Unfocused

[ehowton]

Interesting title I gave this entry prior to looking up the post in which I'd been put on a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor; Calm Focus. Yeah, not so much as it turns out, though it has taken me three months to figure all this out (when you rarely interact with anyone at the Self-Actualized level, these things tend to happen). Spending a long overnight with drax0r in East Texas was the exception, but after an uncharacteristically confusing couple of weeks at work (wondering just what the hell was wrong with me that I couldn't figure anything out and feeling extraordinarily dispensable) I finally put all the pieces together - it had to be the dopamine!

The tricky part will be to get my doctor thinking about brain chemistry, as I do not wish to cease my current medication at this time. Its doing what I need it to do insofar as keeping me calm. Now I just need something to focus me. From my limited understanding of these things, that's what dopamine usually does. So I'll leave it to the medical profession to figure out, and as promised, will keep you guys appraised.

Hopefully before I'm fired for being useless.

Comments

[pcofwildthings.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Recent research has found that dopamine can have opposing effects in different parts of the brain. See: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/05/dopamine-impacts-your-willingness-to-work/

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

Wow, it sure can! Yikes. I saw the doctor today and he told me I was pretty much on the, "baby dose" so suggested I take 1/2 pill every other day for awhile and see if I get my focus back. We also had a lively discussion about Post-Conventional values where he indicated he wanted external verification that my focus was affecting work rather than my own internal barometer. Did I mention he's an INTJ? Yeah, I couldn't fault his logic so told my boss this responsibility fell to him.

Thanks for the link!

[celtmanx.livejournal.com]

You know if they were going to fire you for being useless they would have done it long ago!!!

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

Excellent point.