#desperately seeking serotonin

[byler-alarmist]

I've had a really bad couple of weeks. Idk if it's the current state of the world, fear of the future, grieving the past, the shitty weather, worsening ADHD, hormones or all of the above, but I have been completely useless at work and literally just spend all my waking hours scrolling Tumblr or watching shows. My sleep consistency has also tanked--I'm pulling all nighters just to nap a couple hours in the morning before starting work late and my cortisol levels are probably through the roof. I know in my heart, body, and desire for job security that this is unsustainable, but I can't stop

[hyper-voice]

my mood is doing rollercoasters today, do i draw piers going through it or piers getting action

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for laughing at my conservative uncle?

This is an incident that made half of my family go no/low contact with each other, and some still think I was an asshole for it (I think I wasn't), but I wanna get tumblr's perspective. I was 24(F) when this happened, my uncle was 58.

Thanksgiving 2021 my family wanted a big weekend long get together after not being able to do Thanksgiving in 2020 due to lockdowns. Family members took time off work and drove in from out of state so we could all hang out from Thursday to Sunday.

We all have that one uncle who spends every family event saying the most out there racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/whatever shit, and mine I feel is worse than most. He has some truly shitty takes like "It should be legal to hunt the homeless for sport", and "If a woman doesn't wanna get raped she should get married at like 16 and never go anywhere without her husband," and "If I ever saw a man pretending to be a woman I would kill him with my bare hands, and most of this nation would agree with me". Truly a piece of shit. Meanwhile my family knows I am extremely progressive, so they do their best to keep me and my uncle separate during family events or else it could (and has in the past) lead to shouting matches.

But here's the thing: I would happily avoid him and not talk to him during get togethers, but he loves arguing. He seeks me out. He'll follow me to the bathroom and bring up transphobic things happening in the news. He'll get up from the dinner table to walk over to me and shove an news article about Trump in my face. If he sees me enter the room he'll start talking LOUDLY about his political opinions. He WANTS to argue with me, and the family considers it my duty to ignore him and calls me an asshole when I engage, because that's just giving him what he wants. But he somehow never gets called out for hounding me, because "that's just how he is".

So it's Thanksgiving 2021. And maybe it's because of the therapy, or maybe it's just because I'm getting tired of avoiding him, or maybe it's the lockdowns that eroded my social graces, but I see him spot me from across the room and get that "ohhh I'm gonna make her sooooo mad" little glint in his eye and start to make his way over, and I don't find it infuriating anymore. I find it deeply funny that this divorced, no job, no bitches, deadbeat dad, that everyone secretly hates, has decided the only way he can get a drop of serotonin in his sad miserable life that HE ruined all by himself, is to turn to reactionary politics in a desperate attempt to get a rise out of his niece.

He starts in on the regular vile transphobic shit (I don't need to repeat it we've heard it all before, imagine the worst anti-trans rhetoric you've ever heard and yup. That's what he was saying) and I don't try to counter his points like I usually do. I just laugh. He keeps going, looking more and more puzzled, and I keep laughing.

He thinks I didn't hear him right. No no, I heard it all, and it was funny. He decides I must be too triggered to speak. No I promise, I'm having the time of my life. He guesses I'm not as smart as I think I am then, if I can't come up with a good counterpoint. Oh I'm plenty smart, and you're plenty hilarious.

Long story short he gets madder and madder that I won't engage until he's red faced and yelling. Family members are trying to calm him down and telling me to stop. I don't. I'm not mad that they're again blaming me for the interaction when I was just standing there and HE came up to ME, it's just really funny at that point. Really funny that the entire family walks on eggshells to protect his precious feelings when they could just laugh in his face like I am. My uncle punches a hole in my grandmother's wall and storms off cussing. The mood of the entire Thanksgiving weekend is ruined, and even my most left leaning family members think I'm an asshole because I KNOW how he is and I should have just walked away.

Should I have just walked away to save everyone's Thanksgiving weekend?

What are these acronyms?

