forestx5

I blame it on high school.  In high school, I took a class which taught shorthand as well as typing. The teacher was gay.  I was the only boy in the class of perhaps 30 females.

I never did my homework for shorthand, so I was failing the class at midpoint.  I ended with a C+ in the class, as I found I enjoyed typing.  In the military, someone learned I could

type.  I was then "typecast" into working the desk of one of the busiest US Military Police Stations in Europe.  I had an IBM ball and I could make it sing. I worked rotating shifts, and

when I worked the 3-11pm shift, I could get off as early as 2am, but only because of my speedy typing.  Things didn't start getting busy until 10pm, and I wasn't done until the blotter

and reports were finalized.  So, now I can transmit my thought process to this forum at a speed which doesn't include much restraint.  I find myself thinking and typing things I probably shouldn't.

Oh well, what the hell?  As for sticking around post recovery, I do so for the next generation of me.  The guy or gal who would otherwise be mentally ill for 40 years without understanding how or why.

I'm a bit of a rarity, but I know I am not unique.  Knowing I could not be unique was what kept me searching and finally resulted in my finding my answers.  I learned some things along the way that

could help others.  I passed a psychologists office on the boulevard the other day.  I hadn't noticed his shingle for many years.  I thought back to the time I visited with him every other week for 6 months.

What a waste of money.  He's still in business, wasting the time and money of people with neurological illness, no doubt.  He has to be 70 years old now.  When the pickings are so good, it is hard to stop.

And I often suggest that those who feel they are suffering serious neurological symptoms, to get an EEG and sort yourself out.  Nothing wrong with being neurotic, but if you have a neurological treatable

illness, you should probably start there. 

That's just the black hole syndrome manifesting itself.  At the center of every galaxy is a black hole.  Everything revolves around the black hole, on paths of ever smaller circumference.

Eventually, everything crosses the event horizon and goes down the hole to become part of a singularity.  The black hole burps out some Hawking radiation, and that is the end of space-time

for you, my friend.  You will stay a part of the singularity until the next big bang when we can all do it again!  Until then, eat, drink, and be merry, and spend a little time playing in the dirt.

I'm back to work part time after 7 years of retirement.  For the most part, it is stress free mindless labor of unloading delivery trucks and pricing contents for retail.

I don't get to use my electronics or math background.  I don't have a real need for the job.  I just thought I might add a little structure to my week, to make the rest of my time seem more valuable.

And, my first couple days on the job I felt anxiety about the new surroundings and people and I don't understand why. Everyone is nice. I'm more than capable for the tasks.

No worries, right?  Well, I guess It ls a subconscious thing.   So my first couple of days felt more stressful than I had an explanation for. Those feelings made me uncomfortable because I couldn't explain or control them.

I had concerns they could escalate.  I reassured myself as best I could and went about my tasks. 

And, I acclimated.  Give yourself some time to acclimate. I was supposed to work 2 days a week, and already they have me working 4.  They'll be giving me the keys to the office if I'm not

careful. So my advice is not to wrestle with the anxiety and give it a chance to subside and ask yourself what's the worst case scenario?  You find a job with more appropriate surroundings. 

It won't come to that.  Good luck, best wishes!

I wasn't the "real me" for forty years.  The person that people saw was something of an act. During my lifetime,  I had some lovely people try to connect with me on a meaningful level, but I rebuffed them and kept my distance.

I was hiding something ugly.  Since I didn't understand it, I couldn't hope that anyone else could understand it either, so I kept up my defenses.  I didn't want to, but felt like I had to.

I'm reminded of Ecclesiastes 3.1: "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,"

An illness which spans four decades can have a significant impact on the seasons of life.  It was painful to watch the time pass, knowing my seasons were changing and

my purpose was going unfulfilled.

I lived like that for decades following a trauma as a teen.  I didn't realize it had been an epileptic event.  So, I had

frequent focal temporal lobe seizures which I would come to believe were anxiety attacks, or panic syndrome.

If you have ever had a severe panic attack out of the blue, it is very unsettling and you are concerned about

unannounced future attacks.  The same is true for focal temporal lobe seizures.  I wouldn't lose consciousnesses

rather, I would lose my mental integration and become very frightened  It took me 40 years to diagnose myself,

then have my diagnosis confirmed by an eptileptologist who specialized in rare epileptic disorders.,   My EEGs

were abnormal consistent with someone who has a history of epileptic seizures.  So, If I were you I would

probably ask for an EEG just to see if there isn't an underlying neurological issue behind your symptoms.

It is an answer to a different question, but I experienced a profound diurnal effect during my depressive episodes. Mornings and early afternoons were very difficult times, with moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety etc.

By mid afternoon, I seemed to have warmed up to life a bit, and I would have the relatively best part of my day until later in the evening when the challenge of insomnia raised it's ugly head in preparation for an attempt at sleep.

The "Diurnal effect" is recognized as a feature of some major depressive episodes.  I don't know if they offer an explanation for it. 

