latch

So just focusing on emotional obsession here; like where you latch onto an event and can’t let go of the rage, embarrassment, whatever. That kind of thing happens a lot for me.

I think it’s because of - yes - dopamine dysregulation. The initial happening was probably stimulating so got a healthy all-of-your-dopamine attributed to it. It was either very pleasant or very unpleasant.

Whichever it was, you latched on with strong emotion. Emotion codes for salience of course, which means it hits hard and goes deep, but then we have issues regarding emotional processing in the autistic brain too.

Pure speculation: I think that the dopamine irregularity to time cells means emotions are not sequenced to events properly and do not fade with time like in an average brain. 

Since starting aripiprazole (and guanfacine before that) I am so much better at letting go of things; they just get released where previously I would grit my teeth and fight.

So the idea of going for a walk to release emotions? It doesn’t work. It needs to be something more engrossing and less engaging, so that your mind is fully occupied in a reward-centre sense but mostly unoccupied in a processing sense. It needs to be fun and simple.

Because of dopamine dysregulation we latch onto an event hard, and then because of memory salience and sequencing issues we are unable to process and release the emotion. It remains and festers.

Guanfacine enabled me to detach from things in about 3 minutes. Abilify it’s more like 1. Before this… I rode my bike. A lot.

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