Depression Part 2: The Road Back to Normal

Continuing on from last week’s post, I’m here to bum you out, go on about how strange brains are, and hopefully offer some insight on how to start solving the divisive disease that is depression. The same caveats apply as before.

So, I find the pattern of punctuated equilibrium cropping up again and again. In brief, it is a way of thinking about the speed at which things change. Specifically, some things will spend a long time in a stable state, not changing much at all, and then suddenly leap forward in a giant generational shift. It can be a little bit of deviation creating a huge watershed, or a little energy added into the system bumping things out of their stable rut. You can observe the phenomena in everything from evolutionary biology to organic pathfinding.

It might help to think of this in terms of a game. In game theory, systems can stay stable for long periods of time before taking a wild shift to a different stable mode. In the classic game Hawks vs Doves [mildly technical video] you have two groups: the hawks will never back down from a fight even if it costs them a lot, and the doves will always back down but will split winnings evenly. If you start with two even populations of doves and hawks, you have random fights between everybody, and you kick out the biggest losers, you will eventually have a fairly stable ratio between the two groups.

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Depression Part 1: How Chemistry and Memes can turn your Brain into Soup

What follows is a piece I started during BreakFast over at CCC. It’s my attempt to reconcile what I know about neurobiology, neurochemistry, and depression with some ideas on how to treat what is an incredibly complex and devious disease. Being a person who every so often gets trapped in a downward spiral, and having experienced so many brilliant, capable, utterly valuable people go hurtling down into a deep dark hole I want to share my thoughts and see if I can shed any light on the situation.

I’m an active reader of neurobiology. I’ve had an intense interest in it for nearly ten years, now, but am in no way a neurobiologist or practicing scientist. I’m an armchair reader trying to piece this together, share what I know, and spread my love of science. If you’re an expert in the field and find fault in my logic or terminology, please let me know. I’m always eager to hone my understanding of the meat that makes us think.

You can find part 2 of this article here.

So, here are two entirely unfortunate facts. Depression, serious clinical depression, is the most common disability in the United States [1, 2] and stress related disease (heart attack, chronic high blood pressure, hypertension, anxiety disorder) accounts for much of the remainder.

Stress, depression, and disease have a pervasive and infuriatingly close relationship. They are horsemen of the apocalypse, if the apocalypse included spending several weeks in your bathrobe, sitting on top of a pile of unfolded laundry, watching the Princess Bride for the twelfth time.

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DIY Guy Fawkes Bandana Remix Fun Pack!

The good folks at Coilhouse were kind enough to release something I’ve been working on for a bit: The DIY Guy Fawkes Bandana Remix Fun Pack Genuine Revolutionary Occupy Experience Machine!

The general idea is that I’d like people to be anonymous, wearing protection, projecting a captivating image, employing creative disruption, and in possession of crucial data whether protesting or no. I also believe in opening up the source as much as humanly possible/ethical/feasible on all of my projects.

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A Tide of Woe: The PayPal Story

Early on in the sudden rise to fame of the OWS Bandanas, my business had a bit of an existential hiccup. You see, Paypal, patron of the meek and downtrodden, decided to suspend my account after the second week of bandana sales. They did this without warning and without explanation. I found out when I went to pay some bills and discovered that the numbers in my Paypal account were fake numbers, to be used only as a sadistic tease to my impoverished state of being.

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Art is Wrong: How your Brain Tells you Beautiful Lies

Speaking is intensely exciting. I love sharing, teaching, and lining up all of my thoughts into something concise and convincing. Something about ordering a swarm of swirling tenuous ideas into a coherent presentation makes them more vivid and solid.

I’ve been looking for more opportunities to speak and on my hunt for possible events to pursue I stumbled across the Extreme Futurist Festival put on by Michael Anissimov and Rachel Haywire. It seemed like an interesting gathering of tech enthusiasts, new media junkies, teachers, singularity proselytizers, and a huge varied random smattering of people I thought it would be fun to talk with. Plus Alex Peake was going to be there, and it was impossible to refuse an opportunity to catch up on what he’s been up to.

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I am Amanda Fucking Palmer

I went to the Gemini and Scorpio Masquerade Macabre this year, which is an event stuffed with artists, arealists, musicians, and the kind of people who make life worth living. I had a lovely chance encounter with Eva Galperin, saw a few dozen intense costumes, helped Danielle Hills of Gilding Primal Instinct wrangle her display, and hobnobbed with the creators of Baritarian Boy.

Since it was scheduled to be such a fancy gala I thought it was time to dress up as something wonderful. I used to go all out for Halloween costumes, but have ended up spending more time on other folks’ costumes than my own lately. Well, I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than Amanda Palmer, so voila. I’ve got to thank Numi for providing the wig, makeup, and most of the wardrobe for this one. I mostly picked out clothing and kvetched as my eyebrows were being painted on.

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