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[But right now what's bothering me the most is my memory. My cognitive dysfunction is so concerning to me.]

It's been about two years since I've been on here and so much has changed for me. This is the only place I feel I can come and people might be able to relate to what I'm going through here...

To make the story short, the past couple of years since I was hospitalized with really severe bacterial pneumonia (I was hours away from becoming septic and no one believed I was really sick), I have been an absolute mess. Hypochondria. I went to EMT school during quarantine, which I believe made things even worse. My boyfriend at the time was really supportive but he had emotionally abused me into being dependent on him so whenever we were apart I had severe panic attacks--he was knowledgeable about medical issues. After him and I broke up, I've been trying to be emotionally independent when it came to this anxiety. For the most part, I can handle myself but other times I get stuck in a really bad loop. It's like a bad trip. Especially if I smoke the devil's lettuce. I also get that way when I am sick with a cold. At one point I even thought I was poisoned with cyanide because I got sick after eating dinner someone else had made for me. I'm scared to take pharmaceuticals I've never taken before and if I have to take them, I stop taking them if I feel weird. I try not to freak myself out with looking up possible side effects.

I'm so terrified of dying. It's so beyond me. I fear it might make me agoraphobic even though I love being outside and going places. Sometimes I am able to convince myself death is apart of life, and I shouldn't be so scared of it. But I am. I'm scared of dying young. I used to want to die but now I'm so scared of it it's hard to sleep at night.

If I feel tightness in my throat, I freak out. If my chest feels funny, I freak out.
But right now what's bothering me the most is my memory. My cognitive dysfunction is so concerning to me. I know the causes are a combination of trauma, ADHD, and I may possibly have POTS. But I struggle to prevent myself from thinking there's something really wrong with me. Stress does make it worse. I noticed this when my dad tried to reach out to me again.

I got off my antidepressants a few months ago, and before anyone says the withdrawal might contribute to this, I had already felt this way before. I might get back on them or I might not. Not sure yet. But I wanted to mention this because I know I'm not going to be completely stable until probably a year from now. I feel less anxious in some ways and other ways not. It might contribute to the brain fog though.

Does anyone else struggle with the same thing?? I'm sorry but I need to know I'm not the only one who's brain fog or memory loss is super freakin scary. It feels like it only gets worse and my brain is just deteriorating or I have Alzheimer's.

Hey so.. my mother has MS. She's has C-PTSD as well, but her MS came from a drug her mother took while pregnant with my mom. She was diagnosed at 27 years old, and the life expectancy can be anywhere from 22-35 years after diagnoses. Since she caught it early, she was still able to walk and function normally with medication. Within the first 15 years after her diagnoses, she took extremely good care of herself by eating well, working out every day, and staying away from alcohol. This was until my parents divorced and she took to drinking again. As she got older, drinking on and off coupled with my father putting her through so much, it started to take a toll on her brain. About four years ago, an MRI showed 12 lesions--or scar tissue--on her brain. I knew that she wasn't the exact same person and that the drinking had made an impact on her brain and personality by that point. Which was devastating in itself. Our relationship had ups and downs but she's always my mom.

Now, in the last couple of months, her disease has become more progressive. She's struggled with alcohol addiction, depression and anxiety which all contribute to the morbidity rate. She's now sober, but I can tell her cognitive function is deteriorating more rapidly. She's getting mood swings and acting a bit more erratically, she's walking into rooms and forgetting where she is or why she was there (which, I mean I do that too sometimes but the 'where' is more concerning). She's turning 51 this year, and I'm praying to God that things don't take a sharp turn downhill.

My fiance looked at me with sad eyes reminding me how long she's supposed to live under her circumstances. Reality kind of sunk in. And talking to my grandfather, he told me that I should spend more time with her. I agree.. But I'm not ready to lose my mom yet, man. I'm remaining hopeful, but I'm scared that even though she took care of herself early, the alcohol might've canceled that out in the long-term. As long as she can still walk, I'm hoping it'll give her more time with me. I'm crying writing this because I love her so much, and she's understood me more than anyone else ever has. She's the only person who knows what kind of person my father is and can support me through the abandonment and suffering he put both of us through. My father is getting old too. I knew I'd lose them early but I'm only twenty years old and I want them to meet their grandchildren and see me get married. It might be selfish but I want them to have those memories too.

I feel so alone knowing I'm going to lose them both so early.. This might sound juvenile but.. She's my mommy. I love my mommy. I miss her.
I'm trying to see if I can surprise her by flying up to see her soon.. I'll keep you all updated.
Thank you for your support.

I've been drawing all day, and I haven't finished anything.
I don't think it's really my perfectionism as much as it is this lingering fog/slowness. I feel like I can't get anything done anymore. It's just gotten worse as I've gotten older, and I'm only 20. My memory and overall cognitive efficiency has just gotten progressively worse. I don't want to wallow because at least now I understand more of why I have these symptoms. However I just realized it doesn't make it any easier on feeling useless. Wondering if I'll ever make it to be the person I want to be, or if I'll be able to pursue the career of my dreams. I know in my introductory post I was super optimistic about pushing myself, but I also mentioned that I have my moments. This is one of my moments.
Even with my meds I can't FUNCTION like I used to. I don't even know what it feels like to have a clear mind anymore. I can't remember simple words or well-known names.
It feels like the time-span between being super productive and then crashing keeps getting shorter and shorter.
It reminds me of how, when I worked in the memory-care unit of a geriatric residential home, one of the nurses pointed to one of the gentlemen playing bingo and told me that he used to play with four bingo boards at a time. I then noticed that he only had one board in front of him, and it took a long time for him to find any numbers if he could even keep track of the numbers being said.
At first I thought it was because of my recreational drug use three years ago, but that is apparently not the case.
I'm angry at myself, and especially angry at my father. He made my brain into oatmeal. Lifelong impairment, apparently? But when I get angry, usually, it just turns into depression. So I guess I'm not really mad now, I'm just sad.
Thanks for listening.

