My skin can't get much thinner...
December 19, 2015 7:58 PM Subscribe
I used to have a pretty dark sense of humor, watch crime shows all the time with dead people and blood and guts and really was never bothered by any of this. I've always been a news junky, and I'd read about all sorts of crimes and murder etc. etc. and never be bothered in the least. Since having a baby, I can't even read a news headline about a person being harmed - particularly children. It seems obvious that this is baby related, but will it ever get better? And if not, can I acclimatize myself so I can exist in the world?
Since having a baby, I have become incredibly sensitive to harm or injury or threat of such to all human beings, but particularly children. I can't go see movies if I think there will be someone injured, I have to close my eyes during slightly gruesome scenes (think: force feeding of an adult in a movie), and I am really deeply disturbed by any suggestion of a child being taken away from a parent. For example, I saw in a preview for the movie Carol that there is a threat that the main character's children will be taken away from her, and that has made me decide I absolutely can not watch the movie.
This is beyond cringing, I actually feel dizzy, sick, short of breath and have to close my eyes, leave the room etc etc. This makes reading the newspaper difficult, as you can imagine. And well, bad things happen everywhere, and I can't really hide in my room all the time. Is there anything I can do to make myself less sensitive?
Since having a baby, I have become incredibly sensitive to harm or injury or threat of such to all human beings, but particularly children. I can't go see movies if I think there will be someone injured, I have to close my eyes during slightly gruesome scenes (think: force feeding of an adult in a movie), and I am really deeply disturbed by any suggestion of a child being taken away from a parent. For example, I saw in a preview for the movie Carol that there is a threat that the main character's children will be taken away from her, and that has made me decide I absolutely can not watch the movie.
This is beyond cringing, I actually feel dizzy, sick, short of breath and have to close my eyes, leave the room etc etc. This makes reading the newspaper difficult, as you can imagine. And well, bad things happen everywhere, and I can't really hide in my room all the time. Is there anything I can do to make myself less sensitive?
I did this as well. It has become better now that the first baby is a teen and wants to watch scary movies WITH me ( I can't say no!) but I still over mother when scary content is involved and can stomach very little gore or bad news involving little ones for myself. I don't have any advice other than listen to your instincts, you do this for a reason and don't bother trying to explain the sudden change to child free friends. They will never get it.
posted by pearlybob at 8:28 PM on December 19, 2015
posted by pearlybob at 8:28 PM on December 19, 2015
Parenting books really need to address this. This is the new normal. It does get better, eventually. My girl's going be 14 in a week and I cry at 75% less commercials now than when she was little. Right now, in fact, I'm taking a break from watching a movie that is an over the top parody of violence. Deep breaths and time to regroup helps A LOT.
posted by Ruki at 8:34 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Ruki at 8:34 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Me too, but it started with 9/11 and was reinforced by my son's birth in 2007. It started as an aversion and extreme reaction to 9/11 images and video, then to any violence, real or fabricated, and then ended up being a giant broad empathy and insight into what seems like the feelings and inner life of just about anyone. It also includes a hugely heightened emotional connection to animals. I rather like this extended emotional spectrum and I try to protect it because I feel like I was only narrowly experiencing the world before. Perhaps you can look at it that way, too.
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:37 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:37 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
Four years or so and you'll be able to read news stories without ALL YOUR HORMONES deciding to involve themselves in your reaction. About two years to get back to crime dramas on TV for me, but I had to drop SVU completely because there were just too many crimes against children. And I still turn things off if "child in danger" is an obviously manipulative plot point.
I was even reading different novels than my usual taste for the first couple years; I was basically emotionally overstimulated all the time, so I could only handle "light and happy" for a while there.
It will definitely fade; don't feel like you have to force it. In two years you'll think, "Huh, I kinda want to see that new horror movie" and the thought won't send you into a preemptive panic attack. For now, indulge your temporary taste for lighter fare and enjoy something a bit different until you're back to feeling more yourself. I did a pretty comprehensive sweep of old sitcoms during breastfeeding and enjoyed it quite a bit. I also read stuff like PG Wodehouse whom I'd somehow never read but were excellent light and amusing reading material for that time period. I did for a while, for my own sanity, cut out daily news consumption and read a weekly digest and a weekly magazine with analysis (often The Economist). Having a little psychological distance from the news was the only way I could deal with the news at the time, and it was easier to read a weekly summary and analysis than to read day after day reports about terrorists or whatever. Again, I eventually just started wanting to read news again, and then it wasn't so upsetting.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:59 PM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
I was even reading different novels than my usual taste for the first couple years; I was basically emotionally overstimulated all the time, so I could only handle "light and happy" for a while there.
