I have learned something important about myself. Probably the most significant thing since I took my first IQ test and discovered why I had never fit in with the public school kids, enlisted soldiers, beat cops, and blue-collar laborers I had been surrounded by all my life. Perhaps even more so.

What I've found is, finally, the answer to the question "What's wrong with me?" for which I've been searching for many years. Or, more specifically, "What's wrong with my brain?" It's a form of ADD, of all things, coupled with TS (Tourette's), which another doctor had suggested some years ago, but then was contradicted by others, so I wasn't sure. But now I am. 

I had never really considered ADD or looked into it, because my idea of it was the typical hyperactive, defiant child who can't sit still or read. I had actually discussed it with my psychiatrist a few years ago as a possible explanation for my difficulty writing, but never as the root cause of all my problems. But it turns out there's much more to ADD than just that. There are different types, and the effects are far-reaching and diverse. I don't have the typical form of either ADD or TS, which is fixed in the popular mind--that is, I don't have either hyperactivity nor coprolalia (the involuntary shouting of obscenities), but that's actually only found in a small percentage of TS sufferers. The clinical definition is "At least one motor tic and at least one vocal tic, persisting for more than a year" and I definitely meet that. When I was a boy, it was horrible. I had multiple both motor and vocal tics, starting from about 8 or 9, and gradually lessening (but never fully disappearing--there are still traces to this day) as I got older. And apparently, TS and ADD are very frequently comorbid.

So basically, without going too long or too deep into it, my brain doesn't (and never has) produce enough dopamine, serotonin, or GABA. Also, certain parts of my brain are seriously over-active, while other parts are under-active, especially during activities which require a specific type of focus and concentration. The parts that seem to be most overactive in mine are called the anterior cingulate gyrus and the limbic system. The former is responsible for shifting attention and focus and when it is dysfunctional causes people to get "stuck" in repeated thoughts, rigid patterns, etc. The latter is the main center for processing emotion and, for some reason, when over-active, produces overwhelmingly negative thoughts and emotions. You see where this is going, right? 

So I've lived my whole life completely trapped in an unbreakable pattern of endlessly looped negative thoughts and feelings. I'll try to explain a little bit--I can only now even attempt it now that I've experienced something different (more on that in a minute), like someone who was born with bad eyesight and doesn't get glasses until they're an adult can't describe to you the difference between what they see and what you see until after they get the glasses: they just don't know the difference between what they're experiencing and normal reality.

The way it's been in my brain is that I've lived with every single negative experience, thought, feeling, and memory of my entire life, fully present, over and over and over and over and over and over again, in an endless, eternal loop, in vivid, excruciating detail, and at full emotional intensity, as if they had JUST happened. Every single one. From huge, major traumatic experiences, to tiny little social embarrassments, they just played over and over and over and over and over in my head, going all the way back into my very early childhood (and my memory extends back to being a baby in a stroller). All my life, I've heard people say, "Well, it's in the past, it's over now," and I never knew what they meant. Because for me, nothing was in the past. Well, nothing bad was in the past. For some reason, good memories receded all too easily, leaving only the regret that they were no longer reality...so, in the end, even good memories became bad ones. Does this sound kind of like Hell to you? You would be correct.

So what do I mean when I speak of it in the past tense? Well, true to form, once we had identified the problem, I went and started reading and researching about it (while the VA drags its feet scheduling appointments for testing, evaluation, prescriptions, etc.), and found a doctor who has been specializing in this for 20+ years, read his book, followed his recommendations about supplements, and...the whole world changed. I'm taking L-tyrosine, which increases dopamine (similar to the prescription stimulants they use for ADD), 5-HTP, which increases serotonin (like antidepressants, but without the side-effects), GABA, which increases, well, GABA, and SAM-e, which acts as sort of a neutral base for neurotransmitters, boosting whichever ones the brain needs, kind of like a stem-cell which can become anything. And has the added benefit of helping a LOT with my chronic pain and inflammation. And literally, everything is different. I can go to sleep for the first time EVER without fighting with all those negative thoughts and memories, as I try to get to sleep, and all through the night as they wake me up to remind me not to forget about them. My whole feeling and outlook on life is changing. It's still in process--this is all relatively new, and I'm experimenting with dosage and which thing works best, and also, learning to live in a completely different way. It's a monumental change, and I have to get used to it and adjust, both physiologically and psychologically.

