![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 3 of 3. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by medhed on April 29, 2005, at 3:41:31
GABA is making me ache all the time, socially impeded, mood swings. Seretonin is making me depressed, obsessive, apathetic. Noradreneline is making me tired, not being able to sleep properly, unfocused. Dopamine is making me seek instant rewards, a kleptomanic, a sex addict. Forget about what I didn't mention...
All my chemical imbalances not treated for so many years have caused me to create survival mecanisms that are disorders in themselves that cannot be treated with chemicals. Therapy is so hard, how do you change half a lifetime of bad decisions and try to make peace with yourself? Am I to blame for all my transgressions and should I have had to pay the consequences (continue to pay) so many times when intervention could have saved me. It makes me bitter, it makes me unsane.
Paradoxally, it is a breakthrough for me to start to realize some of these things.
I could go on and on but I type rather slowly and I'm hoping that this little tome will help me get it out of my system...tossing and turning in bed and thinking, I need sleep.
thanx for the ear!
Posted by partlycloudy on April 29, 2005, at 13:51:20
In reply to MY BRAIN IS CAUSING ME TO LOSE MY MIND!!!, posted by medhed on April 29, 2005, at 3:41:31
I think you could use therapy to first learn to forgive yourself. We are all human, make decisions that upon reflection are less than in our best interests; and we can learn from these and go onwards.
One of the things that helped me Get Over It - I had a lot of anger and anxiety that I stored up like a squirrel stuffs nuts in his cheeks - and it was keeping me from being able to function. I compensated with booze (poor choice for me) and then heaped that guilt in with the rest of the feelings that were tearing me up. Woooo! Run on sentence and didn't even make my point: EMDR treatment. I swear it saved my sanity, and let me put all the garbage I'd been carrying around behind me, where it belongs. I don't have to cart around regrets, guilt, and anxieties that I have no ability to correct or make amends for.I can change my own behaviour - with a lot of work. I can't change my past, or recapture it, as I imagine in my manic moments I am able to. But I have been able to get over a lot of it.
best wishes, medhed.
partlycloudy
Posted by Tamar on April 29, 2005, at 15:07:07
In reply to MY BRAIN IS CAUSING ME TO LOSE MY MIND!!!, posted by medhed on April 29, 2005, at 3:41:31
> Am I to blame for all my transgressions and should I have had to pay the consequences (continue to pay) so many times when intervention could have saved me. It makes me bitter, it makes me unsane.
I think it’s important to distinguish between blame and responsibility when it comes to things like this.
For example, do you know the ancient Greek story of Oedipus? When Oedipus was a baby it was predicted that he would kill his father. His father responded by leaving him out in the mountains to die. But he was rescued and brought up far away from his parents; they didn’t even know he was alive. Once he was grown up, he killed his father in a road rage incident, without knowing it was his father. He went on to marry his mother, not realizing it was his mother. When he eventually found out what he had done, he blinded himself. But being blind didn’t stop him from being an effective king. (Sophocles tells it better than I do.)
My point is that Oedipus isn’t *to blame* for killing his father and marrying his mother. He didn’t know they were his parents, so we can’t blame him. However, he is *responsible*, because he was the person who actually did these things. Does that make sense?
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: perhaps you’re not to blame. You’re certainly not to blame for the chemical imbalances that perhaps have led you to do some things you regret but that you feel responsible for.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. People do make mistakes. No one is perfect. And we can’t change the past. Part of therapy is about accepting we’ve screwed up and about moving on from where we are now.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Psychology | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.