Brain Chemistry Chronicles: May 2014

Friday, May 16, 2014

Stepping into Joy

This morning I was feeling quite oppressed by stress and the fear of stress and wondering when I was going to get to a place in my life where I could relax. But then I thought that stress is all in the mind and how I feel about what happens in my life makes all the difference. So if I interpret the challenges of life as stress and bad, then that's what they become. The fact that I'm predisposed chemically to fear all new experiences makes it harder for me to see them as positive.

Fear locks down the mind, forcing it to make fight or flight decisions. But if there is no reason to make fight-or-flight decisions, then the mind is free to wonder, to explore, to investigate, to discover, to delight in what life brings.

Getting rid of, allaying, or ignoring fear can be a way to step into exploration and ultimately joy.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Good Reasons to Feel Bad: What to Do When They Fade

Question for today: what happens to people with bad brain chemistry when they have a good reason to feel bad?

When people with balanced brain chemistry have that problem, they may feel bad for a while, then they feel better. A loved one dies, for instance, and the non-BBC-plagued person responds in a rational manner, feeling bad for the length of time needed to heal from the loss.

Someone with bad brain chemistry, though, may experience something different. Because this is a good reason to feel bad, that person clings to the reason, and when after a time of mourning the day-to-day bad feelings return, he or she continues to ascribe them to this reason. Now all the bad feelings that naturally cycle in and out in the suffering person's brain are blamed on this reason: bereavement. If this goes on long enough, people around the suffering person begin to wonder why their friend/family member is still mourning after so much time has passed.

"You need to get on with your life," the well meaning friends may say, thinking the person is fixated on the loss of the loved one. But though the BBC person feels the loss, he is at this point trying to cope with his day-to-day BBC, and not the loss. He just doesn't realize that is what he is doing.

As I pointed out in my last post, people with BBC who go to war want to cling to that life-or-death experience because it made them feel better in a strange sort of way. Mourning the death of a loved one is that kind of experience that explains bad feelings in a socially acceptable way. Coping with a serious illness also provides that kind of paradoxical relief because the BBC person can now solicit sympathy and support legitimately.

But if something changes (the person recovers from the illness or returns from the war), or a reasonable amount of time passes, the "good" reason to feel bad loses legitimacy, and if the BBC person clings to that reason, he or she is in danger of deteriorating into a dysfunctional or debilitated state.

So what's the answer? The same as ever: recognize that your brain is making you feel that way by sounding a false alarm; then, find a way to turn off the alarm.

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.