Chapter 2
Protection: Exposing the Blind Spots
People protect what they love.
—Jacques Yves Cousteau, explorer
When you first meet her, this 44-year-old mother of three seems like a normal person. However, there is something quite abnormal lying beneath the surface. She laughs in the face of what would cause many to recoil in terror. She pets snakes as though they were playful kittens. She experiences horror movies with delight. And, by her own diary admissions, she engages in behavior that some would find unusual if not outright dangerous. While walking through a park one night, a man threatened her with a knife to the throat. A church choir practicing could be heard nearby. She calmly replied to the knife-wielding druggie, “If you’re going to kill me, you’re gonna have to go through my God’s angels first.” Apparently, even the drug-addled can sense abnormality, as this odd response was enough to send the perpetrator running in the other direction. The next night, she continued about her routine and walked through the same dark park, business as usual.1
This is not the product of a fiction author’s imaginative musings. She is a real 44-year-old mother of three, known to the scientific community as simply “SM.” The cause of her abnormality lies in a gland shaped like a pair of almonds and located in what is referred to as the emotional brain, inward from the temples. Though relatively small in size, the amygdala gland can propel our entire body into immediate action based on its ...
