3 ms·

Well if it's any help, here's my two cents: to rewire your gratification circuits you need a lot of time and effort to alter your brains to accept some new idea

by tekkk 7y ago

Well if it's any help, here's my two cents: to rewire your gratification circuits you need a lot of time and effort to alter your brains to accept some new ideas or behaviors. Took me a long time to get used to going to gym. Now it's like second nature. I know if you are really depressed it might be impossible to do it and other means, eg psychologist and medication, might be more helpful. But the rewiring of your brain is the most important thing I feel in combating depression and getting somehow your lizard brain engaged in the "normal" things. For some reason I have felt that losing the connection to your primal desires (or the real you) is often the trigger, that will cause your body to tell you "hey, you are doing something wrong - please fix it". I know self-blame is the last thing any depressed person needs, but I think positive action and experiences are definitely key-part in overriding the negative thinking patterns. Things such as social connections, the feeling of belonging to a group and physical exercise. Yet for certain, if you feel you are pushing yourself too much to me it says that there are deeper problems unsolved under the surface, that should be reworked with maybe a psychotherapist before going on a trip around the world. Or maybe it's a chronic chemical imbalance that just can't be fixed (eg Abraham Lincoln). Who knows. To me physical exercise was like a magic cure that did feel like a natural depression medicine when you get the feeling of progress. Then other positive things started to build on top of it.

0xcde4c3db 7y ago
In the abstract, it's entirely plausible to me that I somehow need to work to "rewire my gratification circuits". However, nothing has demonstrated even a hint of actually doing that. I've tried multiple approaches to talk therapy, medication, diet/exercise, and self-directed behavioral activation (aka "do stuff"). None of them have noticeably helped; a few have backfired badly. > I think positive action and experiences are definitely key-part in overriding the negative thinking patterns. Things such as social connections, the feeling of belonging to a group and physical exercise. Here's the thing: I'm not sure I've genuinely had a positive experience in a long time (maybe decades). I'm not sure I've ever experienced "the feeling of belonging to a group" in an emotional sense. I routinely do things and have interactions that I can intellectually analyze as having been positive accomplishments, but for me there's a disconnect such that this simply fails to add up to a positive experience. As far as I can tell, most approaches to therapy don't even acknowledge this as a possibility, let alone have a method to address it. Those that do acknowledge it tend to have a questionable-to-nonexistent body of scientific evidence and are often phrased with a weird mythical/quasi-religious/metaphorical quality such that I'm often confused as to what advocates or practitioners are even trying to say once they move on from discussion of symptoms.
- Mouse47 7y ago
  I was just describing this to my therapist the other day. There are things that you recognize at the intellectual level that never make it down to the "lower levels", which ironically are the ones that matter. She's an anxiety therapist, so I tell her my anxiety is holding me back from connecting with others, but part of me suspects that my inability to "feel" the connections is the real problem.

by tekkk 7y ago

0xcde4c3db 7y ago

In the abstract, it's entirely plausible to me that I somehow need to work to "rewire my gratification circuits". However, nothing has demonstrated even a hint of actually doing that. I've tried multiple approaches to talk therapy, medication, diet/exercise, and self-directed behavioral activation (aka "do stuff"). None of them have noticeably helped; a few have backfired badly. > I think positive action and experiences are definitely key-part in overriding the negative thinking patterns. Things such as social connections, the feeling of belonging to a group and physical exercise. Here's the thing: I'm not sure I've genuinely had a positive experience in a long time (maybe decades). I'm not sure I've ever experienced "the feeling of belonging to a group" in an emotional sense. I routinely do things and have interactions that I can intellectually analyze as having been positive accomplishments, but for me there's a disconnect such that this simply fails to add up to a positive experience. As far as I can tell, most approaches to therapy don't even acknowledge this as a possibility, let alone have a method to address it. Those that do acknowledge it tend to have a questionable-to-nonexistent body of scientific evidence and are often phrased with a weird mythical/quasi-religious/metaphorical quality such that I'm often confused as to what advocates or practitioners are even trying to say once they move on from discussion of symptoms.

Mouse47 7y ago
I was just describing this to my therapist the other day. There are things that you recognize at the intellectual level that never make it down to the "lower levels", which ironically are the ones that matter. She's an anxiety therapist, so I tell her my anxiety is holding me back from connecting with others, but part of me suspects that my inability to "feel" the connections is the real problem.