These are things like this that can really help one in becoming more attuned to their mind, body and spirit so they can explain their feelings to others in a simple manner. Then again, some are afraid to talk about it because they associate it with their past that they’ve been ignored, the person changed the subject, and even sometimes experience some kind of abuse. These people aren’t caring and sympathetic enough, and it is destroying the victim even more.
Now comes the next part: The Native Americans, the West, and the East have had its view on how to deal with all these mental illnesses, and there is constant argument over this because the west say you should seek help and all that, and the East and Native Americans say that you do what is best for you. What if we found a third way, a way that hasn’t been discovered. This is what we call the alternative. Remember that the East has lots of cultures as opposed to the West, which has been taken over by Europe, and Native Americans are divided into many tribes, as well. If a scientist was to do some kind of Frankenstein-like experiment where they purposely altered their neurotransmitter and hormone production to give themselves manic depression, bipolar disorder, or something of that sort, would others consider that person a mad scientist? It depends on why the scientist wanted to give themselves that disorder. Was it because they wanted to personally experience the sensations? Was it because they were working on a cure, or both or neither? Also, why do people with schizophrenia only hear voices say negative things? Why don’t they hear them say positive things instead? In science-fiction books, these scientists turn into robots and take in victims to be experimented on. According to the laws of transhumanism I proposed, this is one of such violations because you are forcing a being(human or nonhuman) that you are going to do something without first having it explained properly before the experiment. Now we are at a point where we are starting to look at things like using an electroencephalogram, magnetoencephalogram or haemoencephalogram and other forms of computer sensors to gather information about what is going on in the brain and avoid using invasive procedures to change the structure of the brain, to open up the passages, especially after they have been crammed for a long time, or if there is no neurotransmitter present, try to bring some in. I have looked into possibly modifying a gene to see if I could identify the bad gene and replace it with a good gene. The problem with that is that it usually results in negative side effects. For what I know not. Besides, chromosomes cannot be completely replaced unless we knew of a way to utilise donor or synthetic ones.
Here, I will describe some of the common types of feeling one experiences, and how I can describe this using a minimum of technical jargon. If there is a term you don’t recognise, feel free to look it up. Let us start out with something very simple and easy to understand. When you are hungry, you know you associate the word hunger with the emotion you feel because you learned it. So every time you feel that sensation, your brain tells you and your mind knows how to resolve the problem. This is called homeostasis, negative feedback loop. You eat until you get another sensation that tells you that you are full. We say negative because you are reversing the effect, not because you are enforcing it. That’s known as positive feedback loop. Here’s another common feeling. When you have been left abandoned over a long period of time, or if you had a fight with someone whom you feel for, you have chest pains and you usually want to start bawling. In some cases, you feel like it was your fault even though you know it wasn’t. It’s because you know you want to change things back if you could travel back in time. Sometimes the chest pains can spread to your hands and legs, as well. What causes it, though? What is going on here? Well, let’s find out. When you think using ideas about what just happened, your blood flow changes, and much of the action goes into the limbic system and hypothalamus. The positive feedback loop causes a release of certain neurotransmitters that might allow the brain to send down signals that will tighten the inner tissue inside the thoracic cavity, and sometimes the inside tissue of your wrists, depending on how strong the signal is. Another common feeling is a panic attack. This one is characterised by a similar concept as the previous feeling, but it is a whole lot more intense because now you have adrenaline pumping in your system. So now the heart races, you start hyperventalating, and who knows what else can happen. Usually, however, something so frightening has to happen within your thoughts or within your environment for you to undergo such an ordeal. Sometimes hallucinations can lead to something like that, like a phobia. And finally, what about sleep. Your brain sends signals for when you are feeling tired, though it is not clear what makes us yawn. Your muscles take more energy to contract and your head usually feels heavy. After you sleep, your entire organism heals for the next day ahead, and the other part of your brain results in doing the work of your vital functions. I heard about a girl dubbed the bionic girl because of a deletion in one of the chromosomes. She does not feel hunger, pain, or sleepiness. I might talk about sleep-action in a future post, for that itself is relevant to mental health issues.
