This Post Talks About Kids and Psychedelic Drugs

Well, we're just about wrapped up on discussing Johann Hari's book, Lost Connections. I still strongly encourage anyone that's been following this series to get the book. If you don't have enough money to buy it, hit up your local library. It's a very good book.

Chapters 13 and 20 will be discussed here. In chapter 13, Hari put two reasons for depression in one chapter. Genetics, and changes in the brain.

If you suffer from depression and anxiety, you've probably asked yourself, "Am I broken?" I've often asked myself that when wondering why I was depressed. I've had friends and family members talk to me about their depression and ask that. What we really mean is, "Am I just genetically predisposed to suffer from depression and anxiety?" And the answer is, well, kind of.

We're not actually broken. As I've written already and as Hari's book discusses in detail, we have perfectly good reasons for being depressed. Very legitimate reasons. Yet there is two factors that can make us more predispositioned for depression and anxiety.

The beginning of Chapter 13 discusses a concept called "neuroplasticity". Neuroplasticity is the brain changing over time as new experiences happen. Hari interviewed a neuroscientist named Marc Lewis about the concept. To quote:

If you look at a brain scan of a depressed or highly anxious person, Marc explained to me, it will look different from the brain scan of somebody without these problems. The areas that relate to feeling unhappy, or to being aware of risk, will be lit up like Christmas tree lights. They will be bigger, and more active.

Basically, if you do suffer from depression and anxiety, your brain is wired for it.

I can relate to this big time. I once told my therapist, "One of the perks of having General Anxiety Disorder is that you're always preparing for the worst case scenario." I said that completely unironically. My wife and I had signed up to National Debt Relief about six months prior because we were in debt up to our eyeballs, and they asked us if we wanted to pay an upcharge to keep a lawyer on retainer in case one of our creditors decided to sue us. Of course I did. I prepared for the worst case scenario. And then one of the creditors did. Good thing we paid for that lawyer, as he got that shit settled quick.

I'm always preparing for the worst case scenario, because having depression and anxiety has my brain hard wired to always be scoping out threats. When you suffer from those, your brain is in constant survival mode. Detect the threat. Prepare to defend against the threat.

It's kind of ironic that in those moments, anxiety feels less like a burden and more like a warm blanket.

The other part of chapter 13 talks about the genetic component of depression. When I saw that there was a genetic link to depression and anxiety, I was, to put it mildly, alarmed. My oldest daughter has shown symptoms of extreme anxiety, and not just in a "kids being kids" way. There's times when she expresses fear in a "this is not normal, even for a six year old" manner. And come to think of it, my parents have suffered from depression. My dad's medicine cabinet is full of pretty much every anti-depressant on the map. From what my parents have told me, my grandparents likely suffered from depression. But it's not that simple. A group of scientists did study the genetic component of depression and anxiety and, to quote:

Years into their work, they found something striking. They discovered that having a variant of a gene called 5-HTT does relate to becoming depressed.                                                                                                                                                                                   Yet there was a catch. We are all born with a genetic inheritance-but your genes are activated by your environment. They can be switched on, or off, by what happens to you. And Avshalom [the leader of the team of scientific researchers conducting the study] discovered-as Professor Robert Sapolsky explains-"that if you have a particular flavor of 5-HTT, you have a greatly increased risk of depression, but only in a certain environment." If you carried this gene, the study showed, you were more likely to become depressed-but only if you have experienced a terribly stressful event, or a great deal of childhood trauma.

So there is a mental component to depression, but it's only activated as a result of the perfectly good reasons why you're depressed or anxious.

So how do we deal with this? Well, according to the book, by doing lots and lots of drugs!

I'm kidding, but not really.

Ronald Griffith is a man that rose through the ranks of psychology and has become a veritable god in the field. After trying to find studies on meditation (more on that later), he found that there were studies done in the 50s and 60s on the effect of hallucinogens that caused people to not only be less depressed, but also quit smoking and drinking. The studies ceased after that, because, well, President Nixon. But in the 1990s, Dr. Griffith had enough political clout to try it again. He decided to do experiments with patients under the influence of psilocybin, the chemical in magic mushrooms. The patients were placed in a room under the supervision of a medical professional, and given the drug. The effects were magical.

Like I keep saying, get the fucking book and read it (Lost Connections by Johann Hari, at your local library if you can't afford to buy it, otherwise it's literally anywhere books are sold), because the results were spectacular, and the experiences detailed in the book are far too long for me to quote. Yet the patients had their anxiety replaced by a feeling of deep connection to people and their emotions.

When I read about this, I did look into where I could have this same treatment. Do drugs, end your depression. I found one retreat out in California that cost thousands of dollars to attend, not including travel costs. So that's out.

So what can we do? That's where meditation comes in.

Or I should say, real meditation. Meditation exercises are pretty much everywhere these days, and a lot of it is just bullshit made to collect your money. Back when I worked at the oil refinery, I would listen to a meditation app on my phone that did nothing but have me doing some breathing exercises. For $5.99 a month, some asshole told me to "breathe in, breathe out" for ten minutes a day and it didn't do a thing. I was still depressed and hated my job.

Hari's book mentions two types of meditation. The first is "loving-kindness meditation". If you're the type of person that hates people out of envy, this is a good exercise for you. Just close your eyes, think of someone that you're envious of, and instead of thinking hateful thoughts, focus on thinking positive thoughts about the person. Do it for five minutes at a time, every day. After a while, you'll notice that not only are you happier, but you're also liking people a lot more.

The other is deep meditation, which does mimic the effects of being on magic mushrooms. One of the patients that had taken shrooms in the experiment given by Dr. Griffith ended up becoming a meditation coach because he knew that the psychological effects of taking the drug were temporary, and he wanted to continue having the mental state that he had after doing the experiment.

I've been trying to find a deep meditation coach ever since reading Hari's book, and it's not an easy task. I live in Southeast Michigan, where 2/3rds of the population lives, and finding pretty much any other thing is easy to find here. Yet finding an actual deep meditation coach, as opposed to a bunch of con artists, is hard. I'll still keep looking, though.

Well, this wraps up my series on Lost Connections. I might do a conclusion post in the days ahead to sum up everything in his book and my last few posts. There's also a lot of stuff I really want to write about if I can get the time. Either way, thanks for reading!