More from this article I so casually linked yesterday.

The gist of the piece is an explanation of the actual brain structures involved in depression’s infamous “lack of motivation” and how a lack of dopamine in these structures makes it impossible for them to generate enough of a signal to actually motivate you into action.

Music to my brain nerd ears. Makes me feel a whole lot better about my inability to do simple tasks like cleaning up my room or taking care of my health properly by using my CPAP and testing my blood.

It’s not a lack of character or some profound personal failing or any of that depressive bullshit. I literally do not have the chemicals in my brain that would make it possible.

This is the sort of information which soothes me.

The article explains these things in order to make its case that folks with depression like myself should stop beating ourselves up for being “lazy”, and of course I knew this on some level but seeing it put into precise scientific language does me a world of good and really helps me to believe that I am not at fault.

So I forgive myself for only doing what I am able to do. Um, again.

It’s also quite awesome that the article discusses what does and does not work in my situation according to the author’s own clinical experience. That also means a lot to me. No more of this airy theorization, this is actual hard data.

It does put my current situation in stark relief though. I need to take better care of myself if I want to live and don’t want to end up a miserable bedridden mess for my few remaining years of life.

And yet, I can’t. I just… can’t. The dopamine just plain ain’t there. My prefrontal cortex can’t analyze my options and choose among them. My nucleus accumbans can’t summon enough pleasure to make it seem like the tasks would be rewarding enough to justify action. And my dorsal striatum’s routine generating energies don’t stand a chance of activating anything.

Damn I love the science words.

I wonder how one ups one’s dopamine levels in a safe, non-addictive fashion that doesn’t burn out my receptors.

Ironic that the first recommendation for getting past this block is to take care of your physical health first.

Yeah that’s…. kind of the problem.

Next one is self-compassion, and I am working on it. The hard brain science will help. But I still lack the separation from my diseased self necessary to be able to look upon myself with compassion.

I don’t love myself yet. I wish I did, but I don’t. It’s taken me this long just to stop being overwhelmed by toxic self-loathing when I so much as think of myself.

I know all my wonderful traits. Warm, caring, smart, talented, and so on. I know other people think I’m pretty amazing. I know that my lurking self-loathing is purely a product of my madness and that I have nothing to be ashamed of.

But until I shift this massive wound at my core, I don’t think I will feel it.

More after the break.

Or not. To be continued tomorrow.