Now, how can we make sure that these feelings we experience don’t end up getting us confused into thinking we are mentally-ill? For that to occur, you have to have a prolonged exposure to some of these feelings, and usually because of simple every-day things. For instance, would you be afraid of water in general because you nearly drowned? Or, would you be afraid of balloons because the sound of a balloon popping scared you? It’s like the saying says, you’ve got to get back on the horse that you fell off of. A phobia is a little bit different, but is caused by associations of the past when you are little. The older you associate something bad, the easier it might be for you to recover from it, but the younger you associate it, the harder it would be for you to get out of it. Another example that I’ve read in fiction novels about secret, and often negative, pasts is the concept of repressed memories of horrific events such as rape or child molestation. That’s my opinion, though, and I may be wrong. To me, it seems to be because of how your brain develops so much when you are younger than when you are older. So, in a case of bipolar disorder, a neurotransmitter is either low in manufacture or missing completely. Is it serotonin? That is mainly responsible for making us feel more in moderation, which is what life should be anyway.
One describes the disorder as having the random feelings I talked about earlier come up, but this time, their minds are pulled into it. That is why some turn into elite people who feel the need to rule, to have things their way, which is like being stubborn and can happen to anyone. Actually, having such mental illness can affect how you view life and what cultures you identify with. If you convinced yourself you were superhuman and had a mental illness, you would be susceptible to doing something to make you feel that you could fly out a window; it could become potentially dangerous. That itself branches off to obsession compulsive disorder. One instance of this is called PANDAS, which is another way of saying Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections. So, when do bad habits become obsessive compulsive? Our brains have all sorts of spam filters that can remove any negative thoughts as soon as they appear. Sometimes, though, either because the spam filter itself malfunctions, or too many bad thoughts spring forth, thereby overwhelming it, people end up developing odd behaviours.
The question is, what makes us believe in the force? NO, I’m not talking about the Force in Star Wars. Is it because we gradually become used to how our brain controls us and we learn to do things that we would later feel ashamed of or guilty afterword? Then there is the question of self-injury. In research studies, it has been shown that your pain threshold can increase if you are in control of the pain stimulation, but if someone else hurt you, you will be more sensitive. This is because something in the brain prepares us, and therefore, it knows we are going to hurt our body. That is why it is hard for us to tickle ourselves. However, if you are in an episode of having this notion that something evil has been unleashed, forcing everyone in your environment to disperse, until you are alone, left to suffer, then all you can feel is the agony inside, the tightening, the extra load of energy, etc, the external stimulation would not hurt as much because you are already suffering inside. As your inner feelings subside, the pain outside willintensify and you will remind yourself that you did it. So, to bring this back into balance, we are looking at using neurofeedback technology to study how our brain is behaving at such a time. Yet in spite of all of this, a person can still have a fair amount of intelligence and can function very well in life, except that they have this extra part they have to get used to.
I am sure you can think of many more mental illnesses and many ways to associate them wwith your own set of words. There are songs, stories, and other forms of art that depict these feelings in a way the common person can understand. The problem is, language is so broad, so full of vocabulary that it is so hard to choose the right words to piece together the internal sensations, and even the external ones as well… in a way that you can tell others and have them interpret it and experience that sensation you experienced. So it’s not just your lack of diction, but it’s knowing who you are akin to. Can I tell this person? Should I take a chance? You won’t know unless you try. You are afraid that you will be humiliated, like you have been before. Self-humiliation and public humiliation are reasons why we are afraid to come back out of our shell and can make problems worse. So, let’s stop looking at the surface and really begin the ice-breaking process.
In a few days, I might go over some things NASA is covering, about some of my favourite authors and books I like to read now and then, about my new way of seeing Braille and more to come before the end of 2013. Due to computer issues I’ve been having over the last few weeks, I am not sure if I can get my radio server up and running in time, but I will keep working on it. One more thing to note, I learned that what the thing I was going against was called the dowry. A piece of advice: Making sure you respect someone’s culture and at the same time help them fight for equal rights is a complicated conversation to have. Having said that, good luck on all your transhuman journeys.