I'm scared. (TW Hypochondria, illness, drug use)

[Dark.art.girl]

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.

[paul72]

hi dark.art.girl
I struggle mightily with brain fog.. have for as long as I can remember (pun intended)
I just had bloodwork done and I'm very low on b12, so I started taking a supplement last week. It's too early to tell if it's working tbh. But, I was pretty happy to have something to at least try .
I often worried about Alzheimer's.. it's in my family.. and well I have had pretty serious shakes too.
I think the memory loss is pretty normal for those of us with trauma... I know there's evidence of reduced memory as a physical component of trauma.
Stress definitely makes it worse, i would agree.
I'm lousy at notes... that would seem to be the easy workaround...
I guess I might just be starting to accept this limitation, yet with a bit of hope that these b12 supplements might make it a little less of a daily struggle.
A small part of me is thankful for it too, I'm not going to lie. Hard to even explain why, but for me,  a good memory seems like a worse option sometimes.
Best of luck to you !!

[Blueberry]

Hi dark.art.girl,

It's good to hear from you again despite the fact that you're back because you're so worried and frightened atm.

I'm 52 y.o. and I told my psycho doc a couple of years ago I was worried I had Alzheimer's. He said with Alzheimer's there would be other symptoms as well. He also that becoming a little bit more forgetful with age (so even in your 40's or 50's as opposed to being 25) is normal. Idk how old you are and you don't have to say.

The other thing I notice is that depending how I'm doing psychologically - which does vary quite a lot - my memory will be better or worse. I've also discovered recently in a long inpatient stay that I have more of dissociative problem than I thought, meaning that I end up in younger Parts of me in a deeper way than I had previously realised. When I am in one of these, I am aware that is 2022 and I know I'm no longer in any of the countries I grew up in etc but I may not remember everything from yesterday or my Adult of today might not pick up on what somebody said 5 minutes ago etc so that's a possibility.

I used to have brain fog so bad, before 'brain fog' was even a concept or at least before anybody called it that. As a 11/12 y.o. I had what I called 'grey outs' because everything in my head went grey and I didn't understand things and asked what seemed to be the stupidest questions imaginable at school. Seemed to be to the teachers. When I was a univ. student and first started counselling, I remember one of the problems I said I had was that my 'head was empty'. That's what it felt like. I remember after a number of weeks the counsellor suggested that my head was probably actually full... (of other things than what I was meant to be studying of course). How right she was.

Anyway, you're definitely not alone and ime it does get better, even though on some days or even in some weeks it's quite bad again and certainly makes my professional work difficult, I no longer have it for months at a time.

I often feel like a hypochondriac because whatever symptoms I have - especially if they are new to me - I tend to think the worst - OMG, it's cancer! OMG, I've got minor cyanide poisoning! And it's all my fault too! At least some Part of me says so.

[Papa Coco]

Dark.art.girl, Phil and BB,

Yep, yep, and yep. I've spent thousands of hours in that fog over the years. I still go into it quite often now. It's temporary, but it's frequent. On many days I can't remember the names of my closest friends. I agree with BB's words that the problem is more about the brain being full than it is about it being empty. I sometimes wonder if we C-PTSD survivors often get our emotions tangled up with our thoughts and that's what paralyzes our brain to make us feel like we're in a fog.

Here's an example of one of the things that put me into brain fog: Just trying to declutter my house blanks my brain out to total fog. I think it's because I have emotional connections to my possessions. If I had no emotional involvement, I could get rid of all my cameras. My cell phone is the only camera I use now. But when I pick up the camera, I feel myself remembering all the happy things I took pictures of with it when my kids were young or we were on a vacation somewhere. Then the fog gets thick. Now I have my emotional self forcing my scientific self to not know what to do with the camera. Then I get frustrated, my brain goes blank, and I realize I'm paralyzed with emotion that I can't control. Fog.

For me, my emotions are stronger than my brain. When my feelings start to conflict with my thoughts, I go into the fog. I recently told my therapist that I worried I was having early onset dementia. He disagreed strongly. He told me that if I really were having a physical dementia, I would be the last to know it. Because I suspect it, it means I'm cognitively aware of myself.  Being that he's a trauma-wise DBT therapist, he knows this "fog" is part and parcel of C-PTSD. He made me feel a lot better about my fog. Like I'm not going to die because of it.

[Dark.art.girl]

Papa Coco, Phil and Blueberry-- I am so incredibly grateful for all of your responses. They are so reassuring. I almost cried seeing that you all responded.

Papa, you're so right when it comes to what you said about being able to recognize the fact that I even HAVE memory loss. Why didn't I think of that?? lol My brain shuts down when it comes to thinking about decluttering too! I thought that was just ADHD but it could be a combination of both. I go through this cycle of thinking there's something wrong with me and then feeling comfort in the fact that I've been through a lot and that's why. But then I see how my memory is just as bad as my mother (who has MS, ADHD, C-PTSD and shes in her early 50s) and I think, "oh no could I get MS too?" which is possible. But it's not life-threatening either. Ugh sorry I'm going on a tangent I think. She relates to me the most to these things sometimes but I still get into my head.

I am totally comfortable telling you all my age; I am 21 years old. I've had brain fog going back to when I was probably 14 I think. And the trauma I have goes back before that, and continued after. So maybe BB is right in saying my head is in fact full. That's a great way to put it. It definitely feels that way sometimes. The emotional attachment/emotional connection to things or memories is definitely a factor I think. I catch myself living in the past a lot. I'm not sure if it's because I have unfinished EMDR sessions, and my brain just keeps making connections or what.

Maybe it's like an online server where there's so much going on it just crashes or lags.