It will definitely fade; don't feel like you have to force it. In two years you'll think, "Huh, I kinda want to see that new horror movie" and the thought won't send you into a preemptive panic attack. For now, indulge your temporary taste for lighter fare and enjoy something a bit different until you're back to feeling more yourself. I did a pretty comprehensive sweep of old sitcoms during breastfeeding and enjoyed it quite a bit. I also read stuff like PG Wodehouse whom I'd somehow never read but were excellent light and amusing reading material for that time period. I did for a while, for my own sanity, cut out daily news consumption and read a weekly digest and a weekly magazine with analysis (often The Economist). Having a little psychological distance from the news was the only way I could deal with the news at the time, and it was easier to read a weekly summary and analysis than to read day after day reports about terrorists or whatever. Again, I eventually just started wanting to read news again, and then it wasn't so upsetting.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:59 PM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
Embrace your Humanity!!
Son is 4.5 years old. Can confirm this is a very real phenomenon. For some reason, tho, loved Django Unchained and will dig the shit out of The Hateful Eight. Otherwise I can not abide any violence, anywhere, in real life or on the screen. I am forever changed. I'm actually good with this and feel badly about my prior media consumption and some political positions. I'm entirely a pacifist now.
posted by jbenben at 9:33 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Son is 4.5 years old. Can confirm this is a very real phenomenon. For some reason, tho, loved Django Unchained and will dig the shit out of The Hateful Eight. Otherwise I can not abide any violence, anywhere, in real life or on the screen. I am forever changed. I'm actually good with this and feel badly about my prior media consumption and some political positions. I'm entirely a pacifist now.
posted by jbenben at 9:33 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've always been like this, and I have no children, so it comes from somewhere else, at least in my case. It is kind of an overactive empathy; I feel real pain when I see or know of others in pain. It can be very difficult to watch TV abd I just don't listen to the news in the car anymore. It's interesting to me that you'd like to turn it off or get a thicker skin, although I do see the appeal and utility of that! I have never seen myself or this empathy as the problem though and blame the world for causing people pain, the news for glorifying or sensationalizing it, and others for not being empathetic enough to protest it (thereby reducing the amount of pain to empathize with). It's not very effective, my blaming, but on par with what Mo Nickels suggests, I feel like my empathy is an inherent part of my Self and I would keep it as it is.
posted by Tandem Affinity at 9:59 PM on December 19, 2015 [24 favorites]
posted by Tandem Affinity at 9:59 PM on December 19, 2015 [24 favorites]
This varies so much from person to person. In my personal experience, I went from a regular consumer of documentary true crime stories to a completely terrible reaction to any crime involving children. This has so far not abated and my son is 3 and a half. I don't have advice other than I wanted to chime in and let you know you're not alone. In my worst moments I can't shut off the thoughts I have of things I've read and it's pretty awful, I'm working on switching gears and blocking those thoughts but it's slow going ( the thoughts mostly involve a horrible crime I read about in the 90s in England, and whatever recent horror has popped up in the headlines). Try your best to push those intrusive thoughts aside and focus on something else.
posted by JenMarie at 10:18 PM on December 19, 2015
posted by JenMarie at 10:18 PM on December 19, 2015
I haven't had a baby, but also have a much harder time when confronted with actual or imagined human suffering or ugliness than I did when I was young. Back then, it was sort of abstracted and objectified, and attractive (because sensational. "Interesting"). Now, I'm better able to appreciate what it might feel like or mean to those suffering. Reactions aren't as strong as yours, but I certainly wouldn't look to that sort of thing for entertainment, for example, and I do find news hard.
If I bother with fiction, I go to comedy; bleak comedy is ok (actually best, because truthful but distancing) - I just don't want to be asked to experience heavy emotions, have had enough of that. Making things absurd makes them bearable.
When reading about awful things real people experience, I try to attend to structural rather than personal dynamics. Or on what I can feasibly do, or on people doing decent things. I try to be decent within my scope of influence. I remember that people are resilient, when opportunities permit it.
