Almost Lost by Beatrice Sparks

times, contain different chemicals? When you’re crying for joy, for instance, like you probably did when you first came home and your mom and little sisters met you with hugs and kisses, your tears were vastly different chemically than they are now, when you’re crying from remorse, or when you’re crying from pain or whatever. Isn’t that amazing?”
    â€œYeah, it really is.”
    â€œHave you heard of chemical depression?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWell, interesting studies are being conducted to see if chemical changes in the body cause depression or if depression causes the chemical changes, or both .”
    â€œYou mean people can actually make themselves depressed to the can’t-stand-it stage where I was when I wanted to…to…”
    â€œBlow out your candle?”
    â€œI can’t believe the real me was in that tortured, defeated place. A place so dark and every molecule of my mind and body being eaten away that…that, thank God no one who hasn’t been there could ever conceive it! NOW you’ve started me thinking about something else weird. Are you trying to tell me that I took what could have been a medium sized depression and trauma and made it into something overwhelming with my self pity and negative thinking?”
    â€œDo you think that’s possible?”
    â€œI’d never thought of it before but it kind of feelstrue somewhere inside my head. That’s even more disgusting than anything!”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œThat my hateful, both mental and physical, abuse of myself and others, even before I got into the gang, was at least partially responsible for my downhill slide into…the only way I can describe it is…hell. I wish I’d known then…”
    â€œIt’s okay. Relax. You’re never never going back there, dear kind friend Sammy, you’re just going forward for forever from here! Now. Want to know more about the intricacies of the brain?”
    Sammy nodded contemplatively.
    â€œThere are numerous studies going on regarding what causes what or what feeds what in depression. Great strides are being made relative to how the chemical balance in our bodies changes with feelings of fear, anger, pain, love, joy, etcetera.”
    â€œWow! Tell me more.”
    â€œAll right. The respected neurophysiologist Ralph Gerald said, ‘Behind every crooked thought there lies a crooked molecule.’ When asked if there is a chemical for every sadness, he replied, ‘Every sadness is chemical!’”
    â€œI’m not sure I get that.”
    â€œThen let me tell you a true fish story. Dr. Ray Fuller, one of the three scientists who worked on the drug Prozac project, tells of an experiment with damselfish. A number of them were kept in a fish tank with a barrier of transparent glass between them and some predator fish. The damselfish naturally thought they would soon be eaten. After a time, the serotonin levels in their brains showed marked changes. That simple experiment illustrates how anxiety, repeated rejection, and other things we experience or think we experience cause neurochemical changes in the brain. A similar experiment with mice and rats on one side of a transparent barrier and cats on the other produced the same neurochemical results, as did one with dogs and cats. Do you understand a little more about how you control the chemical changes in your body and mind now?”
    â€œIt sounds awesome, stratospheric, science fiction.”
    â€œScience fiction it’s not! What happens to you when you allow yourself to get angry or afraid or frustrated almost to the point of being out of control?”
    â€œUmmmm, my muscles and nerves and stuff tighten up until…until they feel almost brittle.”
    â€œWhat happens to your stomach?”
    â€œIt knots up and my heart pounds.”
    â€œAnd adrenaline pumps into your body until the chemicals in every organ and molecule of