"It's a little unusual for you to ask to see me alone, Gohan."
The boy nodded, smiled up at the woman before him. He had grown accustomed to these sessions by now. She was right though, despite having been coming for quite some time, he still felt best and most at ease when his father came in with him. Today though, he'd asked to go alone.
"Yeah, I guess this is the first time, huh?"
Ms. Naoru nodded, "Near as I can recollect. Any particular reason why?"
"I wanted your opinion on something and if it goes the way I want, I want it to be a surprise. So, I can't tell Daddy." He eyed her, nervously, "Can we keep this a secret?"
She eyed him, considering his answer. "Well, so long as it's not dangerous to you or anyone else, everything said in here stays in here." She eyed him, "So, what has been on your mind, Gohan?"
He looked down at his fingers. "The baby shower. When I…ran out and ruined everything." He'd told her about this before, not long after he first started sessions. It had been firm on his mind then and despite all his success, it remained there.
The woman did not comment, just nodded, indicating him to continue.
"I told Mom that I was sorry and she said she forgave me but I still feel bad."
Ms. Naoru nodded, "Well, why don't we touch on that?" She offered. "What is it that you feel bad about?"
He stared at her, "Well, I…I ruined it. I heard it was a boy and I ran out, I totally ruined Bulma's wall, Daddy had to come after me and it was supposed to be something fun! We were supposed to be celebrating but I ruined it!"
"So, what I'm hearing is that you think you should have acted differently?" She asked, softly.
"Well, yeah. But I didn't." He lowered his eyes. "I should have and I didn't."
The woman considered before she went on, "Gohan, as I recall, didn't you tell me that when you heard 'baby boy' you feel like everything went blank? That you could no longer see, no longer hear, it was just solid white?"
Nodding in response, Gohan replied, "Yeah. It was…I was scared and afraid and angry and all kinds of things but it was like I wasn't there but I was there. It felt like I couldn't breathe. I had to get away and I just chose the fastest way—"
"Did you realize you were plowing through walls?"
Gohan, again, paused, thought back. "…no. I mean, looking back on it, I—"
"I'm not talking about in retrospect." She clarified gently. "I mean, in the moment, did you realize that by running away you were destroying walls?"
The boy sat there, quiet, considering. With everything that had happened, he could still picture that moment perfectly. He shook his head back and forth. "But that's silly. I mean, I was in a room, how could I not know that?"
"Well, we have a term for that, Gohan."
The boy looked at her, eyes hungry for explanation. "You do?"
She nodded, "We call it disassociation. Do you know what that is?"
Thinking, Gohan pondered it. He had heard the word, though only in select movies or books. "Isn't that what happens when people with PTSD think they're back in whatever gave them PTSD?"
She smiled, "It can be, yes. Flashbacks are certainly a form of disassociation. They are not the only form though. Dissassociation is when the mind, well, distances itself. Sometimes from emotions, sometimes from situations, sometimes from people. A lot of times people can't recall what happened when they disassociate or they might have limited recollection. Like, you said that while you could still feel and understand how you were feeling inside, you couldn't see or hear or get anything from outside yourself, could you?"
Gohan shook his head, "No. And that was scary too."
"I'm sure it was. Tell me, Gohan. You've got a good mind for things like this. Why do you think you disassociated?"
Going quiet for a long moment, Gohan considered, rocking slightly back and forth. He'd found that kind of thing helped when he was nervous as did holding his tail so he gathered the furry appendage in his hand as he processed what Ms. Naoru had said. After what seemed like a very long time to him, he said softly, "I…I dunno. I'm sorry."
"Why be sorry?" She asked. "How do we learn? By knowing it all?"
He smiled again. That had become a common phrase at home when he was slipping into perfectionism again. "No. We learn by asking. And I don't know this one."
"Well, then let's fix that, shall we?" She paused, said, "As with everything, there can be a lot of reasons people disassociate but I think in your case, it was pretty simple—protection."
"Protection?"
She nodded firmly. "Our brains are rather bothersome at times but they always have one key goal—keep us alive. If it can't do that physically, it will try to do so mentally. Most of us grow up hearing 'fight or flight."
Gohan nodded. Even before the whole mess of his childhood happened, he knew that phrase. "Yeah, we all have it. Animals and us."
"Well, you should know that it's actually fight, flight, or freeze."
Gohan blinked at her. "Or freeze?"
Another nod. "Or freeze. Fight and flight are the first responses because they are the most likely to be successful. But if neither one of those are the best options, the brain shuts us down, keeps us still, keeps us small."
Now this Gohan could understand. "When I was in the wilderness, the first time a snake crawled on me, I froze." He had not thought about that in a long time. Seemed so silly that there used to be a time when a snake would have scared him. "I guess I was trying to stay safe, without even knowing it." Somehow, that knowledge was not as comforting as he thought it should have been. "But…I still destroyed Mom's party. Shouldn't I have known better? Done better?"