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
If I bother with fiction, I go to comedy; bleak comedy is ok (actually best, because truthful but distancing) - I just don't want to be asked to experience heavy emotions, have had enough of that. Making things absurd makes them bearable.
When reading about awful things real people experience, I try to attend to structural rather than personal dynamics. Or on what I can feasibly do, or on people doing decent things. I try to be decent within my scope of influence. I remember that people are resilient, when opportunities permit it.
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
It fades, but so far at 7 years in it hasn't gone away.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:30 PM on December 19, 2015
posted by Sebmojo at 10:30 PM on December 19, 2015
For me this started in late pregnancy, with a really extreme reaction to a horror film my partner was watching. It had started to improve by the time my daughter was about a year old, and now she is 4 I find I am pretty much back to my pre-pregnancy state of mind. I no longer watch any horror films, but I was kind of going off them slowly anyway, and I find that my reactions to violent films or upsetting news stories are now little different from what they would have been 5 years ago.
posted by kumonoi at 11:52 PM on December 19, 2015
posted by kumonoi at 11:52 PM on December 19, 2015
Normal. It will fade over time, but be prepared for it to flare back up again if you have another child.
For example, child #3 is a month old and I cried during Home Alone. This from someone who used to live on marathons of Law and Order: SVU.
posted by checkitnice at 12:30 AM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
For example, child #3 is a month old and I cried during Home Alone. This from someone who used to live on marathons of Law and Order: SVU.
posted by checkitnice at 12:30 AM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
In general the degree to which people are attracted to horror fades with age. There was a 1995 study, cited in this Daily Beast article, which noted that people who love horror films are those who test highly on having a desire for "self stimulation and excitement" - teenagers and twenty somethings. The theory is that as we get older we encounter a lot more in our real lives that is scary: divorce, unemployment, terminal illness and , yes, harm to our children - and the appeal of seeking out the extra stimulation fades.
So I'd say your reaction is pretty normal - and probably more so than being inured to the depiction of blood, guts and violence.
If you want to de-sensitize yourself, however, then the standard way is to expose yourself to something that you find only mildly distressing (say a mildly rated movie or some less salacious newspaper articles) - then use gradually work up to whatever level you want to get to.
posted by rongorongo at 12:48 AM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
So I'd say your reaction is pretty normal - and probably more so than being inured to the depiction of blood, guts and violence.
If you want to de-sensitize yourself, however, then the standard way is to expose yourself to something that you find only mildly distressing (say a mildly rated movie or some less salacious newspaper articles) - then use gradually work up to whatever level you want to get to.
posted by rongorongo at 12:48 AM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Once I became a father I could no longer stand watching any film that showed an endangered child being used to increase tension - horror, crime, comedy, you name the genre. All I needed was to see the visual of a child and hear that white noise effect and I would stomp out of movie theaters. I would mutter for hours about the evil, manipulating directors... My kid is in his 20s now, and I still get upset... although we mostly watch Bojack Horseman together these days.
posted by zaelic at 2:36 AM on December 20, 2015
posted by zaelic at 2:36 AM on December 20, 2015
Pretty typical anxiety reaction precipitated by an event. The event being the birth of your child into a world that can be pretty scary.
Anxiety precipitated by an event, if it becomes debilitating is often diagnosed as an adjustment disorder with anxiety. Probably the most generic diagnosis in the DSM. Using some of the tools in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that center on reframing distorted thinking can be useful in dealing with this.
However, you ARE Mom, and you WILL worry, and part of that is just the way it's going to be.
posted by HuronBob at 3:37 AM on December 20, 2015
Anxiety precipitated by an event, if it becomes debilitating is often diagnosed as an adjustment disorder with anxiety. Probably the most generic diagnosis in the DSM. Using some of the tools in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that center on reframing distorted thinking can be useful in dealing with this.
However, you ARE Mom, and you WILL worry, and part of that is just the way it's going to be.
posted by HuronBob at 3:37 AM on December 20, 2015
Another voice joining the chorus. Wasn't ever super thrilled about horror stuff and man's inhumanity to man in the news and since becoming a parent I find it intolerable. My kids are 15 and 11. I don't have any particular desire to get thicker skin.
