This gets at something that I think a lot about. It seems that a lot of people would rather think that their brains are physiologically disturbed than that they have something wrong with their thinking.

I think that some people with psychic problems are afraid of being blamed for those problems. If we can say the cause is biological, then it makes us less responsible.

I look at it different. I have suffered many years with serious depression. I really don't think there is anything wrong with my brain. (Well, I do understand that being depressed can adversely affect the brain.) I think it is my maladaptive traits and the trauma of some unfortunate experiences and being conditioned to react badly to certain stresses and fears that has caused my depression. That doesn't mean I am saying it is all my own fault. We are no more responsible for the influences that affect us and the things that happen to us than we are for the genes and wiring of our brains and the chemical forces at play in our heads.

I do believe there is something wrong with the way my mind works . . . not that that is easy to change. I'm starting to think that mental damage can be just as permanent as physical damage.

An antidepressant did help me a lot . . . but I still had bad problems when severe stress came into my life. Then pdocs wanted to put me on all these medications. I tried them hopefully. They didn't help. Now I think that pdocs way overestimate how much of the problem resides in the brain itself. I've given up on most of the toxic meds they were so sure would help me . . . but did not.

I believe a lot of the problem causing my depression resides in the way I became conditioned to react to life. Not all of our behavior is totally a product of choice . . . that I do believe.