Nyaprs for short. I attended the convention for the third year to see what I could learn from the folks. The people are from all walks of life. They arrive from all over the world to hear the workshops regarding Mental and physical health. The atmosphere is always light and friendly there. The workshops are generally for those who have had a hard road out of some mental or physical situation that affects them. Many are like myself that have fought ourselves out of a very dark place in our lives. My own story is one of a physical nature. I had a blood clot pass through my brain and temporarily
Blinded my sight. The time before that is for a couple of years sorta a blur. I was to the point that I didn't remember where I was. I would be a mile from home in a car someone else was driving.I was headed for a nursing home soon. For the first time in my life, I was truly terrified that I would be locked up in a place they put people waiting to die...
For the grace of God go I. The Clot broke up and made itself known. The doctors put stents in my heart and opened my arteries to clear out gunk. I am still balancing on a very narrow tightrope. The changes in my life led some friends to arrange my transportation to my first convention, looking for ideas. That was before my clot broke up.
My younger sister went with me as she had been a member for years. Her background in social services and elder care was known to people at NYAPRS. I didn't want to go out due to both fear and embarrassment. Hey, I said to myself, "Hey, those people have some real problems, I am not like them".
I arrived to some warm, loving folks who were understanding enough to tell me I had no need to fear it, because everyone there was fighting their way back from something.
Pop forward to my trip this year.
I went with a clear mind that still has some problems that won't let me come out of a forced retirement due to that clot. But I walk without my cane most of the time now. I still have to catch a ride, but I have learned to ride public transit, so it is not so bad.
Enough of why I attend. Let me tell you what I learned. Did you ever wonder why you were afraid of things your parents were also afraid of? There may not have even been a life experience involved.
Or perhaps abuse from your parents in childhood was transferred to you by your parents?
Okay, not to say you're being compared to rats, but that is where the discovery came from.
Lab rats were fed what they loved most, Sweets. They loved those sweets. The scientist then connected a tiny electrical charge to the sweets. Now, every time the rats would try to grab some sweets, they got zapped. Well, after a while, the rats would not even try for the sweets. Even after the charge was removed, the rats wouldn't touch or go near the sweets. Conditioning like Pavlov's dog, you might be thinking. Perhaps that was also the scientists' thoughts until they went a bit further.
The shocks in the past would have been called conditioned. Pavloks dog got a treat each time a bell rang. The rat got zapped. Incentive and reward.Reward/punishment.Conditioned reflexes...?
The scientists ran tests to see what else might show up. They were surprised by what they found.
The rats' genetics had been altered by conditioning to fear the sweets. The gene that craved the sweets was switched off. It was why the rat no longer wanted the sweets. That was very surprising to those researchers til the next series of tests came back to the lab.
Not only was the test rats' gene craving sweets turned off, but so was the rats' offspring gene turned off.
They also found, through further tests, that the gene can be switched back on over time. It did not explain how.
You may be asking yourself how this has anything to do with mental illness, and I will explain in a tiny example.
Researchers are discovering that any condition a person endures for a period of time directly affects their genes. That is the same for sweets, violence, abuse, trauma, and stress. A list that would never end if it were even tried.
Those researchers found that our very genetics are shaped by every moment of our day and night. Every point in our lives. My trigger is lifestyle and stress. I have changed my life to hopefully switch that death-dealing gene off for as long as possible. Life is tough; even the strongest of people haven't made it out alive.
The stress and craziness around us are changing us with each heartbeat of our existence. The more we learn about what's going on right there in front of us, behind our backs, the more we should look at changing our lives. Changing our ideas to take away stress and violence. It is being sewn into the very genetics of our being.
That has been our destiny till now. Our job as humans is to claim to be at the top of the food chain. The top of the intellectual totem pole, standing on all other things, is to find a way quickly to switch those genes that are the nuclear trigger of existence, the triggers that can finalize our chances of any future for ourselves.