One thing to consider--the reason scary movies/horror/drama in fiction and nonfiction media is appealing is specifically because it is anxiety producing. People enjoy being scared. Same reason they go on scary rides in roller coasters and stuff.
But when you become a parent it gets a whole lot more real. Realer than real. The utter vulnerability of your baby, and you and those you around you in your vulnerability in love for that baby... recognizing how much infants and little children all depend on so many people, that we are all connected to the web of society... the new, gut level, existential awareness that all people, ALL of them, traveled that same developmental path, are all part of the human family, started out in that same innocence and dependence and love... That every person who is treated badly or hurt or killed is somebody's daughter or son, somebody's brother or sister, somebody's cousin, niece, nephew...
Don't for a second think that this shift in perspective is weakness. It's vulnerability, but it's also strength, because it's TRUE, and it's fierce. Use it to fire up your inner mama bear and bring the power of love and compassion into the world. Congrats, you're one of us now. ;)
posted by Sublimity at 4:46 AM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]
One thing to consider--the reason scary movies/horror/drama in fiction and nonfiction media is appealing is specifically because it is anxiety producing. People enjoy being scared. Same reason they go on scary rides in roller coasters and stuff.
But when you become a parent it gets a whole lot more real. Realer than real. The utter vulnerability of your baby, and you and those you around you in your vulnerability in love for that baby... recognizing how much infants and little children all depend on so many people, that we are all connected to the web of society... the new, gut level, existential awareness that all people, ALL of them, traveled that same developmental path, are all part of the human family, started out in that same innocence and dependence and love... That every person who is treated badly or hurt or killed is somebody's daughter or son, somebody's brother or sister, somebody's cousin, niece, nephew...
Don't for a second think that this shift in perspective is weakness. It's vulnerability, but it's also strength, because it's TRUE, and it's fierce. Use it to fire up your inner mama bear and bring the power of love and compassion into the world. Congrats, you're one of us now. ;)
posted by Sublimity at 4:46 AM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]
You might enjoy my question seeking non-upsetting books, and the previous question I linked to there.
Signed,
Another former true crime and murder mystery fan
posted by slidell at 5:29 AM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Signed,
Another former true crime and murder mystery fan
posted by slidell at 5:29 AM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you're worried about it, or if it starts getting in the way of being able to care for your child, it may be worth asking your doctor (or therapist, if you have one) about being screened for post-partum anxiety.
posted by jaguar at 5:55 AM on December 20, 2015
posted by jaguar at 5:55 AM on December 20, 2015
I'm a person without kids, and I get it.
I love the gore stuff on an entertainment level, in part because I was a scaredy cat kid and I enjoy having gotten past that. But I can also sincerely say thanks for wanting to raise your kid(s) in a world where it doesn't exist, especially since I'm going to exist in a world with your kids. We'd all be better off.
Becoming protective and nurturing and over-the-top is like the primary job of parenting, so you're doing it right. A lot of the people I know who are parents went through this, too, and when they talk about it, they say it gets easier as their kids get older but isn't ever really like it was before they had kids. (Like everything else.)
posted by juliplease at 7:24 AM on December 20, 2015
I love the gore stuff on an entertainment level, in part because I was a scaredy cat kid and I enjoy having gotten past that. But I can also sincerely say thanks for wanting to raise your kid(s) in a world where it doesn't exist, especially since I'm going to exist in a world with your kids. We'd all be better off.
Becoming protective and nurturing and over-the-top is like the primary job of parenting, so you're doing it right. A lot of the people I know who are parents went through this, too, and when they talk about it, they say it gets easier as their kids get older but isn't ever really like it was before they had kids. (Like everything else.)
posted by juliplease at 7:24 AM on December 20, 2015
No spoilers, but I watched the new Star Wars on Friday and found myself depressed over the next day due to some of the family themes and implied childhood trauma. (I haven't noticed this in any of the reviews.) My daughter just turned 5. When she was about 2-1/2, I treated myself to a movie night out and saw "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and was pretty much an uncontrollable weeping mess. I have always considered myself a person fairly in control of her emotions and stoic but that has all gone out the window since having a child. I try to embrace it.
posted by amanda at 8:34 AM on December 20, 2015
posted by amanda at 8:34 AM on December 20, 2015
Three days after giving birth I watched The Downfall (the Hitler movie). And then got to the scene where Magda Goebbels poisons all her children, and I completely fell apart! I mention it because I was in equal parts sobbing my heart out and baffled by it.
