I am a psychotherapist and a former pt gave me an image of EXPECTATIONS AND REALITY when it comes to treatment. The expectations is a smooth, continually upward moving line where the reality representation is of a line going all over the place, looping back on itself, getting tangled though coming out on the other end all the same. Also, one of my favorite quotes from Doctor Who about linear narratives: “People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”
Yeah, I went through a period where I was like "I accept that my recovery will not be linear!" and then I looked around being like, "Ok, I accepted it, now I would like a linear recovery, please!!"
Thanks. That's a very honest and interesting look at sadness.(I thought of other descriptors but I don't want to imply that your experience was something that it may not have been. I am pretty sure you were sad.)
I'll give yall a story from my past. When I was a teenager I had what I guess you would call real bad teenage angst. Very apathetic, very low energy, irritable. Well when I was 15 it got bad. I started having migraines so bad I would just lay on the couch and scream in pain and bawl my eyes out. I wound up in the ER, and believe me my parents never took anybody to the hospital. When i went for a migraine and when my brother went for a moccasin bite were the only two times anybody went to the ER. I remember being there and staring at a sign and not being able to decipher the words. I had terrible dizzy spells where I couldn't see through the whatever that stuff you see when you are having dizzy spells is. I had one so bad I fell and smashed my head on the floor. No one ever associated any of this with mental health.
After that year I left home. I entered college after my 10th grade year 4 hours from home. And everything started getting better. It all sorta eased up and I forgot about it. It was ten years later that i realized that all of my problems were the year of my parents divorce, which was also the year after my brother moved out. It was sorta like a light bulb going off. Some things have big reasons that make sense and some don't.
I'll end with a joke I tell sometimes, tangentially related. 'I grew up thinking I was a dark and cynical person, turns out I just lived in gnat country.'
It's weird how those things can affect you in ways that seem totally unrelated. We somehow learn very cartoonish theories of how emotions work, like "stressful life events make you sad" instead of "sometimes, for no real reason, stressful life events can make you really dizzy and make your head hurt really bad."
It's hard to remember that just because we can divide things into categories, say mind and body, they aren't separate in life. We are whole creatures not some parts pulled off a shelf with a few connections between the different parts.
I really enjoy people who can tell a good story about their lives that makes me think of my own stories. Weird day for it though on substack. Chris Bray writing about his father passing away, Henrik Carlsson with an amazing story on his grandmother who passed away a few years ago, and now you writing about the head poison that hit you. All good stories but the triple punch is a bit much for one day.
That migraine story is fascinating, Jon. It reminds me of a story about Carl Jung, when he was roughly that age. Oliver Burkeman told it recently, in his newsletter The Imperfectionist. Hang on I'll go cut and paste it...
"There's a story in Carl Jung's autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, in which the future psychotherapy pioneer is hiding in the shrubbery of his family home, eavesdropping on his father's conversation with a friend. By this point, the adolescent Jung had been off school for six months, owing to mysterious fainting spells somehow connected to his fear of mathematics classes (and misdiagnosed by one doctor as epileptic seizures). Mainly, he'd revelled in the time off. But just recently, he'd had the creeping sense that staying home was turning into an unseemly way of avoiding life. Then he heard the friend ask his father: "And how is your son?""
""Ah, that's a sad business," my father said. "The doctors no longer know what is wrong with him. They think it may be epilepsy. It would be dreadful if he were incurable. I have lost what little I had, and what will become of the boy if he cannot earn his own living?""
"Jung describes being "thunderstruck" on hearing this – and knowing immediately what he had to do. "This was the collision with reality," he writes. "'Why, then, I must get to work!' I thought suddenly. From that moment on, I became a serious child. I crept away, went to my father's study, took out my Latin grammar, and began to cram with intense concentration." He worked on, and eventually the fainting symptoms vanished."
So, yeah. Migraines, fainting spells... Growing up is HARD. Being matter that can think is DIFFICULT. Glad things got better, for you and for Adam (and for Jung).
I had my own pandemic skull poison experience too. Some different symptoms and also my wife and I had our first kid mid-pandemic. I coped by drinking a lot and that got me through day to day, but it was breaking me down the longer I leaned on it. After 2 years of brain poison I became convinced I had a brain tumor and I was dying. I didn’t, but it put me in a bad place.
