Fearing the worst to come...!

Jesus Christ, I have so many symptoms of things pointing to different mental illnesses, and some that triangulate to a specific illness. Those that I haven't been able to triangulate give me a sort of anxiety, but I always calm myself down by thinking "Heh, I'm ok! Nothing's wrong with me!", but after my therapist classified me as homicidal, I haven't been able to keep my experiences out of my mind!

I'm fearing having disorders that may have risks of inheritance, because that would mean that if I had a child, he would probably suffer the same as me, or worse. I also don't know how to act on or talk about my experiences, and whenever I try to recall them, it's like I have amnesia and I forget over half of the things I feel! I'm keeping a journal about the things I feel so I don't forget them, but there are other things that I experience that I can't remember long enough to write down... And I want to help myself out.

From "weird, curious dreams that lead to electric shocks right before sleeping", to "moments where reality seems to be distorting around me", to "having out-of-body experiences while fully awake", to "feeling hate all the time, and times of intense hatred towards everyone with no known trigger so far", to "short-term memory problems that keep affecting my school performance to the point where I get C's, D's and F's without really wanting to", I've felt a number of things, and even now I'm forgetting a lot (which doesn't matter, cuz I'm just giving examples)... I'm seeing a therapist and I have a session with a psychiatrist in 20 days exactly, but I want everything to hurry up and not take 2-3 years finding out what the ***** I have, so I can take this load off of my mind!

I don't have my iPod with me, so I can't listen to music to distract myself, so my thoughts are racing, and I'm imagining a future in which I can't live normally because of my symptoms worsening and still not finding a triangulation!

And now I need to get out of here and find my mom's car to drive me home, and I haven't finished ranting! I'll have this moment in my mind until I come back on the computer tomorrow... @_@ ;_;

I hope you get the right dx right away. It sounds like just knowing for you would help a bit with the anxiety. Lots of us have multiple dx so until you speak with your pdoc don't try and make it all fit into one or even two illnesses. It is really good that you are keeping a journal because it is really hard to remember everything even on a really good day and it seems you have an even harder time with it.

"Mental illnesses" are NOT inheritable (in spite of what you may have heard). What is inheritable is variations of personality types, which may make you more susceptible to various stresses (and may include advantages, too). Those variations of personality qualities of all kinds are just things that have to be taken into account when raising a child.

Anyway, those are my thoughts of the day.

Hi Kewwky, have you ever tried yoga? I got a simple book on basic yoga with pictures of the poses. It really helps you to calm and center yourself.

OMG Pachy, these are exactly my thoughts on this subject and the weird thing is that I have never come across anyone before who believes as I do on this! How did you come to this conclusion?

It's just (un?)common sense!

Well, I have read (a fancy term: biopsychosocial theory of development) and thought and observed my brothers' and nieces' and cats' different personalities, which they start with from birth but develop according to how they are raised -- there is an interaction between inborn vulnerabilities and strengths, and experiences.

So simple an idea, don't you think?

Yes Pachy! but no one subscribes to this! Understanding it this way I think helps a person heal. I also think that it would help therapists help. I hear people say sometimes that they inherited their illness so they are stuck with it. This is so unfortunate.

I hate this computer. Can't change the internet settings, and it deleted my reply while when I was posting it. :: Here I go again...

Thank God that it's not inheritable, but that just takes out one of my many worries... There's still the worry that my short-term memory problems will cause me to flunk college, and I'm already 1 year behind my studies! I had to leave all my extremely close friends in my previous college to move temporarily to another college in order to avoid suspension and start from zero! If I flunk again, this will just add to my hopelessness!

To top my educational stresses, I'm aiming to be nothing lower than an Astrophysic/Complex Engineer, because I feel that that's how I can show the world what I can really do. And, as the names imply, I have to be exceptional at College in order to get into a special Institution that specializes in whichever I decide! With my short-term memory problems, as soon as I have homework and I write it down on my notebook and on my agenda, I forget all about it and don't even remember to check either until a classmate reminds me about it when the deadline is minutes away! This has been the culprit of my many educational failures (which I've been able to handle from Elementary to High School... They're a thousand times more forgiving than College), and I still don't have a valid excuse I can give my teachers (except that I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 7, but that's not even considered an excuse when you're 19 years old)...

