“‘What Would I Do If I Could Suddenly Feel…’”

“I’m shocked when I find out that someone lives past sixty-five years old or when youth die from diseases rather than murder. That’s problematic, yes?” Recently, I just celebrated my aunt’s ninetieth birthday. Yes. 90. It floored me on multiple levels. One, she has a perpetual mid-seventies vibe about her. Two, many of our family members have lacked the ability to live that long. Three, on my mind were the deaths of two students of the Upward Bound program I graduated from. It bothered me that I jumped to thinking that the deaths may have been gang-related or caused by intoxicated motorists when in reality both students were dealing with long-term illnesses. And though passing away from such illnesses may not appear as tragic as murder, suicide, or the like, death is death—especially when it comes to the youth. So why does it seem like living long is such a strange concept and departing early or horrifically is practically a new norm?

Primarily used to help in the removal of phobias, desensitization is a cognitive-behavioral process developed by psychologist Mary Cover Jones. It has its roots in the classical conditioning methods of Ivan Pavlov (hence, why it is also called Pavlovian condtioning). With Pavlovian/classical conditioning, the objective is to use a natural (unconditional) stimulus to cause a person or thing to respond to a different and neutral (conditioned) stimulus in a very similar fashion (see either image for better details).  Pertaining to that, desensitization—when used therapeutically—involves the person or thing being directly exposed to what appears threatening to them. The interactions with the source of fear or anxiety can happen in two ways: vivo desensitization (confronting the issues in real-life situations) and vicarious desensitization (created models to represent actual conflicts). As they continue to interact with the locus of fear they realize that what they fear is not as threating as once perceived, or at all. The dark side of this, pertaining to violence, is that if one is highly exposed to arguing, fighting, sexual intercourse, guns, bombing, thievery, etc., over time a person will grow minimally affected with these encounters. Of course, this varies based on the magnitude of specific events and the perception of results afterwards.

All of that said, “You are what you eat.” The things that you digest and surround yourself with make up everything you are. But do recall that diets can be changed, and the earth functions in seasons. Let’s end the numbness; it’s time to reclaim your senses.

- Brandon Avery