And the TS part, well, the best way to describe that is...have you ever heard a truck grinding its gears when it tries to shift? That's what the inside of my brain has been like. Since I was a child.

Also, there's this: https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/. I'm not going to elaborate. If you've ever known me, you will see instantly how much of me was this. I went for option 2 in the "how people cope" section. But identifying and understanding it is giving me freedom from it.

In addition, somehow this brain disorder causes extreme hypersensitivity to many other things: touch (like my obsession with only cotton clothes, sheets, etc.), sound, light, crowds, just people in general. The world has felt overwhelming to me for as long as I can remember, but I never understood why. It's because parts of my brain, and therefore my entire nervous system, are in constant overdrive.

One of the most significant things about this, psychologically, other than just the relief of finally knowing and understanding what it is, is the knowledge that, after all, it is not a psychological problem, but a neurological one. To be sure, living my whole life with the neurological issue caused psychological ones. But at its core, it's not something wrong with me, With Me, that is, with my psyche. My soul. It's a problem of machinery. It's hard to convey the relief which that gives me. So, for instance, I don't need to beat and punish and judge and condemn myself anymore for "never learning good study habits" and under-performing in school relative to my potential. I couldn't have done any better without having been treated for the ADD. Looking back now, from the perspective of starting to feel relief and freedom from these things, I see my whole life differently--without all the self-judgment, regret, and shame. In other words, it's not a failure of character and virtue. In fact, given the severity of the difficulties I've had to deal with, it's only because of character and virtue that it wasn't much worse. I mean, it could have been SO much worse. 

So much that I've never understood about myself, or been able to control or change is now clear--from my weight (eating to feel better) to my continual risk-taking and danger-seeking--it's all been ways to try and boost the dopamine and serotonin which were so lacking in my brain. Ways to try to feel better, if only a little bit for a little while, no matter at what cost. Because, let me tell you, unless you've ever experienced it, you have no idea how completely awful it feels to be without these neurotransmitters. Think of the worst you've ever felt in your entire life; immediately after a great loss, failure, disappointment, embarrassment, whatever--and try to imagine feeling that way always, all the time, your whole life.

This is still a work in progress, and I've still got a lot of working out of the details to do. It's not completely gone; it's just lessened, at this point. Hopefully, I'll continue to find (eventually with the help of doctors and such) ways to improve. I don't really like, for instance, the stimulating effect of the L-tyrosine, and would like to find a way to elevate dopamine without it--I'm thinking it's because almost everything that targets dopamine also targets norepinephrine. There's a place in Reston which specializes in this, and I'd like to go there and get my brain scanned and get some more detailed and specific targeted guidance from people knowledgeable and experienced in treating it. And there's the possibility that the supplements will lose effectiveness over time, and my brain will reassert itself. 

And there are other components: the discovery of this diagnosis corresponded exactly in time with breakthroughs in both psychotherapy and my spiritual life--as if God were timing it all, to bring it all together at the exact right moment.  

I honestly feel, though, like the Ring has finally gone into the fire. And right now, I'm just taking some time to let it sink in, to adjust, to rest, to heal. Like Frodo lingering in Ithilien and Gondor and dawdling on his way home. But also, like Frodo, I kind of feel like the cost was too great, that I was wounded too many times and too deeply to ever completely recover, like maybe there is no true, lasting peace and rest for me. Like maybe it's just a matter of waiting for that last grey ship. 

What I'm feeling right now is this deep, deep sadness. Not the overwhelming bitter torment of regret and misery that I've lived in until now, but what I almost want to call a healthy sadness. Just the deep, profound sadness of all that I have lost. Not just recently, but over my whole life. 

So, one of the results of all this is that I'm kind of over wanting to talk about myself at great length and in great detail. I've needed to up until now, because I was searching for answers, working through things, processing it all. Now I'm past it. Or maybe just tired of it. But I thought, for those who have read this far with me, that I owed you a denouement. I don't know what the future of this blog will be. Maybe I'll still need to process some things. Maybe I'll let it die. Maybe I'll start a new, less personal one at some point. Just don't know. If you do come here one day and find that it's set to private, it's not because I've blocked anyone individually, or everyone for any personal reason, but because I've decided to archive and shut down the whole thing, and setting it to private is the only way to do that without deleting it all. But if you did read and, in a sense, live through this all with me, then thank you.