Trigger warnings are fundamentally about empathy. They are a polite plea for more openness, not less; for more truth, not less. They allow taboo topics and the experience of hurt and pain, often by marginalised people, to be spoken of frankly. They are the opposite of censorship.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/201 ... r-warnings

[I recommend skipping the comments. Mostly of the form "Of course there should be more empathy. As long as we don't have to change how we have always done things."]

I'd like to catch a break. Everything seems just a little harder than usual. Which makes me want to hibernate to avoid worse happening. But that's not an option. The dentist has to be seen. The day job needs to be done. One foot in front of the other in the hope that.

That what. I don't know. Waiting for nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyzueBjNG6I

This is Professor Eli Somer, a pioneering MDD researcher. Talking about the history of the research into the disorder. About its symptoms and effects. A little about treatment. Most importantly for me, validating that this isn't "just a stupid thing I could stop at any time." That it can have a serious impact and it is worthy of psych time and intervention.

I still don't think I can ever turn up at my GP. With a printout of the Wikipedia page in hand. And say "Look, this TOTALLY describes me. Please help." But things have moved so far in the ten years since I started combing the internet to see if other people were weird in the same way as me. That perhaps getting some real help isn't so very far off after all.

In my posts "Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff" and "More thoughts on time" I wrote about how my experience of time changed RADICALLY sometimes when I took NAC to stop daydreaming. And I mentioned a book by Claudia Hammond called "Time Warped" in relation to time perception.

Then I got this book from the library. And read it. And it is a very good read. Highly recommended to people who like friendly science writing on an interesting subject. It also contained this-

"The whole dopamine system appears to be crucial in the perception of time. If you give someone the drug haloperidol, often prescribed for schizophrenia, it blocks the receptors for dopamine and causes people to underestimate the amount of time that's passed, while the recreational drugs methamphetamines (or speed) do the opposite; they increase the levels of dopamine circulating in the brain, which causes the brain's clock to speed up with the result that people then overestimate the amount of time that has passed."

Low dopamine. Under estimate. 1 hour real time feels like 3 hours passing. See also Depression.
High dopamine. Over estimate. 3 hours real time feels like 1 hour passing.

The low dopamine effect seems to be what I'm feeling. EXCEPT that I also have focus and motivation during this time. Which are more indicative of high dopamine. And were really nice! Amphetamines are not a healthy long term way to explore this. NAC only has an intermittent effect. I went looking for other ways to boost dopamine. Number one method? Increase the tyrosine in your diet. Tyrosine, that lovely amino acid which is daily stopping me from frequent suicidal thoughts.

All this is to say, I have no idea what my brain chemistry is up to. But it's clearly up to something. I don't know which is the cart and which is the horse. Has the abuse of my brain by daydreaming for decades caused a dopamine issue? Is there another imbalance and it's hitting dopamine is a side effect? Is it unrelated and just working off similar chemical antecedents? Or is there a regular biochemical cause for some of this. I'm cautious about experimenting. Since one way that NAC could "stop working" is through down regulating receptors in the brain. And that doesn't seem healthy either. Back to reading and trying to put together a theory. Frustrating and fascinating.

Taking 500mg tyrosine daily [mostly] stops me having suicidal thoughts. I don't know why. I've not found much online directly accounting for it. I can't find anyone else writing the same thing. I guess I'm just weird. However, if you've found this blog entry by doing a websearch. Because you have the same situation going on. Let me tell you right now that n-acetyl tyrosine [NALT] is not "stronger" or "better" than plain l-tyrosine.

A while ago I ran out of regular tyrosine. And started on the NALT instead because. Stronger, better, right? A few days later I started to feel bleak. Looking into the future had no appeal. Looking back, the past was empty. The present was futile. I started thinking about putting a stop to things. It did not cross my mind that this might be a brain chemical thing. It felt 100% genuine. I could reason through all the background for this decision. It was perfectly logical and sensible. I started cleaning my house and throwing away items I didn't want my next-of-kin to have to deal with.

Then some glimmer of self preservation whispered- "hey, I've been here before. When I last ran out of tyrosine and thought "it's all placebo" I'll stop taking it." That didn't make sense to me. Since I was conscientiously taking the NALT which was much better. But what's a little money at this point. So I bought more l-tyrosine. I took it. Then I woke up next day ready to get on with living. And feeling ridiculous for the contents of my garbage. [Although everything went to the dump anyway. A good tidy-out is a good tidy-out.]

Seriously. If your brain is doing the same thing mine is. Those suicidal thoughts are a total lie. And nothing to do with anything real. However plausible they seem at the time. JUST DUMP THE NALT.

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This isn't a doctor's recommendation. I don't [yet] understand why tyrosine does this to / for me. I was having similar thoughts before I started taking it. So I probably haven't damaged my brain so it can't do without. My biochemistry might be totally weird. Or warped from the other odd things I do with my brain. Or that my brain's done with me. I'm just saying. If some of this rings bells with you. Don't make this mistake.