Madi’s Reviews > Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers > Status Update

Certain things will probably trigger you. Anniversaries, life circumstances. But your relationship with your trauma will change. It won’t be the beast that controls your every move, anymore. Your trauma will be more like that pain in the ass neighbor with too much time on their hands. You know the one.

People struggling with depression (or any mental illness) are ANYTHING but crazy. They are survivors, fighting back against brain chemistry that is entirely at odds with all the things that make life worth living. Those of you who are living this? Who are saying “Fuck you, Depression, you don’t get to win today”? You are the bravest people I know. Keep fighting.

You are not defined by your depression. You are not weak, and you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t deserve this. You are not being punished. You hit the perfect storm of genetics + trigger and you are now dodging and weaving while running your ass off toward getting better. People struggling with depression (or any mental illness) are ANYTHING but crazy.

Robert Sapolsky defines depression as “a genetic-neurochemical disorder requiring a strong environmental trigger whose characteristic manifestation is an inability to appreciate sunsets.” I define it as a clinical case of the fuck-its.

If you have had a trauma, if you have been hurt so badly in a way that you don’t trust the world, you are far, far, far more likely to be susceptible to addictive behavior. At some point

Dr Faith G Harper. Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers (Kindle Locations 1812-1814). Microcosm Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The best model I have seen to explain anger uses the acronym AHEN. AHEN is as simple a conceptualization as you can get. ANGER is triggered by
Hurt
Expectations not met
Needs not met

To borrow a famous Buddhist expression, anger is like holding onto a hot coal and expecting the person we are angry at to get burned.

Dr Faith G Harper. Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers (Kindle Locations 1699-1700). Microcosm Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Feeling some serious fucking anger is a normal part of being a human being. Losing your shit is not. As I tell my clients…you are allowed to BE crazy, but you aren’t allowed to ACT crazy. Being as irritated as fuck because someone jacked the parking spot you were waiting for? Totally legit. Going postal over it? Not so helpful.

So here is our working definition: Anxiety is a state of full body disequilibrium at a level of intensity that demands immediate attention and corrective action on your part. It can be in the face of a real or perceived threat, either present or anticipated.

So here is our working definition: Anxiety is a state of full body disequilibrium at a level of intensity that demands immediate attention and corrective action on your part. It can be in the face of a real or perceived threat, either present or anticipated.