

Your amygdala changes through experience.

So, the main points of this video are:

Your amygdala is designed to keep you safe.

It matches sensory input to outcomes; favorable or unfavorable.

It has no sense of time or logic.

It can save your life or ruin a relationship.

And it learns through experience.

We’ll talk more about the amygdala and how it partners with the cortical thinking part of your brain in future videos.

Here’s a hint. Since the amygdala might not pick up on some dangers, it watches the cortex for thoughts that a danger exists. If so, it’s ready to react.

Unfortunately, if the cortex is making up dangers that don’t exist in the moment, also known as worrying,

the amygdala stays on a heightened state of alert because it has no way of knowing for sure.

In the next episode I’ll talk more about this Amygdala Cortical Brain partnership.

Thanks for watching…and remember,

When crap is thrown at you, work with your amygdala and cortex to respond, not react.

I’ll close as I always do.

At times life can be really difficult.

If you or others you know are struggling with feelings of harming yourself or someone else,

I have some resources on how to get help at my website, GoodMentalSoil.com.

These include the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline that you can reach by either dialing or texting 988.

Regardless of how you may feel about yourself at any given moment, your life is precious.

You ARE worth it.

You’re the reason I’m doing this.