One day at a time.You don't know what to do?  Then don't do anything you don't have to do.   I overcame suicidal thoughts by surviving one day at a time. I was so hopeless, I was

convinced I was going to kill myself to end my suffering.  I was so convincing, I actually made a crisis counselor cry over the phone because she was sure I was

going to kill myself. I was sick out of my mind.   I still feel bad about that.  When I recovered, I sent the foundation a nice donation.    Take it easy on yourself.

Now is not the time to wrestle with life's bigger issues.  Relax when you can.  Try to get the rest you need..  Take extra special care of yourself.

Let time be on your side.  I.never thought I could pull away from the black hole I was in. I just refused to give in. And, I feel guilty about it because

I don't believe that everyone else is going to make it.  I just want you to know that you can make it if you persist and persevere.  Good luck.

Surprising as it may seem, I lived with focal temporal lobe seizures, frequent migraine aura which functionally blinded me for 30 minutes each episode, and I endured an episode

of major depression on intervals of 8 years throughout 40 years of my adult life.  It took me 40 years to self diagnose my illness because the medical industry isn't geared to rare

and difficult to diagnose epileptic syndromes. I discovered myself in a medical journal I found in a British Neurological library.  It describe my illness exactly.

It described the onset exactly as it happened to me.  It explained every odd symptom I had ever experienced.

If, at any time during my 40 years of suffering, someone had recommended I get an EEG....it would have changed my life.

Which, of course, is why I recommend you have one. It could change your life.  If it is negative, then you know something you didn't before.

I would recommend you see a neurologist and ask for an EEG.  I had similar symptoms following my first epileptic seizures as a teen.   My family seemed alien because I no longer was

able to feel the emotions that were supposed to be assigned to their images.  i had to live by my intellect for a long period, until I recovered most of my emotional capacity.

I never got it all back, and my EEGs are abnormal today, over 45 years after my initial trauma as a 17 year old.  It wasn't until I had the EEG, which showed I was epileptic,

that I began to understand my symptoms  and my life.

I considered Lyme as a source for my neurological/psychiatric issues.  I have spent a lot of time outdoors and have been bitten by ticks. I never noticed a bullseye rash or anything like that, but no one

can argue that Lyme causes neuro-psychiatric symptoms.  Lyme is difficult to diagnose reliably, so it is reasonable that anyone suffering chronic neuro-psych symptoms who was ever bitten by a tick,

would want to rule out Lyme. And, that is not as easy as it might be.  On the other hand, there are a lot of other reasons to have neuro-psych symptoms which makes Lyme disease less likely.

I noticed that hamburgers and other meats don't have the same flavor as used to be. Did I lose my taste buds as I aged?  Is it the antibiotics they are using on pork and beef? Or, did some pathogen

I got from a tick bite remove my sense of taste?  LOL.  Llife is sure complicated.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven".

If your illness degrades you significantly, then it can affect your seasons and time

can go by leaving purpose unfulfilled.  I wasn't really there for important moments

in my life. In my closest relationships, people never knew me.

I didn't know myself.  Eventually, I figured me out, but a lot of water had gone

over the dam.

I posted my hypothesis on another thread.  It is possible that the powerful psychological stress of the "panic attack" has thrown a genetic switch which is responsible for

making a protein which is critical to a neurological process.  A reserve of the protein may cause a delay in consciousness being altered,  of several days.

I got this concept from the book "Genome" by Matt Ridley and I apply it to mental illness without his permission. lol

I had ECT and it was extremely beneficial.  I theorize  that the induced grand mal seizures reset my genetic firmware to factory defaults, allowing my consciousness

to alter back to normal, after 40 years.  Sometimes your body reacts in a way that is harmful to you and I give the mechanics of a heart attack as an example of that.

I don't feel guilty about offering a crazy idea like this.  It's not like I'm selling it. LOL

Herman Hesse wrote Siddartha. The central message that Siddhartha learns is that experience, rather than avoiding certain things in the “real world”, leads to understanding;

rather than desires and belongings being a distraction, they are as important to our perception of the world as all other actions and thought.

Siddartha fulfilled his desires en-route to spiritual nirvana, proving that there is more than one way to skin Buddha's cat.

The worst time to begin antidepressant treatment is when your symptoms are severe.  Which, of course, is when most people decide they better begin SSRI therapy. And, I suspect that is the reason the meds have suicide

as a side effect.  I began Paxil during a very rough period of major depression, and I got progressively worse every day for over a week.  It was horrible and I was extremely ill. Then, in the midst of my despair, I felt a 

strange inkling of hope. I clung to it and I slowly eased out of the darkness. All in all, it was a very risky thing to begin that medication in the shape I was in.  A decade or two later, I discovered ECT and I look back now

and realize that would have been the appropriate treatment, rather than the  SSRI.  I continued taking an SSRI following the ECT, but realized I didn't need it.  I have been med free for about 5 years and depression free.

No.  I did feel traumatized at one time.  It took a while to get over the feeling of traumatization, but you get over that before you get over the trauma itself.

So you ask this question of someone who has lost a limb in combat 20 years ago.  Does he still feel traumatized?  Probably not.  But he still has to walk

with a cane.