It Would've Been Better For Everyone If I Had Stopped Having A Heartbeat Years Ago

Neuroscience of BPD

Lately I’ve been hearing that BPD isn’t a real mental illness because nothing is actually wrong with our brains and so, naturally, that means we’re using BPD as an excuse for our mood instability and impulsive behavior.

Guess what, naysayers? You were COMPLETELY right and totally called us out on our nefarious scheme!! We did, in fact, all convene at a super secret BPD convention of sorts and plotted to infiltrate the psychiatric field.

Haha, no. With the help of alix660 and porcelaindissonance I’ve learned a lot about the neuroscience behind BPD. And, while much more needs to be done in terms of BPD research, I did find strong evidence that BPD does have biological causes. You know. Just like an actual mental illness.

So here’s what we found, sorted by brain structure:

Amygdala: This brain structure is very heavily involved in emotional regulation and responses, particularly negative emotions. An fMRI study of BPD patients while being subjective to distressing visual stimuli found that our amydalas were significantly more reactive than those of control patients. This means that either the signals in our amgydalas are much more intense, or they continuing firing in our brains, preventing us from shutting down our emotional responses. Or perhaps it’s both, because that’s fun.

Another thing to note is that the amygdala receives tons of visual information, sent by the thalamus. The thalamus circumvents emotional processing in the prefrontal cortex (where we would consciously process how to regulate our emotions) and thus is involved in automatic, subconscious emotional processing. This is probably why our mood swings are so fast, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to even the tiniest triggers we come across.  (Herpetz, et al.)

Amygdala volume is significantly reduced in BPD patients as well. (van Elst, et al.)

Hippocampus: This structure is involved in formation and retention of long-term memories, as well as autobiographical memories. Not only is hippocampal volume reduced in PTSD and MDD, it is also reduced in BPD. (van Elst, et al.)

I know from my studies that the reason for hippocampal volume reduction in PTSD and MDD comes from prolonged activation of the stress response. When we go into “fight or flight” mode, several physiological changes take place: our immune system shuts down, digestion stops, etc. But most importantly, when we enter “fight or flight,” glucose, which is necessary for cell metabolism, is redirected from the hippocampus and to your muscles. If you’re faced by a life-challenging thing, like a pack of velociraptors, you don’t want to think about it. You want to run, and you want to run fast. This is biologically adaptive in the short-term and in prey species… but not so with humans, because we can have this reaction to long-term, non-threatening stressors. So in long-term distress—like MDD, PTSD, and BPD—our hippocampus is starved of energy and atrophies. Result? We have absolutely terrible memory.

Prefrontal cortex: This is where we do our conscious thinking. More specifically, the medial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in processing emotional memories, is more active in the BPD brain. Essentially, this means we have difficulty mediating our conscious emotional responses.

In the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, BPD brains also show abnormally high reactivity to aversive stimuli. This part of the cortex directly connects to our good friend the amygdala, and thus has some level of control over emotion-driven responses. (Herpetz, et al.)

In the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved in feelings of apathy and emptiness, we see a significant reduction in volume in the BPD brain. The ACC is linked to self-harm and pain sensation. (van Elst, et al.)

In the orbitofrontal cortex, we also see volume reduction in BPD. The OFC is responsible for irritability, impulsivity, and instability, which are our favorite things.

Fusiform gyrus: Found in the temporal lobe, the fusiform gyrus is the facial recognition center of the brain. And—you guessed it—it’s also shown to be hyperactive in the BPD brain. Which makes sense when you think about it: we are EXTREMELY sensitive to even the slightest changes in the facial expressions of other people. If you appear disinterested, annoyed, angry, or otherwise upset, that’s an immediate trigger. (Herpetz, et al.)

Taken together, this means that the limbic circuits (emotional regulation) and the prefrontal cortex (executive control) are uniquely involved in BPD, resulting in a hyperarousal-dyscontrol syndrome. As of right now, no other psychiatric illness has this combination of reduced brain structure volumes and hyperactivity in certain regions. (van Elst, et al.)