I have started taking B12 and I can't tell if it's helping yet--I admit i've been a little on/off with taking it daily because I get so distracted. Please keep me updated on how it's going for you Phil! That's a good perspective too--maybe being grateful that the most I got from trauma was a bad memory. I know the vitamin gingko biloba apparently helps with memory and preventing Alzheimer's too. My mom recommended it if you ever want to try!

I'm not sure if that's in any way what you meant but either way I think I'll stick to it. I'm also not sure if I responded to everything you all said, but trust me when I say I took it all in and I'm so relieved that I'm not alone in this. Even though I'd never wish it on anyone since it's like torture sometimes. I'm so sorry you have to deal with it too.
Have you guys tried trauma therapy and would you say that it's helped? Are there any other natural remedies you've discovered? I'm open to anything. Even meditation.

[Papa Coco]

Dark.Art.Girl,

I'm pleased to see a 21-year-old whose taking your healing seriously. I meet a lot of people whose emotional setbacks ruin their lives, and they refuse to do anything about it. It's true that it's not what happens to us that makes us who we are, but how we choose to recover! (I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never going to keep me down.)

Yes, I've been in therapy for most of my life. I too started when I was 21. My rule is if I can afford and find a good therapist, it's critical that I do so. Trauma therapy didn't exist until very recently, so I was at the mercy of a lot of bad therapists for the first many years. But ever since around 2005 or so I've been in trauma therapy with a good, quality, caring therapist. It's doubtful that I'd be alive today were it not for that therapy.

Medications help some people but haven't been too helpful for me, and vitamins and supplements sometimes help me for a little while. My traumas reaaaaaly want to be heard, so they eventually find their way around the supplement or the medication. I've recently begun Ketamine infusions which are a HUGE help, but very expensive. I think that if micro dosing becomes legal in the future, it's going to be the very best cure in history. But we have to wait and see if our politicians will let go of the bribe money they get from pharmaceutical companies long enough to do the right thing and just allow us to become healthy without their expensive, harmful medications.  (Sorry: My bitterness is showing).

I can't help but notice you've chosen the name "Dark Arts Girl" which leads me to think you have an interest in the arts. The arts are a good thing. I write. The writing clears my brain and forces me to learn and organize my thoughts and feelings. I often repeat the quote from Flannery O'Connor, who said "I write to discover what I know."    But here in my community, there's an artist who uses photography to do the same thing. She grew up in a very loveless childhood, moved around in foster care, and basically a horrible existence. Now that she's a photographer, she puts her soul and her past into some absolutely beautiful photographs. She also spends a great deal of time giving talks and working with other women who had the same abusive neglect.  My point is that arts like music, photography, poetry, writing, blogging, painting, drawing, cooking, etc., are great ways for those of us who felt silenced and "not heard" as children to find our voice and move our emotion out into the world in a way that helps to satisfy a bit of our need to be heard.

For those of us who have any inklings toward any of the arts, I think of that as a good contributor to our healing. I wanted to be a musician, but my family humiliated that out of me. I tried it as an adult, but it didn't help. It was simply too late for me to learn how to play music. I tried painting, but my paintings all looked like I was trying too hard. I eventually found writing to be a place where I could learn and grow. It wasn't easy. I took a lot of classes, hired coaches, joined groups where we critiqued each other weekly, but I eventually found the art that worked for me. I write now and it helps me feel heard and feel like I'm sorting through the massive confusion of being raised how I was raised.

I believe that when a person puts their soul and their torment into their music, food, photographs, poems, novels, or whatever, that the audiences can see it and feel it and hear it. The emotion from trauma is one of the things that transforms a drawing or book or song or meal into a masterpiece. It transforms a dead piece of paper into a living work of art. The tormented soul of the artist is somehow infused into the end product. And that can be very healing.

[Dark.art.girl]

First off Papa Coco, TOTALLY AGREE about Big Pharma. There's so many other healing things (that may not work for everyone, and medication CAN certainly help people so no shame at ALL) in the world that people should take advantage of without the government stepping in and ruining it. I've known people in treatment who got ketamine doses and they became almost different people. In a good way for them! lol I've also been in therapy my whole life! I can say some therapists have been decent, some have been horrible. I've had maybe two therapists that really changed my life for the better.

I'm so glad that the arts are really healthy for you too! Writing has helped me through a lot of things--like when I got sent to a therapeutic boarding school in high school, I filled up an entire journal. I try to write as much as I can now too, especially when those emotions from the past resurface. Photography is ironically one of my passions as well! I recently got a new camera, so I'm going to try to use it as much as possible and follow what feels right. If I want to make it into a career, maybe I should. Every medium has been beneficial towards healing for me. As I'm sure it is for other people. And I've noticed it's one of the few things that brain fog can't get in the way of, at least not for myself. I think maybe because it's something I or we can really hyperfocus on, and nothing else really matters in that moment besides our emotional expression.

We've all been through so much, at this point, we should all just do what feels right and makes us happy. We deserve that. You deserve that. Art and music has been the most impactful thing in my life, growing up the way I did. I never felt totally alone, and it was always an outlet. Hearing other's pain in their works helped me express mine. You always hear about some celebrities saying they've met people who have said they had saved their lives. And I don't doubt that for a second. I'm sorry that your family humiliated you out of learning music. I'd say it's never too late to learn. I grew up learning piano, but when my family fell apart I stopped taking lessons and had to do the rest myself. If anything, you can always get a keyboard and learn songs on YouTube. I've done that! I learned a bunch of Linkin Park songs LOL Or maybe try learning by ear, because some people are naturally talented that way and you might be too.