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Everything in your brain is made up of chemicals though. Even if one’s depression is caused by external factors (as opposed to some kind of inherent or congenit

by alecbz 4y ago

Everything in your brain is made up of chemicals though. Even if one’s depression is caused by external factors (as opposed to some kind of inherent or congenital chemical imbalance), modifying the chemical state of your brain can still possibly address the depression. I’ve been on SSRIs for years — I’ve bounced back and forth on my view of depression. I think my brain is likely prone to respond to certain stressors in a depressive way, due to a combination of genetics and years of conditioning/“practice”. It seems possible to me that I could learn, via a combination of things like therapy and meditation, to notice and control my brain’s reaction to those stressors. But at the same time, “chemical interventions” like SSRIs have also seemed to help.

alecbz 4y ago
Musing some more while I'm here (a bunch of armchair psychology to follow): Everything in your brain is chemicals, but beyond that, external influences can I think cause very deep, "low-level" changes in your brain, that end up feeling more like chemical imbalances than they do like being upset about some particular thing. Like, the thought "I'm sad my partner left me" is made of chemicals, but I think depression operates on a much lower level than that of conscious thoughts like those, even when induced by some external stressor. When I pay attention to my own mood, I can sometimes notice specific things that trigger feelings of depression. Something stressful happens, I'm worried about something, etc., and I'll react by getting depressed. But the depression doesn't feel like it's tied to whatever just happened. I'm not sitting there being like "omg I'm so sad about X" -- I just feel depressed: I'm not getting much joy out of anything, nothing seems interesting or exciting, I'm not looking forward to anything, etc. It's only when I force myself to take a step back and ask "what might have happened recently to cause me to feel depressed?" that I'll realize "ah yes, X just happened, that's probably why I'm feeling depressed right now". But even after that realization, the depression _still_ feels disconnected from the stressor. My conscious brain knows that the depression was probably caused by X, but my subjective experience of the depression is still disconnected from X. I guess this is kind of analogous to waking up with back pain, wondering "what did I do to my back?", and realizing "ah yeah, it was X". Realizing what caused your back pain doesn't somehow alleviate the back pain -- the damage is already done. You can maybe try to do X more carefully in the future, but even that is no guarantee that X won't cause you back pain again. I think we like to think that because our brain is where our consciousness and ego and thoughts are, that we can control it in a way we couldn't control other body parts, like our backs. And that we ought to be able to "will away" mental pain in a way we couldn't just "will away" back pain. But that's not always the case; the brain's just another organ.

by alecbz 4y ago

alecbz 4y ago

Musing some more while I'm here (a bunch of armchair psychology to follow): Everything in your brain is chemicals, but beyond that, external influences can I think cause very deep, "low-level" changes in your brain, that end up feeling more like chemical imbalances than they do like being upset about some particular thing. Like, the thought "I'm sad my partner left me" is made of chemicals, but I think depression operates on a much lower level than that of conscious thoughts like those, even when induced by some external stressor. When I pay attention to my own mood, I can sometimes notice specific things that trigger feelings of depression. Something stressful happens, I'm worried about something, etc., and I'll react by getting depressed. But the depression doesn't feel like it's tied to whatever just happened. I'm not sitting there being like "omg I'm so sad about X" -- I just feel depressed: I'm not getting much joy out of anything, nothing seems interesting or exciting, I'm not looking forward to anything, etc. It's only when I force myself to take a step back and ask "what might have happened recently to cause me to feel depressed?" that I'll realize "ah yes, X just happened, that's probably why I'm feeling depressed right now". But even after that realization, the depression _still_ feels disconnected from the stressor. My conscious brain knows that the depression was probably caused by X, but my subjective experience of the depression is still disconnected from X. I guess this is kind of analogous to waking up with back pain, wondering "what did I do to my back?", and realizing "ah yeah, it was X". Realizing what caused your back pain doesn't somehow alleviate the back pain -- the damage is already done. You can maybe try to do X more carefully in the future, but even that is no guarantee that X won't cause you back pain again. I think we like to think that because our brain is where our consciousness and ego and thoughts are, that we can control it in a way we couldn't control other body parts, like our backs. And that we ought to be able to "will away" mental pain in a way we couldn't just "will away" back pain. But that's not always the case; the brain's just another organ.