Mom SCREAMED at us, she lectured and admonished us – but she never – talked to us. I once heard her say she did not like to talk to kids-but she had 7…
“FINLAND In the 1950s the Finnish government required that all children born to schizophrenic mothers be adopted and raised by non-schizophrenic families. Recent research has demonstrated that the level of communication within the home has a large impact on a child’s development. If the adoptive families’ level of communication is very good, rates of schizophrenia are low amongst children raised in that environment compared to those for children raised in families with poor communication. Studies have shown that the rates for schizophrenia can be as low as one-tenth of those for children raised in families with poor communication. MORE AT: http://www.sampan.org/show_article.php?display=2236
“My niece asked me once, “What do you think is most important in raising children?” Talk to them I said, there is nothing more important than really talking to and listening to them. My oldest brother is severely schizophrenic. He has spent the last 24 years in a N. Y. State forensic hospital, after having killed my grandmother in 1986…
One of my sisters has a dysthymic disorder with frequent major depressive dips (probably bi-polar spectrum). My younger brother and I have been diagnosed, him with bi-polar 11 and me with Bi-polar NOS disorders, I also have an anxiety disorder diagnosis and all of us active alcoholics at one time. I think the early communication element of many mental health disorders has been very under acknowledged in recent years.
I do understand the basis for much of the reticence to acknowledge family interaction elements of many mental illnesses. It is a throwback to the blaming of mothers for the mental health condition of their children, most notable the 1970’s notion of “schizophrenogenic mothers”. This correlation was reported to ‘make’ mother’s feel “blamed”, for the condition of the child. No one can ‘make’ another person feel “blamed”, except themselves as they are free to look at the information and decide if they are to blame or not.
There are two important elements to the “blame game”, one being if I have strong feeling about being “blamed” that I cannot resolve-I need to look at the circumstances much more closely-and perhaps even talk with someone about them. Secondly my obsession with my state of “blame” does nothing for the person who needs help!

Please talk to the kids-weather you are a mother, grandmother, niece, father, neighbor…

Sad, grieving or depressed?
Sad, grieving, or depressed, that is the question. Everyone knows sadness, it has many sources. The frustration of not having what we want or being able to make significant progress toward achieving our dreams or follow through on plans generate sadness. Sadness is a normal reaction and somewhat of a sanctuary until we are ready to try again or change plans.

Grieving is about loss; usually most painfully about the loss of love or a loved one. Even small losses may result in the emotional pain known as grieving. Sadness and grieving respond well to therapy and are most likely to dissipate on their own overtime. These states are often diagnosed inaccurately as depression, they are not. Nor will they respond to antidepressants, because there is no significant chemical imbalance, for the antidepressant to address.

Depression is a whole different thing. Depression may eventually result from multiple underdressed grief and sadness issues that have rotted for so long they have become the homeostatic condition of the biochemistry of individual. In this case antidepressants and therapy are both appropriate. But that’s not the only kind of depression there is. Many people, usually the descendents of biochemically depressed individuals are born biochemically depressed individuals. All the therapy in the world will not do any good. If the person is fortunate they may find antidepressants or a combination of antidepressants that effectively lift their mood and allow them to operate on a whole different, non-depressed, level. These people could also benefit from significant therapy after the depression has lifted, but not until then. Why therapy after the depression has lifted? Because a person who is primarily depressed and has always been primarily depressed will be confronted with whole new ways of being in the world that would benefit from and be supported by a therapeutic relationship. This is the best way to prevent relapse. Rarely is a person who has been depressed for a significant amount of time, that is years or decades, in a financial position to maintain the medication and therapy necessary to stay well.

25 years ago, when I was being treated for depression, I had excellent insurance. I worked for the County of Santa Barbara psychiatric inpatient unit and had access to the best psychiatrist, the best resources. I had the privilege of being a patient of Dr. Joseph Johnson, who would on a weekly basis, spend an hour with me. At that time, that was the standard. I had the best medications and excellent therapy. Consequently, it was one of my most “well” periods. Then came managed care. Dr. Johnson was permitted 15 minutes per patient. He could no longer do psychotherapy; he could no longer even do a decent medication assessment. He went from being a very happy appearing person to being a very frustrated, border on angry appearing, person. Just before resigning from the clinic, he briefly expressed to me that he could no longer work under those conditions, that wasn’t fair to his patients. Nothing has been the same since managed care and as far as I can see none of it is good.

