Wisdom from the Trenches

It all started innocently enough – the crazy antics, the silly mannerisms, the hair-brained schemes – but what began as an overabundance of youthful energy became a lifestyle and here I am: a woman in her mid-*coughcough*-rties who is a crazy mishmash of organized spontaneity and anxious exuberance for life. Somewhere between paying a taxi driver with a gallon jug of coins to drive me around town so I could fly a kite out the back window of his cab to singing in an opera on a whim, even though I don’t sing and I don’t know the first thing about opera music, I realized something about me is…different.

I’m an adventurous kind of girl. I don’t look around the world and see the things I can’t do…I look around the world and see so many things I can do that, frankly, it’s overwhelming at times! Since completing intensive therapy for trauma (and going back here or there for spot checks and refreshes), I’ve returned to the pre-trauma quirky confidence that brought great joy and incredible adventure into my life. If life was a pool, I am not the person who timidly dips her toe in to check the temperature of the water before shaking her head and deciding she should just sunbathe for the day. I’m the person who cannonballs directly into the deep end and then rockets to the surface to announce loudly, “It’s FREEZING!” I’m not cautiously optimistic…I’m all in until someone else has ruled me out. And then, I’m all in to something else. I see an opportunity and pounce! But if the opportunity passes me by, I’m not crushed.

This is how my many adventures have entered my life. My best memories and my almost unbelievable life experiences have all come about because I am the one who throws her hat into the ring to see if she will be picked and is equally okay if she is not. After all, we live in a big, big world with lots to explore. This one thing that shut me out isn’t the only thing available to me. I have jumped into new hobbies, new positions, new pursuits, I have taken entirely different directions, followed new ideas, generated new plans which all led, in essence, to a new ME. I need only turn away from the door that recently closed in my face to find the next great thing so I can run at it full-force. CANNONBALL!

With all of this in mind about my personality, the high level of activity that is my life, and surrounded by a husband and three kids who all have ADHD, it was natural that some people who knew me well thought perhaps I, too, was ADHD. Since I am well aware of the symptoms present in someone who truly has ADHD, I knew this couldn’t be the case. While I have some symptoms of ADHD (impulsivity, rapidly changing interests, creativity, and sometimes, forgetfulness), I am 100% not even close to actually being ADHD. Trust me, I’ve taken online quizzes to assess myself for so. many. things. Also, I’ve been seen by therapists who all confirm this to be true: I have PTSD, depression, and anxiety. But knowing that didn’t explain why I am the way I am…and I truly wanted to know! It’s not that I thought I was broken (because I don’t) or that it was negatively affecting my life (it wasn’t). I simply wanted to better understand myself. Know thyself…isn’t this the cornerstone to all things growth-related?

My answer came in the form of Instagram Reels that explained, in thirty second long nuggets of easily-digestible wisdom, that ADHDers suffer from a dopamine deficit in the brain and that the novelty of shiny, new ideas and experiences give their brains the dopamine hit that they routinely crave and so desperately need to properly function. My mind latched on to this and flew back to one of the most telling aspects I know about depression: Depression is also often caused by a lack of dopamine in the brain. The two medical conditions manifest differently even though the underlying cause is so similar. It isn’t that my symptoms are similar to ADHD (they aren’t), it’s that my coping mechanisms are similar to ADHD coping mechanisms because we are both doing the very same thing…we are chasing dopamine! However, there is a massive difference in the why behind our behaviors. Dopamine spikes help someone with ADHD to focus. Dopamine spikes help someone like me to feel.

This is why expert assessment and accurate diagnosis is so very important. In the case of mental health, what looks like a duck and quacks like a duck might not actually BE a duck because behavioral overlap exists. Symptoms can be mistaken for coping mechanisms and vice versa, complicating the evaluation process. This is where genetic tests, brain mapping, family history, and other diagnostic tools come in very handy. Above all else, listening to the patient is by far the most important. No one knows how life is being affected as well as the patient struggling to navigate the confusing terrain that we call mental and behavioral health. Dismissing their struggles, regardless of what they struggle with, can have an impact that falls somewhere between discouraging to deadly.

In my case, depression wasn’t so much a deep sadness as it was a lack of emotion and energy. As I searched for a way to move from apathy to emotion, I naturally gravitated toward trying new things…A LOT of new things! These new experiences have been the adventures that brought spark, energy, fun, and optimism back into my life, which has been essential to keeping negativity at bay. Certainly, new experiences bring me a bit of bragging rights even when I’m obviously not exceptional at everything I try, but that’s not the point! The point has always been to improve my mood by providing my brain with what it needs to properly function. People who didn’t quite understand my need for dopamine enhancing experiences have recommended that I slow down, relax, stop “running from life”. Following this advice would require a significant increase in medication. My perpetual motion and activity is the most natural method I use to address my body’s dopamine deficit. Take away the activity and I lose the dopamine…which results in the return of crippling depression. I wish they could understand: I’m not running from life because I remain perpetually in motion; I’m running toward life at full force – and it is exhilarating!

Media says self care is walking, listening to music, drinking a glass of wine, and taking a bubble bath. But I have found that proper self care for me is so much more than that because it needs to generate a bit of dopamine. So I joined the Army, hiked to the top of Half Dome, modeled in a photoshoot, wrote a book, sang in an opera, folded one thousand origami cranes, slid into a caldera, wrote scathing critiques of Hallmark Christmas movies, and “traveled” around the world by reading a book set in each country. These unique activities, and many more very different from them, enriched my life in ways that ordinary things cannot because they all gave me the dopamine hits my brain needs to survive.

Chasing dopamine can have negative connotations if the person seeking a dopamine hit is pursuing destructive habits via addictions or thru behaviors that are self-harming or injurious to others. But chasing dopamine can also mean good things by broadening a person’s perspective of the world and their knowledge as they choose to be exposed to new adventures, from everyday variations in routine to the chance-of-a-lifetime. For instance, by embracing new experiences in life, I have increased my toolkit of things I can do when I hit a depressive low. Whereas before, I had maybe one or two things that I knew brought me joy and the warm fuzzies, I now have a growing plethora of activities from a world abounding with opportunities, experiences, and adventures! I have expanded my horizons with each bizarre choice I have made.

I have learned with each new experience that self care is not relegated to a narrow list of activities, but can encompass any creative way I find to meet my own health care needs and, for greatest effectiveness, should be a regimen regularly followed. So, I have made lists of the things that bring me joy so even when my mind is cloudy, my toolkit is at the ready. I have lists of the best hikes in my area, my favorite coffee shops and breweries, show-stopping foreign grocery stores, and a Bucket List…all the things that increase my dopamine so that I am never at a loss for what to do when things become stressful in life. What will follow this blog in the month of April are just some of the things I do to chase dopamine and how these things have worked out for me. Perhaps this will encourage you to try new things or maybe you can help others by sharing what works for you. Regardless of where these blogs land when tossed into the digital void, I want you to know that chasing dopamine, when done in a healthy manner with activities that aren’t detrimental to yourself or the relationships around you, is a great way to help boost your mental health in a natural way. So jump right in! CANNONBALL!!