Long story short, therapy, exercise, much less booze, a new job, and my son sleeping through the night helped me a lot. But I still had lots of brain fog. That’s when I got my first ketamine injection... I don’t believe in magic levers either, but that’s pretty damn close to one.
But yeah, still have a little brain poison, but I’m feeling like pre-pandemic me again.
Haha, I was talking myself up to fight a brain tumor, and after my MRI came back normal I wasn't that relieved, it was kind of just, well shit, what do I do now?
Wow. Well written and clear. An incredible counselor in my twenties taught me tools. When I started with her, I talked a few sessions, until she asked me, "Do you want to just talk about this stuff or do something about it?" Umm, do something, I guess. I've been through more stuff since - a "touch" of cancer (hey, trust that seventh doctor you go to who says he doesn't know instead of giving you less than a year), a bad marriage, a car slamming into me on a sidewalk, cutting off one foot. The first thought through my head with that accident as I controlled my fall backwards, holding the remains of my leg in the air, "Here's something else to deal with." Same with the cancer. (The . . marriage took more time.) I thank my counselor for teaching me that. Those experiences may seem like some of the worst. No. I knew I could figure out what to do. I have yet to figure out how to help those I love who suffer depression. I choose deal, and wish I could give some of that to several I love, deeply, so their lives could be happier and fulfilling. You've done an excellent job of relaying you deal. Your writing is a gift to the world.
Feb 22, 2023·edited Feb 22, 2023Liked by Adam Mastroianni
Excellent. The selfish and boring bit is very relatable. The "generic misery" also feels very on point: while I tend to default to fear nowadays (what triggered my head poison originally was death related, and basically there's this idea that ALL fears are about death pretty much which I buy into), I know now, when this state is only occasional; that I can shift it to "sad" or (if I feel better - this one doesn't feel anywhere near as bad) "irritated/resentful" (which isn't far of "angry" which feels good). But really, it's HEAD POISON. Bravo.
My skull poison emerged on October of 2020 and your account, while some the details vary, resonated with me so much. How having knowledge of the evolution of psychology does not always help your own experience in your own head. How general practitioner doctors prescribe meds easily but how difficult it is to get an appointment with therapist. How “healing” is non linear and varies every day. Thanks for all the humor in this piece and non clinical language.
I like what Chantel Miller says about how she cares for her depression, which she’s carried around for years. Depression can feel like a narrowing of focus, like looking through the world through a toilet paper tube. And so if you’re looking out at the world through a toilet paper tube, you might as well be looking at something nice, some small joy in the world.
My guess is that it was insufficient social contact over six months. These days, if I don’t have a meaty interaction with like three different people over the course of a week, I start to feel listless.
Awesome. You're honestly next on my list to give money too. It will take a month.
If you want to explore some of my work (jibes well with your academic observations, but with nonlinear systems theory thrown in) here's a not-bad starter piece about Life in The Matrix and the academy.
I actually write about the Deep 'How' of how people think. It's not what you think. Well, maybe. You're a smart guy.
The hardcore post is here. Just FYI -- intuitively, you already get it, or rather most of it, or I wouldn't be writing you. I've just made a lot of things explicit, in kind of a clever way. You can decide. There is this whole complexity limit thing that goes on with how people understand stuff (there's a reason why most arguments, for example, are dichotomous.) I've said it a thousand times, though -- if you understand this, the good news is you'll almost be able to read minds.
February20th 2023 you already published my favorite substack of this year. I am going to print you up hard copy find your address and send youbtwo no one! Dolla in the mail. A maze ing!
Yet another "damn, that was the best essay..." experience. Thanks, and keep typing.
I am a psychotherapist and a former pt gave me an image of EXPECTATIONS AND REALITY when it comes to treatment. The expectations is a smooth, continually upward moving line where the reality representation is of a line going all over the place, looping back on itself, getting tangled though coming out on the other end all the same. Also, one of my favorite quotes from Doctor Who about linear narratives: “People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”
Yeah, I went through a period where I was like "I accept that my recovery will not be linear!" and then I looked around being like, "Ok, I accepted it, now I would like a linear recovery, please!!"