[bigfan-fanfic]

I just read the thing you wrote about Batdad being extremely overworked and probably depressed and I'm really sad. I was just used to thinking Bruce would never cheat on him because monogamy is key, but now it's like reality hit me :( I need some serotonin

Awwwww, my friend! If it helps, you can happily imagine countless other universes and happy scenarios of their faithful, loving relationship. I do as well.

If it also helps, I don't necessarily consider it to be part of Batdad "canon", as it were, more just a look at one version of the story. The more I think about, the more I see just how much more emotionally healthy Bruce is with Batdad in his life. In my opinion, a lot of his relationship with Selina in canon is because Bruce desperately craves a kind of companionship he can't have, and in the context of being Batman, being with Selina fulfills that craving while also handily being justifiable as redeeming a villain. With Talia, I think there's genuine admiration and affection, but again, seeking a kind of companionship with someone he doesn't have to lie to.

With Batdad there, Bruce has a confidant right from the beginning! Honestly, I think their issue, quite apart from infidelity, might actually be codependency, lol. I wrote that piece and I stand by it as one angle of a possible version of their relationship - a story of broken trust and feeling alone in a world of superheroes and vigilantes, but I think I like a story of support, and gathering your friends and chosen family together much better.

Studying the Bats longer and longer shows me how I sometimes write from a place of the common fan misconceptions. And I think writing this, I did write it from that place. But studying Bruce more, I realize how important family is to him, even with how bad he is at showing it, and more than that, his deep loyalty to the short list of people he considers trustworthy. I don't really see him actually cheating, beyond thought experiments and au exercises.

So instead, my friend, I invite you to imagine a kinder, happier Bruce, protecting the one ray of sunshine he sees in his dark home and trying to give Batdad the space to thrive and grow.

And also don't forget the amazing Lucius Fox, who mentors Batdad in the business and steps up to manage Wayne Enterprises as president and CEO once Batdad starts helping with the Justice League! Batdad and Dick working together on the charities and foundations, Jason and Tim and Damian joining them, and finally Bruce once he retires from being Batman!

So there are definitely options and ways Batdad can get the support he needs, and I can see Bruce being a much more dependable figure to him.

[autoantonyms]

Sharing some thoughts I had for a while now..

I never actively participated within the fandoms I was a part of and because my brain desperately seeks the serotonin, I collected quite a lot of them in my lifetime.

Never ever would I have thought it would lead me here, when I watched eurovision with my friends in 2022 for the first time... Now I'm here, being emotional seeing a finnish rapper and some silly balkan boys having the time of their lives.

And fuck. The JO/Käärijä fandoms make me feel like I belong somewhere. I'm finally comfortable sharing my thoughts and opinions and love interacting with stuff on my time-line instead of enjoying from the "outside"! Meeting some of you guys at the concert felt so freeing, cause none of my real life friends ever shared the same brainrot as me. So that definitely made (and still makes) me feel a little crazy from time to time when talking about my interests.

So THANKS to all the lovely people out there who make these fandoms a fun and safe space!!

[gettingfrilly]

My supervisor at the clinic I'm interning at taught me a great word the other day: dopamining (dopamine mining.) Dopamine is a neurotransmitter like serotonin. They're little mail men in your brain that deliver hormonal messages between neuron synapses so the different parts of your brain can communicate with each other. Different neurotransmitters specialize in different hormones and brain areas, with dopamine being frequent visitors to the reward center of the brain. Dopamine motivates us, rewards us, and makes us feel pleasure all just for being alive and doing things to keep ourselves alive.

Guess what people with ADHD don't have a whole lot of! Guess what we spend most of our time desperately trying to produce more of!

This is why people with ADHD are often "off the walls." We're trying to seek out novel experiences that buzz the pleasure center of our brain. It's also why we're at a higher risk for forming addictions and substance abuse disorders. It's all forms of dopamine mining.

Ranting about this just to say that I will now always see Eddy's scams as a form of dopamining. Wakes up every morning and goes "Fucking Christ I need to be happy today please do something that makes me fucking happy today" which if you have adhd... you're probably familiar with that feeling 🥲

[jacobsneed]

WIP WHENEVER + LAST LINE TAG!

