T.M. Shannon

Hi everyone,

Well, another week went by, and I finally crawled into my birthday month again (happy Scorpio to me).

And it hasn’t been all that good. As touched on in my last post, my depression has been playing up since I went on holidays and entered financial stress because of it.

Still stand by the trip, but goodness did I isolate, hide away from recovery (having your kid stay with you does limit reaching out to an online meeting), adopt those unhealthy coping mechanisms a.k.a., addictive behaviours, and fall into despondency.

I will say, Church last night, and especially a good confession and focus the priest touched upon further in his homily, doing rosary for the first time in I believe years, a dose of adoration and of course mass, had a profound effect.

To whit, I woke up at 4am full of energy, got two chapters of line editing done, perspective at least dragged out of my despondency and who gives a S.H.I.T.

It’s still there, though, along with realisation Friday I was headed for a bender, and it’ll be all out, total self-destruction, everything thrown out for the addiction. Luckily that seemed to stem from missing my meds in the morning, which I took after realising at 2pm.

On the plus side, I smashed through 10 chapters, and the book reads well still – okay, I’m iffy on one chapter with too much drive description I can probably pare back – but I’m putting that out to the editor understanding it’s gonna come back to me and have to change.

Small price to pay for cutting back a page. Everything else, though, is looking like staying, and I can’t wait for Monday to see if I can smash through even more chapters. And sink some time in Morrowind – problematic because I got hooked on that twice before.

But I digress, and offer apology that this isn’t going to be a Writing post but a Mental Health/Addiction post because I’m at a severe turning point of recovery, and currently thoughts are saying get out and run because it’s not working for me.

At least I know the reason why, that damaged brain of mine. And now that I’ve had a look online about grey matter and neural pathway changes from my raft of conditions and adverse life experiences, it’s fitting in together.

So, here goes.

The Bipolar Brain

Okay, so from what I got from Medical News Today, they’re not 100% sure if the effects on the brain are caused by the bipolar chemical imbalance, or a result of the bipolarity.

I don’t blame them, we still don’t fully understand the human brain, though we’ve made strides.

But as for how the bipolar brain has developed, involves changes to the prefrontal cortex (where cognitive control, impulsivity, attention happens), specifically in the grey matter (reductions in areas for mood regulation, info processing, and body-state awareness), and hippocampus shrinkage (where emotional control, the stress response, and memory formation and retrieval happens).

You could expect from this cognitive and attention deficiencies, memory problems, stressing or over-emoting, and you’d be right. Me, I can lose attention in a heartbeat, a new thought interrupts the current one (you should see my writing process!).

But while it takes my handful of pills and cutting down to 4 days a week at work keeps me functioning in society (not a fun understanding to have), I have this photographic memory that I’m beginning to see as a PTSD thing.

More on that later.

And, for food for thought, Bipolar and ADHD have some overlaps (all this courtesy of Bipolar UK) – “Risk-taking, sleep problems, overactivity, impulse control issues, sensitivity, attention and memory problems, irritability, restlessness, and hyperfocus.”

Also, “Emotional dysregulation, where someone has trouble regulating the onset, switching, intensity and control of their emotions, tends to be a big challenge in both conditions.”

One point for hyperfocus, BTW, and that sounds to me how my memory works, overriding forgetability – usually for me, this is in short term things whereas I can pinpoint how I felt about a coffee I had, or specific details from when I was groomed/abused at 11, some of them sort-of innocuous – recognising cooler weather that time of year because I remembered a leech on the tracksuit pants I wore that day.

And there goes some more bipolar digression. Sometimes, though, it’s not fun.

The major difference? ADHD is a neurodivergence (brain wiring) resulting from environmental and genetic factors, starts at about 5, and is continuous; whereas bipolar is an illness (I’ve say now I’m “psychodivergent”) and – while also genetic – can be started by trauma, substance/material abuse, at about 20, and is episodic.

In typing that, pretty clear to see I’m not ADHD. But how serious is my condition?

The Great Downplaying

Stigma’s a bitch. Besides what it entails, the very word is a bitch indicating horrible things. I hate the word so much, I wish we stopped mentioning it.

But it exists in so many ways, and apart from copping my share – from parents, from what you see in media, fiction, even previous treatments or tortures for the clinically insane – I’ve done it myself unintended by downplaying things throughout my life.

It’s not the first time for my bipolar, or my trauma brain, or my addiction and recovery. And I know it definitely won’t be my last unless I start shifting things.

Part of this comes straight out of recovery material right after those pathologically inclined against honesty: “There are also those with grave mental disorders … but they can go on to recover if they have the capacity to be honest.”

Hopeful? Maybe, I do try to be honest, but am I honest really? I have done outreach calls entailing feeling like acting out, doing prayer and admitting adverse emotions – but I feel like a lot of my calls were positive, not really dealing with emotions and grave matters.

But I know these grave matters well.

Schoolyard bullying. My Year 3 teacher cutting me down to 2 words a day Look, Cover, Write, Check when I held the class record in Years 1 and 2 (way to diminish a future author, love). I’ll be brutally honest, my parents treating me in a neglectful, even abusive way:

Let me tell you of the 10-minute tirade I copped because I forgot my dino gizzard stones from a trip to Canberra, “They’re lost and they’ll get thrown out” declared when my dad could easily call when we got back to Sydney and we arrange for return on a future date – but no.

Let me also tell you my mother’s delight one family gathering to regale the table with packing me and my sister in the car, driving us to St Mary’s cop-shop, and telling us that’s where we’d go if we didn’t behave.

Oh, and I never forget her calling me, “Shithouse,” at 8, demanding respect from me when I knew it was a two-way street, constant reminders of fatherly similarity (yeah, thanks), and her greatest failing – standing over me, demanding to know if something happened re my Scoutmaster, while I bawled my eyes out on the floor denying it, and never once coming to my level.

