Sunday, December 4, 2016

The Sunday Miracle Of Keith At The Church Of The Batshit Crazy

So if all that I wrote last night is true, where is the evolutionary need for anxiety, for depression? Are they genes gone bad like so many often do?
I wish I could think of one positive way to look at these evil twins, to think that there is some reason if not a cause because as it stands, the suffering feels at once of horrible importance and completely illogical and I have learned long ago that one cannot fight one's own mind with one's own mind as they are the same.

I am having a very rough day and am hoping that working outside will at least pacify the adrenalin, will at least calm the most ragged edges of hopelessness and of panic. Because this is no way to live.

I just watched this and say what you will, it helped.




What would I do without my spirit totem animal? To be reminded to be humbled and realize great blessings. To try, no matter what, to save space for those.


15 comments:

  1. The question about the evolutionary value of anxiety is a good one. I think you can make the case that some individuals developed the capacity to be "warning beacons" for the tribe when looking ahead to an uncertain future. Doesn't mean they were always right, but there must have been enough benefit to stick around in the mix. Not easy for those individuals to always be wired in to high alert mode, though. Here is what neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux says: "What we're talking about is anxiety, not fear," LeDoux says. Where fear is a response to a present threat, anxiety is a more complex and highly manipulable response to something one anticipates might be a threat in the future. "It is a worry about something that hasn't happened and may never happen," says LeDoux.
    So if someone opens fire at a concert you're attending, you experience fear. But if you're at a concert and you're worried that a shooting attack could occur there, that's anxiety.
    The biological difference, says LeDoux, is the worry and nervousness that we label as anxiety originate not in the amygdala, but predominantly in a small area of the stria terminalis – the pathway connecting the amygdala to the hypothalamus – known as the bed nucleus. It is this area that researchers believe is hyperactivated during generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety.
    This may seem like a small distinction. But in actuality, it is everything. Because where fear is about a danger that seems certain, anxiety is, in LeDoux's words, "an experience of uncertainty."

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    1. Yes. This all makes perfect sense. But why? And what is the answer because it's unbearable to feel this way all of the time and no amount of logic can overcome it. There may not even be a specific thing which one is anxious about although it can start that way. May there be better answers for treatment soon.

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    2. My experience is that there seem to be two ways it manifests: mental and physical. When I see it come up as a purely mental event, I can quickly correct by observing that I am obsessing over something that is conceptual, and not actually happening now (and then avoiding crap like the news, etc. which tends to stimulate this, with no positive payback). But when it is lodged "physically", as you frequently describe it, waking up with it prior to thought, as it were, that is much more difficult, as I experience it. I think then we have to avail ourselves of the crude remedies currently available to give us enough distance to see it as more of a chemical imbalance, that comes and goes (and therefore not identify with it as who we are, in any solid sense). The drugs available are just too crude, not specific enough, but we have to survive to see another day. And you know all this, so I'm not telling you anything new. But if there is anything you can do (for me: NEVER watch the damned news, avoid any kind of situation where I feel manipulated, stay focused on what is actually happening here and now, etc) to avoid the triggers that eventually take root deep in the brain chemicals, it can only help. I wish you and all of us a level of relief!

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    3. Yes. I can tell that you know exactly what I'm talking about. The physical aspects are daunting. I develop symptoms which could mean horrible diagnosis and as much as I tell myself that they are indeed merely products of the anxiety, they only add to the entire problem. It's as if my body wants to give me something "real" to focus my anxiety on. It's a terrible Catch-22. And the symptoms are as real as real can be. So. I take the medication, as crude as it may be, and then the symptoms slowly abate and I remember once again what a liar this disease is.

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  2. As I said last week on my blog, anxiety and depression are my defaults. This is who I am. I get breaks but I will always go back to it. Always. And it's a depressing thought of reality.

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    1. I know what you're talking about Birdie. I wish so much that it weren't true for any of us.

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  3. Such an interesting question, and an interesting response from Ray, above. If anxiety is in response to what COULD happen, then those who suffer must be blessed/cursed with an overactive imagination, perhaps best channeled into storytelling. It may be why my brain is most quiet when I am absorbed in telling a story, mine or someone else's. So many storytellers are anxious beings; I am feeling it myself today. I hope your attempt at distraction helps. I think I too will try to do some work. Thank you for your honest sharing always. You are not alone.

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    1. Yes. I think you're right. It certainly does have a lot to do with imagination in the most basic sense. I wonder if there's been much research done on who is most apt to suffer from this disorder. I think that childhood experience has a lot to do with it as well.

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  4. Watched the Stones prog the other week and all the way through I kept hoping you had seen it. I found it totally moving and amazing. Am so pleased you saw it and that it helped. Maggi xxx

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    1. I didn't see the whole thing, Maggi. Just this clip and a few others. I would love to see it.

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    2. Oh l hope you get to see it Mary. We put it on thinking it would be ok but unexpectedly we were glued to it. Not what l was expecting. Had me in tears. Would send to you but Rob tells me some thingy is not compatible in the US.
      Maggi xxx

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  5. I think it's maybe the opposite, and those two things are a product of a society that's not living as it should. We can't quite adapt to the world we've created - and they're the result.

    OR humans were made with too much psychology and we're just all too damaged by other people and these are our responses to the mess that's made of us and it's all a mistake. But that's not very encouraging, I know.

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    1. Good points. I often feel as if the choices this culture and society present me with are simply overwhelming.

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  6. It is difficult to not have moments of sadness after all the BS that is going on in the world. I am glad that I have the island to retreat to.

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    1. I am glad you do too, Syd! I am so glad to hear your voice.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.