‼️ The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk, MD ‼️
51/∞
After reading this book you can shout out in the world: Sigmund Freud is dead. Long live Freud.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/+⭐️⭐️
👉 Buy this book! 👈 through my link and help me build this website! 😊
📚 Length: 464 pages
🔊Audiobook: 16 hours and 17 minutes
Why you should read this book?
💡This book offers extremely valuable insight into human psychology
💡 Describes all kinds of traumas from PTSD, community trauma etc.
💡Helps you to realise many things. I offer many personal insights on my past traumas in this review.
I find a bit sad that all the kids in Central Europe are being taught about Sigmund Freud in high schools. Freud was a smart chap, but after finishing this book I came to the conclusion that his work is massively outdated and his work should be mentioned in Central European schools only as an archaic fun fact. Freud did not have at his disposal modern drugs and knowledge cumulated in the current century. In the other words this book takes behavioural psychology to the next level.
Why is this book called The Body Keeps The Score? Because everything we go through in our lives makes some emotional imprint on our brain. As the matter of fact out brain is developed in layers. We start with the most primitive reptile brain as newborns and new layers are constantly being added with time until we become adults. Surprisingly, the earliest experiences have the most impact on our upcoming development and on the way how our brain is shaped in terms of thinking and dealing with problems.
The easiest comparison I’m capable of making is that the human brain is like a snow ball which has been thrown downhill. It is impossible to avoid all obstacles and consequential traumas created life throws at us. Besides, nobody knows how the “ideal“ set up would look like. But the snow ball is getting bigger and bigger and one day we may look back and wonder why the hell we act in the way we act. This mainly happens when we notice that some of our behaviour is not benefiting us anymore. And that led me to read this book.
...
In terms of psychology genes are not as important as the environment
Based on this book, I came to the conclusion we are born as a clean slate. After that it is all about our mothers, fathers and the environment we are growing up. Nevertheless, it is important to note we are influenced by our environment since we are created in our mother’s womb. The more stressed and unhappy mother, the more fucked up the child is eventually going to be.
Little children need attention of their primary care givers. This is becoming increasingly difficult as the current trend to to pay everybody less, demand longer working hours and therefore to have less time to spend with children and family.
The lack of attention given to the baby by the primary care givers can cause ADD (ADHD) and various other personality disorders.
Trauma
It is important to note that trauma is subjective. What is traumatic for me, might not be traumatic for you and vice versa. Trauma is how we react form the inside on the outside event. Outside support groups help to mitigate traumas even to the point as they never happened. The problem is that support groups are not always there when we need them.
Trauma happens when we are in the present, but on the background we keep thinking about past events which then infringe us from living our life fully.
Freud thought that re-visiting past traumas could help us to cure them. Van der Kolk states the opposite. Dwelling in the past is more dangerous than opening yourself to new experiences and living in the present.
The problem is that all of this is easier said than done.
Community trauma
The significance of community trauma could be illustrated on three major examples:
Native Americans
Somehow, I believed that Native Americans are more prone to become alcohol and drug addicts. I was told this already as a child in the elementary school in the Czech Rep. 🇨🇿 According to my teachers, the Native Americans were more prone to alcohol addiction because they were not “used“ to alcohol as a drug, while Europeans were.
Well the true story is that nobody is genetically predisposed to any kind of addiction. Europeans basically came to the Americas, managed to kill majority of native people with army or imported deceases and completely traumatised and devastated the local population. Natives could not live as they used to, by that I mean to be free in prairies. They had to comply with toxic and exploratory European style of life where the majority of resources will end up in the hands of few. The native population was so traumatised by this faktor they started to drink alcohol and abuse drugs to escape this exploitative life-style. This trauma was then passed from one generation to another and bang!
Similarly the family traumas could have the similar effect as community traumas. This can be illustrated on my other review: It Did't Start With You by Mark Wolynn.
Germans and WWII
Germany is a nice country. They have the best highways in Europe, clean streets and they are highly organised and sophisticated. The problem is that they have trauma from the WWII and therefore they want to salvage the entire European Union including the states like the Czech Rep., Hungary or Poland. In the other words they want to salvage countries which just does not want to be salvaged by somebody else. We do not need electric cars, we do not need solar panels. That shit is way too expensive. Germans can afford it, we cannot.