Recently in the New York Times there have been several articles on the inability of antidepressants to address mild and moderate depression. Some of that information is provided in the post just prior to this one. I will be commenting on that for the next couple days. I will say, at this time, the issue of depression has become much too simplistic. Saying “depression” is like saying “cancer”. There are hundreds if not thousands of types, severities and causes. In general, every successful treatment starts with an accurate diagnosis. Spare no cost in getting an accurate diagnosis, it is your life you are wasting if you don’t.

Now here’s the challenge, if I’m treated for a disorder someone needs to get paid. If there is going to be a payment through some type of insurance, there must be an ICD code, specifically a selection from ICD-9 codes 290-319: mental disorders, in the case of a mental illness. This code does not contain sadness or grieving, consequently, anyone who is sad or grieving will be given a depression or anxiety code. We are now comparing apples to oranges in any study and getting poor inaccurate results.
Let’s take a look at this on a very basic level. I’m running antidepressant trial. Included are 6 individuals who are really sad, 10 individuals who are grieving, and 15 individuals who are truly clinically depressed. Just to complicate matters, five of the 15 depressed individuals actually had a bipolar disorder, which is usually first diagnosed as depression. In short form, the result of my trial will be useless. The result of a meta-analysis based on a number of such trials will be just as useless. You begin to see why we have made such poor progress with the treatment of depression in the past 50 years.

I don’t remember much that would be pertinent prior to seven years old, but by the time I was seven my fingers were often bleeding because I had bitten fingernails so low. I lay in bed at night waiting for the sound of my father’s truck returning, from some bar. Then I got down on the floor next to the register to listen to the fight between my father and my mother, which happened often. I was waiting night after night. I was ready to save her, when my father tried to kill her. I felt afraid all the time. It became worse after my brother and I intervened when he was trying to choke her. That however was not the big problem for me at 7 or 8, I accepted that my father would kill my mother and he would be taken away. The big problem was I was sure that left me to take care of my brothers and sisters and I couldn’t figure out how I was going to do it. In fact, every night I went to sleep trying to figure out how I was going to take care of them and that thought cut a groove into my little brain.
The thing I most remember about grade school was looking out the window, watching the leaves turn, watching the leaves fall, observing the subtle shades of gray in the bark of sleeping trees disappear from awakening trees. I concentrated on how soon I could detect buds, and how many shades of green leaves progressed through as they moved toward summer. I lived for summer, when I could get out of school and escape it all.
The only problem anyone identified with me was my severe stuttering. The more anxiety I had the less I was able to talk. Consequently, I was assigned to be harassed weekly by a speech therapist. I made the requisite chart and reported my progress weekly until I graduated. My first therapeutic failure-my fault. My brother who was 16 months older than I was had much worse problems, which would later be identified as childhood schizophrenia. One of my sisters was two and half years younger than I am, had much more obvious problems, dyslexia and behavioral problems. With these challenges and four additional children, my quiet disassociation was welcome.
The only thing I’ve found to take some perverse pride in was my ability to do no homework and still pass tests, usually with very good grades. I have found that somehow, I am and have always been able to soak up huge amounts of information from whatever environment I’m in without consciously focusing on it. Having a very high IQ is one component of that however I’ve had several instances where it became obvious I’m able to acquire information from several sources simultaneously. I believe everyone can do this I’ve just developed it to a greater degree than most people, of necessity. It is a nice trick, it in no way makes up for some of the deficits associated with my psychic condition. I stood out only as an artist.
When I was 14 I started drinking alcohol. I quickly understood why my dad was so devoted to it. It was immediate relief from the horrible situations inside my head. I drank as much as I could for the next six years. It became more important than anything else-I drank until I nearly died. Right at that point, I got sent to the nation’s most noted alcohol rehabilitation program. It worked; I tossed my valium and quit drinking. (Do not try this at home!)
A soon as I quit drinking, however, my mental health problems became glaring! I regularly had panic attacks that lasted two and three hours at a time and spent day after day after day in bed, so depressed I could not or would not answer the telephone or the door. Occasionally I would wander into the kitchen to watch the dishes turning green in the sink. That activity was so exhausting I would have to go back to bed. There was really nothing I could do about it, the alcohol rehabilitation program, disallowed medications for my condition. The first few years, I tried and tried, working steps over and over, feeling like more of a failure every time it didn’t result in an obvious “spiritual awakening” or put me on “the road to happy destiny”. The answer to my complaints, according to the gods of the rehab. Program, was to “work with a newcomer”. I worked with a few dozen, some disappeared, and many stayed sober worked their steps and became happy and comfortable. Of course I could no longer relate to those who became happy and comfortable-so I would have to go find myself another newcomer. I churned through a couple dozen jobs. Killing myself became a frequent comforting thought. I wouldn’t tell anyone for fear of being locked up, like my aunt, my father and my older brother. That went on for seven or eight years, until I became imminently suicidal. At the time I was working as a psychiatric nurse in a maximum security state mental hospital.

