https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ctw8ugdtLoN/?igshid=Y2I2MzMwZWM3ZA%3D%3D
What she is describing is related to the addiction cycle. Dopamine is both a hormone and a neurotransmitter involved in the brain’s reward and motivation systems. It helps us to enjoy life – pleasure and enjoyment are central to our survival. In dating, when you meet someone that gives you a rush, then realize that person is not a healthy fit for you, depending on your trauma history and the degree to which it has been healed, you may find yourself going back again and again to that unhealthy match, seeking the same “rush.” The anticipation of it (the future-oriented fantasy of having love from that person), is where dopamine comes in again.
If there is already a maladaptive neural pathway set up in your brain from needing to love or seek love from an abusive or absent or inconsistently nurturing caregiver in your childhood (a survival mechanism to be recognized with compassion!), then the physiological / psychological motivation to continue returning to that unpredictable source of connection is strengthened, even if cognitively there are warning bells ringing and a thousand red flags. Remember the principle of intermittent reinforcement in behavioral psychology: Providing a pleasure stimulus on an inconsistent basis, rather than a regular basis, produces addictive behavior. There is a connection to dopamine “hits” in that process, i.e., the irregular exposure to something pleasurable increases the motivation to seek it out in order to re-experience the original pleasure – both related to dopamine production and release. In the field of neuroscience, it is called a “reward prediction error.”
I must say that I cannot align with her characterization of the brain or our neurotransmitters as f’d up! The brain is hard wired in the direction of survival. It is only our commitment to self-awareness (use of the pre-frontal cortex and the reasoning parts of the brain) that can modulate the brain’s natural, primal tendency to look for pleasure and threats (processes that can easily bypass the intellect). I would also propose that when someone is not responding to your texts it first feels terrible. The dopamine only kicks in when as an attempt to pull yourself out of depression or disappointment, you begin hoping or anticipating that a text will come or imagining reasons why there is a delay- the expectation of potential love and fulfillment is what activates the dopamine which feels great. When you are in that place of happy hope and expectation, it pushes down the painful idea that you are unlovable (which is always inaccurate!). Even when dopamine-rush related experiences with the actual person are few and far between, the dopamine releases related to fantasies of fulfillment can keep you going back to a “dry well” over and over again because the brain has learned how to generate a cycle of internal pleasure responses simply through cognitions/thoughts.
Trust that your self-awareness is growing by leaps and bounds! This is the fundamental first step to breaking free of those original patterns of reactivity and interpretation of events that helped you survive but are now ready to be replaced, and are being replaced, with new patterns of resiliency, insight, inspired boundary setting, and openness to real, nourishing love and connection.
Here is a link to an article that you may find interesting on the role of dopamine:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22581-dopamine
Have a wonderful weekend and Happy In-Dependence Day!