I eat garbage.

And it hit me like a BRICK that I was taking careful care of this little one every day so he didn't get hurt - but! my own memory was of being alone, unsupervised, a ridiculous amount of time. Outside on the farm and alone as a toddler, or literally being looked after by a farm dog.

Memory being fickle, I checked with one of my aunts who I was close to as a child. "Was I left alone, like, a LOT?" I asked her. Her friendly face got serious, and she just nodded. "You raised yourself," she told me, "Then you raised your brother."

on the other hand...

Uncontacted Indigenous peoples reject contact with outsiders, as an active and ongoing choice. Survival International has calculated that there are 196 uncontacted groups worldwide; some of these are entire peoples who are uncontacted – such as the Sentinelese in India. Some uncontacted groups – such as the Ayoreo Totobiegosode in the Paraguayan Chaco or the Amahuaca in Peru – are sub-groups of bigger tribes with whom they share a language and often a territory. All are aware of the outside world, and reject it. They are self-sufficient and resilient. They live independently in forests, sometimes on islands. They resist intrusion, and thrive when their rights are respected. Uncontacted peoples may encounter outsiders sporadically, or not at all. They are aware of neighboring Indigenous peoples, who may be closely or distantly related. The uncontacted Hongana Manyawa in Indonesia have family members who have left the forest, mostly under duress. The uncontacted Pirititi occasionally encounter their contacted Kinja neighbors in the Brazilian Amazon. The Massaco, also in Brazil, were for decades known only by traces in the forest, including booby traps sharpened with rodents' teeth and placed on their hunting trails to warn off outsiders. Uncontacted peoples’ rejection of contact is often rooted in memories of devastating past contact and invasion, which brought violence, epidemics and death. Their denial of contact is a clear expression of their autonomy and self-determination.

source: ‘In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating trauma-induced damage.’ 

This is not the case in untreated depression, which has been found to correlate with decreased the average volume of certain brain structures, specifically the amygdala and hippocampus:

source: ‘meta-analyses indicated that amygdala volume was significantly decreased in depression in studies that included unmedicated depressed participants’

source: ‘Hippocampal volume is reduced in patients with unipolar depression, maybe as a consequence of repeated periods of major depressive disorder.’

However, it’s important to remember that differences in brain structure isn’t inherently ‘damage’, and doesn’t inherently mean loss of funtion. For example:

source: ‘investigators have found smaller amygdala volume in depression to be associated with increased responsivity to affective stimuli’

Furthermore, this process is reversible with medication.

If the above stretch ain’t compatible with you for reasons like having bitch ass knees, here are some alternative and amazing stretches for the muscle in order of easiest to hardest (but imo least to most helpful) to perform:

However, just keep in mind that none of these stretches will help you if you have a herniated disc, which compresses the nerve roots that protrude from the spine itself! For that you’ll for sure need some different medical intervention.