More tomorrow-Now a bit about ADHD / ADD

A Missed or Wrong Diagnosis
An inaccurate diagnosis remains a common reason for a delayed diagnosis of ADHD and this problem usually results from incomplete diagnostic formulations. Often, depressed mood becomes the focus of treatment, usually to the exclusion of ADHD.[13] The phenomenon of patients with ADHD receiving a diagnosis of depression is both understandable and unfortunate. Patients with untreated ADHD become frustrated with their symptoms. They are angry at themselves and irritated by their pervasive procrastination and chronic disorganization. Their employers abhor their tardiness and after repeated episodes of overdrafting bank accounts or impulsive overspending, their spouses regard them as irresponsible. Psychiatrists may misinterpret this frustration as depression, and antidepressant medications may be prescribed reflexively. Of course, sometimes depression is present, along with ADHD, and the depression is identified while the ADHD remains undiagnosed.

Yet frustration is not always related to major depression, and if the individual’s issues primarily stem from ADHD rather than depression, then conventional antidepressant treatment will be ineffective.[5] Ideally, a failed trial of an adequate dose of antidepressants should alert the clinician to reexamine the underlying diagnosis; however, in standard practice, many clinicians move from 1 antidepressant to another, perhaps switching from a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor to a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor or adding bupropion or a low-dose atypical antipsychotic to the antidepressant. Unfortunately, the most commonly referenced study regarding strategies to address treatment-resistant depression does not emphasize the necessity of an accurate diagnosis.[14] In this algorithm, the use of stimulants in tandem with antidepressants receives little notice.[14]

Adults with ADHD may be misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. Although mood lability is not part of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, the reality is that patients with undiagnosed ADHD may overreact to simple stimuli and demonstrate mood inconsistency. This characteristic can be amplified in the treated state as well; mood swings may occur as the stimulant level wanes.[15] This end-of-dose effect might be misidentified as a bipolar disorder and inaccurate treatment can occur for years.

Atmaca and colleagues[16] describe a patient with mood swings that were initially diagnosed as bipolar disorder. The authors detail a 6-year history of multiple psychotropic treatment failures, including an unproductive psychiatric hospitalization. In the end, the patient consulted another psychiatrist, was diagnosed with ADHD, treated with stimulants, and dramatically improved.[16]

ADHD can mimic other conditions. Comprehensive screening of all patients who present in psychological distress necessitates an assessment for anxiety, depression, mania, substance use disorder, and also ADHD. Developing and then confirming a differential diagnosis reduces the likelihood of overlooking this highly prevalent and debilitating disorder, and treating a patient unproductively. Screening tools for ADHD can achieve this goal.[17]
Raw data from a recent, not yet published survey of adults treated for ADHD show that 59% reported a 2-week period of depressed mood. Nearly half of those surveyed reported panic attacks, and 60% endorsed generalized anxiety (Young JL, Saal J. A survey of outpatient adults with ADHD. 2009. Unpublished raw data).

ADHD is a disorder that originates in childhood and thus always predates the onset of anxiety and mood disorders. When these conditions do co-occur in adults, ADHD is often not identified.[18] Existing data on the treatment of comorbid conditions is limited; a study of young patients with both ADHD and generalized anxiety revealed that atomoxetine improved both symptom complexes.[19] Only a few trials have examined comorbid ADHD and depression but combining selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and stimulants is a common practice.[20]

As I study, I will share interesting possibilities. These are NOT recommendations.

Rhodiola rosea

Rhodiola rosea (Golden Root)
Scientific classification ,Kingdom: Plantae, Division: Magnoliophyta, Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Saxifragales, Family: Crassulaceae, Genus: Rhodiola, Species: R. rosea

Binomial name: Rhodiola rosea

Rhodiola rosea (Golden Root, Roseroot, Aaron’s Rod) is a plant in the Crassulaceae family that grows in cold regions of the world. These include much of the Arctic, the mountains of Central Asia, the Rocky Mountains, and mountainous parts of Europe, such as the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathian Mountains, Scandinavia, Iceland, Great Britain and Ireland. The perennial plant grows in areas up to 2280 meters elevation. Several shoots grow from the same thick root. Shoots reaches 5 to 35 cm in height. Rhodiola rosea is dioecious – having separate female and male plants.
[edit] Uses
PlantRhodiola rosea may be effective for improving mood and alleviating depression. Pilot studies on human subjects[2][3][4] showed that it improves physical and mental performance, and may reduce fatigue.

