We Mature with Damage, not with Years.

Sometimes when we get hurt, we build invisible walls around ourselves and put on armor that was never meant to be used. Our defenses are at maximum and we don’t listen to reason, to logic, to anything but the instinct to protect.

Because really, who wants to get hurt?

Most of us would agree that the pain is the unpleasant acquaintance we have who always comes uninvited. But because of the unpleasant feeling, most of us would dismiss the little gift baskets they bring as a form of salve, like ‘hey, sorry. I know it sucks, but here are some fruits and coupons for that cheap supermarket down the street’. Contrary to popular belief, pain is the catalyst. It allows us this whole new avenue for us to experience a whole new palate of emotions, of feelings. And from there? We learn. We become a better person. It can be agreed upon that yes, that we mature from these circumstances. But is it to an extent that we mature more from damage, not age?

Pain is the icing to my masochistic cake. Why exactly do we respond so much to pain? Like in the event that you sprained your knee running to the point of it barring your ability to walk for a few months, why does it exactly leave you with the fear of running? Or even after a decade, you still remember the feeling of the first real fight you had with a loved one. Why does the feeling – the pain stay? I think this may very well be the origin of the saying, but is there a basis to it? Science says so. There’s a study that would agree with this statement.

One of the ancient brain structures, the amygdala, is the switchboard responsible for assigning a feeling tone to the stimuli flowing through the brain, and directing a response (approach, avoid, move on). It is neurologically primed to label experiences as frightening and threatening.  Once it has flagged an event as negative, it immediately stores it and compares it to the record of old painful experiences, and if it finds similarities, it signals alarm. But while implicit memory registers and responds to negative events almost instantaneously, it takes five to twenty seconds even to begin to register positive experiences.

The reason we’re like this is easy to understand. The brain isn’t an organ for objectively studying reality. It’s a tool which evolved to anticipate and overcome dangers, protect us from pain, and solve problems: so dangers, pain, and problems are what capture its attention. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson (www.rickhanson.net) refers to this as “the brain’s negativity bias.” The human nervous system, he writes “scans for, reacts to, stores, and recalls negative information about oneself and one’s world. The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones. The natural result is a growing – and unfair – residue of emotional pain, pessimism, and numbing inhibition in implicit memory.” (Moon, 2009)

(Maybe this is why its so hard to move on when you get your heart broken!)

With that said, it would be very convincing that, indeed, the damage the person incurs would result to people maturing. It would likely be the explanation as to why you would meet a young person who is way beyond his years, or an old person who still acts like a kid. It’s all in the circumstance. Maybe the young one has been through a lot; or the older had just lived a very sheltered life.

But it’s a case to case basis. It may be true that pain and damage to the soul plays a vital role in the maturity of a person, but we can’t discount age just yet!

I’ve had the chance to have a good conversation with a counselor in my university about this topic as well. When I asked him this, at first I thought he would agree, but he said it was “a case to case basis”. Intrigued, I pressed on. He explained that a person undergoes certain types of stages, and without accomplishing the stage, the person cannot move on to the next. He also cited a brilliant example. “Take a look at a young child. If that child would be raped, he or she will not know ‘oh i need to be careful’ consciously. They constantly need to be reminded.” I immediately recalled Erikson’s psychological stages of development, and I started weighing the options.

So it would be that no matter how much damage a person will be dealt with, he or she will not mature if they are not psychologically ready for it. Instead, they will crack and break down upon the force of the pain that they have dealt with. With the example of the counselor I talked to, he would be right. Consciously, the child would be powerless and would instead resort to instinct, and the subconscious to defend them. They can’t learn from the situation on their own, and would have to rely on the guidance of those who know, and would protect the child. It would also be a good explanation as to why some people, despite having gone through so much damage in their life, are still called immature; they simply weren’t ready to handle the pressure.

So what do you think? Does the age weigh more or the damage? I’d love to see your comments below

References:

http://www.tommoon.net/articles/are_we_hardwired-1.html

http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html

Hats off to you as well, Sir E!