Thanks. That's a very honest and interesting look at sadness.(I thought of other descriptors but I don't want to imply that your experience was something that it may not have been. I am pretty sure you were sad.)
I'll give yall a story from my past. When I was a teenager I had what I guess you would call real bad teenage angst. Very apathetic, very low energy, irritable. Well when I was 15 it got bad. I started having migraines so bad I would just lay on the couch and scream in pain and bawl my eyes out. I wound up in the ER, and believe me my parents never took anybody to the hospital. When i went for a migraine and when my brother went for a moccasin bite were the only two times anybody went to the ER. I remember being there and staring at a sign and not being able to decipher the words. I had terrible dizzy spells where I couldn't see through the whatever that stuff you see when you are having dizzy spells is. I had one so bad I fell and smashed my head on the floor. No one ever associated any of this with mental health.
After that year I left home. I entered college after my 10th grade year 4 hours from home. And everything started getting better. It all sorta eased up and I forgot about it. It was ten years later that i realized that all of my problems were the year of my parents divorce, which was also the year after my brother moved out. It was sorta like a light bulb going off. Some things have big reasons that make sense and some don't.
I'll end with a joke I tell sometimes, tangentially related. 'I grew up thinking I was a dark and cynical person, turns out I just lived in gnat country.'
It's weird how those things can affect you in ways that seem totally unrelated. We somehow learn very cartoonish theories of how emotions work, like "stressful life events make you sad" instead of "sometimes, for no real reason, stressful life events can make you really dizzy and make your head hurt really bad."
It's hard to remember that just because we can divide things into categories, say mind and body, they aren't separate in life. We are whole creatures not some parts pulled off a shelf with a few connections between the different parts.
I really enjoy people who can tell a good story about their lives that makes me think of my own stories. Weird day for it though on substack. Chris Bray writing about his father passing away, Henrik Carlsson with an amazing story on his grandmother who passed away a few years ago, and now you writing about the head poison that hit you. All good stories but the triple punch is a bit much for one day.
That migraine story is fascinating, Jon. It reminds me of a story about Carl Jung, when he was roughly that age. Oliver Burkeman told it recently, in his newsletter The Imperfectionist. Hang on I'll go cut and paste it...
"There's a story in Carl Jung's autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, in which the future psychotherapy pioneer is hiding in the shrubbery of his family home, eavesdropping on his father's conversation with a friend. By this point, the adolescent Jung had been off school for six months, owing to mysterious fainting spells somehow connected to his fear of mathematics classes (and misdiagnosed by one doctor as epileptic seizures). Mainly, he'd revelled in the time off. But just recently, he'd had the creeping sense that staying home was turning into an unseemly way of avoiding life. Then he heard the friend ask his father: "And how is your son?""
""Ah, that's a sad business," my father said. "The doctors no longer know what is wrong with him. They think it may be epilepsy. It would be dreadful if he were incurable. I have lost what little I had, and what will become of the boy if he cannot earn his own living?""
"Jung describes being "thunderstruck" on hearing this – and knowing immediately what he had to do. "This was the collision with reality," he writes. "'Why, then, I must get to work!' I thought suddenly. From that moment on, I became a serious child. I crept away, went to my father's study, took out my Latin grammar, and began to cram with intense concentration." He worked on, and eventually the fainting symptoms vanished."
So, yeah. Migraines, fainting spells... Growing up is HARD. Being matter that can think is DIFFICULT. Glad things got better, for you and for Adam (and for Jung).
Thanks for that Julian. What an interesting episode from Jung's life.
I had my own pandemic skull poison experience too. Some different symptoms and also my wife and I had our first kid mid-pandemic. I coped by drinking a lot and that got me through day to day, but it was breaking me down the longer I leaned on it. After 2 years of brain poison I became convinced I had a brain tumor and I was dying. I didn’t, but it put me in a bad place.
Long story short, therapy, exercise, much less booze, a new job, and my son sleeping through the night helped me a lot. But I still had lots of brain fog. That’s when I got my first ketamine injection... I don’t believe in magic levers either, but that’s pretty damn close to one.
