Quote from: BANE on Jan 17, 2014, 01:25:54 AM
I don't think damage to the frontal lobe should damage your emotions that much...that's amygdala-basal ganglia region, which is deeper than the frontal lobe. It could have affected your ability to reason, problems solve, plan, etc..., which certainly may have altered your personality. I imagine you probably had deeper damage if your emotions are affected.
Although the frontal lobe is associated with appraising situations, so that could have played a part in your emotion issues...
Well I was struck with a metal poll that probably created an insane psi directly on my forhead. My sense of smell changed immediately, which I understand is tied to the limbic system. I suffer from alexithymia as well.
Quote from: BANE on Jan 17, 2014, 01:25:54 AM
Quotepeople hear bipolar, schizophrenia, borderline, etc and jump to conclusions--dehumanized and made into a clinical definition rather than person.
That's not really psychiatrists' fault...
No, not all their fault. But then it's very easy for people to get into this field that should not be in it. Less educated or experienced "professionals" very easily jump to conclusions, which is a real pain in the ass if you were ever misdiagnosed. It's obvious that what your file says will play a huge role in how they interact with you, regardless of how much time they've been around you or have observed first hand.
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antipsychotics lower brain activity and are known to cause feelings of soullessness, yet are prescribed for mundane things like insomnia and depression, in addition to the severely ill where it might actually be the best option. neuroleptic candy, sandy.
Quote from: BANE on Jan 17, 2014, 01:25:54 AM
They block dopamine receptors because that's one of the most commonly held models of schizophrenia (that it's due to excess dopamine). So in a sense yes, they do lower brain activity, but it was already overactive.
I've never heard about the feelings of soullessness before, but then again I've never had first hand experience with any of these illnesses, so I can't really comment. I seem to recall something like that from "A Beautiful Mind", and I may have heard it in one of my neuroscience classes, but I have forgotten it.
That's one theory. Another is that the neurons are over-reacting to normal levels of dopamine, and simply have a reduced threshold. Either way, these drugs cause collateral damage and do more than intended to the patient. The soullessness---it feels like a very distinct shift in cognition where you just feel muted. You can't quite put your finger on it, but it's horrible and leads to apathy. A lot of people get this.
Quote from: BANE on Jan 17, 2014, 01:25:54 AM
The problem with many of the treatments for mental illnesses that exist today is twofold: Firstly, for many of them we don't know exactly how they arise and what the exact problems are (what systems are affected); secondly and consequently, the treatments that are available are simplistic and only treat one system, when many interconnected systems are (almost definitely) involved.
For example, the typical treatment for depression is Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs). I won't go into how they work, but they act to increase the action of Serotonin. These take weeks to show symptom alleviation, and for some people (depending on the type of depression) they may not even work. However, it had later been found out that Norepinephrine also is involved. So SNRIs (which act on both serotonin and norepinphrine) are also used. They're usually more effective, as they act on more systems. But we also know that a substance called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is reduced in depressed patients (this is involved in the growth and survival of new neurons and the strengthening of synapses, and is therefore essential for learning and memory). So these illnesses are complex, and we don't even understand them fully yet. Plus, we're unable to be specific in where the drugs act in the brain (how do you target one part of the brain only?), and even if we could find a drug that works, it might be impossible in humans as it may be too large to cross the blood brain barrier.
So it's complex as all f**k, it's an absolutely brilliant organ, and the slow progress in the development of medications for these illnesses is a testament to this complexity.
Do you think a doctor explains all of that to a child, or that a child can even make this kind of decision for themselves? Hell, even when I was 18 I had a bad case of insomnia and some dr gave me risperidone claiming that it would "level me out". Made no mention of what it actually was, and I had never reacted so poorly to a medication in my life, short of nearly dieing from an allergy. Tardive dyskinesia, prolactin levels through the roof (started getting breasts and sexual dysfunction), it excessively sedated me yet made it no easier to sleep, dreams were vivid as hell and prevented restorative sleep (woke feeling like I hadn't slept at all), my anxiety and ocd went through the roof...I explained a lot of this, and said that I felt better as soon as I stopped it, yet they just put me back on it weeks later when they found out I had stopped it. It turns out my body can't tolerate anything in the atypical antipsychotic class, and for what's worth, SSRIs and SNRIs didn't do shit either.
I won't deny that psychiatry helps people, and that it's probably going to be improved or phased out for more effective, pure sciences, but the thing that really pisses me off is that I'm one of the people it saved.
I was so disgusted by the system, the poisons I was made to take, the people practicing in it---I decided to just spontaneously heal myself and get out of the mental slum I had created for myself--K-pax style. It really was a choice in my case. I had some situational problems at home, which no medication would fix, and my alexithymia made therapy and self expression ineffective as well.
Oh well, hopefully a cognitive neuroscientist will be able to shed some light on this.
Quote from: SM on Jan 17, 2014, 01:34:51 AM
Xeno Killer...
...qu'est-ce que c'est
I'm just glad it wasn't feces.
...ok ok, there was a dirty, suspicious cum sock left by someone, just laying there in the room I was in, but no one lost their eyes that day to what was inside it.
