Actually - you are vastly over-simplifying the dopamine schizophrenia connection - and interpreting it very negatively.
Dopamine is just one of many things thought to be involved in schizophrenia. And Dopamine does many things in your brain…
"The brain includes several distinct dopamine pathways, one of which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior. Most types of reward increase the level of dopamine in the brain, and most addictive drugs increase dopamine neuronal activity. "
and…
“By the 1970s researchers understood that these typical antipsychotics worked as antagonists on the D2 receptors.[70][71] This realization led to the so-called dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia, which postulates that schizophrenia is largely caused, by hyperactivity of brain dopamine systems.[72] The dopamine hypothesis drew additional support from the observation that psychotic symptoms were often intensified by dopamine-enhancing stimulants such as methamphetamine, and that these drugs could also produce psychosis in healthy people if taken in large enough doses.”
and…
“Later observations, however, have caused the dopamine hypothesis to lose popularity, at least in its simple original form.[72] For one thing, patients with schizophrenia do not typically show measurably increased levels of brain dopamine activity.[72] Also, other dissociative drugs, notably ketamine and phencyclidine that act on glutamate NMDA receptors (and not on dopamine receptors) can produce psychotic symptoms.”
and
Even so, many psychiatrists and neuroscientists continue to believe that schizophrenia involves some sort of dopamine system dysfunction. As the “dopamine hypothesis” has evolved over time, however, the sorts of dysfunctions it postulates have tended to become increasingly subtle and complex.
So - don’t jump to conclusions. And everyone is different.
I don t know to others but since my dopamine hormone reduce ; my focus ability raised significantly also my stupid thought loose. my working ability has raised also.
Sometimes i can get happy especially when i understand that my paranoid stupid thought was wrong.
But there is obvious fact that we have lower happyness and pleasure than others.this is nothing to do with our drugs.because before not take my drugs i was more stressed and not happy at all.plus i was in bed all the time.of course i m not blame my drugs because this drugs have serious issue with my brain.if i don t take my drugs my dopamine hormone will raise and start to kill my brain cells.result of this i will insane or more serious damage at my brain.
My biggest concern about this topic was we have to focus our working abilities than focus pleasure and happyness.that s all.we shouldn t target hedonistic pleasure on our lives because our potential doesn t allow these feelings.i m ok with pleasure free life ; i just don t want stress and unhappyness.
I suffer from chronic depression. I am in fact experiencing my lowest point since I was 14, which was when I was given the choice to either voluntarily enter a mental hospital, or be drugged and transported to one. I signed myself in to Spring Harbor of Westbrook Maine, while there I was treated not like I was a depressed teen who had just lost his best friend to cancer/suicide (he refused treatment after having gone through it for six years with no results) I was treated like I was completely incapable of doing anything. when I used the bathroom someone had to watch me to make sure I didn’t hurt myself getting off the toilet, when I took a shower it was with someone watching to make sure I didn’t slip or try to poison myself with the shampoo. I had to wear slippers because shoelaces were a noose in the making, I was forced to take a medication, that three years ago I found out causes sterility in men if given in high enough doses as it affects the production the hormones Testosterone and another one that makes the body produce the sugar needed to keep sperm alive, and my only intellectual exorcise was a copy of the bible…because the doctor decided that I, a comfortably agnostic teen, needed God in my life. I was forced, while in that hell hole for three weeks, to read the bible from Genesis 1 to the end of the new testament. I was quizzed on what I read, and if I did not read I was not allowed to have dinner until I had read a certain number of pages. I was locked in the ‘rubber room’ because I told the doctor he was a worthless twit, my exact words were ah a little less polite…and even though I was in there voluntarily they threatened to have me locked up for the rest of my life if I did not complete their treatment plan.
I may be more depressed right now than I was then, but I will not go to another hospital. I would rather sit in my room and sulk for a few weeks than do that again. It was not just degrading, it was traumatizing.
But my life does have good times, when I got my first dog, who was just mine, Luna, who is the source of my current depression as she is ageing badly and the vet says she will be lucky to live another three years. Her brother, two years younger than her, has the same prognosis, and my rescue is an old girl at 5-8 and also only has another 3-5 years left. I found out I can’t have children, so they are the closest I will ever get.