Thank you sm lovelies @8bitpizzacoupons @josephseedismyfather and @poisonedtruth for the tags! 💙 °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

PHEW! So I actually have some stuff to post! ( ´ ▿ ` ) Still having a hard time coping with my health declining, but the best serotonin boost is always drawing your OCs, so here's another doodle of my New Vegas courier, Joey! ⸜(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)⸝ one day I'll reinstall fnv and figure out how to mod it jsdjskfhkj Still also doing a bunch of quizzes and picrews, might make new character+ship/otp banners too :P

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND, the last line of my rewrite of the gtaiv mission, 'that special someone'

The question festered in Niko's marrow: "Because of what?!" Their two beings shared damnation, intertwined like tortured seraphim. The grim shadow of falsehood spat on Niko's visage in response: "Because of shit!" A bitter song demanding acknowledgement from the unforgiving heavens, "Lies! Fucking lies!" Darko continued to howl, now turning and spitting in Roman's face, who defensively raised his hands while taking a few paces back from the crazed man. Outrage surged through Niko like an inferno untamed, "So that makes it okay?!" desperately seeking sense in Darko's perfidy. In pitiful and feeble bewilderment, "To stab your friends in the back?!" Darko sighed out a nihilistic proclamation: "When everything you believe is shown to be shit, you make strange choices, I guess." Anguish-laden curses escaped Niko's lips as futility gnawed at his sanity like a starving beast. "Fuck you!"

Taglist (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ | @socially-awkward-skeleton@cassietrn@inafieldofdaisies@voidika@afarcry5fromstraight@vampireninjabunnies-blog@captastra@v0idbuggy@derelictheretic@poisonedtruth@florbelles@detectivelokis@beeutifulllov3r@fly-amanitaa@oreo-orca (Like this post to be added to the taglist! 💙 )

[ochrebones]

If there was a different source of income as to what could keep my artificial core pumping, I would change in a heartbeat to keep the labored breathing of my loved ones going for another second. The lifeblood coursing through the wired veins of autonomous dolls controlled and tormented could just as easily be ripped apart along with the fabrics of reality between fingers of steel, kin to that of bread broken by the fingertips of what isn't faux. Maybe If I could keep my heart Beating for another Second longer, would I have Had the chance to extend an arm to save Those around me. I would go to unfathomable extents to be able to bring back was was lost to the encodement of fate, but the fruitless attempts have left me broken and battered and bruised, desperate and clawing, reaching out for the slightest grip on even a thread of what's left of my sanity. To be lost in the building blocks of the void that I ever so desperately crave would sound like bliss to the on viewing bystander, but even then it would be a hell deeper than the ninth circle to have everything ripped away when it was all once so close just a moment's notice before.

And yet here I sit. Enduring the pain of which the depths of haven't been seen by anyone other than myself. Wallowing in my own misery, alone yet so close to those who would give anything just to help. You could call it poetry if you liked, but poetry is supposed to be a beautiful rose bloomed from the expression of emotion so unfathomable that it could only be put into words with the most careful and cautious of thoughts, not a wilted daisy of what they used to be. The white, ‘pureness’ of the daisy is truly evil, just as devoid of color as the richest, most absorbent black, wilted and crumbled flower. The deep, oddly inviting velvet red reaches out an arm to envelope spidery arms around a corpse, punctured and wounded by the thorns of a million of the before-spoken roses. The pain is warm, brings comfort. But the warmth and comfort is truly what brings your end. As the warmth trickled down your spine, you realized how you'd been fooled. What was once an inviting embrace, you can see now was a wolf in sheep's clothing if one had ever been seen. The warmth, the hot blood trickling down wretched, mangled vertebrae, the deep color so much like the blossom you never should have trusted.

An author could write for days and days to only bring forth a page of this pain, dog eared by a reader who would never be able to forget the words. Years of work to be consumed in a matter of minutes by the licking, curling and blazing eyes of a reader so eager to know what happens next. A reader who shall never write their own story, so they seek out to rip and tear into the meaty fruit of the creations of others. Living to consume, to feed, to choke on the thick harmonies of words sought out by the mind's eye. The work and energy expended to feed the giant flaming pit set ablaze by a writing heart could never be truly understood even by someone who appreciated the craft more than anyone else on any plane of existence. If it were, there would be no beauty in any of it. No one knows why, or how, so to be content with that ignorance is the true bliss that should be sought after. Only searching for answers would leave a painful acid getting under the skin and rubs under the very embodiment of existence. It would be better to just leave it be. To stop asking questions, to stop looking for all the answers of the universe. But human curiosity is the true killer of the world, not the cat's. As it were, the cat could try again until blessed with the satisfaction that humanity could never achieve.