Germany also took loads of refugees from the Middle-East like Syria. There is 40% of foreigners living in the city of Nürnberg. Mostly of Arab origin. This city was predominantly white German before the WWII. I’m sorry, but I would not let this to happen to Prague. We people who were born over here run the city. It is our city, we are not going to pass our inborn right to some other ethnic groups. If 40% of Prague’s population ought to be foreign, then we are doing something wrong. Germans are then surprised they have high criminality. 🤷♂️ Britons are surprised in the same way. No good deed goes unpunished.
Japan and nuclear weapons
We all know that Japs got nuked during the WWII. That experience is so strong they oppose nuclear weapons to this day.
PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder)
Van der Kolk treated many veterans, esp. those from Vietnam war. PTSD is a part of trauma which makes certain parts of human brain hyper-vigilante. This hype-vigilance was once a coping mechanism which helped soldiers to survive, but once they return to the normal civilisation, it is becoming unnecessary. The triggers could be of any kind. Loud noise, some scenery, emotional situation and so on. This trigger then overrides a regular brain and human reacts in the same way as it did on the batter field.
My own traumas:
Living in the UK, Wales
I was mentioned countless of times, publicly, in my reviews and in my vides my hatred towards the United Kingdom and in particular towards Wales. Looking back, this was one of the most painful experiences I have had in my entire life.
Living in Wales was shit. I came there as a student on the EU scholarship called Erasmus. Right at the beginning I knew that the scholarship won’t last me very long. In the end of the day, it lasted for about 4 months. After the arrival to Wales I knew I need to find a part-time job in order to support myself. In that moment I discovered that I’m an „Eastern European“ piece of shit who came over to Wales to exploit the minimum wage jobs from the locals. I was searching for a job since my arrival, with no luck. It took 7 months to find a part-time job. Thousands of e-mails and and immense amount of stress. I lived modestly since the very beginning. I found the cheapest private room by the university campus, bills included. It was not a such a good deal on the end of the day, because “bills included“ actually meant 2 hours of heating in winter in the mornings and 2 hours in the evening. The house was dump, cold, located on the slope and it was just disgusting. At the beginning I got frequent colds, partially because of dump British climate, partially because of the dump house I was staying at.
Everything was expensive. Foodstuff, train tickets, I could not even visit a pub without going broke.
British classmates did not like foreign students. We were poor bastards from the Eastern Europe. Other students, mainly from Western Europe were thriving. The list includes the countries like France, Germany or Switzerland. The Swiss students had so much money, it was disgusting. They went on conferences to the US in the summer, they did not have to work while studying and they were welcomed everywhere.
The dump house was not such a problem, I can get over that. The real problem were the Welsh people. Until this day I cannot get rid off of the feeling they hated us. I wanted to learn “a proper English“ not a broken hodgepodge many immigrants in the UK speaks and I was interested in the local people, wanted to learn, not only the language but also the culture. But I always felt like I was not given a chance. British students lived a different kind of life, subsidised by government loans and grants and it was impossible to reach that standard of living with a modest Erasmus scholarship.
My parents are both university educated upper-middle class in the Czech Rep. The only problem is that they never had money. In my opinion is that because even though they both work in a bank and insurance company, they are totally financially illiterate. This could be illustrated on the fact my mother bought number of expensive handbags including bands like LV. They were sending me the first year £150 per month, which si close to nothing.
Those 3 months before I found a job were the worst. I was depressed, I could not join the trips and excursions my rich western friends were undertaking and I was embarrassed to borrow money from anybody… Money is a fuel. No fuel, no life. No money, no funny.
I also wanted to find a girlfriend, but you can’t do that when you have no cash.
Add the remarks of Britons about me being the Eastern European and I really wanted to drop an A-Bomb on the entire Wales.
