Serotonin and Dopamine

If you can't make them yourself, store bought is fine

A few months ago I bought a shirt that said this. I like the message. I planned to wear it advocacy and solidarity with all of my students who have self-disclosed mental illnesses and mental health struggles with me recently.

I know that whatever genetic hand my mother was dealt, I have a similar case.

It started when I was nineteen years old. I was in my second year of college. And I enjoyed it. I was doing theatre. I was happy at Marietta.

But then, I stopped sleeping. I thought I was literally going insane: who could keep themselves up all night and not sleep, at all? It was a vicious cycle.

I was a zombie. I was panicked. I felt like I was losing my mind. I understood why sleep deprivation was used as a torture device in times of war and combat.

I wondered what had happened to me? What was going to happen to me?

Sleeping pills like Ambien didn’t even knock me out. I called my mother in panic, and often, pacing around the third floor of my dormitory in the common area.

And still, I couldn’t sleep. I had to take a medical leave. I was the lead in a play and they had to find a replacement. It was awful. People I considered to be friends said some very judgmental things, that it was all in mind.

It wasn’t until I got on a dose of anti-depressants that I finally was able to calm my mind, to quiet my body, and to sleep again. When this happened, it was like being reborn as only those who have experienced a somewhat major bout of insomnia can understand.

My mother later told me she had had a similar experience, but hers was after giving birth to my brother. She had post-partum depression and didn’t sleep more than an hour or so a night for a year. It changed her. She referred to it as “her dulling.”

I am thankful this happened, that I existed in a time where anti-depressants were readily available. I am thankful my mother shared with me her experience about how anti-depressants were the only thing that finally made her able to sleep again.

As an adult, and someone who has dealt with mental illness, depression and sleeping issues for the past twenty years, I appreciate that I can purchase my serotonin.

Though it indeed comes with a price.

I always get very frustrated to hear the insensitive and ignorant comments, referring to anti-depressants as “happy pills.”

It doesn’t work that way. It is instead a trade off.

I can sleep eventually. I feel lighter. My mind stops racing.

The other side of it:

They take a good 6-8 weeks to work, if you find the right match for your body.

Often times, they make you feel worse before better, mentally and emotionally.

Physically, they can bring with them a whole host of other symptoms. Some of the ones that I have experienced include: nausea, weight gain, lethargy, fogginess, lowered libido, decreased metabolism, etc.

I once put on about 20 pounds in the span of 2 weeks. And I am 5’1. I was 19 and had stretch marks all over my body—my breasts, my thighs. I didn’t even have them growing during puberty.

They aren’t all sunshine and rainbows.

Recently, I had an experience where my body had a bad reaction to going back on one that had previously worked well for me.

My heart raced. I felt a rush of adrenaline and caffeine high. I couldn’t sleep. My hands and feet tingled. I felt panicked, like I was having a nervous breakdown or a panic attack. I felt out of my body and drugged, high, and had a hard time focusing on anything that was happening or what people were saying. It felt like hell. I couldn’t bear the thought that this was my reality now. I couldn’t remember what it was like before this hellish existence, and I couldn’t envision a different life or better condition beyond this. I clung to the words of my mother, best friend and partner, especially when I started to have suicide ideation…my thought spun in circles, reminding me that I couldn’t live like this. My mind lied to me that those I loved would be better off without me. It was a very scary place to be in.

So, yes, definitely not like recreational pot or, simply, as happy pills.

Still, when you find the appropriate one and are at the right dosage, and it has time to get into your system, they can change your life. Improve the quality of it, immensely, if you are someone who struggled with depression, anxiety, insomnia, etc.

And yet, I wish that many in society would start to see anti-depressants for what they are, to some of us:

Tools we need for survival.

I know they are not the answer for everyone. I know that we are over-medicated in this country.

