My Amygdala is Exquisite

Relief is a great feeling!

Think about it. It is one of the best feelings. It’s the feeling after pain and loss; it’s joy, but with a reason so its more than joy. It’s a double hit. Not only is it what it is, it means the end of something unwanted.

Contentment is another great — and underrated — feeling that gets sidelined by its shinier older sibling, Happiness. In this hyperbolic world though, even happiness isn’t enough. Ecstasy, euphoria, transcendence is the goal today — or escape. I prefer contentment.

Happiness is an ideal short-term objective but contentment is the best fit for the long term. Ecstasy, euphoria, etc. are too tiring.

Contentment has entirely positive connotations (including adaptation) and the absence of intensity appeals to me. Contentment is something I could endure forever; happiness sounds to me like a prelude to a fall.

The horror of having PTSD — the way the disease manifests itself in me right now — is that I am prone to profound emotional distress due to an unknown factor. I used to get seizures in response to invisible triggers; now it's a depression-like darkness. The life gets sucked out of me. I live in units: I’ll take a nap and escape this; I’ll go for a walk and maybe I’ll feel better; maybe if I eat something, I’ll feel better; I’ll watch a movie to get lost in it; maybe I could call Dwight to talk to someone (I never do).

The pills help a lot.

When I saw Dr. Shoja this week, we talked about how to survive these intense bouts of darkness. During the discussion, she showed me cross sections of the brain again as part of her explanation and while she was talking, she referenced my amygdala as being “exquisitely” sensitive. I thought that was an odd term to use, so I asked her why she’d said it and learned that it’s a term that is commonly used in psychiatry to refer to the extreme state.

My Amygdala is exquisite.

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Today is wet. Tomorrow is supposed to be the first of a week of sunny and cold days. The sun gives me a lot of energy so I will likely walk (where there is no ice) and try some experiments with the wheat.

The blood dress may come together quite quickly if I use material from the Vivicean dress from my 2015 play and I’ve done all the practice stitching I need to do to make the apron. Soon I will have seven dresses done. By the fall of 2017, I can easily have a dozen completed so I think they can be put to some use then.

I’ve had a new idea of what to do with them, too: I’m thinking store windows. I’m wondering if I could find a series of unused large windows with street exposure somewhere in an building under construction or an abandoned building where the owners might appreciate having something interesting installed. I’d install the dresses with large images of the letters that go with them.