Chapter 15. Perceptions

“As a man thinks within himself, so he is.” 

– Proverbs 23:7

I ask God, “Why did you make my brain like this? Why do I feel so cruddy?” I refuse to stop looking for ways to feel better; I try to figure out why I feel bad.

I chronicle my grief in feeling not ‘needed’:

• not by Pete who is now off-limits,
• not by my kids who are in school much of the day,
• not by Gregg who is seemingly more independent,
• not by ‘best’ friend Allure whose husband is disallowing her to need me.

I feel anxious, hurt; late August 1997 marks nearly five weeks off Zoloft and the weeks following are rather hellish.

August 30, 1997.  As I've been off the Zoloft I can feel an unsettledness in my body as well as in my thinking. I suppose my mom called it nervousness… It's an agitation. It's a lack of serotonin.  

September 1, 1997.  I feel pretty down today - for no reason again. It's a beautiful day weather-wise, and quite open with no pressures, with Gregg around. I ought to be ecstatic. Oh, I do loathe this head of mine… I so desire to be cheerful, upbeat, and pleasant to the people around me - sometimes this struggle feels like a living hell. Thus the death wishes - I'd be released from what seems like endless struggle. 

September 27, 1997. I feel… almost despairing - thinking thoughts of why life? Life seems meaningless, or too painful. I just don't want to do it anymore.

Oct 4, 1997. I had a few really rough days last week, where I felt so unsettled inside, and so vulnerable - scary, really scary to me. Thursday I was fighting it, then developed a mild headache in the afternoon that got progressively worse, but had to teach a Breastfeeding class in the evening. I made it through class, then threw up in the hospital bathroom, picked up all my stuff, came home, and went straight to bed.

Oct 24, 1997. This morning one of my first thoughts was "I don't want to do today." 

Lots of people have to fight this fight. Some statistics reported in The Mindful Way Through Depression published in 2007 include: around 12% of men and 20% of women will suffer major depression at some time in their lives; each episode of depression increases the chances that the person will experience another episode by 16%.

I do a gob of reading on depression and depression helps, especially the help of medication. I look more into SSRIs – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Serotonin is the brain’s primary ‘feel good’ neurotransmitter; and along with other roles has a part in initiating sleep, controlling pain, affecting sex drive and appetite. I learn about the workings of our brains (if interested, there’s a bit about neurons and neurotransmitters at the end of this entry). 

There is speculated to be at least 100 neurotransmitters, but only a few are targeted to treat depression; namely norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. The understanding in the late 1990s is that an antidepressant drug often blocks reuptake of the neurotransmitter, allowing any excess to flood the receptors, thereby correcting the imbalance.

Though it’s scarce, I have a few moments of relief, even apart from medication. I record in my journal:

Aug 30, 1997. We just returned from canoeing on Union Lake (a small lake about 15 minutes from here) - Mark and Gregg paddled, I sat in the middle of the canoe and soaked in the sun and read. It was wonderful. I closed my eyes every so often and took in the sound of the wind, and of the paddles moving through the water; then opened them and enjoyed the green of the trees and cattails, lily pads and bushes, and the green-blue, algae-infested lake water. 
I felt the heat of the sun caressing my shoulders, and the relief of the breeze. Ahhh.

“I have decided to be happy because it is good for my health.” - Voltaire

In the present day I name this experiencing of the moment “mindful awareness,” and it can work as an antidote to the kind of negative thinking that predominated my past. 

Mindfulness is being aware in the present actively and non-judgmentally; it is an accepting of this moment as it is. I still have much to learn in this arena.

“We are what we think. 

With our thoughts we make our world.” 

- Buddha

I read additionally, many years later, of the benefits of redirected thinking. The self-focused, self-critical frame of mind called brooding or rumination is counterproductive. Though it seems like a way to get out of feeling bad, research has shown that problem-solving for how-do-I-get-to-feeling-better is actually part of the problem. It causes us to focus on our deficiencies and increase our unhappiness. (p 46-47 Mindful Way outlines ways out, and ways to cultivate awareness).  

My tendency has been to ruminate – to want to explore what’s causing the darkness. But that staying with what's wrong – some call it brooding – is detrimental. Soon after learning that rumination is not good, I am gifted with an image from God: a helpful redirection.

October 7, 1997. As I was lying awake at 5 am, I had a picture - that I think God put in my head - of walking down an extremely long hallway with many doors leading into different rooms…

I believe the rooms are roughly equated with my thoughts. I've gone into a dark room and explored. I wonder, why is it dark in here? Where is the light switch? Does the light work? Is there a good reason that it's so dark? What is this object? There's not quite enough light to make it out exactly what it is. Hmm, I wonder what's in that dark corner?

BUT NOW I'm learning that God is wanting me to walk on without exploring that dark room - for the time being, He doesn't want me to even look in that room of negative thoughts. I need to look the other way (be distracted), sometimes even close that door and turn my back (consciously choose to not ruminate).

It can seem like there are no other rooms to investigate, no wonderful brightly lit rooms with pleasant things to explore. But that's ok for right now, I'm making my way down the hallway toward the banquet table (eternity and treasures evermore!) at the very end. And I have to reassure myself that sometime later there will be beautiful rooms that are open to me.

“There is a long hallway between the doors, where things are really uncertain, and you just have to walk.” 

– Greg Boyle

Around this time, I am reading the book Molecules of Emotion and begin to understand the relationship between thoughts and feelings differently. I believed that because I felt sad my thoughts would be mostly sad. But I learn that I have much control over which thoughts to think and that thoughts can certainly affect feelings: there is a two-way communication. How I perceive what's happening is going to affect my emotions. My perception is key! My interpretation is key!

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anais Nin

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A neurotransmitter is a chemical that transports messages across synapses between neurons, thus the name neuro-transmitter.  
Our almost three-pound brains are made up of about 100 billion neurons with numerous gaps between these brain cells called synapses. 
Impulses or thoughts travel through the neurons on electrical currents.  
Each neuron has a form rather like a tiny tree (key word “tiny” - 20,000 neurons would fit on the head of a pin), with a “branch” system at one end and a “root” system at the other. 
The “roots” of the neuron are called axons, the “trunk” is called the cell body, and the “branches” dendrites. 
Information in the form of an electrical current flows into the dendrites from the axons of adjacent neurons, travels through the cell body, reaches the axon, to again find the dendrites of other adjacent neurons.  
However, neurons never touch, so the electrical current to be passed along causes release of a neurotransmitter at the tip of the axon, the neurotransmitter chemical crosses the gap and attaches itself to the next cell’s dendrite, which causing that nerve cell to fire up electrically so the information can continue to travel.