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I have been thinking a lot lately about my so-called (treatment resistant) ‘major depressive disorder’ that I know was directly created because of continual severe abuse and trauma I could not escape from my birth until I left home at 18.  Yesterday (as I mentioned) I continued to try to think of one instance during those 18 years when my ‘reward’ (dopamine-related) system was allowed to fully operate within my growing and developing body-brain normally.  Didn’t happen.

I have been thinking about addictions and their known connection to a thwarted reward system due to early infant-childhood malevolent treatment.  I think about the continual pain I was in for those 18 years.  At the same time I have been thinking about NO REWARD experiences = ZIP I also realize that the complete inability to escape the pain combined to create within me physiological patterns of so-called ‘depression’ that nobody is going to help me untangle but myself.

I am recognizing that I MUST discover some things in my current life that feel rewarding to me – no matter how small the activity or goal might be.  I even found these super-fun videos last night in my search for reward – and they made me giggle when I tried to follow him!

I call them THE ORANGE SHIRT GUY moves – I am learning Salsa dancing in my living room alone with my favorite broom.  Since the moment I left home I have loved to DANCE – and by golly I am going to DANCE NOW!

I am thinking back as far as I can think in search of what rewarded me INTRINSICALLY (inside my self) – those qualities of ME my mother did not touch because she was too busy projecting her darkness on to me and then trying to abuse it out of me.  My SELF held seeds of a love of beauty, a love of movement, a love of the outdoors, of flowers, of gardening, of making things with my hands – and I need to find ways to build THOSE REWARDS into my days somehow so that I won’t sink out of sight into the quicksand of the great (unbearable) sadness inside of me that is always on the near-verge of consuming me.

It also struck me yesterday what a miracle it was that I found MOTHERING-caregiving my children ABSOLUTELY REWARDING!

I think about my own physiology (because my body-brain was built in trauma) in terms of overloaded Substance P (pain) coupled with underloaded reward (including problems with all my safe-secure attachment-reward circuits – CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE ON THE ‘DRUGS’ and depression).

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In my searching today I found this fascinating article!  Well worth a read!  It also includes info on ‘learned helplessness’ – something severe early abuse concretizes in our little trauma-altered-development body!!  We need to understand that all our seeking and reward systems begin to be built as our earliest seek-reward attachment behavior either protects us — or does not (causing cascades of Trauma Altered Development).

The Brain’s SEEKING system

By S. N. Koch

“Although the details of human hopes are surely beyond the imagination of other creatures,” writes Jaak Panksepp in Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (1998), “the evidence now clearly indicates that certain intrinsic aspirations of all mammalian minds, those of mice as well as men, are driven by the same ancient neurochemistries.” Regarding what he has labeled the SEEKING system, Panksepp explains that the mesolimbic and mesocortical dopamine pathways….”

“Panksepp suggests that the SEEKING system “responds not simply to positive incentives but also to many other emotional challenges where animals must seek solutions.” In “The Involvement of Nucleus Accumbens Dopamine in Appetitive and Aversive Motivation” (1994), J.D. Salamone explains that dopamine release and metabolism within the nucleus accumbens “is activated by a wide variety of stressful conditions.” Salamone points out that blocking dopamine transmission or otherwise interfering with nucleus accumbens dopamine transmission “has been shown to disrupt active avoidance behavior.” In other words, when dopamine is decreased, animals cease trying to escape aversive stimulation. Instead of trying to cope with stress, they give up.”

NOTE:  I write about MY OWN PATHWAY, not yours.  Your medical needs belong to you and your professional provider.

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