The Fear

I don't fear much, not even death, but I do fear becoming my dad. I'm convinced that Father Asshole Dick Face Abusive Fucker had depression and anxiety (no wonder I have that also) but he didn't get help. The anger that he showed me, my brother and sister was...I can't even describe it. In martial arts there is this legendary, mythical thing called Lion's Roar, or Dragon's Roar. Basically you yell something, anything so loud at a person that something will happen to them (1). My dad was very powerful and hateful. His anger fueled his roar and I fear I have the same qualities.

"Activity in the brain's "hate circuit" is out of sync across the circuit's three regions, leading to self-loathing and other failures to deal appropriately with feeling of hate, research suggests (Sci Am)."

They iMRI'd 37 depressed and 39 not depressed brains to see the parts of the brain that 'lite up' , or not, during certain tasks. What they found was that the connectivity of the three regions associated with the "hate circuit" was not all connectivity-y.

This "hate circuit" (superior frontal gyrus, insula, putamen) in my brain and other depressed brains, basically, is outta wack. New research shows that of the three regions of the brain associated with that "hate" that I fear, in the depressed brain they are not in synch, which researchers are calling an "uncoupling."

"These differing activity levels, which the researchers referred to as an "uncoupling" of the circuit, may explain why depressed people experience self-loathing, they said. Depressed people may not be able to deal appropriately with feelings of hate, and as a consequence, develop selfhatred and withdraw from social situations, the researchers said (Sci Am)."

I'll have some brain, sunny side up please.

Of course when any new research is done, there is criticism. The brain is vast and at this time, not totally understood. Parts of the brain overlap and overlap. So while there is deff. a "hate circuit" (identified in 2008), it is also contains (overlap) parts of the brain associated with, love-n-not hate stuffs. It is exactly like the God region of the brain that Team Atheist wants so badly to find. Basically, there is too much overlap for any one function to be associated with one region of the brain. Still, I think the research is exciting.

My dad's anger (and depression. frackin' gloomy today) was tremendous and so is mine. Dangerous and uncontrollable are two words that come to my mind when thinking about his anger. Another one is irrational. One thing that I have learned about depression is that it doesn't makes sense and if you try and make sense outta it, then you are going down the wrong road. That doesn't mean that we should not try and understand it in the material form with science-n-all that stuffs. In fact, understanding would, at least for me, ease the mind.


(1) I fear that I can do this and what it is, in reality, is that you yell so loud that you can shake that person up. Part of the myth-y part is that you can kill someone with it. I guess. Fo sho I can yell so loud that a person would back up, would have fear in their eyes and an increased heart rate. Those things could lead to a heart attack, so I guess, yes, Lion's Roar can kill someone. I've been so not feeling good the past couple of days I fear that I will explode and roar uncontrollably...the way my dad did to me. I've seen my dad fight grown men, and win. I've seen my dad take on a group of teenagers, all at the same time, and win. I have never seen anger like that anywhere else, and I'm convinced that because of genetics, I have that also. That is my fear.