Maybe the "dopamine" theory isn't ALL wrong; ditto for serotonin

 For years, starting about the turn of the century, dopamine as "the addiction neurotransmitter" became an ever more peddled idea among simplistic and reductionist ideas of neuroscience — both professional as well as lay.

Given the number of brain receptors for dopamine, that alone made it simplistic. Dopamine does a lot more than trigger desire, or even trigger memories of desire.

Indeed.

It turns out both it and serotonin are ALSO involved in epigenetic controls.

In turn, this means that both depression and anxiety, on the one hand, with serotonin, and addiction with dopamine may have a degree of non-genetic, but rather epigenetic, heritability. That would explain how something like alcohol, with modest-moderate physical addiction potential, but no more, can run in families yet skip around.

Dysthymia

Unlike "regular" depression, or bipolar disorder, dysthymia is probably both tougher to diagnosis, and more debatable about just how severe it is.

That said, I'm thinking more and more that I've probably had it, more than just off and on "daily blues," for about six years.

That was when my newspaper company in Dallas closed. I've had a rocky professional life since then, and since I've lived in places that weren't always my personal cup of tea.

How much this is actually dysthymia, and how much is likely related blunted affect on positive emotions, which for me I don't really doubt is PTSD related, I don't know.

I do know that I've had cumulative traumas. Old paper shutting down in the middle of the Great Recession. Added worries, compared to many people, on job hunting with newspaper journalism already struggling.

Then, after landing a new job, having that paper look me up online and finding a blog post I wrote about the whys of the closer of my previous paper. Getting reamed out, and worried I was going to lose that job.

Then, finding out that that paper's parent company entered Chapter 11 on the day I got there. Add in an abrasive (and not just to me, though) assistant supervisor.

Then, I got out to near Austin, just as the oil boom was hitting West Texas again. Looked like it would be a bit more money, and certainly a better area. Until I could not realize how screwy the paper was run. I think I almost went into shell-shock. That, in turn, affected my relationship with my immediate boss.

From there, to my current position. Making yet more money, but having two worry about the financial side of two newspapers in a rural county with declining population.

Why wouldn't I have chronic, semi-regular low grade depression?

My apologies, to both myself, and my one follower, whomever you may be, for not having been on here in a while.

I am probably going to write something next week or so, related to some personal feelings and increased family of origin isolation, over some of the big political and social news of the past few weeks.

A little DABDA

A little DABDA

A little DABDA will do ya,

Or so, the grieving are told.

But there’s no right way, or wrong way, to mourn

Even if there are more common, and less common, ways.

Sometimes, loss doesn’t involve denial.

A death, a divorce, or similar, has been long anticipated.

Likewise for anger; it’s been wrestled with

And exhausted,

Before the loss.

Likewise for bargaining.

Depression? More common, and more normal,

Even before acceptance, which may never fully come for some.

Sometimes, they overlap.

Emotions, after all, aren’t discrete.

Sometimes, one emotion is experienced

Two or more times, even if others aren’t.

And maybe, just maybe

A little DABDA will do ya,

For things besides loss.

Like depression, even if it’s a “D” itself.

Or anxiety.

Don’t we deny our own emotions at times,

Or longer moods,

Or more complex psychological states?

Of course, especially if there’s reason for us to do that.

Don’t we get angry at being depressed,

Or frustrated at being anxious?

Yes.

Unfortunately, bargaining aside,

Depression or anger don’t fully disappear.

A little DABDA

A little DABDA will do ya,

Or so, the grieving are told.

But there’s no right way, or wrong way, to mourn

Even if there are more common, and less common, ways.

Sometimes, loss doesn’t involve denial.

A death, a divorce, or similar, has been long anticipated.

Likewise for anger; it’s been wrestled with

And exhausted,

Before the loss.

Likewise for bargaining.

Depression? More common, and more normal,

Even before acceptance, which may never fully come for some.

Sometimes, they overlap.

Emotions, after all, aren’t discrete.

Sometimes, one emotion is experienced

Two or more times, even if others aren’t.

And maybe, just maybe

A little DABDA will do ya,

For things besides loss.

Like depression, even if it’s a “D” itself.

Or anxiety.

Don’t we deny our own emotions at times,

Or longer moods,

Or more complex psychological states?

Of course, especially if there’s reason for us to do that.

Don’t we get angry at being depressed,

Or frustrated at being anxious?

Yes.

Unfortunately, bargaining aside,

Depression or anger don’t fully disappear.

Feeling empty, feeling scared, feeling a fraud

The "fraud" part? About a month ago, a woman came in our office. A customer. Used the n-word before she left. I said nothing. Yes, it was in part shock. But, I had recovered before she walked out the door. And I said nothing.

