#chemical imbalance

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

I don’t think trees feel guilt and shame when they can’t photosynthesize on a cloudy day? so why do I??

[romirella-96]

Willpower is getting stuff done despite bad dopamine regulation. Motivation is what dopamine regulation is.

[swifteainthesummer]

Today on.... WHY AM I SAD

a) my parents hate each other

b) I kinda hate myself

c) I lost my best friends

d) I'm unemployed

e) all of the above

[oliversrarebooks]

We've seen the Human Resistance aliens vs. the various human and human-adjacent threats in your writing, but how would they fare against the Chemical Imbalance aliens? Would the HR ones be able to steal their hosts right out from under them, or would they become hosts themselves? Though, they are both big piles of tentacles, so that probably wouldn't be much of an upgrade.

I think the HR aliens would win easily. The Chemical Imbalance aliens are not nearly as powerful -- they don't end humanity the way HR aliens do, they just do quick trips in to abduct humans and get out.

[surrah698]

"Mental illness ain't a feelin' it's a real imbalance. And if you try to tell truth they always try to challege, like maybe you just need to focus on your talents, like I'm choosing to be sad and that I can break it like a bad habit."

- Architect The Dreamer - Bad Habit

One of my favorite songs right now. It says a lot and helped me understand myself a bit better. Hope it can do the same for yall! 🤠😘

[sspacegodd]

Atom activity is a series of marriages and divorces, births and deaths. Put two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen near each other and they will rush eagerly together to form a union. That is, until a chemical action or electric discharge tears them apart and they go back to their separate lives. But they will rush together once again when a new attractive prospect shows up.

Atoms are fickle and will always desert a lesser attraction for a greater one, moving toward what interests it and ignoring what repels it.

So what's not to understand? We are merely cosplaying physics.

The Secret of the Source of Everything.

[nando161mando]

[haroldyoung]

Depression Treatment on it's head

"What causes depression, class?"

"Chemical imbalance in the brain," we all chant.

Well, maybe not, and if you read the same article I recently found, you'll maybe see why: https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/ketamine-depression-research/

Apparently, the idea of "chemical imbalance" started with marketing campaigns for antidepressant medication in the 80s. There has been no proof, that serotonin production improves moods for those with depression. For years, we, those with mental illness, just take the drugs our doctor's give us because we don't know what else to do and we're desperate to feel different, normal. And the meds work or they don't or they seem to work and when we stop them, we don't feel all that different.

The change is so slow, taking antidepressents (up to 14 weeks), we're not sure there is any difference, but we're scared to death to stop the meds because we don't want to feel any worse.

I'm not saying don't listen to your doctor, but I am saying educate yourself about the meds you're prescribed and research alternatives, like Ketamine treatment.

Ketamine treatment is doing wonders for people with depression and PTSD. It does what no other antidepressant treatment can do, and it does it rapidly. It saves lives from suicide, according to the article.

Now researchers are thinking instead of chemical imbalance, some depression could be caused by problems with structures in brain, perhaps damaged by trauma in childhood or after by stress.

I know as a kid I was almost always worried because of constant parental bickering or tension, being yelled at by siblings and parents when I wouldn't listen, which I didn't do a lot, I was always distracted mentally. I feel bad for that kid so many decades ago who would forge his parents signature on a middle school progress report so he wouldn't have his parents yell at him and tell him how selfish he is.

Many of us have similar or much worse experiences. What did that do to our brain and our ability to function in life? My parents were worried about being able to feed all six of us and how to pay for this or that and they were stressed out, uneducated in mental illness, and, ignorant of emotional intelligence. I think my parents tried their best and did what they thought they should do. They had no idea I was in so much daily fear. So a treatment that actually helps with depression and passed trauma sounds amazing.

I wanna try ketamine treatment but it would cost me $3000 a month or more. Does insurance cover it? Nope. It's another magical treatment, like ozempic and monjouro, that only the wealthy can afford.

