[smcleod]

May I ask:

- How is your happiness and your energy levels outside of work?

- How is your cognitive performance at work? (Can you focus, are your thoughts 'foggy', do you have any issues working out complex tasks/solutions that you used to solve without issue etc....)

- Are you empowered in your job/role/team to make changes / improvements as you see fit, without being significantly limited or blocked by others?

--

I'm someone whose always gained a large portion of their energy from their work. When work wasn't going well it massively impacted my personal space / energy.

When my cognitive ability was impaired I found that all the rewards that technical work used to afford me disappeared, I was considering looking for options outside of engineering - or at least pivoting to less hands-on work, however I managed to completely fix my cognition and as soon as I did so - work was enjoyable again, and as such - my personal time as well.

[flockonus]

Curious how you "fixed" your cognition and energy levels?

[smcleod]

This is sort of the TLDR - I had tried a bunch of things over a few years, changing my diet, more exercise, various antidepressants etc... - none of it really did anything at all.

I went and saw a new psychiatrist and he wondered if it was perhaps a dopamine regulation issue. As such he prescribed Bupropion - which is only prescribed in Australia as a smoking cessation aid - but off label / in other countries it can be prescribed as an atypical anti-depressant.

Almost all antidepressants work on serotonin and norepinephrine - however, bupropion works on dopamine, hints being known as an atypical anti-depressant.

Within about five days, it felt like I'd been swimming underwater and surfaced to the clear air for the first time in five or so years. And within, perhaps a month or two, my is completely back to where I was say eight or nine years ago, perhaps even slightly better.

A few other things changed such as ever since I was little child. I was a chronic nail biter - at within two months that was completely gone and hasn't come back over a year later.

So that fixed my cognition, and I now know that it's a dopamine regulation issue, and is completely treatable.

[mxuribe]

Thanks for sharing! Wow, that is quite the discovery! Glad to hear you arrived at a good place!

[mxuribe]

As @flockonus noted, i'm also curious how you solved your cognition issue. If you're comfortable sharing, would love to learn!

[smcleod]

Replied :)

[mxuribe]

Yep, just saw above. Thanks again!!