Ms. Naoru took a moment to consider her response. "You live in the mountains, don't you?" She smiled, "With all kinds of animals, am I right?"
Gohan blinked, a bit baffled by the change of topic but given that this woman had yet to fail him, he went along with the conversation. "Yeah, there's all kinds of animals."
Sitting back a bit, she said, "So, tell me—if you were to sneak up on animal while it was sleeping or eating, what would it do?"
Eyeing her with more than a touch of confusion, Gohan remarked, "Bite me, most likely. Or run away."
"And whose fault would that be? Yours or the animal's?"
Gohan frowned, "Well, mine for getting bit. You don't mess with an animal if they're sleepin' or eatin.' They're on alert so of course they're gonna react."
Nodding, Ms. Naoru knelt forward a bit, making them more eye to eye. "Well, I hate to tell you Gohan but you and I are more animalistic than we like to think we are. What you described to me as happening at the party is every single symptom of what we call amygdala hijack."
Blinking, Gohan repeated, "Amygdala hijack?"
Reaching over to her desk, she dug through one of the drawers and pulled out a small poster with what looked like the brain but with different colored sections. "Yes. Do you know what the amygdala is?"
"It's a section inside the brain that controls emotions." He answered. "I used to know more but I didn't completely understand it when I read on it and I think I've forgotten about a lot of it." He pushed down the slight shame he felt at that admission. No…no. He had no reason to feel shame, he reminded himself. The very existence of the charts in front of him told him that even professionals could not always remember. He was not a professional. So, therefore, he wasn't expected to remember all that.
After a few short breaths, he settled and focused.
"That's fine. We'll keep it simple." She reassured him. "And good job doing some mental reframing right now," She gave him a wink of encouragement. "You're right though. It does have a great deal to do with emotions but that's not all it does." She pointed to the small green spot on the picture, probably about the size of her thumbnail. "This is the amygdala. Doesn't look like much does it?"
Shaking his head, Gohan said, "Looks like a pea almost."
"It does, a bit." She agreed. "Well, one of the most important things that this 'pea' does is evaluate danger. When you encounter something dangerous, normally, this little gland starts your adrenaline pumping and gets you ready to fight or flee." She swallowed. "But normally, this," she pointed to the front of the picture, colored in purple, of the large portion of the front of the brain. "This is the frontal lobe. Do you know what the frontal lobe does?"
Nodding firmly, he said, "That's where we do all our rationalization." He added, "Where we do our logical thinking."
"Right. So normally, in a dangerous situation, once the amygdala kicks on, the frontal lobes also kick in. They evaluate, they judge to see what's happening and to see if there is really danger. If there's not, they shut the amygdala off." Simplistic explanation but sufficient for the situation.
Gohan nodded, following that pretty easily.
"But when you've been through a LOT of danger, like you have, we have what we call amygdala hijack. Instead of the frontal lobes kicking on to evaluate danger, they shut off instead. Because, well, in the past, the amygdala has determined that fight or flight was needed more often than not. So, the brain has made its own little short cut. The amygdala…or your emotions…rule instead of fully evaluating the situation. Instead of figuring out if there's danger, it's just assumed there is. And when these," she gestured to the purple section again, "are off, rationalization, calming down, thinking logically…that's all gone." She added, "Sometimes we call it the 'animal brain' because in this state, all you're thinking of-all you're CAPABLE of thinking of- is survival, whether that be escape or fight." She added, "Ever see people on television being brought out of a dangerous situation? They often aren't capable of saying much, just crying or repeating phrases over and over. Because the brain's region that lets you process higher level thinking has been turned off. In fight or flight, it's deemed unnecessary."
Realization settled in Gohan's eyes. "Or freeze if you can't do either."
Smiling with a nod, Ms. Naoru nodded, "Correct. So, at the party, for a multitude of reasons, your brain shut down to protect itself. Once the freeze was deemed no longer useful, flight kicked in." She spoke softly, gently. "And without those frontal lobes to make choices and rationalizations, the body just pumps adrenaline and says 'get away.' That's what you did. So, much as you may not like the idea, you were in no more control at that moment than you are when you jerk your hand away from a hot stove."
"But I wasn't IN any danger!"
"Ah," she raised a finger, to set her point "That's where you're wrong but this is also where SO many people get confused. You weren't in PHYSICAL danger, Gohan. But given what you were going through, given what level of recovery you were at, you were very much in emotional danger, as far as your brain was concerned." Her eyes were focused, serious. "And our brains cannot tell the difference."
Gohan eyed her, a bit surprised. "They…can't?"