I used this alias, even though it's not much of an alias.
I told some of you guys in my introductory post that I'd start a journal and here it is. Just my daily thoughts/struggles.

The past few days have been a little difficult. Yesterday I slept until 3pm, and then proceeded to sleep again till 7pm.
I really hated the fact that I was so comfortable sleeping that long, and I also hated that I got nothing done.
There's a lot of anxiety I feel around not being productive, because my father (the narcissist) was totally type-A and hated when I slept till 12pm. He always called me lazy. I have a tattoo design that I'm so close to finishing, and I feel so guilty about it not being done yet because the guy who ordered it had ordered it a month ago and it was supposed to be done within two weeks. I was in the middle of a move, but my inner voice wants to say there aren't any excuses.

My fiancé tells me that if I want to be an artist, I have to draw every day. It has to be my life. And I want that more than anything in the world. All I want to do is draw all day. But I also know that I'm limited to a certain amount of tasks a day because of how foggy and slow I am--even with my adderall--and with my MIL (another type-A person, without the narcissism) doing so much around the house and having me do a bunch of things around the house too, I feel like it's impossible to manage my time. Without understanding all of my symptoms and where they came from, I was really depressed before about not being as productive as I can be. But I need to be easy on myself, because it's not my fault that my father morphed my brain into mush.
Luckily, my meds and caffeine help a lot with the productivity, but by a certain time in the day there's not much I can do. I crap out. I'm all out of fuel and there's literally nothing I can do anymore. I'm socially, physically, and mentally drained.

My whole life I've fought these wallowing thoughts of wishing I was "normal". Wishing I didn't have ADHD/ADD, wishing I didn't have this stupid auditory processing disorder, stress disorder, depression, C-PTSD whatever. I have days where I really let it get to me. I guess I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I'm trying really hard to be optimistic.

There's also the fact that I have to keep reminding myself that I'm actually proud of where I am in life, compared to how it could've been. I could've been gone so many years ago, and I kept fighting and surviving. It's exhausting surviving everyday, but I'll continue to do so if it's the only thing I can do. I can't give up.

Hugs to all of you, and thanks for reading. 

[Hello to all of the fellow survivors! I'm dark.art.girl. I know this looks long, but if you take the time to read I would appreciate it soooo much.]

Hello to all of the fellow survivors! I'm dark.art.girl. I know this looks long, but if you take the time to read I would appreciate it soooo much.

I wish I could tell you my name, because I'm a pretty open person, but I'll stick with anon for now.
I turn 20 in January, I'm engaged to the only man in my life who has ever cared enough to at least try to understand my daily obstacles, and I love music and art. I'm a musician, anime addict, nicotine addict, and aspiring tattoo artist. 

I recently came to the conclusion that the prolonged childhood trauma I experienced at home and outside of my home life, developed into more than just PTSD. I guess it had to be fate that my parents were broken children themselves. My father is a recovered addict, trauma survivor, and narcissistic/verbal/mental abuser who uses money to manipulate people, and my mother is a recovering alcoholic/addict (alcoholism on/off through my childhood) who also has cPTSD and Multiple Sclerosis.

Especially within the past couple of months, I've gone back and forth trying to figure out if I had BPD, ASD, or if it was in fact only the PTSD, acute stress disorder, and depression that I grew up knowing. After doing a lot of research I realized that the reason I can only accomplish two tasks in one day, the reason I feel like every day passes me by, the reason my brain seems so foggy and the reason I can't seem to get rid of these random images that flash through my thoughts daily is because I have complex PTSD.

I have ADD/ADHD, too. Which adds to the whole mess (no pun intended). But my antidepressants and stimulants can only help so much when it comes to the handicaps I deal with every single day. It's extremely frustrating. And the part that really struck me, was the fact that because my father's verbal/emotional abuse started when I was only six, and never stopped, it actually impaired my cognitive development. I'll never know what I could've been capable of doing in life.

But then again, I never thought that way beforehand. I can still learn new skills quickly, and even though my short-term memory is horrible I can retain information with drilling and memorization. I can still push myself really hard to do what I want to do in life. Even though it might take longer than some people, I can still achieve it if I want it bad enough. My mother had complex PTSD too, but she has a very limiting perspective on the whole diagnoses. But at least I was able to get help and process some of the trauma, right? There's so many traumatic events that I don't think I could manage to get to all of them.. I'm thinking about writing another life/trauma story but with more detail. Do you think it's a good idea? Has it helped any of you? I've done it once before in treatment.

I was also wondering if anyone had any suggestions (not advice hehe) on how to manage the daily struggles. I know that this post might seem a bit inward, but after posting it, I'm hoping maybe all of you guys can relate to this and help me understand more about how to distinguish cPTSD and the other disorders I have.