Brain Chemistry Chronicles: December 2016

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Writing My Story

I would love to be able to write a book detailing how I helped myself to move out of the darkness of depression and have an (almost) normal life. I want to help people who are still struggling as I was.

But one of the things standing in the way of writing the story of how I stopped feeling depressed is that I want people to see that I didn't have to be miserable. There's this whole genre of "dark night of the soul" memoirs, where people go through some terrible time in their lives and somehow get through it to where they are now "cured" and better off.

I can't talk about how I was cured because my sickness was always within my power to cure, I just didn't know it. My story is more one of slap-to-the-forehead realization. Why did I go through all that? Well, because I didn't know.

I only seemed to be unhappy. I wasn't really unhappy. My brain was making me feel unhappy, just as the brains of my family members made them feel unhappy. I didn't have a bad childhood; it only seemed bad because I was seeing it that way through the lenses of my brain chemistry. My family and I had no reason to be unhappy. We had everything we needed--food, clothing, shelter--and the means to provide for ourselves. What we lacked--a light heart, an appreciation for life's blessings--kept us from knowing we were happy.

What made my childhood unhappy was the same thing that made my adulthood unhappy--an anachronistic brain. The glass half full/half empty theory applies here, but it isn't just a matter of seeing things in a different light. You have to notice that the reason you're seeing things that way is that your brain is making you see it that way. In other words, you have to realize that the light is within your control, or that the light you were born with is something you have work around.

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.