Shaking her head, she again went to her desk, this time pulling out a book and flipping through page after page until she finally settled on what she had been seeking out. Opening it up, she pointed to three identical graphs of what Gohan recognized as some kind of brain wave patterns.
Pointing first at the one on the far left, Ms. Naoru said, "Fear."
Then the middle one, "Excitement."
Then the last one, "Anxiety."
Gohan considered this, wholeheartedly. "They're the same."
She nodded, "They are. Because regardless of the cause, the brain prepares the body the same way. Unfortunately, we have given certain emotions like 'excitement' the social okay but things like anger, fear…not so much." She went on, "And an emotional threat to the body is regarded with just as much response as if it were a physical threat."
Handing the book back, Gohan stared at his hands, "But…I still have to take accountability, I still have to take responsibility for what I did…." He trailed off.
The woman was quiet a long moment then said, "Gohan, what is accountability to you?"
He looked up at her. "Well, I guess…admitting what I did and making it right."
"I see. You've already said that you've apologized to your mother, right? And I believe you said that you were working with Bulma about the holes in the wall?"
He nodded.
"And you've never denied that you were the one that caused the damage?"
"No, never. I…it was my doing." He admitted though that the concept and understanding that his body had been reacting, that it had been doing what it felt like it needed to do gave a sense of relief to his heart. Angry and sad and scared as he had been, he didn't feel he would ever want harm to come to anyone celebrating. That wasn't him. "I always agreed with that."
"So, what else must you do to take responsibility?"
He paused, considered, looking down at his hands. "I…I dunno."
"Gohan, if I may, can I make a suggestion to you?"
Nodding fiercely, he looked at her, "Please."
"I don't think what you're suggesting is accountability. What you're suggesting is retribution."
He eyed her, "Retribution?"
"Yes, punishment in simpler terms, given that you have already taken steps to make amends, have admitted to having caused the damage and have reached out to the person you hurt…all you feel left that you can do is call fire and pain down on yourself." She shook her head, "Unfortunately, we usually fall into that when we need not. Tell me this, after what we've discussed today, thinking back to that day, do you think your body would have let you react any differently?"
He went quiet, considered. If nothing else changed, if everything had gone as he had remembered. Shame flooded his face as tears filled his eyes, "No. I mean, I think NOW I could have done something, but back then? Back how I felt then? What I knew and understood then? What my parents knew then? No."
"So, if there was nothing else you could have done, why do you punish yourself so?"
Gohan stayed quiet, soft and somber. "I guess…I feel like someone should pay for it."
"Is it not already being dealt with, as much as it can be?"
A slow, reluctant nod. "I…it is. Much as I can. I can't undo it but I'm doing everything else I can think of." He eyed her. "But…does this mean I'll always do this? That I'll always be a danger to people?"
Taking hold of his hands gently, she replied, "Oh, I think you know the answer to that. Did you not just say that if you were subjected to that situation now, it would be different?"
"..yes."
"Why is that?"
"Well, I'd know it would bother me…and bother me in a really bad way so I wouldn't have gone or I would have gone outside or something."
"Good." She leaned back. "Gohan, just because your brain has learned to automatically react like this, doesn't mean it has to stay that way. What we've been doing, what your parents have been doing with you—that's the first step."
"What is?"
"Recognizing and accepting what you feel for one. Realizing when your moods are deep or shallow. Knowing and asking for help before it gets so deep that your brain interprets danger." She met his eyes, hope and gentleness in her own, "Your brain has developed a shortcut because it still thinks that shortcut is necessary. If we work on getting it to slow down, calm down and refocus when it is feeling a little bit overwhelmed, it will relearn the evaluation process and it will become much easier when it's a LOT overwhelmed."
Counting on his fingers, Gohan suddenly smiled, "Like Daddy's little scale."
"Oh?"
Nodding, he said, "Daddy made a scale for me and Mom, they're in the living room. When I feel a little overwhelmed, I mark the scale and then go hand a symbol to Mom or Dad. Then they can help me. And I can rank high or low depending on what I feel."
"Well, look at that! Your father is a wise man."
Now his smile grew, "Yeah, he is."
She waited a moment then said, "So, where we go from here is up to you, Gohan. If you want to continue to think and feel that you ought to be punished for something your body did entirely on its own, well, that is your choice. But in my experience, clinging to something you cannot change does little but weigh down the present."
The boy considered, thinking, head down, twisting his tail in his hands. Daddy had forgiven so many people throughout his life-people that, by all intents and purposes—did not deserve it.
But wait…what did it mean to DESERVE forgiveness? Daddy had extended it without any such promise from them. It was something Daddy gave, not something they earned. Sure, they went on to do good things with their lives but that wasn't a requirement.
If Daddy could forgive Tien, Piccolo, even Vegeta to some extent…
"Can you help me learn to forgive myself?"