Kids are two and four now, and I get by with only a couple of tears per Disney movie.
I recommend learning to enjoy your new tearfulness. Crying about movies can be cathartic!
posted by Omnomnom at 10:27 AM on December 20, 2015
Kids are two and four now, and I get by with only a couple of tears per Disney movie.
I recommend learning to enjoy your new tearfulness. Crying about movies can be cathartic!
posted by Omnomnom at 10:27 AM on December 20, 2015
You are in the perfect storm of hypervigilance right now. What with the hormones (assuming that by 'having a baby,' you mean physically) and the fact that you have been suddenly tasked with caring for a tiny, fragile little human. This is scary as hell, and your system probably just can't handle any extra fear right now. Totally normal, and I think almost everyone experiences this, hormones or no.
In my case, my tolerance increased as my kid got older and more self-sufficient. The horror at stories where someone's children are taken away is something that's stuck with me, but it's less an emotional reaction. It's just something I hadn't related to as strongly before I had a child and realized what a horrific thing that would be. (I yell at people who casually suggest taking someone's kids away for stupid reasons, but I know they just aren't thinking.)
Keep in mind, too, that people (including you) are not drawn to scary and violent things because they're ghouls or sadists. They overwhelmingly empathize with the victims. That's why the primary audiences for women in peril stories are women, and why teenagers prefer horror movies where the victims are teenagers.
Maybe there's just some human impulse to prepare yourself for bad things by fine tuning your instincts and increasing tolerance or something, and particularly if you don't regularly face danger and tragedy, you need to seek it out somewhere other than your life.
But you're pretty much soaking in that right now, so the external stimulus is too much. This is normal, and you'll be fine, and remember when you do encounter something disturbing that people aren't drawn to these things because they're in favor of them or because they're commonplace. It's a survival instinct or something.
You're normal and healthy, and so are they. In fact, most people are A-OK for the most part.
posted by ernielundquist at 11:16 AM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
In my case, my tolerance increased as my kid got older and more self-sufficient. The horror at stories where someone's children are taken away is something that's stuck with me, but it's less an emotional reaction. It's just something I hadn't related to as strongly before I had a child and realized what a horrific thing that would be. (I yell at people who casually suggest taking someone's kids away for stupid reasons, but I know they just aren't thinking.)
Keep in mind, too, that people (including you) are not drawn to scary and violent things because they're ghouls or sadists. They overwhelmingly empathize with the victims. That's why the primary audiences for women in peril stories are women, and why teenagers prefer horror movies where the victims are teenagers.
Maybe there's just some human impulse to prepare yourself for bad things by fine tuning your instincts and increasing tolerance or something, and particularly if you don't regularly face danger and tragedy, you need to seek it out somewhere other than your life.
But you're pretty much soaking in that right now, so the external stimulus is too much. This is normal, and you'll be fine, and remember when you do encounter something disturbing that people aren't drawn to these things because they're in favor of them or because they're commonplace. It's a survival instinct or something.
You're normal and healthy, and so are they. In fact, most people are A-OK for the most part.
posted by ernielundquist at 11:16 AM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Another without kids chiming in. When I was little, I read "true" ghost stories by the truckload. Now, I can't watch a stressful British crime drama before bed. Sometimes I wish I could! I am stuck on episode 4 of Jennifer Jones because episode 3 was just. too. much. Sure, maybe these fictional situations didn't happen, but things just like these terrible things do happen. And of course with a news story, likely actually DID happen.
Certainly some amount of sensitivity to the pain of others is a universal thing (with the exception of sociopaths and seemingly, politicians), but the ramping up of its intensity is not surprising in your case (as others have mentioned) now that you are 100% responsible for a tiny human. I don't know the cause in my own case (with particular emphasis on the suffering of both children and women whose agency has been taken), but the result is similar.
This feeling has crept up on me these last few years (mid 40s female), and I am unable to control it. On the other hand, I suspect the intensity will wane (as mentioned by several people) for both of us. I do think it makes me a more gentle person out in the world, and that's not such a bad thing.
posted by Glinn at 4:52 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Certainly some amount of sensitivity to the pain of others is a universal thing (with the exception of sociopaths and seemingly, politicians), but the ramping up of its intensity is not surprising in your case (as others have mentioned) now that you are 100% responsible for a tiny human. I don't know the cause in my own case (with particular emphasis on the suffering of both children and women whose agency has been taken), but the result is similar.
