One of the gutsiest, honest self examinations about mental health I have seen. To be that self aware at your young age shows good problem solving skills, self confidence, and intelligence.
Your condition and mine overlap in many ways. This post illustrates a portion of my own issues:
https://gayspeak.com/showpost.php?p=518523&postcount=15. I've written here at GS more than once about my condition. While I am diagnosed bipolar 1, I have often gone through periods of rapid cycling bipolar disorder, which means my moods, my perspective on life, go up and down faster than a bedbug on a hooker's mattress. The rabbit hole of depression has led me to the worst places, self hatred, emotional numbness, and to the worst acts more than once. I suffer generalized anxiety and social anxiety disorders as well. Of late my therapist, my partner (who should be sainted), and I have been discussing adding early onset dementia to the mix as I have been experiencing blank spots in facial recognition (toward people I see on a near daily basis) and sometimes am confused about my whereabouts (I should recognize my own bedroom without hesitation).
The upper end of my condition is much like yours, although I often can't even think about what is happening to me. Extreme paranoia, disassociation from reality, seeing imaginary objects or believing in far flung theory's with no basis in fact.
I have taken more than one self imposed vacation from GS when I recognize that I am becoming unstable. Sometimes I have the luxury of knowing, and others times not so much. There are times when literally within
moments I am deep in the blackest pit and then turn 180° and channel into some level of unmanageable, or barely manageable, anxiety. Other times I drag along the bottom for weeks before I manage to stabilize, or hit the ugly heights.
I have been in therapy with several different professionals, and taken countless varieties of drug mix. Sometimes these meds work very well, and sometimes they do not. Because I was involved in a car accident when I was young and experienced a severe brain injury, cognitive therapy as well as pharmaceutical solutions don't seem to be fool proof. This brain injury is also a likely culprit of any dementia I may be experiencing should the above symptoms increase in severity.
I sincerely believe that I am predisposed to mental illness, and not simply through learned behavior (although I do not dismiss learned behavior as a contributor to the ills of my life). These next details are not something I talk about very often, and only then to people I consider friends. I'm admitting them here because I feel DNA plays a role in mental health issues. I never knew my aunt Betty, who was institutionalized before I was born. I also never knew my uncle Bert who managed to kill himself with a long barrel shotgun in the shed behind his home. One really has to be motivated to figure out the logistics of suicide in that manner. My own mother had severe control issues, and suffered varying degrees of debilitating depression throughout her life. Through her control machinations she managed to alienate all of her children and when she finally died my brother broke the news to me by saying "Ding dong, the witch is dead". (He is also gay.) Can you say love/hate relationship? I will admit to learning passive/aggressive behavior instead of inheriting it.
Currently I take Lamictal, Klonopin, Lovaza (concentrated omega-3 fatty acids which have been shown in studies to aid in clinical depression), and Ambien. I take the sleep aid Ambien because while I do experience those racing thoughts you describe during the day, they afflict me badly when I go to bed. It becomes so intolerable laying in bed tortured by these thoughts that I would rather get out of bed and redirect my attention span to a task, or lose myself in a book or television. Even those solutions don't always work.
Intrusive thoughts consisting of horrible memories, abusive situations, current events unrelated directly to me (news stories, media personalities, etc.), and even things that haven't happened to me but that I can imagine and feel in vivid detail destroy my concentration and eat at my morale. Additionally I now find experiencing these thoughts embarrassing since I have begun to verbally attempt to stop the thoughts, yelling "Stop!" or "Don"t!". Try explaining that in the presence of company, family, strangers in public.
I've been moaning here and I hate it when I do that. But I hear people make so many off the cuff remarks about mental illness, which most people don't understand very well at all, and I always find myself weighing the options of attempting to illustrate mental health issues, or whether I am up to the challenge of what promises to be a long drawn out conflagration between those who think I'm making excuses, those that are confused about definitions and severity of terms and diagnoses, those who are sympathetic, and (believe it or not after all these years of studies, observation, and education), those people who still call psychiatry "mumbo jumbo" and that it is "all in my head". It doesn't help much when I have to admit that "much of it"
is in my head, although my DNA, physical medical illness due to bodily harm, and various events of abusive treatment also play their role. All the people in the latter group hear is me agreeing that "it's all in my head".
*heavy sigh*
Thank you Brian. What you've done in your posts, and in the YouTube video series is to help shed light on a subject many people think they know something about, yet have little real firsthand knowledge. You're smart and beautiful in every way.
Anxiety & Being Gay
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. Sounds like the difference is that you have full blown attacks. I'm sure I've had them but nothing stands out specifically in my mind. Usually with me if I wake up and my heart is racing then i'll be a similar level of anxious all day. Being I rarely have a reason to be anxious anymore I've noticed the seasonal change tends to make it worse. It got cold last week and 4/5 days were an easy 6-7/10. This week I'm about a 3-4. You ever taken medication for it?