After finding the job I worked relentlessly. 7 day per week, doing up to 3 jobs. I did 3 morning shifts at Esso Petrol Station in Cardiff. I had to wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning, get ready and by 7 o’clock I was behind the till until 3 p.m. Then I had a break for lunch 2 hours and at 5 p.m. I went to Welsh Millennium Center in Cardiff Bay to to an evening on the bar. By 10:00 p.m. I was back at mine, ate dinner and went to sleep. The third job was on ad hoc basis.
After a month of not seeing any friends and being constantly tired the depression hit again. This time it was not caused by the lack of money, but by working relentlessly. I hated my life, I hated Wales, I hated everything.
When I look at myself today I have many of those habits I inhabited back in Wales. I spend very little. I plan and I almost ration. I do not like expensive places, like hotels and restaurants unless somebody else is paying for it.
It was hard, I eventually made it, but with the Brexit I have had enough! I wanted to leave the shit-hole called Wales and never ever return. So I did. I’m never ever going to put myself in the same situation like back then.
When I listen to the stories of the rich kids about how they studied abroad and how hard it was it makes my blood pressure rise. They did not go through the same experience like me. They had it easy and fun, but not me.
State exam at the Faculty of law at the University of West Bohemia in the Czech Rep.
I mentioned this event countless of times as well. After finishing my LL.B. in the UK I returned to the Czech Rep. and carried on in my law studies at the West Bohemia in the Czech Rep. I was young and ambitious. Besides I had a degree from a western university, which was something unthinkable for majority of communist lecturers who are present at that university until this very day… Teaching law in the Czech Rep. is done through humiliation of the students, by driving them to the verge of emotional and metal breakdown. This concerns mainly exams. The law schools in the Czech Rep. are extremely hard. They represent senseless institutions where obedient sheep thrives, but everybody who is different must be punished.
My theory is that the old communist teachers were envying me my law degree from the UK. One of the teachers, her name is Jarmila Pavlátová (you can google her up) was playing mind games with me. She wanted to show me she is superior. She kicked me out the first time and I think it was fair, but the second time she was clearly biased.
I’m not a person who likes to play metal games with old commies. I blew up and send her to hell, where she belongs. I won with the third attempt, but I felt disgusted. By the school. By the legal profession and I wanted to get away from the law and Czech communist law schools. I was totally burnt out. I decided not to visit my own graduation ceremony. I did not want to be in the same room with the communists who I held responsible for this traumatic event. I could not feel any pleasure for a long period of time, I was just depleted. The University of West Bohemia managed to turn a young and ambitious guy into a shadow who wanted to hide in sewers and not to be seen.
Btw. the experience of studying a Czech law school equals to the experience of being sent to Soviet GULAG. Extremely low wages for students in international legal firms such as DLA Piper and inhumanly long working hours make the living conditions unbearable. Those lecturers at the university are then like prison guards. They are not your friends, you are suppose to fear them. When it happens they do not like you, they don’t allow you to keep any dignity. They will destroy you, not physically, but mentally.
There was nobody to support me. I guess some wiser parents/friends would have told me: let’s find you another school! But they did not. I felt ashamed of my failure, I even did not considered the change of school as an option. I did not want to talk about what happen I just wanted to get away from it. The relationship with the girl I loved back then was complicated. I needed her presence, but she was not there for me. I was just a guy she was cheating with on her boyfriend. I remember being alone in my bed, completely paralysed. Not wanting to meet anybody, just to stay home and disappear. This girl I’m talking about is a trauma of it’s own, but I’m not going to elaborate on this in this review.
Not long after this event I was awarded another Erasmus + scholarship to go to Bayreuth University in Bavaria, West Germany. Looking back, this scholarship literally saved my life. In Bayreuth I was able to recover and thrive. One year after the terrible event at the University of West Bohemia in the Czech Rep. I had a dream. In that dream I was punching the communist teacher right in her fuckin’ face! I was giving her one round after another. When I woke up. I felt free and happy.
Nevertheless, on the end I have decided to give up on the Czech law school, due to inhuman studying conditions and abusive teachers. I found myself sick in the stomach when I walked in the main building of the Faculty of Law, University of West Bohemia once I returned from Bayreuth. I hate that school, its building and its teachers so much until this very day.