This feeling has crept up on me these last few years (mid 40s female), and I am unable to control it. On the other hand, I suspect the intensity will wane (as mentioned by several people) for both of us. I do think it makes me a more gentle person out in the world, and that's not such a bad thing.
posted by Glinn at 4:52 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I haven't had a child, but this happened to me after my husband died in a fatal MVA. I had to be extremely careful of what I choose to consume, not just as for a healthy nutritional diet, but a healthy spiritual diet. I choose not to have cable, block people on facebook if they are often posting negative or hateful things, and I don't really care for movies much any more either. I really appreciate what winterhill has to say about having been that way since childhood. Yes, we can choose to live in our own peaceful world. I believe that for the world to become peaceful, we need to start with ourselves. This could be the way to do it. All the best to you.
posted by itsflyable at 11:02 PM on December 20, 2015
posted by itsflyable at 11:02 PM on December 20, 2015
Totally normal -- all my friends and I went through it. I couldn't even read an article about a violent death without thinking -- that was someone's baby once! and collapsing in tears. Forget books or movies where children died. I was a wreck for about a year.
You will eventually be able to watch the news again, yes, please don't worry. Your brain and hormones cannot possibly sustain that hyper-empathy level for the rest of your life.
Though you may not ever enjoy horror movies again (presuming you did in the first place) in the same way. But, the same can be said of a huge variety of experiences (pre-vs.-post baby.)
Congratulations on your new life.
posted by jfwlucy at 11:58 AM on December 21, 2015
You will eventually be able to watch the news again, yes, please don't worry. Your brain and hormones cannot possibly sustain that hyper-empathy level for the rest of your life.
Though you may not ever enjoy horror movies again (presuming you did in the first place) in the same way. But, the same can be said of a huge variety of experiences (pre-vs.-post baby.)
Congratulations on your new life.
posted by jfwlucy at 11:58 AM on December 21, 2015
There's a growing body of research showing that there are concrete, long-term neurological changes to the brains of pregnant women, and a lot of the specifics tally very neatly with this change that you describe and so many others find to be the case.
One of the most significant aspects of this is growth of the amygdala, which appears to play an important role in the motivation of maternal behaviour, but which is also a region of the brain deeply involved with emotional reactions like fear, anxiety and aggression. It's also part of the limbic system, so its wiring to and from the body is, in very crude terms, much more about gut response and hormone driven instinct than calmly working out how to assimilate things in a measured, rational manner.
This article has a bit more on this same subject.
This does make it sound like deliberately desensitising yourself to this would be pretty tricky... you've undergone some very profound changes, and likely it's just going to take quite some time for those newly burned-in brain pathways to get fuzzied up again once the all consuming period of baby care tailors off.
That your brain is doing this because it's tuned itself, without any effort on your part, to be the best possible maternal control unit it can be, is hopefully at least a positive thought to counter the worry with from time to time.
posted by protorp at 12:22 PM on December 21, 2015
One of the most significant aspects of this is growth of the amygdala, which appears to play an important role in the motivation of maternal behaviour, but which is also a region of the brain deeply involved with emotional reactions like fear, anxiety and aggression. It's also part of the limbic system, so its wiring to and from the body is, in very crude terms, much more about gut response and hormone driven instinct than calmly working out how to assimilate things in a measured, rational manner.
This article has a bit more on this same subject.
This does make it sound like deliberately desensitising yourself to this would be pretty tricky... you've undergone some very profound changes, and likely it's just going to take quite some time for those newly burned-in brain pathways to get fuzzied up again once the all consuming period of baby care tailors off.
That your brain is doing this because it's tuned itself, without any effort on your part, to be the best possible maternal control unit it can be, is hopefully at least a positive thought to counter the worry with from time to time.
posted by protorp at 12:22 PM on December 21, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
(Although I suspect sometimes this is what my fellow smug breeders really mean when we talk about finding empathy when we have babies. I worry that what it really means is that we're now just selfish for ourselves and for others we care about. If it makes the world better though, I'm not too too worried. Much. )
posted by taff at 8:11 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]