Jade's mental health condition.

(* Trigger warning * ) In short, Jade became gradually more mentally unwell over the course of her twenties. Then in 2013 she experienced a Mental Health crisis and it was an awful time. There is a lot more to this story, but basically Jade was an inpatient at a facility in Derby where the staff worked miracles and after 3 months Jade was discharged home with us.

Part of Jade's recovery involved a lot of arts and crafts with the Occupational Therapy team, medication, socialising with others and she could listen to music which she liked on a little pink and white MP3 player Julie downloaded for her.
There were a lot of songs on the MP3 player including Primal scream, New Order and Hole, amongst many more that we'll include at a later date.

Jade was diagnosed in 2013 with a severe mental health condition, OCD and this year, 2026, was diagnosed with Autism.

Julie had a late diagnosis of Combined Type ADHD in 2025.

Basically, this is where the title 'hunting for dopamine' originates.

Neurodivergent brains have very long neurons ( which receive sensory input, relay electrical signals and issue motor commands to our muscles etc.), which in the neurotypical ( ordinary population) are much shorter and can be bathed in the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine- which is crucial for motivation, attention and memory amongst other things.

Therefore, the neurodivergent amongst us have long neurons which are starved of the vital dopamine because there simply isn't enough to cover them.

So, one little trick is to increase our levels of dopamine by listening to music which we like ( I've got Youtube on the TV while I'm typing this, listening to 21 Pilots 'Legend', to top up my own dopamine!) and this can help us become motivated to do tasks.