Rhodiola rosea’s effects potentially are related to optimizing serotonin and dopamine levels due to monoamine oxidase inhibition and its influence on opioid peptides such as beta-endorphins, [5] although these specific neurochemical mechanisms have not been clearly documented with scientific studies.

Rhodiola is included among a class of plant derivatives called adaptogens which differ from chemical stimulants, such as nicotine, and do not have the same physiological effects.

In Russia and Scandinavia, Rhodiola rosea has been used for centuries to cope with the cold Siberian climate and stressful life.[citation needed] Such effects were provided with evidence in laboratory models of stress using the nematode C. elegans,[6] and in rats in which Rhodiola effectively prevented stress-induced changes in appetite, physical activity, weight gain and the estrus cycle.[7]

Rhodiola has been used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it is called hóng jǐng tiān (红景天).

[edit] Phytochemicals and potential health effects

Withering flowerRhodiola rosea contains a variety of compounds that may contribute to its effects,[8] including the class of rosavins which include rosavin, rosarin, and rosin. Several studies have suggested that the most active components are likely to be rhodioloside and tyrosol,[9] with other components being inactive when administered alone, but showing synergistic effects when a fixed combination of rhodioloside, rosavin, rosarin and rosin was used.[10] Also, the word Rosavin is a trademarked brand name for a particular brand of Rhodiola extract from Ameriden International, Inc.

Although rosavin, rosarin, rosin and salidroside (and sometimes p-tyrosol, rhodioniside, rhodiolin and rosiridin) are among suspected active ingredients of Rhodiola rosea, these compounds are mostly polyphenols for which no physiological effect in humans is proved to prevent or reduce risk of disease.[11]

Although these phytochemicals are typically mentioned as specific to Rhodiola extracts, there are many other constituent phenolic antioxidants, including proanthocyanidins, quercetin, gallic acid, chlorogenic acid and kaempferol.[12][13]

While animal tests have suggested a variety of beneficial effects for Rhodiola rosea extracts,[14] only for depression is there scientific evidence for Rhodiola components having anti-disease benefits in humans. A clinical trial showed significant effect for a Rhodiola extract in doses of 340–680 mg per day in male and female patients from 18 to 70 years old with mild to moderate depression.[15] Studies on whether Rhodiola improves physical performance have been inconclusive, with some studies showing some benefit,[16] while others show no significant difference.[17]
[edit] Dosage
Dried Rhodiola rosea rootRhodiola rosea extract is mainly used in the form of capsules or a tablet, though tinctures are also available. The capsules and tablets often contain 100 mg of a standardized amount of 3 percent rosavins and 0.8–1 percent salidroside because the naturally occurring ratio of these compounds in Rhodiola rosea root is approximately 3:1. Some companies believe that there are as many as 12 active biochemical compounds in the plant and do not subscribe to what they perceive as “artificial” standardization on only two of those compounds. One company (Verde Botanica) states that 28 compounds have been identified in Rhodiola rosea, and that their proprietary extract MBS-13® is standardized to 13 of these in chromatographic assays.

A typical dosage is one or two capsules or tablets daily; one in the morning and when taking two, one in the early afternoon. Rhodiola rosea should be taken early in the day because for some it can interfere with sleep. Others can take it in the evening with no effect on sleep patterns. If a user becomes overly activated, jittery or agitated then a smaller dose with very gradual increases may be needed. It is contraindicated in excited states.[citation needed]

The dose may be increased to 200 mg three times a day if needed. A high dose is considered to be daily intakes of 1,000 mg and above.[citation needed]

Rhodiola rosea may be beneficial to increase energy and mental performance for people suffering from Hashimoto’s disease.[citation needed]

In a 2007 clinical trial from Armenia, total effective doses were in the range of 340–680 mg per day for people aged 18 to 70. No side effects were demonstrated at these doses in the treatment of mild to moderate depression.[18]

We May Be Born With an Urge to Help

December 1, 2009

WellIn Month of Giving, a Healthy Reward By TARA PARKER-POPE

When Cami Walker of Los Angeles learned three years ago that she had multiple sclerosis, her health and her spirits plummeted — until she got an unusual prescription from a holistic health educator.