Although I managed to correct my traumatic experience from Wales, I haven’t fully recovered from the one imposed on me at the University of West Bohemia. I’m very sensitive to any kind of injustice. Being biased at the state exam is one of the deadly sins for me. I’m still upset I was not able to prevent this one from happening to me.
Anyway, in Germany I told every single foreign student to avoid Czech universities. I wanted to spare them of the same experience I had and I continue in this effort until today. So please, do not go to study to the Czech universities.
Modern Drugs
The teachings of Gabor Maté and of this book sparkled up my interest in alternative methods like EMR and Ayuhasca.
What is important to know is that there are psychedelic which manage to override the old brain’s wiring and thinking patterns. EMR, mushrooms and ayuhasca belong in this category. They can fix what normally only a long break and slower lifestyle can fix. The reason why I see the future in psychedelics is because the capitalist system is going to continue to create less winners and more losers. There are going to be only a very few rich chosen ones who live nice and comfortable life in comparison to majority of losers who are going to keep struggling every single day.
On the end of the day I think that all traumas and psychological problems could be fixed with money. Money equals freedom to live as we want, to not be told by some evil masters, employers and people who want to dominate us and intent to turn us into their profits.
Yoga and the physical exercise
Is one of the best antidepressants there is. I intuitively started to practice yoga when I was at the Czech law school. It provided me with better emotional relief than cigarette and alcohol. Unfortunately, I was so broke back then I could not afford to go to classes, so I exercised to YT videos instead.
When went to Bayreuth University in Germany, I started to practice yoga at least 3 times a week. From the very soft and easy one to advanced yoga classes such as ashtanga. While living in Bayreuth, those classes were almost free and therefore accessible to all the students. I can state that the University of Bayreuth was the best university I have went so far (I went to 4 different universities, 3 abroad and 1 in the Czech Rep. - this one is the worst communist one). I went everywhere on the bicycle, or by walk (healthy exercise on daily basis).
I was also surrounded by smart-like minded people and I had plenty of sex with girls from the counties form all over the world. The depression had no chance. It was the best time of my life. I was free, but not for long and not for ever.
Sexual abuse and rape
It is disturbing to read that every 5th American was abused as a child. Especially girls, but young boys are no exception. The problem of these traumas is that some of them are buried so deep down beneath that they are not even connected to language centres. Which means that the victims cannot describe their traumas in words.
It is not uncommon that some of those traumas are going to resurface after decades of being buried. The manifest in lost sexual interest with one’s partners or in the other forms. To find what has really happened means to dive to fragmented memories and putting it as puzzle pieces together.
Similarly, when it comes to rape, it is important to say that some experiences are unwanted and if they are unwanted, they might be turned in traumas.
Theatre & Movement
Helps to bring those buried deep down beneath emotions to the surface. This could be done through reenactment and different play roles. I find this method very interesting.
Neural feedback
It is proven that certain frequencies can have a profound positive effect on our brain. So does the meditation. I’m adding two links on my favourite music to calm down:
BRAIN & HEART HEALING DHIKR ᴴᴰ - Relaxing Stress Relief Meditation ZIKIR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbdJCMrikXE
Thank You I Love You I Repetitive 2 Hours Long I Sushumna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POJYlkSn-UE
Healing
You can heal yourself with many different methods. The options are medication, conventional talking therapy, yoga and many others. It is important to stress out that it depends on what you are looking for, what helps you and what brings you the most benefits. There is not such a thing as the best way. There is only what you consider to be good for yourself. Do not let others to tell you what is good for you. You know the best. Others can go and fuck themselves.
The presumption is that if you can talk about trauma, you can get rid off it and you are on the way to recovery.
Kaiser’s Verdict: 👍
Excellent book, for me it was really a mind opening experience. It helped me not only to understand myself better but to be ready to provide a compassion for those who might need it from me in the future. I think I was a bit way too much dogmatic in some of my views on rape and traumas. I like to read books which really help me to discover something I’m unconsciously searching for. So go for it!
👉 Buy this book! 👈 through my link and help me build this website! 😊
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