Jenn
CPAP is a machine that keeps a persons airway open with low pressure air so they can't stop breathing at night. It prevents apnea. But a saturation of carbon dioxide can force it into areas where it doesn't belong and cause pain.
Oh I bet you have welding stories. I sure do. I came here to hobby farm in the mountains but of course had to work. The view is lovely but it makes damn thin soup. To get work driving equipment in the bush I had to be willing to keep it held together. So to get the view and the fresh air I would be breathing smoke after work welding up their crap so they could get more time out of it. Off season I welded. I got a chance to fall trees and parked the welder and for 14 years never looked back. I still drove equipment but refused to weld on it anymore. I was known as welder dave till another welder dave moved into the valley. Now I'm known for my woodwork.
From the time we are born we start loading up our brain with experiences and information that we will use in the future not only to tell us how to do something but why. A baby doesn't walk because it knows how it does it by association, It sees it. It hears it. Where as animals are born with every thing they need to survive we are born with very little. The first 11 month we build emotions and attachments. How we feel. Happy, sad brave, scared. We get all of these from our surroundings and interactions. Filling the front part of our brains where they are stored. And hopefully we were lucky enough to have a stable first year so they are stored in the right places. The next six years we store experiences that will build who we will be. The foundation that we build on. Like a filling cabinet. Most of the abilities we will need will be built and we will just be putting new experiences into existing files. How to weld is not a lot different from how to spread peanut butter. (slight exaggeration) More like draw a straight line. Filed in the same area and having connections. This is how theory works. Using those connections to find the answer to something we don't know by looking at similar situations. Remember this ability, it is not only important because it separates you from your dog in how you think but it is a very big reason for panic attacks.
When welding we use theory to know what is going to cause tension and how to relieve or prevent it. It doesn't matter if it is a a bridge or a crawler tractor, the common is steel. Bridges and cats are associated. you see steel first, cat second a junk after which sends you back to associated memory for information on the last junk you welded. All these memories are tied to one thought, steel. Damn, this was all subconscious and happening close to the speed of light. You didn't need to know this to do it. Just do it.
Okay that is simple enough and a sign of intelligence is how fast you can do this. How fast you can look at things unconsciously and let them go only keeping what you want at the surface.
Then along comes a trigger that starts sending you on unwanted searches and keeps unwanted thoughts at the surface. Every thing you ever experienced is in memory we just don't normally use the bad experiences for anything but knowledge. But they are there still. In anxiety and panic disorders they become important enough to focus on.
Why is complex in that there are a few different reasons. Which will take a whole other page.
Something to think about. Emotions for the most part have nothing to do with the situation. They trigger past experiences and the more experiences the stronger the emotion.
Your dad is a trigger, everything you know about him is experience. How you feel toward him is based not only on this but on similar situations only remotely connected. A lot of information that you process unconsciously and which says to laugh or cry. Everything is a trigger, some negative, some positive.
Davit