Ms. Walker, now 36, scribbled the idea in her journal. And though she dismissed it at first, after weeks of fatigue, insomnia, pain and preoccupation with her symptoms, she decided to give it a try. The treatment and her experience with it are summed up in the title of her new book, “29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life” (Da Capo Press).

Ms. Walker gave a gift a day for 29 days — things like making supportive phone calls or saving a piece of chocolate cake for her husband. The giving didn’t cure her multiple sclerosis, of course. But it seems to have had a startling effect on her ability to cope with it. She is more mobile and less dependent on pain medication. The flare-ups that routinely sent her to the emergency room have stopped, and scans show that her disease has stopped progressing.

“My first reaction was that I thought it was an insane idea,” Ms. Walker said. “But it has given me a more positive outlook on life. It’s about sstepping outside of your own story long enough to make a connection with someone else.”

And science appears to back her up. “There’s no question that it gives life a greater meaning when we make this kind of shift in the direction of others and get away from our own self-preoccupation and problems,” said Stephen G. Post, director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University on Long Island and a co-author of “Why Good Things Happen to Good People” (Broadway, 2007). “But it also seems to be the case that there is an underlying biology involved in all this.”

An array of studies have documented this effect. In one, a 2002 Boston College study, researchers found that patients with chronic pain fared better when they counseled other pain patients, experiencing less depression, intense pain and disability.

Another study, at the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, Calif., also found a strong benefit to volunteerism, and after controlling for a number of variables, showed that elderly people who volunteered for more than four hours a week were 44 percent less likely to die during the study period.

How giving can lead to mental and physical changes in health isn’t entirely clear, although studies suggest that altruism may be an antidote to stress. A Miami study of patients with H.I.V. found that those with strong altruistic characteristics had lower levels of stress hormones.

By contrast, being self-centered may be damaging to health. In one study of 150 heart patients, researchers found that people in the study who had more “self-references” (those who talked about themselves at length or used more first-person pronouns) had more severe heart disease and did worse on treadmill tests.

And like Ms. Walker, numerous people have reported feeling better after helping others. A 1988 Psychology Today article dubbed the effect the “helper’s high.” Analyzing two separate surveys of a total of 3,200 women who regularly volunteered, the article described a physical response from volunteering, similar to the results of vigorous exercise or meditation. The strongest effect was seen when the act of altruism involved direct contact with other people.

For Ms. Walker, a former creative director for an advertising agency, most of the gifts involved time, emotional support or small acts of kindness. After the first 29 days, she began a new cycle, a pattern she continues. Neither she nor Mbali Creazzo, the spiritual adviser who taught her about the month of giving, knows why it is 29 days rather than 30 or 31 — it may have something to do with the lunar cycle, which is 29.5 days.

Ms. Walker says she now approaches daily giving as a crucial part of her treatment, just like regular medication. She has also found new purpose in her experience and started a Web site, 29gifts.org, that encourages giving to improve health.

“Giving for 29 days is not suggested as a cure for anything,” Ms. Walker said. “It’s simply a coping mechanism and a simple tool you can use that can help you change your thinking about whatever is going on. If you change your thinking, you change your experience.”

Dr. Post, of Stony Brook, agreed. “To rid yourself of negative emotional states,” he said, “you need to push them aside with positive emotional states.

“And the simplest way to do that is to just go out and lend a helping hand to somebody.”

This all works perfectly for the ‘average’ or even mildly depressed person, however the more psychically unwell a person-in general-the less well this works.

via Well – Daily Giving Is Seen as a Healthful Treatment – NYTimes.com.

MENTAL HEALTH FACT

Brain Ache. Why should we breathe deeply when we’re anxious?

Carbon dioxide raises the acidity of the brain, which activates fear, said researchers. Making our tissues less acidic – by inhaling more oxygen – calms the feelings of panic and anxiety. “Some breath exercises to control fear might act by raising the pH of the brain,” said Dr Adam Ziemann of the University of Iowa.

Deep breathing, still the simplest, most cost effective, quickest and most efficient anti-anxiety treatment.

