Rick Beeman

  Throughout this whole solitude thing I’ve had a lot of time for self-reflection and a whole lot of time in therapy. I’ve grown through the angst.  I have also come up with a lot of realizations about myself.  For those that know me best it’s quite obvious.  Amongst many other things is that I have an addictive personality.  That means it’s really easy for me to get hooked on processes as I search for a dopamine rush for a dopamine deficiency.  According to our friends at Chat GPT this is the definition of Dopamine: Dopamine is a neurotransmitter —a chemical messenger in the brain—that helps regulate movement, motivation, reward, and mood .  When something feels enjoyable or motivating, dopamine is one of the key chemicals involved. It also plays important roles in learning, attention, and controlling voluntary movement. I have a predisposition for addictive behavior because of my ADD.  My running joke is that I used to have ADHD but I got too o...

It might not seem like it at first glance, but I feel like I’m turning a corner.  Yesterday’s post I was wallowing in loneliness and despair, yet today I feel better.  The spots of despair are becoming lessened while the spots of peace are becoming lengthened.  This doesn’t mean that I won’t have my bad days, its just that the horrible days are finally becoming fewer and farther between.  I’m not 50-50 between despair and peace just yet.  But by my unscientific calculations (guess) I am 25% Peace and 75% despair.  That might not seem like much but for months it was 5% peace to 95% despair with some days being as low as 1-2% peace.  You see I really love(d) my wife/family. Having them ripped away (I realize that it was my doing) felt like my skin being ripped away emotionally speaking. Those were rough times which I NEVER want to experience again.  So even from going from 5% to 25% is a marked improvement and I’ll take it.  Hopefully tomorrow ...