But yeah, still have a little brain poison, but I’m feeling like pre-pandemic me again.
Glad you’re feeling better too dude.
Do you ever sometimes think: man, it would be so much easier just to have a brain tumor. It's not, of course, but it would at least make more sense.
Haha, I was talking myself up to fight a brain tumor, and after my MRI came back normal I wasn't that relieved, it was kind of just, well shit, what do I do now?
Wow. Well written and clear. An incredible counselor in my twenties taught me tools. When I started with her, I talked a few sessions, until she asked me, "Do you want to just talk about this stuff or do something about it?" Umm, do something, I guess. I've been through more stuff since - a "touch" of cancer (hey, trust that seventh doctor you go to who says he doesn't know instead of giving you less than a year), a bad marriage, a car slamming into me on a sidewalk, cutting off one foot. The first thought through my head with that accident as I controlled my fall backwards, holding the remains of my leg in the air, "Here's something else to deal with." Same with the cancer. (The . . marriage took more time.) I thank my counselor for teaching me that. Those experiences may seem like some of the worst. No. I knew I could figure out what to do. I have yet to figure out how to help those I love who suffer depression. I choose deal, and wish I could give some of that to several I love, deeply, so their lives could be happier and fulfilling. You've done an excellent job of relaying you deal. Your writing is a gift to the world.
Excellent. The selfish and boring bit is very relatable. The "generic misery" also feels very on point: while I tend to default to fear nowadays (what triggered my head poison originally was death related, and basically there's this idea that ALL fears are about death pretty much which I buy into), I know now, when this state is only occasional; that I can shift it to "sad" or (if I feel better - this one doesn't feel anywhere near as bad) "irritated/resentful" (which isn't far of "angry" which feels good). But really, it's HEAD POISON. Bravo.
My skull poison emerged on October of 2020 and your account, while some the details vary, resonated with me so much. How having knowledge of the evolution of psychology does not always help your own experience in your own head. How general practitioner doctors prescribe meds easily but how difficult it is to get an appointment with therapist. How “healing” is non linear and varies every day. Thanks for all the humor in this piece and non clinical language.
I like what Chantel Miller says about how she cares for her depression, which she’s carried around for years. Depression can feel like a narrowing of focus, like looking through the world through a toilet paper tube. And so if you’re looking out at the world through a toilet paper tube, you might as well be looking at something nice, some small joy in the world.
Keep her!
Plan to, as long as she keeps me 🙂
Brilliant and very relatable.
I really liked this piece, thank you. Contructive here. Would love more color on how you feel the pandemic kicked things off.
My guess is that it was insufficient social contact over six months. These days, if I don’t have a meaty interaction with like three different people over the course of a week, I start to feel listless.
What a wonderful, honest piece. Well done. And thank you for sharing.
Awesome. You're honestly next on my list to give money too. It will take a month.
If you want to explore some of my work (jibes well with your academic observations, but with nonlinear systems theory thrown in) here's a not-bad starter piece about Life in The Matrix and the academy.
I actually write about the Deep 'How' of how people think. It's not what you think. Well, maybe. You're a smart guy.
https://empathy.guru/2019/09/08/why-must-academia-evolve/
Thanks! I'll check it out
The hardcore post is here. Just FYI -- intuitively, you already get it, or rather most of it, or I wouldn't be writing you. I've just made a lot of things explicit, in kind of a clever way. You can decide. There is this whole complexity limit thing that goes on with how people understand stuff (there's a reason why most arguments, for example, are dichotomous.) I've said it a thousand times, though -- if you understand this, the good news is you'll almost be able to read minds.
The bad news is, well, you can kinda guess.
https://empathy.guru/2019/04/06/what-is-structural-memetics-and-why-does-it-matter/
Great article! Thank you for sharing this.
Geez, you're good. Bravo.
Not directly related, but this made me think of the EconTalk i just finished this week which followed your own appearance last week: https://www.econtalk.org/marco-ramos-on-misunderstanding-mental-illness/
Worth a listen/read!
February20th 2023 you already published my favorite substack of this year. I am going to print you up hard copy find your address and send youbtwo no one! Dolla in the mail. A maze ing!