That is what I learned at the NYAPRS convention. The damage or switches that are either our friend or nemesis are within us all. We have the power to change even the very genetics of ourselves simply by reinforcing the things that need to be changed. No electric shock required...
WE THE PEOPLE can change the world if we just start with ourselves first.
RJP
Blinded my sight. The time before that is for a couple of years sorta a blur. I was to the point that I didn't remember where I was. I would be a mile from home in a car someone else was driving.I was headed for a nursing home soon. For the first time in my life, I was truly terrified that I would be locked up in a place they put people waiting to die...
For the grace of God go I. The Clot broke up and made itself known. The doctors put stents in my heart and opened my arteries to clear out gunk. I am still balancing on a very narrow tightrope. The changes in my life led some friends to arrange my transportation to my first convention, looking for ideas. That was before my clot broke up.
My younger sister went with me as she had been a member for years. Her background in social services and elder care was known to people at NYAPRS. I didn't want to go out due to both fear and embarrassment. Hey, I said to myself, "Hey, those people have some real problems, I am not like them".
I arrived to some warm, loving folks who were understanding enough to tell me I had no need to fear it, because everyone there was fighting their way back from something.
Pop forward to my trip this year.
I went with a clear mind that still has some problems that won't let me come out of a forced retirement due to that clot. But I walk without my cane most of the time now. I still have to catch a ride, but I have learned to ride public transit, so it is not so bad.
Enough of why I attend. Let me tell you what I learned. Did you ever wonder why you were afraid of things your parents were also afraid of? There may not have even been a life experience involved.
Or perhaps abuse from your parents in childhood was transferred to you by your parents?
Okay, not to say you're being compared to rats, but that is where the discovery came from.
Lab rats were fed what they loved most, Sweets. They loved those sweets. The scientist then connected a tiny electrical charge to the sweets. Now, every time the rats would try to grab some sweets, they got zapped. Well, after a while, the rats would not even try for the sweets. Even after the charge was removed, the rats wouldn't touch or go near the sweets. Conditioning like Pavlov's dog, you might be thinking. Perhaps that was also the scientists' thoughts until they went a bit further.
The shocks in the past would have been called conditioned. Pavloks dog got a treat each time a bell rang. The rat got zapped. Incentive and reward.Reward/punishment.Conditioned reflexes...?
The scientists ran tests to see what else might show up. They were surprised by what they found.
The rats' genetics had been altered by conditioning to fear the sweets. The gene that craved the sweets was switched off. It was why the rat no longer wanted the sweets. That was very surprising to those researchers til the next series of tests came back to the lab.
Not only was the test rats' gene craving sweets turned off, but so was the rats' offspring gene turned off.
They also found, through further tests, that the gene can be switched back on over time. It did not explain how.
You may be asking yourself how this has anything to do with mental illness, and I will explain in a tiny example.
Researchers are discovering that any condition a person endures for a period of time directly affects their genes. That is the same for sweets, violence, abuse, trauma, and stress. A list that would never end if it were even tried.
Those researchers found that our very genetics are shaped by every moment of our day and night. Every point in our lives. My trigger is lifestyle and stress. I have changed my life to hopefully switch that death-dealing gene off for as long as possible. Life is tough; even the strongest of people haven't made it out alive.
The stress and craziness around us are changing us with each heartbeat of our existence. The more we learn about what's going on right there in front of us, behind our backs, the more we should look at changing our lives. Changing our ideas to take away stress and violence. It is being sewn into the very genetics of our being.
That has been our destiny till now. Our job as humans is to claim to be at the top of the food chain. The top of the intellectual totem pole, standing on all other things, is to find a way quickly to switch those genes that are the nuclear trigger of existence, the triggers that can finalize our chances of any future for ourselves.
That is what I learned at the NYAPRS convention. The damage or switches that are either our friend or nemesis are within us all. We have the power to change even the very genetics of ourselves simply by reinforcing the things that need to be changed. No electric shock required...
WE THE PEOPLE can change the world if we just start with ourselves first.
RJP
