The neurology of changing one's mind

"... if we initially get a feeling of reward from an idea, we will seek to replicate the feeling multiple times. Each time, the reward centre in the brain, the ventral striatum and more specifically the nucleus accumbens located within it, is triggered, and eventually other parts of the instinctive brain learn to solidify the idea into a fixed one. If we try to change our minds, a fear center in the brain like the anterior insula warns us that danger is imminent. The powerful dorsolateral prefrontal cortex can override these more primitive brain centers and assert reason and logic, but it is slow to act and requires a great deal of determination and effort to do so. Hence, it is fundamentally unnatural and uncomfortable to change our minds, and this is reflected in the way our brains work."

— Sara E. Gorman and Jack M. Gorman, Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us

(no subject)

This is my farewell letter to my beloved Kpop boy, Kim Jonghyun, who took own his life earlier this month.

__

Dear Jjong,

It’s been eleven days. You’re safe in the arms of the Earth, or possibly the Moon. I’m ready to write this now.

Though I’m not quite ready to listen to your voice again. At the gym “Up & Down” suddenly came up on shuffle and, after a few seconds, I had to skip it. Those words have an odd significance for me because of the Bipolar II Disorder. “Oh why is her mood up? Oh why is her mood down? It’s like a rollercoaster ride.” I’ll say.

When I first fell into depression, you were five years old, and I was twenty-seven, the age at which you took your life. I’ve had suicidal thoughts many times, but I’ve never made a plan. I think this is the hardest thing for me to get my head around. Momentary overwhelming pain and desperation, I think I can understand, and I know intimately the way that depression warps your thinking: it’s a vile, deceitful enemy.

But deciding when and how you will die, and then continuing to function under that death sentence, keeping a secret that enormous from everyone you love… that’s hard to imagine. I’ve had the advantage of better care, I think, and longer experience, and I haven’t endured constant pressure to be perfect. I have never been so barren of hope that I couldn’t draw back from the edge.

Oh, it hurts to see you referred to in the past tense on Wikipedia. You were there when I first stumbled across Kpop, when fans of the BBC’s Sherlock were complaining that Shawols had the temerity to tag the teaser photos “sherlock”. I watched the video out of sheer spite. Then I discovered “Lucifer” and was instantly hooked - on the music, on Taemin, and on you. I guess I’m lucky that, musically, you and SHINee and I have moved in different directions in recent years. (Or rather, you moved, in the direction of more sophisticated music, while I’m still addicted to the melodramatic stuff.)

I’m so grateful to you for everything. I’m not exaggerating when I say that “Internet War” changed my life. But I would rather you were alive and happy and I’d never heard of you than you suffered and struggled and lost. Now I deeply question my involvement in Kpop. No amount of distant love from fans can save someone, only treatment and support can hope to do that. Our enjoyment, and your owner’s riches, just ween’t worth it.

I have so many conflicting beliefs about what comes after life. I doubt any of them would have meaning or make sense to you. I like to imagine you’re still there somewhere, but with the terrible twist in your thinking untied. I imagine you in warm sunshine, eating and sleeping at your leisure, making music as you please.

That’s the life you should be living right now. I wish I could go back in time and throw open the windows for you.

- Kate