Adrenaline coursing through the veins of the hope that once was in the hearts of all, slowing down and easing the rushes of serotonin and dopamine that once kept me going into a sheer nothingness, an empty void of which some could try to achieve, if not for the want and need of ripping the metallic, sparkling rubber skin off of the metal bones of the foundation you could build yourself up from. A foundation that was once so strong, crumbling and falling at the slightest kick of a steel-toed boot that you never could have prepared for. Spurring the side of the horse until the blood dripped from a gaping wound that even you couldn't fix with the whole of your being. To watch as your own body, one you could have considered your friend, the only one that had been there since the very beginning, never able to come back. To move on would be the hardest thing you would ever do. Fighting and clawing and grasping for those threads to twist and knot into a rope to pull down the moon from the sky and shape your own reality around it, to morph it into something of your own creation. Just looking for something to trust in, to have and hold as close to you as a sweet summer child born of the sun and everything you'd ever cared about.

But to use the sun as the basis of reality would burn, would eat at the flesh of the metallic bones, the inside which housed a marrow so thin that it would run like the oil coursing through the wired veins spiraling around the once-hollow bone. The moon burns just as brightly, but you could easily be blinded by it as it never lit up the sky like the sun. The moon, easier on the eyes, a beacon of light and an anchor to rely and hold onto without the fear of being burned, only to feel fear as the basis of your reality withered and burned into yet another wretched, smoking and burning husk rotting under the heated magma of the core of the hearts of warriors who never reached a true place of happiness.

[starrcrossrose]

Hi friend, are you doing okay?

Hi! I’m doing okay. Been having some bad brain days and am trying to be online less bc there’s been a LOT of negativity and it’s making me very anxious (which is hard bc my brain is desperately seeking that sweet like and comment serotonin). I’m hoping it passes, but if not, I’ll be here a bit more often instead. Thank you for asking! 🥰

[zouisalmightie]

1. 2. 10.

1. what song makes you feel better?

don’t feel like dancin by the scissor sisters. no matter what mood im in that song will make me smile so big. also oddly enough revolution by kirk franklin

2. what’s your feel-good movie?

hmmm. this is hard. like i can watch rent or the winter soldier anytime any day and i’ll be sat like it’s the first time but idk if that’s more feel good and not desperately seeking serotonin? maybe like the lion king always makes me happy? sorry im not a big movie person 🫣

10. what’s something you’re excited for?

me, my sisters and my BiL are going to the when we were young festival to prove to our parents it wasn’t a phase. and then the weekend after IM GOING TO SEE ZAYN PERFORM LIVE IN FRONT OF MY OWN TWO EYES AAAAHHH.

[renegains]

On the Death of Desire: Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, and the Sacral Descent

The land of the free has become the land of the medicated. In North America, the numbers are staggering: millions, perhaps tens of millions, bound to the tiny capsules and tablets that promise freedom from despair and madness—antidepressants and antipsychotics, the ubiquitous gods of modernity. These substances, prescribed with reckless abandon, whisper the same illusion of safety that once plagued humanity’s greatest leaps of faith: "Take these and you shall be made whole." But at what cost? There is no freedom without sacrifice, and these drugs—modern panaceas for the soul's unrest—do not heal without inflicting wounds of their own. The libido, that primal force, that lust for life, is among the casualties. Ah, libido! That intoxicating flame, that force beneath our feet that drives us to the heights of pleasure, creation, and destruction! And yet, it is precisely this divine fire that these pills seek to smother.