Is big pharma blocking it? Is it the publics closed mindedness to psychedelics? Or just a slow system (the FDA) to be approved for insurance?

I'm curious about these questions. I'm curious what else we're being told or believe that isn't actually the case. This is why I'm starting this blog. To share my writing and ideas and update you on what I've been reading and thinking.

[rottingch3rries]

i pretend i don’t need you.

i do.

you say you understand.

but if you understood you’d be here.

[noonbeam17]

guy whose favorite book in the bible is the About The Bible section because every time they read it they start from the very beginning. over and over again

[conduitstreetcat]

Chapter Five: A Bit of a Lunatic

“I wasn’t singing like a madman! I had to distract myself from the sirens.”

“What sirens?” You sound puzzled as you lower me and keep one arm around me while you open your door.

“The ones that were singing, to distract me from getting to you,” I explain.

“To me??”

“Yes - you were in the pod? On top of the hill? I was trying to get there.”

Read it on AO3!

[oliversrarebooks]

Is there any chance mayhaps we could get more of "chemical imbalance"? 👀

This is at the top of my non-Bookseller story list right now! I'm really glad other people enjoyed it. It got delayed because I didn't like how my first draft was turning out and need a rewrite.

The next part I've been working on is from the point of view of someone getting abducted, but I'm happy to hear more ideas for what you'd like to see.

[neuroscotian]

In July 2022, garnering mainstream media headlines, the journal Molecular Psychiatry published “The Serotonin Theory of Depression: A Systematic Umbrella Review of the Evidence.” In it, psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, co-chairperson of the Critical Psychiatry Network, and her co-researchers examined hundreds of different types of studies that attempted to detect a relationship between depression and serotonin, and concluded that there is no evidence of a link between low levels of serotonin and depression, stating: “We suggest it is time to acknowledge that the serotonin theory of depression is not empirically substantiated.”

In response to the review’s widespread attention, leading figures in psychiatry, rather than rebutting Moncrieff’s conclusions, attempted to convince the general public that her findings were not newsworthy, even belittling her. Psychiatrist David Hellerstein, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and director of Columbia’s Depression Evaluation Service, stated: “Wow, next she’ll tackle the discrediting of the black bile theory of depression.”

However, the vast majority of society had heard nothing from psychiatry about the discarding of this serotonin deficiency theory of depression. In a 2007 survey, 84.7 percent of 262 undergraduates believed it “likely” that chemical imbalances cause depression. While I cannot locate a more recent survey, my experience—with patients, the media, and even many doctors—is that the majority of them have continued to believe in the serotonin deficiency theory of depression, and that is why Moncrieff’s findings were newsworthy.

Researchers had discarded the chemical imbalance theory of depression by the 1990s. In Blaming the Brain (1998), psychologist Elliot Valenstein detailed research showing that it is just as likely for people with normal serotonin levels to feel depressed as it is for people with abnormal serotonin levels, and that it is just as likely for people with abnormally high serotonin levels to feel depressed as it is for people with abnormally low serotonin levels.

The first unequivocal acknowledgment by a leading figure in psychiatry of the discarding of this theory that I am aware of was in 2011, when psychiatrist Ronald Pies, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Psychiatric Times, stated: “In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend—never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.” However, Pies’s statement was not widely publicized.

[astralscholar1811]

So, My Brain Goes Like-

Me: Dude, my DnD players are the greatest frie-

My brain: They hate you.

Me: No, stop it. Bad brain.

My brain: They're playing without you, because they hate you.

Me: Bu-

My Brain: And it's all your fault.

Me: Nuh uh.

My brain: ...

Me: ...

My Brain: *Chemical Imbalance*

Me: They're playing without me, they all hate me, it's all my fault.

My Brain: That's what I thought, bitch.

[razorsadness]

I don’t feel so well I don’t know what to do I can’t cope with much of anything at all I can’t cope with you

[dynamobooks]

Lucy Prebble: The Effect (2012)