Decades ago, when I was recovering from alcoholism. I recall walking down the street one day looking at my feet as usual, when some slight change made me look up. The world was in color again. I hadn’t realized that my alcoholism had literally robbed me of the visual experience of color in the world. A few weeks ago when my Selegiline started taking effect, I noticed a visual change. As I looked through the glass door and off across the backyard and through the yards behind mine. I could see a depth I had not noticed for a long time if ever and a little more brightness to the scene. It may not mean anything, but I enjoyed it and I will keep looking for whatever changes may be taking place. Progressively, I’ve been feeling better. The best way I can describe it is, I feel like a can someone quit shaking, a can someone had been shaking continuously for decades. I’m feeling a little smoothness in my days. Sometimes I feel as though anxiety had been a glue holding me together. Much of it has flowed away leaving my cells to float happily in the atmosphere, which may be where they belong.
Then there’s the regular holiday season thing-usually I feel unbearably pressure at this time of year. Today I noticed I was feeling comfortably apathetic. It gets done, it doesn’t get done, who cares, it will probably get done. I call that an incredibly big improvement. HOPE At this rate I could even have Christmas spirit next year!
Again, here is a list of the combinations that may be working for me. Metformin of 500 mg a day (brain protective), Lithium Carbonate 750 mg a day (prevents the manic/hypomanic phase of bipolar disorder), Selegiline 35 mg a day (antidepressant, brain protective), BuSpar 20 mg a day (anti-anxiety), Chlorphenamine maleate 12 mg a day. (“ In addition to being an H-1 histamine receptor antagonist, chlorpheniramine has been shown to work as a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor or SNRI. [1] A similar antihistamine, brompheniramine, led to the discovery of the SSRI zimelidine. Limited clinical evidence shows that it is comparable to several antidepressant medications in its ability to inhibit the reuptake of serotonin and also norepinephrine (noradrenaline).[2] However, extensive clinical trials of its psychiatric properties in humans have not been conducted. It inhibits serotonin reuptake less than norepinephrine reuptake, [3] however the literature is not consistent in this respect (compare Hellbom (2005) with Domino (1999)). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”) It’s WAY cheaper than PRISTIQUE!! I also take Vitamin D 5000 iu (brain food), Melatonin 9 mg (for sleep), Valerian Root 1350 mg (for sleep), fish oil EPA/Omega 3, 4100 mg a day (10 caps, brain food). Some of you may have read, “Help My H. P. A. Axis has Crashed”, which I wrote a couple weeks ago. I believe it and I’m taking the rehabilitation of the very seriously. I just got my Adrenal 80 mg (whole desiccated glandular concentrate) , which I will be taking two of a day and my Porcine Thyroid 130 mg , which I will also be taking two of per day. Then there is the Emotional Freedom and Healing practitioner I saw last month, my success at exercising, intermittently (swimming laps) and my aromatherapy, a mixture of rosemary and lavender oils, which may well be contributing to my current, vastly improved level of comfort. Knock on wood. Cross my fingers…
DISCLAIMER : This is what I do. I do not recommend that anyone else do it or encourage anyone else to do what I do. I am an experiment. You are welcome to watch.

The Biology Behind the Milk of Human Kindness By NATALIE ANGIER
As the festival of mandatory gratitude looms into view, allow me to offer a few suggestions on what, exactly, you should be thankful for.

Be thankful that, on at least one occasion, your mother did not fend off your father with a pair of nunchucks, but instead allowed enough contact to facilitate your happy conception. Be thankful that when you go to buy a pale, poultrylike entity, the grocery clerk will accept your credit card in good faith and even return it with a heroic garble of your last name. Be grateful for the empathetic employee working the United Airlines ticket counter the day after Thanksgiving, who understands why you must leave town today, this very minute, lest someone pull out the family nunchucks.

Above all, be thankful for your brain’s supply of oxytocin, the small, celebrated peptide hormone that, by the looks of it, helps lubricate our every prosocial exchange, the thousands of acts of kindness, kind-of kindness and not-as-nakedly-venal-as-I-could-have-been kindness that make human society possible. Scientists have long known that the hormone plays essential physiological roles during birth and lactation, and animal studies have shown that oxytocin can influence behavior too, prompting voles to cuddle up with their mates, for example, or to clean and comfort their pups. Now a raft of new research in humans suggests that oxytocin underlies the twin emotional pillars of civilized life, our capacity to feel empathy and trust.

Reporting this month in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that genetic differences in people’s responsiveness to the effects of oxytocin were linked to their ability to read faces, infer the emotions of others, feel distress at others’ hardship and even to identify with characters in a novel or “Doonesbury.” “I came into this research as a big skeptic,” said Sarina M. Rodrigues of Oregon State University, an author of the new report, “but the results had me floored.”

Oxytocin may also be a capitalist tool. In a series of papers that appeared in Nature, Neuron and elsewhere, Ernst Fehr, director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich, and his colleagues showed that the hormone had a remarkable effect on the willingness of people to trust strangers with their money. In the Nature study, 58 healthy male students were given a single nasal squirt of either oxytocin or a placebo solution and, 50 minutes later, were instructed to start playing rounds of the Trust Game with each other, using monetary units they could either invest or withhold.