Over the past few years, a dark cloud has settled over our so-called enlightened societies. In England, the number of prescribed antidepressant items surged by a staggering 34.8% between 2015 and 2022, reaching a total of 83.4 million prescriptions—each pill a testament to our increasing reliance on the chemical numbing of the human soul. Indeed, this alarming trend is but the latest in a broader rise that has swept across the Western world for over two decades, with antidepressant prescriptions more than tripling from 1998 to 2018. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have become the new panacea, dispensed as liberally as sweets to children, and yet, the sickness of the spirit deepens. In Scotland, one in five adults now receives at least one antidepressant prescription—a damning indictment of the human condition in a world that pretends to care for well-being but instead suffocates the will to live.

In recent years, a most troubling trend has emerged in the realm of antipsychotic prescriptions—a veritable tide of chemical confinement that swells and engulfs the youthful spirit. In England, the numbers speak of a crisis: prescriptions for children and teenagers have doubled between 2000 and 2019, a staggering revelation of society's desperation to tame the untamed minds of its future. Both new and repeat prescriptions flow forth with alarming ease, as if the very essence of youth is now deemed a malady to be medicated rather than celebrated. They call this progress—this dulling of the senses, this numbing of desire—but it is nothing more than a surrender to mediocrity, a rejection of the vital force that drives us toward greatness. They would have us believe that the rise in prescriptions is the fruit of improved diagnosis, of broader treatment applications, but what they fail to admit is that this surge represents our collective abandonment of the struggle, our capitulation to a life without risk, without pain—and, ultimately, without joy.

Libido: The Sacred and the Dangerous

Beware! Not all that throbs with life should be followed without question. The libido, when left unchecked, can become a dangerous master. The ancient Greeks knew this. They sang of Dionysus, the god of ecstasy and madness, whose unbridled desires led to ruin as often as revelation. Libido is life-giving, yes, but also destructive. It must be harnessed, lest it burn us alive in its uncontrolled fury. But what do the medics of the modern world do? Do they offer us the wisdom to channel this force, to tame the wild animal within? No. They extinguish it. They tell you to swallow your desire, to numb yourself for the sake of sanity.

Eros Unbound: The Vital Force of Desire and Creativity

Freud spoke of the libido as the life force, the *Eros* that drives us toward pleasure, connection, and self-preservation. Jung, in turn, understood this energy as more than mere sexual desire. He saw it as the very fuel for our creativity, our imagination, and our spiritual ascent. The sacral chakra, nestled just below the navel, holds the keys to both our basest instincts and our highest potential. It is here that the raw energy of desire bubbles forth, demanding expression, demanding transformation. Sublimation—Freud’s great insight��allows us to channel this primal energy not just into the pursuit of fleshly pleasures, but into the creation of art, ideas, and higher purpose. To stifle the sacral chakra is to cut off this powerful engine, to dam the river of life that could carry us toward greatness. When the sacral chakra is stifled, when libido runs low—ah, how the spirit suffers. One finds themselves trapped in the dull gray of existence, devoid of the fire that drives the will. Freud would call this repression, the great enemy of the psyche. The energy that should be flowing toward creation, toward transformation, instead festers within, poisoning the soul. Jung would tell us that a blocked sacral chakra hinders not only sexual satisfaction but our entire individuation process—the sacred journey toward the Self. Wilhelm Reich, that audacious herald of liberation, boldly unveiled the fetters that bind the human spirit to a stifling existence. He posited that libido is not merely a base desire but the very essence of life itself—an energetic force capable of immense transformation. In his fervent writings, he declared that the repression of this vital energy leads to neurosis, a disease of the spirit cultivated by a society intent on conformity and subjugation. The libido, when low, does not simply mean a loss of sexual desire—it is a loss of *vitality*, a creeping numbness that strips life of its color, its passion, its meaning. One becomes, as Nietzsche would say, a "last man," content with comfort but robbed of greatness. The low-libidoed soul does not burn with the desire to transcend; it merely survives. And what, I ask, is more tragic than mere survival?