The scared? Ad sales at the two small newspapers are struggling this month. National trade mags predict total newspaper ad sales will drop 8 percent this year. That, presumably includes allowances for election ads. And, for the few newspapers holding their own or growing because of oil boom growth or other things, a few others will thus have drops of more than 8 percent.

When the Saturday Waco paper is normally just 20 percent ads, you know it's not just me, and it's not just Loren. It's this area. But, that will be called an excuse.

Feeling empty? No, I don't feel I can talk to my district boss about this. Nor any family, for various reasons. Certainly not the other two people in the office.

This isn't meant to be playing the martyr, hand to back of head. It just is what it is.

The 50s are starting out to be a wonderful decade of aging.

I recently journaled that I sometimes feel like someone whose shit does indeed stink, and stinks very much, in relations to other people. That they know that, that I should know why, but that I'm somehow missing a clue while they're laughing at me.

Two new insights on PTSD

The first relates to depression, and notes that people prone to either problem may overgeneralize their memory. This overgeneralization may allow for a version of catastrophic thinking, in which a person cannot recall specific good instances to overcome overgeneralizing about bad issues.

The second says that fear may lead to losing out on noticing nuances of sound, and in turn be connected to sound hypersensitivity in PTSD sufferers.

Anti-depressants beat CBT on personality change

I'm not a fan or touter of Big Pharma, nor do I denigrate talk therapy.

But, it seems that SSRI antidepressants are better than cognitive therapy in lowering neuroticism and raising extraversion in depressed people. CBT helps make changes there, too, but the changes are neither as profound nor as lasting as with medication.

Moving, new job and other anxieties

It's been a while since I wrote anything here.

Well, after two months of unemployment, I found a new job, and decided to take it. It's still in newspaper journalism, but I had to leave Dallas for Odessa, Texas. And, unlike three years ago, when I last lost my job, it (with the hindsight of that case) seems unlikely that I will get back to Dallas. (Yes, part of me has wanted to move on anyway, but I'd like somewhere further west yet, I think, if I'm going to sacrifice all the things I like[d] about Big D.)

I am also adjusting to night hours as a copy editor at an AM daily newspaper. That's been more difficult than straight job adjustment. I think I am fighting a low grade dysthymia as well as anxiety.

The first week here, I had no problems with acting out. I was too emotionally and physically tired. Since then, I am at about the level I was before I moved, though no worse.

On the plus side, though at times it may have added to short-term anxiety or dysthymia, I have increased my journaling, especially my structured journaling from Nathaniel Branden. And, I've learned more about just how much buried anger I have, and where some of it hides.

Seeking entry to Middle-Earth

My senior year in high school, I was surely battling some unrecognized depression. My dad was in graduate school; his divinity school had those “mushroom lights” around most of the sidewalks on campus.

Anyway, I had already read “Lord of the Rings” once, and was re-reading it. It prompted me to try to call out to Earendil one night while walking by the mushroom lights, as described by this extended-haiku poem.

A ELBERETH GITHONIEL

Earendil, hear;
A Elbereth Githoniel;
Elrond, set me free.

So said a young teen,
Depressed and seeking escape —
Frodo’s Middle Earth.

But nothing happened;
No transmogrification;
Mushroom lights stayed fixed.

Homeward back I trudged
Depressed and distressed yet more
With no one to hear.

Is this all Fourth Age?
Elbereth availed me not —
I still lack magic.

Ketamine good for depression?

Scientists aren’t horsing around when they claim the notorious horse drug and human drug of abuse ketamine can help depression.

It doesn’t work on levels of neutransmitters like norepinephrine, serotonin or dopamine, either. Instead, in some other way, it’s supposed to “reshape” the orbifrontal cortex of the brain, an area where dread and shame can arise.

AND, it starts to work in just 24 hours, far earlier than the month or so Prozac and other SSRIs can take.

Plus, in what is surely a disappointment for Big Pharma, ketamine is already generic. No high-priced gouging by the Eli Lillys of the world.

Death, death of relationship hopes mean lots of acting out the past week

My mom died two weeks ago yesterday. Emotions over her seem to have punctured me deeply enough to force a more emotional, conscious awareness that a female friend of mine is, not now nor in the foreseeable future, going to be anything more than “just friends.” I like her enough, and she’s attractive enough, that I really want her, and I’m definitely kind of depressed it isn’t going to happen.

So, between the two, I’ve got a shitload of emotions I’ve been trying to stuff… and online porn surfing has been the method of stuffing.

Feeling better

My sister and my best friend both tell me I sound better, on the phone at least, since moving back to Dallas. Another person said the same about me just by sobriety chat room observations online.

I guess I’m more transparent than I might want to admit; sometimes, that’s pretty good. I have cut one of my two antidepressants in half, as I felt lethargic in the mornings, not antsy and sleep-deprived. That was shortly after accepting the job offer to move back here, which I figured had something to do with it.

When my tricyclic runs out, I’ll cut the Celexa in half again a month or so later.