The researchers found that the oxytocin-enhanced subjects were significantly more likely than the placebo players to trust their financial partners: whereas 45 percent of the oxytocin group agreed to invest the maximum amount of money possible, just 21 percent of the control group proved so amenable. Moreover, the researchers showed that the oxytocin boost didn’t simply make subjects more willing to take risks and throw their money around. When participants knew they were playing against a computer rather than a human being, there was no difference in investment strategy between the groups. Trust, it seems, is a strictly wetware affair.

Yet the hormone doesn’t turn you into a sucker. In the Nov. 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry, Simone Shamay-Tsoory of the University of Haifa and her colleagues reported that when participants in a game of chance were pitted against a player they considered arrogant, a nasal spritz of oxytocin augmented their feelings both of envy whenever the haughty one won and of schadenfreudian gloating when their opponent lost.

As a rule, though, oxytocin is a joiner not a splitter. Analogues of the molecule are found in fish, perhaps to help facilitate the delicate business of fertilization, by inhibiting a fish’s natural tendency to flee from other fish. The more elaborate grew the social demands, the more roles oxytocin assumed, reaching its apotheosis in mammals. If you’re going to give birth to a litter of needy young, why not let the same signal that helped push those mewlers into the world give you tips on their care and feeding? And if you’re a human, bent on turning everything into an extended family affair, here is oxytocin again to cheerlead and teleprompt. C. Sue Carter of the University of Illinois at Chicago, a pioneer in the study of oxytocin, suspects that the association between the hormone and childbirth long kept scientists from taking it seriously. “But now that it’s been brought into the world of economics and finance,” Dr. Carter said, “suddenly it’s very hot.”

Oxytocin acts as a hormone, traveling through the bloodstream to affect organs far from its origin in the brain, and as a kind of neurotransmitter, allowing brain cells to communicate. Unlike most neurotransmitters, oxytocin seems to deliver its signal through just one receptor, one protein designed to recognize its shape and shudder accordingly when clasped; dopamine and serotonin, by contrast, each have five or more receptors assigned to their care. Yet the precise contours of oxytocin’s hardworking receptor differ among individuals, to apparently noticeable effect.

In their new study, Dr. Rodrigues and Laura R. Saslow and Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley, looked at how two variants in the genetic code for the receptor might influence a person’s capacity for empathy, as measured by a standard empathy questionnaire (“I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel”) and a behavioral task called “Reading the Mind in the Eyes.” In it, participants looked at 36 black-and-white photographs of people’s eyes and were asked to choose the word that best described each subject’s mood. Uneasy, defiant, contemplative, playful? In a related measure of oxytocin’s presumed calming effects, subjects were also tested for how strongly they reacted to the stress of hearing a series of loud noises.

In their sample of 192 male and female college students, the researchers found that those carrying the so-called A version of the oxytocin receptor, which previous reports had associated with autism and poor parenting skills, scored significantly lower on the eye-reading task and higher on the stress-prone test than did subjects with the G variant of the receptor.

“We’re all different, and that’s a good thing,” Dr. Rodrigues said. “If everyone were gooey and lovey-dovey, it would be an obnoxious world.” As she drolly admitted, she herself is Type A.

Wired Wrong

“Psychiatrists make diagnoses today the same way they did in 1840 when Abraham Lincoln was depressed, through talking to patients and looking for symptom clusters. Psychiatrists are the only medical specialists that never look at the organ they treat. Isn’t that a scam…to make diagnoses of brain dysfunction without ever looking at the brain?

No question we have a long way to go and a lot more research to do, but to continue as most psychiatrists currently practice is not only backwards it is downright hurtful to people.

Dr. Rubin’s assessment of my work misses the mark completely. I am not interested in what your brain looks like as part of a group of depressed patients. I am looking at what your own brain specifically looks like. I am looking at an N of 1, your brain. Illnesses like depression will never have a singular finding on scans because they are not a singular disease. There are many different types that need an individual approach, that is where scans help…what does your brain look like, so that I can target treatment specifically to your brain.
Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institutes for Mental Health said in 2005 at the American Psychiatric Association that “Brain imaging in clinical practice is the next major advance in psychiatry…Trial and error diagnosis will move to an era where we understand the underlying biology of mental disorders….We are going to have to use neuroimaging to begin to identify the systems pathology that is distributed in each of these disorders and think of imaging as a biomarker for mental illnesses…The DSM-IV has 100%reliability and 0% validity. We need to develop biomarkers, including brain imaging, to develop the validity of these disorders….We need to develop treatments that go after the core pathology, understood by imaging…The end game is to get to an era of individualized care.”