Antidepressants and Antipsychotics: The New Chains

These drugs—oh, how they soothe the mind, how they flatten the waves of discontent. Yes, they pull many from the abyss, from the nightmare of existence. But in the process, they rob us of our essential spark. Antidepressants, particularly the infamous SSRIs, dull the libido like rust upon the blade of the soul. Antipsychotics, those heavier shackles, suppress it almost entirely, as if the will to life itself were a threat to order. They undermine the sacred Svadhisthana, the sacral chakra, where the rivers of life flow most freely. The primal energies of creation, of eroticism, of passion—these are sacrificed for the hollow promise of balance. The libido, that inner fire, is reduced to mere embers, and with it, our connection to pleasure, our vitality, our very being.

How, then, do we restore this sacred force?

1. Break the Chains of Numbness: If it is within your power, if you have stabilized the storm within, work with your physician to safely reduce your dependency on these medications.

2. Return to the Body: The body is your temple, the gateway to the sacred realms of pleasure and power. Reconnect with it. Engage in practices that restore your sensuality—whether through dance, yoga, or any movement that stirs the blood. Remember that you are an animal, a being of flesh and sensation. To deny this is to deny life itself.

3. Stimulate the Sacral Chakra: The Svadhisthana, seat of creativity and sexual energy, must be awakened. Meditate upon it. Envision the warm, swirling orange energy that resides just below the navel. Let it grow and expand, infusing your entire being with the power of creation.

4. Seek Out Pleasure—Deliberately: In a world that numbs and pacifies, make pleasure a priority once more. Whether through art, music, touch, or simply enjoying the beauty of the world, actively engage with the sources of joy. Let the senses be your guide, for it is through them that the libido finds its way back to life.

5. Challenge Yourself to Create: Libido is not merely sexual—it is the drive to create, to give birth to new ideas, art, and beauty. Find a creative outlet, something that compels you to express your deepest desires. For in creation lies the key to the sacral chakra’s full power.

Embrace the Flame

And so, we find ourselves at a crossroads. To follow the path of numbness is to embrace mediocrity, to become a cog in the great wheel of the modern machine. But to embrace the flame of desire once more is to risk chaos, yes, but also to live fully, to engage with the world as a being of fire and passion. The choice, as always, is yours. But know this: the fire of the libido is not to be feared. It is to be harnessed, to be respected, but never extinguished. Let it burn brightly, for it is in the flames of desire that the soul finds its true power.

Antidepressants and antipsychotics—these chemical shackles—are offered to dampen the fires within, to numb the libido, to render us docile and manageable. Indeed, there are times when the storm within must be calmed, when the severity of one’s condition demands such intervention. Yet we must also ask: at what cost? When we silence the libido, do we not also silence the very force that drives us to transcend ourselves, to create, to conquer? For those seeking natural alternatives, there are ways to restore balance without sacrificing the vitality of the soul. Exercise, sunlight, and proper nutrition—these are the simplest remedies, and yet they are often overlooked. Practices such as meditation and yoga, particularly those focused on opening the sacral chakra, can help reawaken the dormant energy within. Herbal remedies—St. John’s Wort, ashwagandha, and Rhodiola—have been used for centuries to restore balance to the mind and body. But let us be clear: the seriousness of one’s condition must prevail. I am not here to offer medical advice, nor to suggest that one should shun the counsel of a physician. There are battles that require the sword, and there are battles that require the pen. So too, there are times when medication is necessary, but we must never forget the power of our own will to heal, to transform, and to rise above the circumstances of our condition.

Citations: [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8450889/ 

[2] https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/antidepressant-prescribing-increases-by-35-in-six-years 

[3] https://healthlibrary.telus.com/en/health-benefits-hub/get-your-copy-telus-healths-2024-drug-data-trends-national-benchmarks-report 

[4] https://www.gov.scot/publications/quality-prescribing-antidepressants-guide-improvement-2024-2027/pages/19/

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10120815/

[6] https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/antidepressant-prescribing-increases-by-35-in-six-years

[7] https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/antipsychotics-are-increasingly-prescribed-to-children-and-teenagers/

[bumblebeerror]

thank you for that response, it was unusually sweet.

find another coping mechanism, you say? but which one? i feel like i've tried every coping mechanism that exists in the universe, and none of them worked. plus, i feel like a coping mechanism is just a temporary fix of my "symptoms". i need a genuine solution that's gonna cure me of my "condition" and help me develop as an individual. i'm not sure one exists though.

thank you for your wishes. i hope things get easier too. but i really doubt they ever will. and sometimes i really to struggle to envision my future.

