Brain Chemistry Chronicles: The Half-Empty Glass

Saturday, July 27, 2013

The Half-Empty Glass

Today I had a revelation about the "glass-half-empty" folks (like me). Seeing the glass as half-empty is looking for a reason to be unhappy, according to our critics. But as I have tried to explain in this blog, looking for a reason to be unhappy is a result of a brain chemistry glitch. Our neurotransmitters make us feel bad (erroneously) and in order to make sense of that bad feeling, we go looking for what could be causing it. Why do I feel bad? What is wrong in my world? And since people can always find something wrong in their world if they look closely enough, the "cause" of the bad feeling can always be found.

This discovery, of course, is seen as a good thing by the sufferer, because once a problem's cause is determined, a solution can be sought and possibly found. Half-full (HF) folks often criticize half-empty (HE) folks for their negative outlook: "You like to be unhappy," they say. But though it seems that we like being unhappy, what we like, in fact, is finding the reason we're unhappy so we can do something to fix it.

My mother used to have an ingenious explanation for her bad brain chemistry attacks. She called them her "feelings," and when she would experience one, she'd interpret it as a kind of telepathic message: someone she loved was in distress. She would then call each of us and ask how we were. "I've had one of my feelings," she'd say. "Are you alright?" If nothing was wrong, she would try to find something, however minor, that would serve as distress so her bad feeling could be explained. At times, I would find myself coming up with something so that she'd be appeased and stop worrying. It wasn't until recently that I realized what her "feelings" were. The other day, for the first time in a long time, she mentioned she'd had one of her "feelings." I tried to tell her it was just brain chemistry, but she didn't seem to like that explanation very much, preferring to see herself as special, I suppose, as endowed with extraordinary psychic abilities. I can't say I blame her there. Bad brain chemistry is viewed as a flaw, after all--a disability, an illness. Having a poorly functioning brain marks you as defective. It's not something people want to accept.

And therein lies the dilemma: convincing the "half-empty" people that they can feel better is difficult when they don't even want to accept that they have a problem, when they want to believe the way they see the world is realistic and the only right way to see things.

But I continue to work on changing that, one day at a time.

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About this blog . . .

I created this blog as a place to write about my day to day struggles with what I call bad brain chemistry. In discussing those struggles, I also share my theories about bad brain chemistry and how its effects can be mitigated.

I started this project about 20 years ago, when depression and other bad moods were making my life miserable. A man I met during that time (now my husband) convinced me that I had to change; a therapist who offered medication scared me into finding a way to change. The result was my theory of brain chemistry, which goes beyond merely labeling mood disorders as physical phenomena and finding medication to fix them. I seek to explain bad brain chemistry in a way that shows the disorder to be rational and naturally human, and dealing with it something that a human can do through rational thought.

As I go along with this blog, I'll talk more about this theory and how I think people who have this condition tend to deal with it.

You're welcome to join me!

My Theory of Bad Brain Chemistry, Part I

My theories are based on how my mind works, but I think that I'm not alone, that other people share this problem with brain chemistry that doesn't work well in the modern world. My idea is that the way my brain works was advantageous at some point in the history of humanity. People like me, hyperalert people, were useful to human society because they were extremely aware of their environment.

In a situation where people are in constant danger of being devoured by predators, or attacked by human enemies, those who are hyperalert make good scouts, good watchers, good guards. Also useful to people who must hunt for food every day in order to eat are those who are good at seeing animal prey, noticing and remembering their patterns, their behavior, their defenses, their smell. And those who know how to find edible plants or other important items such as reeds or flints or underground sources of water will also be valued by their group.

Unfortunately, in modern society (especially middle class Western society), there's less need for hyperalert people because there's less danger from predators. And there's very little need to hunt down food or water or tools in one's surroundings--we can simply go to a store to get all those things, or even better, have them brought to us.

In this situation, being hyperalert is not only no longer an advantage; it seems instead a disadvantage. In fact, it's often thought of as a disability instead of a highly valued ability. I have only to cite the disruptive effect of hyperalertness on the modern elementary classroom to make my point. What has been termed ADD--attention deficit disorder--is to me hyperalertness, a condition of the brain that is not so much an inability to pay attention, as it is an inability to stop paying attention.

And it is this condition of hyperalertness, I believe, that can lead to depression, anger and other moods that make life quite difficult for many people, including me. What was once good brain chemistry is now deemed bad and in need of fixing.