Dr. Insel believed in 2005 that brain imaging in clinical practice would be a reality in 5 years. I think that brain imaging in clinical practice is long overdue. You can try to kill yourself in virtually every major city in the world, and no one will look at your brain!…”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this is just my normal arrogance not my bipolar grandiosity. I appreciate every bit of symptom relief I am afforded however I really don’t want a guessed at diagnosis with a dire prognosis. I want to know exactly what is wrong with my brain and be able to employ the available tools to make the corrections that will allow me to have a life I cherish, one to put the HAPPY and THANKFUL in HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

1: Psychopharmacol Bull. 2009;42(3):57-90.  Links

I’m back. I was thinking, well, no one ever listens to me regularly anyway so it doesn’t really matter that I did not show up to this job for a week. I did have regular appropriate flashes of guilt whenever I thought about my blog. Then, I thought I should apologize for having been away for so long. Then, I checked my comments and someone said they looked forward to reading me every day. That was a surprise, that felt good. So, I am sorry for not being consistent and I will do better.
What has been happening is, I am very busy in an extremely progressive real world way to which I’m not accustomed. I used to live a totally reactive life, simply reacting to the people and situations encroaching upon me and trying to make a living. I developed more work than I could handle and had to acquired some help, in the form of a very nice man, who does an excellent job for me. I am entirely unaccustomed to having any kind of help or support. I’m surprised at how encouraging and confidence building it is to know I’m not struggling all alone. Amazingly, step-by-step I became qualified to buy a big house, so I have been very busy looking for that house and my timing seems to be incredibly good. Interest rates are way down, prices are very depressed and the bank likes ME!
The first offer I made, last week, was turned down. Tomorrow I will know about offer number two. This is exciting and fun. My Queen of anhedonia crown could be in danger, unless my meds don’t arrive in the mail soon. I’m also currently teaching two classes for NAMI and just had a yearly State inspection for my business. At other times, under similar stressors I have been a total wreck! Something is definitely working!
More about my online medication experience. The first order I put in it didn’t go through because the bank thought it might be a fraudulent sale, and did not send money. It took two days to get the information that the sale had not been completed, so I tried again. Now, “it’s in the mail.” As soon as this batch arrives I will be ordering the next backup batch to make sure I don’t get in this position again.
Aside from having help both in the form of an employee and an excellent peer support group, here is a list of the combinations that may be working for me. Metformin of 500 mg a day (brain protective), Lithium Carbonate 750 mg a day (prevents the manic/hypomanic phase of bipolar disorder), Selegiline 30 mg a day (antidepressant, brain protective), BuSpar 20 mg a day (anti-anxiety), Chlorphenamine maleate 12 mg a day. (“ In addition to being an H-1 histamine receptor antagonist, chlorpheniramine has been shown to work as a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor or SNRI. [1] A similar antihistamine, brompheniramine, led to the discovery of the SSRI zimelidine. Limited clinical evidence shows that it is comparable to several antidepressant medications in its ability to inhibit the reuptake of serotonin and also norepinephrine (noradrenaline).[2] However, extensive clinical trials of its psychiatric properties in humans have not been conducted. It inhibits serotonin reuptake less than norepinephrine reuptake, [3] however the literature is not consistent in this respect (compare Hellbom (2005) with Domino (1999)). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”) It’s WAY cheaper than PRISTIQUE!! I also take Vitamin D 5000 iu (brain food), Melatonin 9 mg (for sleep), Valerian Root 1350 mg (for sleep), fish oil EPA/Omega 3, 4100 mg a day (10 caps, brain food). Some of you may have read, “Help My H. P. A. Axis has Crashed”, which I wrote a couple weeks ago. I believe it and I’m taking the rehabilitation of the very seriously. I just got my Adrenal 80 mg (whole desiccated glandular concentrate) , which I will be taking two of a day and my Porcine Thyroid 130 mg , which I will also be taking two of per day. Then there is the Emotional Freedom and Healing practitioner I saw last month, my success at exercising, intermittently (swimming laps) and my aromatherapy, a mixture of rosemary and lavender oils, which may well be contributing to my current, vastly improved level of comfort. Knock on wood. Cross my fingers…
DISCLAIMER : This is what I do. I do not recommend that anyone else do it or encourage anyone else to do what I do. I am an experiment. You are welcome to watch.
Got’ta go. I told the guys we would go get ice cream at seven.