For mental ills take pills!JackDaydream wrote: ↑October 10th, 2021, 1:30 pm As far as achieving happiness, that is complex because it may be defined in so many ways. But, as for unhappiness, some may be able to cope with misery or in spite of it. It is possible to be 'happy' with misery, or even to be a happy nihilist. But, there is the fuzzy area where misery can become clinical depression, or other forms of mental illness, and it may be that some people can be aided with support for emotional distress through therapy as a means of preventing the process of becoming unwell mentally
Life’s still emotionally primitive:
Negative feedback mechanisms in
The central nervous system, now useless,
Send out thousands-of-years-old messages.
Emotions are molecular events,
Some forced upon us all, like jealousy,
And others, like aggression, born from low
Serotonin, but NOT from the Devil.
— The Feedback Loop —
Persistence of thought, known as obsession,
Is enabled by low serotonin:
That same negative thought breeds depression,
That same anxious thought induces panic.
— The Same Root Cause —
Odd that Paroxetine can cure compulsion,
Panic, anxiety, and depression?
No, for obsession is the casual root,
As all involve the persistence of thought.
— Stick-to-it-ive-ness —
Persistence of thought is the curse that leads
To great accomplishments through obsession,
The driving force behind the creative arts,
That driven sense which cannot be denied.
— Just a Short Term Fix —
Alcohol can raise serotonin in
The short run, but decreases it long term,
A doomed attempt at self-medication,
But hold on, relief is being researched.
— Digest This —
Born without the enzymes that digest milk,
She supplies it via Lactaid tablets.
Born without the zymes that digest mood,
Zoloft prolongs her mood regulators.
— The Long Way —
Behavior modification can raise
Serotonin, too, though not as quickly
As medications, like Paroxetine,
But it still works—it just takes longer.
— Learning is Brain Re-Wiring —
Behavior modification can change us, too,
For the worse, if we see too much aggression,
Or do the same thing too long, such as overtime,
Getting well grooved into that same old rut.
— In the Zone —
The highest zone is absolute happiness,
Though even the best can slip to well-being,
And sometimes, down into the bearable zone;
Next come the anger, apathy, and death zones.
— The (D)anger Zone —
Once we drop into the anger zone, the
Analytical mind cuts out, giving way
To the primitive reactive mind, a
Moronic state in which even beige seems black.
— Thus, All Become Equal —
The simple reactive mind ‘thinks’ that, say,
A perceived bad tone equals insult equals
Hate equals great anger equals lash out
Equals big fight equals kill equals death.
— The Weak Link —
The mind is quite weak in the fighting off
Of emotions, for they have a direct
Pathway into consciousness, bypassing
The rational, thinking part of the brain.
— Primitive Controllers —
Emotions usually take sole control,
Brain logic relegated to the sidelines,
Being ineffective against a mood;
It’s a wonder what’s really is in charge.
— You’re History —
Reason and emotion are hard to coordinate,
Each having a separate pathway to the mind;
That perhaps is all there is to tell about the
Miseries and follies of human history.
— The Stain on the Brain —
Emotions are slow to react to logic,
Like molasses or slow forming crystals,
Or not at all, like rocks, blocking us.
Unless and until they change, progress halts.
— Molecular Events —
Some ways that we think and feel depends but
Upon chemicals, neurotransmitters
Like Dopamine and Serotonin that
Fluctuate; so, how meaningful are strange moods?
— The Creative Solution Space —
Let reactions sail on by; just observe them,
But don’t act on them. This puts some distance
Between you and your conditioned response,
A space which grants a modicum of ‘free will’.