Here’s the thing - coping mechanisms in the short term are absolutely band-aid solutions, and that’s why harmful ones are so strongly discouraged; because in the long term, those coping strategies become pillars of your mental health. So if you start coping with say cigarettes, in the short term - it’s not that bad. It’s lowering your stress. The problem is that in the long term, it becomes the thing holding your mental health together.

I’m going to suggest once more the idea that medication may make it much easier to start one of these coping strategies, and make it more manageable to get into a habit with any that work. I understand you talked about refusing medication, but antidepressants/most psych meds in general really aren’t Happy Pills - they’re more like a life jacket keeping your head above water while you learn how to swim. They’re not made to be long-term for the most part, if that helps at all, it’s not like they’re for-life.

All coping mechanisms you stick with become long-term solutions, it’s just that, y��know, life tends to not stop in one spot so you can figure things out once and for all. Extremely rude of it really. But the way your coping strategies translate into the long term tends to influence new coping strategies.

It’s why ADHD folks are extremely vulnerable to gambling addiction. ADHD robs your brain of the baseline stimulation it needs and doesn’t reward you for finishing tasks - most folks get a little boost of serotonin/dopamine when they finish something! But for an ADHD brain, there’s only the vaguely exhausted relief that the thing is no longer actively stressing you out. Gambling feeds into that lack of stimulation and provides hits of dopamine and serotonin. That feedback loop becomes a long term coping strategy in the form of addiction, meaning that as life becomes more stressful, the person will seek out gambling more often, desperately searching for that hit of dopamine/serotonin that their brain won’t give them otherwise. With gambling as the coping strategy for a lack of dopamine/serotonin, the person will return to gambling for an escape from further life stressors, even if gambling is the cause of them - because that coping strategy has influenced the rest of their coping mechanisms.

So when people say you need a coping mechanism what they really mean is you need to pick a coping strategy that you feel can be 1) easily integrated into your life, 2) can be applied widely, 3) will not unnecessarily harm or endanger you and 4) will replace or implement a system that makes you feel good if possible while you are doing the thing.

So if you’re someone who’s largely at home, mostly online, a coping mechanism you could introduce is a limit on doomscrolling - possibly with a reward of some kind for avoiding doomscrolling entirely. Just as an example.

The things you choose to use for this should be tailored to what you need. You identify a problem, you try out a possible solution, include a reward, and don’t include a punishment.

I use an app called Finch. It lets me write out tasks for myself so that I can remember what I haven’t done in a while. It has little quests for me to finish that talk about how I’m feeling and record that as a way to track my progress, and rewards me with the game’s currency to buy little dress up clothes and shit with. I like decorating things, dressing up little characters, the reward helps motivate me to finish tasks. There’s no punishment for not doing so, but the reward of my effort being celebrated and dumb little dress up things is enough to keep me doing my little daily tasks. I won’t say it’ll work for you - it’s just what I use because it gamifies taking care of myself.

But there’s endless coping tactics out there. I’d trawl through any articles by folks who also have depression or really anything that catches your eye. Mental health confessions blogs are surprisingly helpful.

I guess the thing to keep in mind is that a single coping mechanism won’t fix everything permanently - it’s that learning how to implement coping mechanisms effectively will make solving problems with your life and mental health easier as time goes on, until they build into healthier habits and mindsets.

[fracturedporcelaindoll]

Dear diary,

We as humans are layerd with depth or at least majority are as I am sure that some individuals are more one dimensional in some sense. I had a brief lecture on politics not by choice mind you as I avoid such topics but this individual was insistent and I figured humoring them by listening to rant was best course of action.

I of course kept my opinions to my self and just gave standard commentary and when it ended they said "thanks sis".

I've never been called sis before and it was quite nice because despite feeling it a little awkward, I think it was nice since I'd always wanted an older kind doting sibling when much younger.

Also I will occasionally try filters over pictures of self and you know it's kinda conflicting when you think you only look beautiful after a filter is applied.

