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Ray Enright's picture

brain systems & behaviur

I'm 83yrs and having a problem with my 79yrs wife and 49yrs son who seem to be in what is described as a co-dependent relationship. This relationship doesn't so much exclude me and others as define us emotionally in a way that results in exclusion. Their defining of us seems less based on fact and more on imagined subjectivity of fact. Example: My son had a device looking like a plyers about 15" long and a 'C' shaped bit. He calmly speculated what it was made to do. I suggested frivilously that it might be used to circumsize horses. He immediatly went into a rage, among other things approaching and threatening to brain me with the device. (I later remembered the device is used to leaver nails from horseshoes.)
I became aware many years ago my body needs to be used or it begins to atrophy, hence a continued exercise program. I'm wondering if the brain also needs exercising and in some cases will demand that exercising spontaneously if it isn't provided in the environment. In my son's case I'm wondering about his limbic system needing a workout that isn't available in his present life-style and used to be. Some people seems to get an emotional workout vicariously in our passive culture by reading or watching emotional events such as sports. Some people are satisfied with water; some prefer alcohol.
This highly emotional response on the part of my son isn't limited to me. It has happened so often with other family members excluding his mother that they avoid him and with friends such that he no longer has any.

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