(no subject)

[kalibex]

The sad thing about affect problems is...our reasonable enough assumption that every mood has a definite 'cause' (that in the case of unpleasant moods, can be found, and 'fixed' by some action of ours).

I know I've been able to observe myself lately hunting 'round for the 'cause' of a bad or anxious feeling. At work lately, when I have that fuzzy-headed, anxious 'mouse waiting for the hawk to swoop' vague feeling of imminent doom...I start assuming that I'm about to Screw Up again, display my incompetency. (Actually, given that cognition starts getting @#$ed up in affect disorders, not so far off, that worry. It takes just a moment of loss of concentration to screw up an experiment, for example...)

How far will you go for an 'answer'?

I've gone pretty far in the past.

But what if there's no 'fix' beyond that which shifts said brain chemicals?

Yeah...one step nearer to going to see someone about this most recent affect stuff.

Comments

[drake57.livejournal.com]

I think some moods just happen and have no cause.
Sometimes i'm just happy for no good reason :)
I can be moody but i never worry about why i just get over it.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'affect problems'. But:

Maybe all the moods we have have causes. But even if they do, we can't always predict them or trace them back or prevent them. If we could, we'd be building perfect artificial intelligence. As it is, our brains are too complex to understand every little quirk. I've noticed that when I'm in a slump, I can't trust my own instincts or gut reactions; I'll think "I shouldn't do this" when there's really no reason for me to not do it. Feelings of impending doom, and such, when there is no reason for it.

As for chemical 'fixes'... even if a chemical fix takes care of most of the problem, people who don't need the fixes still have the little glitches sometimes, feelings that they can't explain or understand. Sometimes a glitch is just a glitch.

[kalibex.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'affect problems'...

A tendancy towards depression but more importantly, anxiety, without obvious 'cause'. Spent quite a deal of time a few years back exploring a 'spiritual' hypothesis - that's what I mean by having gone rather far afield in search of 'reasons' for feeling so shite.

And I suspect that (assuming such a 'spiritual hypothesis' did not represent objective 'truth'), such an unconventional hypothesis came about due to people who were suffering greatly (due to @#$ed up neurochemistry) and who understandably craved an 'answer', so that there would be something they could 'fix' to make the pain go away.

At any rate, I currently am preferring to explore more mundane hypotheses (such as the aforementioned @#$ed up neurochemistry). Because a few years back I largely by-passed that. Negligent, as I see it now. Always check the mundane hypotheses first.