Don’t worry, I have a counselling session on Monday, and I’ve got a lot of food for thought.

And, it goes without saying, the sexual abuse, probably repressed bisexuality again reinforced by being called a f****t for not being tough (eff you, 1990’s Central Coast), and a trauma brain from the very beginning, as I was born with my umbilical cord choking me.

Long story short in all of this, I know I’m effed up. I’m just haven’t been aware and haven’t considered how effed up I am until now. Hence the next section.

The Trauma Brain

And here’s where the Bipolar brain intersects with the Trauma brain (courtesy of Complex Trauma Resources) – a shrunken hippocampus. I’m willing to wager prefrontal cortex decreases, too, though the article doesn’t mention this.

The next part of the puzzle is the effect on the amygdala – enlargement of the brain’s alarm centre, the repository of fears and phobias, and especially traumatic experiences.

The site goes on to mention with the hippocampus shrinkage leads to memory problems with the trauma. I should’ve forgotten some details, some specifics, had a patchy recall of my abuse; yet I’ve been very photographic on this, and in PTSD, it was happening all over again.

I don’t know if my long-term memory is a blessing or a curse. I’ve remembered innocuous things as a PTSD response backed up with the bipolar uber-emotional response, so curse seems fitting.

Maybe it’s me taking everything on in an, “On my last breath,” mind frame, absorbing the moment because I could die, which very nearly happened.

Realising my conditions could exist from the very start of post-utero life, backed up by situations and people I had no control over, certainly doesn’t do well for the mood. Having to re-live it certainly sucks, too.

Thankfully I’m not as plagued by heavy memories, but I still remember clearly. Maybe the EMDR did something about that alongside my acute sexual abuse trauma, I don’t know. I just wonder how much of that trauma brain I still have, or whether meds are doing something for me.

The Addict Brain

Addictions affect your reward pathway, what gives you a sense of satisfaction when doing something – that’s a burst of dopamine, the “reward” neurotransmitter, which normally works with norepinephrine (the “attention” neurotransmitter) to help you function.

Think of the dopamine response as an in-game achievement but in real life. Considering prehistoric humans, hunting might be tedious, but you get food out of it, which in this case is a nourishing meal shared with the tribe – Achievement Unlocked: Din-Dins.

Consider chocolate, which can also increase your serotonin, kind of the reason it’s so good for those who can have it – Achievement Unlocked: Sweet Tooth.

Our jobs can be tedious like the prehistoric hunter persistence-chasing an antelope until it tires out, but you get stuff out of it. Besides financial reward, you’ve got people who do a job they aren’t just good at, but love aspects of, no longer a slave for a dollar.

I work in the retail industry, where I manage the car park in a major shopping centre – for you in the States, a Galleria. It doesn’t have much by way of customer interaction, but I get a lost car, or a customer wondering where a shop is at, and providing the help is such a boost.

Achievements Unlocked: Breadwinner, Service Provider.

But this dopamine response can work against us when something when we boost it with an addictive substance, material, or activity – Achievement Unlocked, Party Time.

I’ll step back a bit.

Courtesy of the magnanimous Mayo Clinic, a resource I’ve dived into countless times trying to understand myself, addiction itself has risk factors.

Besides there can be genetics involved, what stood out was mental health disorders (check), lack of family involvement (check), and early exposure or use of my go to (check). Achievement Unlocked: Addict Behaviour.

So, my brain was predestined to addiction courtesy of passive and acute trauma leading to the chemical imbalances and physical brain changes, reason why my serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine are out of what and need medical balancing.

And I’m definitely at the point where, after a brain gets used to the go-to’s – among them vaping at the moment (Achievement Unlocked, Type 2 Diabetes BTW) – dopamine factories start shutting down, and an increase in behaviour is needed to maintain the dose.

BTW, this News In Health article and this Yale Medicine page have more on this hijacking and tolerance.

That leads to disaster, and being recognised as a disorder versus just a lack of proper morals, recovering from addiction isn’t just as simple as stopping it forever. The over-rewarded brain can attempt to kill you if you don’t provide the fix, and it needs healing and reprogramming.

And even with that healing and reprogramming, it never goes away, and relapses can happen. Achievement Unlocked: Hook, Line, and Sinker – but only if you do nothing about it.

What to Make of all This?

Well, I’m like the meme Ikea puzzle that’s all sawdust, and while it’s sobering to be heading towards the bitter reality that I’m effed, it’s also scary as hell and the perfect place to sink into a depression where powerlessness begats hopelessness.

The light at the end of the tunnel? Step 12’s spiritual awakening and call to carry the message on to the addict who still suffers? Not seeing that right now.

What I am seeing, however, is a call to rekindle faith practices lost since getting back to 5 days a week at work, and the beauty of Friday’s Church experience warming me right up and easing the previous weeks’ despondency.

I’m still going to get to meetings, though I’m not in a mood for outreach, and currently disgorging the tacked-on process whilst aching to do some actual step work.

But I think I’m missing faith the most, no rosary, struggling to pray – which is the Bipolar brain going side quests and cave/fort/ruins exploration, Achievement Unlocked: Bethesda Game IRL – and not having formation with the Church nannas doing the lectio divino.

And, moreover, few times to go a week.

I’m still discerning what my recovery answer is, still way too early to make a decision. I need to talk to my psych about meds, with one option he mentioned in mind.

But I think I see now how bad it really is, and all I want to do is keep going whether everything can heal me completely or just keep me functional and happy.

Whoever you are, wherever you are on your journey, and whatever it may be, keep going in the way that works for you – it’s your path to walk, you decide how fast or slow you go.

Take care all,
T. M.