PSY 314 2-1 Discussion Early Childhood Experiences and Neural Plasticity.docx

2-1 Discussion Early Childhood Experiences and Neural Plasticity
I do not have one complete memory of a significant personal early childhood experience, but
multiple experiences that I feel just built on top of the previous ones. My father committed suicide a few
days before my second birthday. Although I was too young to remember the incident or even him, I do
remember have memories from when I was about five years old when I asked my mom what a dad was
and was curious as to why I did not have one but all my friends at school did. When I asked my mom this,
she explained to me what a father was, and she just told me mine passed away. I asked her how he had
died, and she just told me he was shot but would not discuss it any further. I know that I was too young
for my mom to explain to me in detail what happened, but I felt at that moment that I was not allowed
to bring it up. I had so many questions, feelings, and emotions that I did not understand but felt as if I
had to just shove it down deep inside since I was not allowed to talk to her about it. At that point, in my
young little brain, I tried to make it make sense to myself. I took the information that he had been shot
and created this whole image in my head of him “going hunting and someone thought he was a bear and
shot him because he did not have one of those orange vest ‘thingies’.” I also remember how excited I
was a couple of years later when my mom got engaged. Her fiancé told me he would adopt me, and I
was going to have a dad! But then my baby sister was born less than a year later (no adoption yet), and
he turned on me because I was not his child. I was never physically abused per say but was emotionally. I