The Spark, The Chase, The Ick & Our Nervous System

I asked Sarah Murphy, a biology of trauma expert if the bad boy, the spark, the chase, even the ick, ties back to our nervous system?

This is what she said.

It's so important to understand that our thoughts, our actions, everything that we do in this life is driven by our body's biochemistry.And our biochemistry is actually driven by the state of our nervous system. So like that is very important for people to understand. You know, Who we're attracted to in our life, how healthy our relationships are. Who we chase, who we flee from. This all depends on the state of our nervous system. And, you know, we wanna say why. And our nervous system is, what dictates the baseline of our hormones and how safe we feel to engage or disengage in our relationships. And this? It was all set in childhood - our nervous system and our neurotransmitters - long before we were consciously aware. And for some of us, the sensitivity of our nervous system would have been laid before we were even born, with a genetic disposition or through in utero stress.

So, first up? What actually is the spark?

The spark is really our body’s sort of stress and excitement response all in one. It starts to make a cocktail of chemicals, you know, norepinephrine, adrenaline our stress hormone on cortisol. And these all go into our bloodstream and we start to feel physical changes in our body. And then when this starts to happen, this starts to push our body and our nervous system in this fight or flight state.

At the Same time, we have our dopamine that's pumping into us and this chemical feels so good in our brain. And then, you know, that slightly stressful situation starts to feel fucking amazing. And so this drives us to repeat the stressful behavior, or stay in it, to get more hits of that dopamine. We have to realize that this is like a drug addiction.

What’s also fascinating is that peopole get dopamine hits when they are WAITING to get a text, to get attention, to get a response, to get asked out - not just when it happens. This is called anticipatory dopamine release. Now, how do we explain anticipatory dopamine release? Using the rats with the lever exercise is the best example. anticipation of the reward. You said earlier in the episode anticipatory dopamine, and what does that mean?

Right? It means that you don't just have to get the reward. Like you don't have to just get the trophy, get the thing to get the dopamine. You get it Also in anticipation of doing that. So say, you know, the rat with the lever exercise, like they would put these rats in a cage and if they would press the lever, like sometimes appellate would come out and they'd like get a dopamine hit and then they would like press it again and nothing would happen, and they'd press it again and nothing would happen, and then they'd press it again and it would come out.

Now, why do we lose the spark?

Now, Losing the spark is also all about what's happening in our body at a biochemical level. When we start a new relationship, we get a rush of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, as well as endorphins that make us feel amazing.

But what happens when things start to settle down? When our partner is always there for us and we're not constantly wondering about their love and commitment? Well, our bodies start to relax and regulate, and the stress hormones and excitement start to fade away. And if our baseline nervous system is dysregulated, we can't handle the lack of stress and excitement – it feels unbearable and boring.

So, it’s like being addicted to love and chasing that high. You need more and more of those stress hormones and dopamine hits to keep you going. And when they're not there anymore, you feel like you’ve lost the spark. But in reality, you've just gotten comfortable – and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Now, what about the ick?

Louise Rumball has her own theories about this (which are not backed by science, Doctors, or psychologists!) The first reason is related to self-sabotage. She believes that when we encounter someone who is emotionally available and open to a relationship, if we are emotionally unavailable ourselves, and searching for the highs and the dopmaine hits, it can feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable. So, consciously or unconsciously, we discover a particular trait or behavior of theirs that we can use as a vehicle to push all of our feeling of discomfort into. Coming face to face with intimacy, we get triggered, feel uncomfortable, experience feelings of dysregulation and discomfort in our body so then attach these negative emotions to that specific thing, and it becomes the source of our ick. Smart theory, right?

The second of Louise’s non-science backed theorys is rooted in attachment trauma. In this case, and with cases of fantasy bonding, attachment hunger and more, we tend to idealize and fantasize about someone, often because we can't have them or they seem unattainable. We create a perfect image of them in our minds, but then reality sets in and we notice something about them that shatters our illusion. It could be something small, like a toenail or a backpack, that triggers the ick response and makes us question our feelings towards that person. All of a sudden they a real, and they aren’t the knight in shining armor anymore.

Both of the icks? We feel th discomfort of potential intimacy and reality in our nervous system. It feels overwhelming and uncomfortable so we allow the ‘ick’ to let us push ourselves away from the other as a ‘valid excuse’. The question is, is it really valid?