The Name You Call Me Matters. “Without self-confidence, we are as…
By: Dr. Patricia Farrell
Tags: Culture, Naming, Status, Ethnicity, Nicknames

The Name You Call Me Matters

Using language to cause pain and reinforce social stigma is shown in brain scans

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

“Without self-confidence, we are as babes in the cradle.” — Virginia Woolf

You hear people referring to “the n-word” or calling a woman a “b…” or some variant of it. Immediately, you know what that means, and you begin unconscious labeling of the object person and the person using the term. How did that happen? You’ve learned it.

“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear

You’ve got to be taught from year to year.

It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear

You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

Words have incredible power. Within four or five letters, we signal acceptance, ridicule, or status of anyone who crosses our path. The pain it causes isn’t a passing thing.

Research has shown the brain perceives these snide or devaluing remarks as real as physical pain, and it doesn’t heal and disappear like a physical cut. The emotional scars stick with us.

In wartime, this simple solution to identifying the “enemy” is widely used. Is it a carryover from their culture, or have we adopted a type of culture war in our societies?

Molding Self-Esteem

Personal esteem is, of course, at the core of our concern regarding words used to taunt and devalue or socially stigmatize individuals. Words are a means of inserting someone into a particular role, which will imprison them perhaps for their entire life. This hurtful activity also affects mental health, as research has shown with psychological testing and brain scans that have provided anatomical evidence.

“These findings parallel previous reports of psychopathology associated with childhood exposure to parental VA (verbal abuse), and support the hypothesis that exposure to peer VA is an aversive stimulus associated with increased symptom ratings and meaningful alterations in brain structure.”

Copyright: Sergey Nivens

Brain scans were performed on adolescents who were exposed to substantial verbal abuse. The outcomes showed disturbing prospects for their lives.

“We found in a community sample of late teens and young adults that exposure to peer VA was associated with increased drug use, and elevated psychiatric symptom ratings. Substantial exposure was associated with a greater than 2-fold increase in clinically significant ratings of depression…” The power of words could not be more obvious.

The scans revealed that portions of the brain, the corpus callosum (CC), which connects both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, showed changes in the protective covering, the myelin sheath, in this structure. The researchers indicate “alterations appear to be the most consistent finding in maltreated subjects.” Is there a time when this change might be most prevalent or most damaging to students?

The most sensitive time for this deleterious change was found to occur “during middle school years”… and “the CC (was most) sensitive between 9–10 years.” But exposure “peaks at ages 12–13…”

“It is interesting to speculate how white matter (myelin) alteration… might relate to increased risk for depression, dissociation, or substance abuse.” Other changes that were noted in the brain scans of affected children included a reduction in gray matter volume, specifically in an area of the brain devoted to vision, which “plays a critical role in sensory perception.”

Additional theoretical speculation on the part of the researchers was that there was a change, a substantial reduction, in the neurotransmitter GABA, which is believed to be involved in both anxiety and depression.

The Psychological Effects of Derisive Language

Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash

What effect does calling a woman “girl” or a man “boy” have on their self-esteem and outlook on life or themselves? In a world of infinite possibilities and craving for creativity and those who would create it, how do words crush many who could provide what we need? Far too many.

Of the many truths revealed by research related to the physical ramifications of emotional pain, one stands out; rejection sensitivity.

“Rejection sensitivity is connected to attachment in childhood; insecurely attached people are more likely to be rejection sensitive than those who had loving, attuned, and accepting relationships in their families of origin.… Rejection sensitivity tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy because the person over-reacts and misreads social cues.”

If early childhood experiences result in an expectancy of rejection and verbal abuse in childhood causes physical brain changes, what can we do to remediate this? Are we victims of our childhood experiences? The good news is that we’re not, and we can make changes, even possible brain changes, to help ourselves.

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

The Way to Remediation

Hope is as close as you changing your thoughts and your thought patterns.

“… scientists have shown that you actually can re-grow brain cells and you can change the structure and function of your brain by the way you think. This new science is called neuroplasticity, and it caught the attention of the Dalai Lama. Using your mind to change your brain, it turns out fits in perfectly with the teachings of Buddhism…”

Meditation

Revising our thinking, as we do in meditation, enhances our ability to strengthen connections between the “thinking” part of our brain (the frontal lobes) and the “feeling” part (the limbic regions) of the brain. The latter has often been referred to as the reptilian or primitive portions of the brain that deal with emotions.

The best thing about meditation is that it doesn’t create a temporary state in the brain; it has a lasting effect. Again, brain scans have shown this to be true.

A study at the University CA, Davis, based on The Shamatha Project, added proof of the long-term effects of meditation. “This study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, with the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across a person’s life…”

Psychotherapy, which assists a client in changing their perception of themselves and their lives, has also been found to bring about ameliorative changes in the brain.

One form of therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has shown significant changes in the brain.

“A Kings College London study found that CBT led to heightened brain connectivity and long-term remission of symptoms. Over a period of six months of therapy, researchers found that the connection between key brain regions became stronger in a significant number of study participants. CBT targets anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses by helping you to identify negative thought patterns and to replace them with healthy ones.”

Self-help and Our Self-esteem

Self-esteem is at the heart of a life that is unfulfilled and a persona that lacks the joy of living to which we are all entitled. Whether you get up each day and recite the lines I heard in the film “The Help” or use some other mantra, it is all worthwhile. What were the lines her mother’s maid taught the little girl?

Yes, “You are smart; you are kind; you are important.” Your brain is listening, and the more you say it and believe it, the more it becomes a part of you.

Single out one small thing you can do each day and decide that when you first get up out of bed. Do that one thing that will lead to other activities that are beneficial for you. It can be minimal exercise, writing in a journal, learning one new word in a foreign language.

You pick the item. It will ramp up your self-esteem and help undo some of the emotional hurt that may have damaged you in some way. You’re the builder here.

Gradually work your way up to perhaps ten lift with a small weight each day. We know that just this small amount of exercise stimulates the muscles to signal the brain. The signal sets off a cascade of chemicals that increase your mood, motivation, and even the immune system.

A study on self-esteem and exercise with 66 orphaned girls between the ages of 13 and 19 years old found that a group that did aerobic exercise had self-esteem scores significantly higher than one that didn’t.

Tomorrow is yours’s to do as you wish. No, it’s not an overly optimistic dream. Pick something you can do and begin to do it in small steps. Print out the lyrics to “High Hopes” and put them somewhere you’ll be sure to see them.

And remember that little girl from “The Help” where she is told, by her Black nanny who wants to build the girl’s self-esteem, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”