This article
http://www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/Chemical%20Imbalance.html is more oriented towards the chemical imbalance in mental health problems, like the levels of the neurotransmitters, shortage of serotonin, etc. and how that leads to depression. Some of the effects are very similar with MLC ones. Midlife crisis is even mentioned. This part is very eye opening:
Very low levels of Serotonin typically bring people to the attention of their family physician, their employer, or other sources of help. Severe Serotonin loss produces symptoms that are difficult to ignore. Not only are severe symptoms present, but also the brain’s ideation/thinking becomes very uncomfortable and even torturing. When Serotonin is severely low, you will experience some if not all of the following:
• Thinking speed will increase. You will have difficulty controlling your own thoughts. The brain will focus on torturing memories and you’ll find it difficult to stop thinking about these uncomfortable memories or images.
• You’ll become emotionally numb! You wouldn’t know how you feel about your life, marriage, job, family, future, significant other, etc. It’s as though all feelings have been turned off. Asked by others how you feel – your response might be “I don’t know!”• Outbursts will begin, typically two types. Crying outbursts will surface, suddenly crying without much warning. Behavioral outbursts will also surface. If you break the lead in a pencil, you throw the pencil across the room. Temper tantrums may surface. You may storm out of offices or public places.
• Escape fantasies will begin. The most common – Hit the Road! The brain will suggest packing up your personal effects and leaving the family and community.• Memory torture will begin. Your brain, thinking at 100 miles an hour, will search your memories for your most traumatic or unpleasant experiences. You will suddenly become preoccupied with horrible experiences that may have happened ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago. You will relive the death of loved ones, divorce, childhood abuse – whatever the brain can find to torture you with – you’ll feel like it happened yesterday.
• You’ll have Evil Thoughts. New mothers may have thoughts about smothering their infants. Thoughts of harming or killing others may appear. You may be tortured by images/pictures in your memory. It’s as though the brain finds your most uncomfortable weak spot, then terrorizes you with it.
• With Serotonin a major bodily regulator, when Serotonin is this low your body becomes unregulated. You’ll experience changes in body temperature, aches/pains, muscle cramps, bowel/bladder problems, smothering sensations, etc. The “Evil Thoughts” then tell you those symptoms are due to a terminal disease. Depressed folks never have gas – it’s colon cancer. A bruise is leukemia.
• You’ll develop a Need-for-Change Panic. You’ll begin thinking a change in lifestyle (Midlife Crisis!), a divorce, an extramarital affair, a new job, or a Corvette will change your mood. About 70 percent of jobs are lost at this time as depressed individuals gradually fade away from their life. Most extramarital affairs occur at this time.• As low Serotonin levels are related to obsessive-compulsive disorders, you may find yourself starting to count things, become preoccupied with germs/disease, excessively worry that appliances are turned off or doors locked, worry that televisions must be turned off on an even-numbered channel, etc. You may develop rituals involving safety and counting. One auto assembly plant worker began believing his work would curse automobiles if their serial number, when each number was added, didn’t equal an even number.
• Whatever normal personality traits, quirks, or attitudes you have, they will suddenly be increased three-fold. A perfectionist will suddenly become anxiously overwhelmed by the messiness of their environment or distraught over leaves that fall each minute to land on the lawn. Penny-pinchers will suddenly become preoccupied with the electric and water consumption in the home.
• A “trigger” event may produce bizarre behavior. Already moderately low in Serotonin, an animal bite or scratch may make you suddenly preoccupied with rabies. A media story about the harmful effects of radiation may make you remember a teenage tour of the local nuclear power plant – suddenly feeling all your symptoms are now the result of exposure to radiation.
• When you reach the bottom of “severely low” Serotonin, the “garbage truck” will arrive. Everyone with severely low Serotonin is told the same thing. You will be told 1) You’re a bad spouse, parent, child, employee, etc., 2) You are a burden to those who love or depend on you, 3) You are worsening the lives of those around you, 4) Those who care about you would be better if you weren’t there, 5) You would be better if you weren’t around, and 6) You and those around you would be better off if you were totally out of the picture. At that point, you develop suicidal thoughts.
I think it is safe to say that pre-MLC starts with chemical imbalance in the brain. And it carries on with chemical imbalance. In MLC all the chemicals are too messed up and they went under a personality change. When they get into replay, to whatever chemical shortages they may have, huge and damaging amounts of adrenaline are added to the mix. MLCers are walking imbalanced brain chemical bombs.