Bonus!!!

Serotonin: Most of us know serotonin as a crucial neurotransmitter involved in major depressive disorder. But in BPD, studies show that reduced serotonin activity is found in several locations in the brain, including the cingulate cortex, which is critical in processing incoming emotional cues. Reduced serotonin impairs inhibition of aggressive behaviors, both directed at others (like outbursts) and directed at the self (like self-harm and self-hatred). Genes involved in serotonin can easily be studied. (Skodol, et al.)

Sources:

Skodol, et al. “The Borderline Diagnosis II: Biology, Genetics, and Clinical Course”

Herpetz, et al. “Evidence of Abnormal Amygdala Functioning in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Functional MRI Study”

van Elst, et al. “Frontolimbic Brain Abnormalities in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder: A Volumetric Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study”

PS I did read several other articles that corroborated these findings, so it’s not like these are the only sources of evidence I found that point to the biological nature of BPD.

FBI Vault Files on Serial Killers

Andrew Cunanan (3 parts)

The Atlanta Child Murders (24 parts)

Herbert Baumeister (164 pages)

Ted Bundy (3 parts)

Jeffrey Dahmer (19 parts)

John Wayne Gacy (1 part)

Jack the Ripper (1 part)

Charles Manson (1 part)

The Zodiac Killer (6 parts)

Nick Cave talking about the death of his son, Arthur

One More Time with Feeling (2016) dir. Andrew Dominik

Nouveau recueil d’osteologie et de myologie (1779 - Engraving) - Jacques Gamelin

Into the Spider-Verse is, undoubtedly, a Miles Morales movie, yet I can’t help but feel sympathy for Peter B. Parker and relate to him more than to Miles as the twenty something kid that I am. The moral of the story the movie presents is there, and it’s Miles’ moral, but Peter’s character story and arc is also there and it’s maybe sadder than you think in that funny, light movie, but so important to me.

Gen Z and Millennials can definitely relate to the older Peter, even if he’s 38 years old. He’s tired, he’s done, he just wants some rest, he resents his responsibilities, he’s screwed up more times than he remembers, he’s not much of a fan of kids, he doesn’t even care about proper spelling (”There’s always a bypass key, a virus key, a who-cares key, I can never remember so I just call it a goober.”). Honestly, mood. And I’m only in college, people.

See, there is this moment in the movie that is supposed to serve as a comedic moment: Miles tries to say “with great power comes great responsibility” but Peter abruptly cuts him off, almost screaming “don’t you dare finish that sentence, don’t do it!”. Then he follows with “I’m sick of it.” And then he says “My advice? Go back to being a regular kid.”

Peter still tries to live by the words of his uncle, but where at the beginning they were his motivation and something that gave his life meaning, now they’re a resented responsibility drawing a circle he can’t break out from. He’s been slowly losing his passion for being Spider-Man, just putting the suit on because he feels like he has to. He even says that Mary Jane scared him by her wanting kids. He’s scared to move on and to be something else, something more than just Spider-Man. There’s also the reason of him not wanting to see his kid go what he’s gone through, and that being a parentless family, but that’s half of the problem.

When you get a close up

you can see the determination on his face, but there are also a broken nose, bags under his eyes, the hair he doesn’t even care to pull back, the gray skin, the scruff, a few wrinkles even, and… sadness. He’s genuinely sad, he’s depressed, and so done with everything. But he’s not one to quit. He’s still living by Ben’s words.

Those words have become his curse because he lost his way somewhere along his life, because he overdid it with understanding the words. It’s like with Titanic where they were supposed to have women on the lifeboats first, and then men, but they just let the women step into the lifeboats because they didn’t understand the command. That being said, instead of being just a motivation and inspiration, Ben’s words became something he can’t let go of, almost like a drug, like a sick addiction, and maybe he does see it, maybe he doesn’t, but it’s there, and it’s determining his life. He can’t help but loathe them. He doesn’t allow himself to be something else but these words. He is those words, nothing else.