I can handle the other experiences that happen to me, but the ones that interfere with my daily input/output are the ones that are driving me down this spiraling road to AnxietyLand. How can I do my best if, even if I try my best, it's not near my real capacity? My knowledge is wealthy in all things mathematics and physics (one of my passtimes is learning... I've gotten down Fermions, Hubble's Law, Doppler Effect, and [in progress] General Relativity). Plus, what about when my friends/family ask me "How was your day?"... My usual answer is "All's good, same as always", because I can't even remember what my last class's teacher was wearing! I even went to college and found my razor that I use to shave in the mornings with in my backpack, and who knows how it got in there (funny, but real)!

My worries might sound dumb to many people, but to me they're real and they are quite bothersome. I've had panic attacks because of worrying and not finding answers to my problems (which I also wrote about in my journal) where all I wanted to do was bash my head against stuff as hard as possible so I could lose consciousness and wake up feeling normal and worry-free (hopefully in a hospital where they would address my worries hastily)!

PS: I have a thing for writing things differently (color, writing scheme, order...) here and there in order to emphasize, show a between-the-lines thought, or quote... Sorry if it confuses anyone.

Doing something only to show others usually doesn't work out too well.

Do you feel pulled in all sorts of directions and not able to focus on you?

No, not really... I meant that I could only truly be happy if I gave my full potential in a job I would enjoy, and considering my love for science, mathematics, and technology, the jobs that I most desire above all other are those, Astrophycisist and/or a Complex Engineer. Sorry if I wrote it in a way people would easily misunderstand me... By "How I can show the world what I'm truly capable of," I meant as in give all that I've got for the sake of my future (my happiness, and if I ever have a family, theirs too), and to keep satisfying my hunger for science and technology. It's like the perfect goal for me! But, as it looks like, it's a pretty tough goal to reach...

And who knows, I might discover something (due to the resources astrophyciscs and engineers have) that would be of extreme value to humanity, that would also help us progress technologically... My biggest goal of all is to be as famous as Albert Einstein (which will be seriously tough)!

More words on brain + experience: nowadays there are new imaging techniques which have allowed researchers to SEE that new brain cells, or more accurately new pathways between brain cells, develop as a direct result of experience, so that the proof that the brain can change as a result of learning and experience is made visible. In fact the pathways that develop, themselves depend on prior experience; memories created depend on the significance they have to the person experiencing them. This is all connected to the way brain cells communicate with each other -- how they discharge and send impulses to the next cell in a chain depends on input from yet other cells in the net. Nice stuff, "plasticity of the brain". It is an idea that used to be dismissed.

Kewky,

I sympathize with your fear. I've had a lot of fear myself in life and a lot of trouble performing up to the level of what I was told I was capable of. I've had "loads of potential" that never seemed to work out.

For what it is worth, I'd like to give some small bits of advice to think about.

1. Allow yourself to deal with just One Day At A Time! When you worry about your whole future at once you can drive yourself into the ground and have no energy left for the actual day.

2. Stop being mean to yourself. It won't get you anywhere good.

3. You don't have to choose a profession to "show them what you have". It is a bad idea because most people are not looking as close as you think. You need to pick a career that interests you that is compatible with your traits, abilities, energy levels and financial needs.

There is a way to deal with your problems. You will find some help. You can choose to feel hopeful instead of feeling doomed. You are not doomed even if you have some definite problems.

I am speaking out of experience. I too have had several diagnosis. Mylife has not turned out like I would have liked. However, I am doing better than I could have thought 5 years ago. You are NOT hopeless, you will find a way through this. Choose all the positives you can, you do have the power of choice more than you think.

Good Luck,

Leslie

Kewkky, it sounds like you are really craving some big recognition?

Lol Sannah, all I want is a job that I would enjoy 'till the end of my life. If I manage to get recognized for something, my employment life will be complete, and I will be the happiest person in the universe in that area. Reading about Albert Einstein's life, and his failures also, gives me hope that, even someone like you or me or Pachyderm or multipixie9 can reach the top of the world if we have the determination!

All my science, math and physics teachers keep telling me that Einstein actually flunked physics twice, and that he was bored and in trouble all the time in his childhood cause he was so ahead of everyone else... Hearing about his normal life and not about his scientific life renews my hope constantly, and helps me take a flunking or two well... If he still made it, then I can make it there too!

But just in case I didn't mention it before... All I want is a job that I would enjoy until I die. The recognition is like a bonus.

PS: If I'm more positive than before, it's because I just had my weekly T session, and it calms me down speaking freely about my problems without worrying about them spreading around and my friends and family talking behind my back... Ahh, so relaxed, yet hungry...