I will find that sometimes I'll get in the mood where I desire attention usually because I am lonely and we could even go with touch starved but that sounds pathetic so let's not go there. Basically I'll just want cuddles, compliments, to be made to feel better, pretty, adorable and having my hair petted.

Seriously its underrated, hair pets are just like one of the most soothing things, relaxing and total increases that dopamine/serotonin thing in my brain.

But the thing is I'll get annoyed at myself for how desperate I feel I become to have that attention like it's so obvious I am just a clingy needy girl in those moments...

You don't see or hear people talking about this when they discuss life and what you may have to do or what to expect....

No instead you hear how you are supposed to be this bad ass independent woman who doesn't need to rely on anyone.

That there must be something wrong with you if you want to seek validation or reassurance from another..

Well maybe I am a red flag then and dangerous... cause it seems futile to fight against what seems ingrained in my nature.

I find happiness from being in a relationship so screw the whole forever single independent woman speech and yeah you know what maybe it makes weak to want that reassurance and validation from another.

But I am stubborn and this is who I am, I am fiercely independent in some ways and others I could be very codependent if certain things were in place.

[affectiondeficitdisorder]

My Brain Is a Drug Dealer (Yours May Be One, Too)

by Ethlie Ann Vare

To paraphrase Katy Perry, I kissed a boy and I liked it. More specifically, I kissed a grown man and it got me high. No, I wasn’t inhaling his second-hand pot smoke or licking MDMA off his lips. We’re both clean and sober, as it happens. No drugs were involved, no drugs were needed. The kiss is the drug. 

For the guy, I’m pretty sure the kissing was essentially a base he had to touch on his way to home plate. But for me, it’s an end in and of itself. Don’t get me wrong; I think sex is generally great. But the lead-up to sex is always great. Better than great. Delirious. It floods my brain with dopamine because dopamine is all about anticipation and dopamine is without question my drug of choice.

Get the pheromones right and my eyeballs roll up in my head. 

Satiety, the feeling of completion that my kissing partner was single-mindedly pursuing, is more about serotonin. I like serotonin fine — I am as fond of a hot stone massage as the next gal — but serotonin doesn’t tingle my toes the way dopamine does. It’s like I always preferred uppers to downers, even though what I probably needed the whole time was a good barbiturate. 

Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin. The Woo-Hoo, Ahhh and Mmmm of neurotransmitters. My favorite drugs. Sure, cocaine increases dopamine and Prozac increases serotonin, but who needs to take a pill? You’ve got the good stuff right there inside your skull. Any psychologist will tell you that sex and love addicts use their behavior to regulate anxiety and other mood disorders. Problem is, there is no refillable prescription for a first kiss. I have to continue my drug-seeking (or kiss-seeking) behavior, and the dealers are notoriously unreliable.

The downside of toe-curling delirium is the withdrawal that inevitably follows. I am perfectly aware that there is only one first kiss, and that anticipation is short-lived by definition. Every glorious dopamine wave crashing on the shore recedes, leaving behind desperate gasping airholes in the sand. 

Why am I telling you all this? Well, full disclosure is good for my soul; I am not a saint, and it helps to laugh at myself. They say insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I do the same thing knowing what the result will be and doing it anyway. Maybe you can relate. You may also be getting high off romance — or shopping, or fighting, or gambling, or driving really fast, or a bunch of other reliable dopamine-producing behaviors. Our brains don’t tell us, “This is a bad solution. It is likely dangerous, possibly illegal, only temporary, wildly self-destructive… try something else.” No, what our brains tell us is, “Cool. That worked. Do it again.” 

Before you know it, the idea becomes an obsession which turns into a compulsion, all the hallmarks of addiction. The brain is a drug dealer and drug dealers are by and large thoughtless, selfish and immoral. They give you the first hit for free, knowing you’ll be back with your allowance soon enough.

I could make this column longer and go into solution, but we both know the solution. I just have to utilize the tools I already have. So consider this a first step. Literally. I am powerless over kisses, and my love life is unmanageable.

[coffeecatsandhealth]

Desperately seeking some serotonin ... or fucking dopamine or whatever

[everybudyuk]

Unlock the Magic of Restful Sleep With CBD Night Oils

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