There’s a moment in the movie where Aunt May tells him, “you look tired.” And he genuinely replies, “I am tired.” I may or may not have shed a tear, because that was the perfect reflection of how he felt and how lost he was. He was tired of being who he was and still pursued that path. Sounds relatable? Because it is.

Things happen, movie ends, and while Miles’ moral of the story is that everyone can wear a mask and nobody’s ever ready to be a hero, that they just grow into it, and all you need is that little spark, Peter B. Parker learns that the words he’s lived by aren’t what should make his life sad, broken, and resentful. He learns that he’s just a person like any other, not just words. Thanks to the little journey with Miles he learns over again that being Spider-Man is supposed to be fun and a responsibility among other things, not only a responsibility determining his day-to-day life 24/7. Peter learns that being a hero does require a lot of sacrifice, but it’s just a part of who he is, and that he has the right to be happy.

I don’t know what you got out of the movie, but in my opinion, Peter B. Parker teaches you in this movie that you have the right to be happy. You have the right to live a good life despite one or more responsibilities that set up your daily basis, whether it’s a job or a problem you’ve had for a while. You can still be happy.

I stepped out of the movie theater thinking, “goddammit, why don’t people remember that you can still be happy nowadays? Why do people determine their lives by only the bad things? Why are we like this? Why am I like this?” And honestly? Despite all the bullsh*t, all the crap, and all the small or big problems, I deserve some happiness, man. And so do you.

Thoughts on Edmund Kemper?

also one of my fav cases! this is one of my all time fav true crime quotes:

horribly insecure and would probably be an incel if he were at his age when he went on his killing spree today; extremely arrogant and narcissistic, intelligent and manipulative at the same time (i cant believe he was engaged once) 

conducted some of the best true crime interviews of all time, and was extremely insightful even if he gives himself too much credit and loves to hear himself talk, they’re still prolific interviews and he managed to get profilers to like him and i think he really wanted to be liked

awful childhood with an abusive mother who had serious mental illness; rejection from his father in adolescence severely affected his emotional state, and he carried his admiration for his father into his adulthood but never received the love he should’ve gotten from either parent

it’s crazy that clarnell predicted that he would kill his grandparents

plagued with homicidal and sexually sadistic thoughts as a kid from an extremely young age

his crimes seem pretty easy to understand to me, a lot of it had to do with his mother as well as everything mentioned above but they’re still fascinating imo

i think him turning himself in wasn’t for nobility like he claims, but moreso because he knew hed eventually get cornered

the mutilation and his obsession with having trophies of his victims is sickening and really disturbing

he reminds me of my ex and his mother actually, she has bpd and was abusive to both me and my ex,,,, and he was abusive to me (and sometimes her) and it was awful staying there. i wont be surprised if he finally snaps one day and kills her tbh forreal

he talked like an old man too and called his homicidal tendencies his “little zapples”

too tall for his own good!!

When the fuck did the social model of disability go from "the way society is structured makes disabled people's lives harder than they have to be" to "the only thing wrong with you is capitalism"?????

Psychology & Handwriting Analysis: Size

Aristotle spoke of dividing man into three aspects: the mind, the body, and the spirit: “Speech is the expression of ideas or thoughts or desires. Handwriting is the visible form of speech. Just as speech can have inflections of emotions, somewhere in handwriting is an expression of the emotions underlying the writer’s thoughts, ideas, or desires.”

Meaning: The size of the writing reveals whether a person is feeling socially extroverted or introverted. It also reveals your capacity for concentration.

Note: Sometimes your size changes, look at the definitions that describe your mood.

1. Overly Large Handwriting:

This person demands to be seen & heard

This writer overdoes (exaggerates) the size in compensation for an inner feeling of smallness and/or unimportance

Obsession with attention & will go to great lengths to obtain it

Displays obsessive tendencies by writing huge letters (to call attention on himself)

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