1. Understanding Your Own Chemistry
Most people, when they feel bad, first look for the cause outside themselves. They blame circumstances, other people, the weather, their boss, fate. And they almost never ask themselves a simple question: what is happening inside me right now, on the level of my organism? Dr. Saulitis insists on this after years of practice: before dealing with the outside world, you need to understand what state your internal chemistry is in.
The mechanism is simple, though not obvious at first glance. The brain works through signals passed between neurons, and these signals depend on the balance of substances — neurotransmitters. When this balance is disturbed, the world is perceived differently: colors dim, patience disappears, decisions are made impulsively, and any talk of "willpower" sounds like mockery, because there is physically not enough will for anything. The doctor puts it bluntly and precisely:
"When your head is in the same state as if you were intoxicated — that's caused by a neurotransmitter imbalance, but the chemistry is just as broken. People don't want to understand that until this chemistry is fixed, there's no point."
This is the central idea of the whole brochure. Independence is impossible if you don't notice that your internal chemistry is "broken." You can make plans, decide to start a new life, promise yourself you'll change — but if your body is depleted, if your nervous system is overloaded, if your sleep is disrupted and your diet is chaotic, all of this will be decisions made not by you, but by your exhaustion. You'll think you're choosing, when really you're just reacting.
This also includes what the doctor calls information overload. It doesn't announce itself loudly — it accumulates quietly. A person stops thinking deeply, reads without understanding what they've read, makes impulsive decisions, and constantly feels that they "need to learn more" before acting. This is not a sign that the person has become worse or weaker. It's a sign of an overloaded nervous system — the same broken chemistry, just seen from another angle.
The example from life will sound familiar to almost everyone. A person wakes up with anxiety that cannot be explained by any real circumstances. They start searching for the reason in their relationships, their work, their past — building entire theories about what's "wrong" with their life. But in reality, the night before they didn't sleep properly, overloaded themselves with news and screens late into the night, drank coffee instead of water, and hadn't gone outside for three days straight. Their anxiety isn't a message from the depths of the psyche. It's a signal from depleted biochemistry. While they search for philosophical answers, the body is asking for something simple: sleep, movement, quiet.
Independence begins right here — with honesty toward yourself. Not "what's wrong with my life," but "what's happening with my organism right now." This isn't about weakness or whims. It's about physiology, which is useless to argue with, but which you can learn to negotiate with.
A practical step for today: before making any important decision or drawing a conclusion about your life, ask yourself — did I get enough sleep, when did I last drink water, have I moved today, have I been overloaded with information in the last 24 hours. If the answer is discouraging, postpone your conclusions and take care of your body first. A decision made by "broken chemistry" is almost never correct.