Yet, when your body doesn’t produce enough of a certain hormone, or chemical, or substance, whatever (I’m not that kind of doctor), but still—

We don’t consider diabetics with poorly functioning kidneys, that may fail to produce insulin, as being weak-willed.

We don’t see men with low-testosterone who need shots for energy and health (not only sexual activity and engagement) as lacking in faith.

We don’t treat someone with an underactive thyroid or a faulty pituitary gland as feeble-minded.

If we applied the same logic, we should.

We know now that dopamine and serotonin are not only mood regulators but that brain scans appear different for individuals who lack them. For depressed and chronically anxious people.

We have the hard, irrefutable proof.

We also know now—I recently discovered and it changed my life, but for another blog post—that over 90% of serotonin is produced in the microbiome of the gut. It then is supposed to travel to the brain via the vagral nerve, connected to the stomach.

Essentially what this means is that if you have a problem with that nerve, or with the microbiome of your stomach, too much bad bacteria or not enough good bacteria, then your gut may not be able to aid in that production of serotonin.

When I learned this, it honestly blew my mind.

As I said, I have endured this condition for 20 years. And I read and research, regularly, to learn more about SSRI’s. I read accounts of others with depression. I have had regular visits with general practitioners, psychologists and psychiatrists.

And this. was. the. first. I. was. ever. hearing. about. this?

What the fuck.

I am not saying that all serotonin deficits, depression and anxiety can be cured through gut health. (Though it can be helped for many, and it is certainly worth a shot and unexplored, lesser advertised path.)

But the point is this:

Our bodies—guts, brains, are supposed to make this stuff. Then our brains are supposed to absorb it.

When they don’t, these individuals feel these effects. Their brains know it. They operate differently. Their bodies know it. They also respond accordingly. I’ve read articles recently that note that the brain makes little to no distinction between physical and mental/emotional pain in how it response, to how the body reacts to survive and cope.

Isn’t that a message that ought to be more widely broadcasted?

Why is it so hard then for so many in society to see beyond mental illness as simply a weakness, a character flaw? A lack of faith?

Maybe it’s the limitations of how we speak about them in the English language:

Depressed versus depression, maybe they are too closely related.

Anxious or having anxiety versus condition of generalized anxiety disorder both sound interchangeable, like synonyms if you have never experienced the conditions.

I assure you that they are not. One is a mood, the other a condition, often times due to a lack of these chemicals within the body.

If you have never experienced depression or anxiety (generalized anxiety disorder), be thankful. Be immensely grateful. There is no cure. We don’t treat the cause, as often we are not sure how to do so. Instead, we treat the symptoms. (I once heard it referenced on a podcast as this: think of it like taking a tylenol when you have a bacterial infection. Sure, it’ll help the symptoms and you’ll feel better. But it doesn’t rid your body of the problem as an antibiotic would.)

They can be living hell. It is rough when your mind is not on your side, is not your friend. When it is conspiring against you. When it can’t be trusted—to let you sleep, to let you relax, to convince you that life is worth living, to believe you are valuable and not completely broken and worthless. When you can’t remember a time when you didn’t feel like this and you wonder if you can survive this living hell indefinitely, for a lifetime, your mind circling and spinning, it can be hell.

These people need love and support, not your judgment or your lectures that they should drink chamomile tea to relax, or to just look at the beautiful flowers that God has made in this beautiful creation. We need compassion and understanding that the condition is medical and not a lack of faith, and therefore, our own fault.

Some say they just can’t understand? Well, perhaps those individuals ought to consider themselves lucky that they can’t.

Because, you know, it shouldn’t matter, even if you can’t.

There are many things I don’t understand, the science of them, things that I haven’t experienced. But still, I can trust that they are real and legitimate experiences and diseases and conditions: cancer, heart disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, schizophrenia, fibromyalgia.

Having humility to trust others stories and doctors’ accounts of those who do have such conditions should be enough.

Compassion and humility, a willingness to learn and care…

Now if only we could bottle those and sell them at the store.