[Teacake]

I've dropped Prozac to 10mg and continue Adderall. I can think well enough now to know there is something very wrong with me. Thirty years of chronic PTSD...what does that do to the brain? Do you think I still have an amygdala? Or a hippocampus?

Thirty years. I think its certain I have structural brain changes. So why has no one suggested that I check that out?. Do some imaging. Find out. And maybe find some specialised treatment to compensate for specific deficits?

I'm sick of being treated like I am OK because I am not flopping on the floor like a fish. It is hugely frustrating to know that there is probablybetter treatment available bit that I cannot access It because I am too disabled to make my brain and body work well enough.

The kiddo is a smart guy who works as a research and development engineer. He could help of he could wake up out of denial and figure out that mommy is quite likely to with within twelve iq points of him, so mommy isn't supposed to be stupid and flighty. Mommy is supposed to have a brain and mommy is in real trouble.

My mother just gave me a good dose of, "well you always did identify with people so...probably he has gotten over all that and is getting on with his life while you are still
mired in It". Yes, mom. Way to make me feel like someone Tennesee William's would write up in a hangover.

So which is worse? Insult or injury?

If I can't advocate for myself to get adequate medical care while there is still a welfare state to fund It. I'm lost arent I? And its hard because I havent got a brain that works right.

I am so frustrated. I'm seeing myself as very damaged, in.part because I remember what I was as a young woman. But because I'm still smarter than most, I cant get taken seriously. And I can't decide if this is a real ongoing problem or some hallucinatory flashback from my twenties when ai got ptsd or my thirties when I tried again to get help, or my forties when I'm just grateful someone spent a fortune to keep me alive, like snow white inher coffin...

Sorry.

I asked kiddo what his IQ is. He said It rounds up to two hundred. It was meant to be a joke. I didn't get It. I was waiting for him to say rounded by the what? Because my therapist has been pushing the gifted dx at me. "so," I said, "aside from shouting at people about suicide, the borderline traits could be giftedness?". She makes the obvious duh face. I say, OK, but I don't test that high. She said well you test wrong. You are higher than that. So I know I'm not likely to be fifteen off from kiddo, and I ask him and he makes a joke.

If I believe my mother, I've shed thirty IQ points in thirty years. That's two standard deviations. It is significant.

When kiddo was a baby I went for an iq test and complained that I was not what I used to be. "you are plenty smart. You have a baby now. Attend to your expressive role". After I considered reporting him to everyone, I took his advice and don't regret It. But I still want to know what happened to thirty points, and if I can get them back. Am I still me without them?

What is normal? Should gifted people strive to be normal? What if normal like the bell curve is very depressed?

I've been living on the bottom of a grave for a decade. I want myself back. Its ocurring to me that no one else ****ing cares.

And that I am fifty and still working through post adolescent identity crisis crap.

[Open Eyes]

Teacake, I don't think there is really a good way of seeing the damage PTSD creates in the brain right now.

Understanding How Combat PTSD Changes the Brain

I looked that up again and while it is discussed how the hypo-campus is affected and the frontal lobe, it doesn't really talk about a patient being able to have imaging done that can really "show" what you are asking about.

I can relate to what you are saying "do I have to flop like a fish on the floor before I get help", I have had the same thoughts myself. Where I feel it a lot is in my frontal lobe, and when my family was so unsupportive and mean my headaches were so bad I was basically a ball in my bed trying so hard to get away and hide from any kind of outside stimulus.

I pray all the time for a way to see what happened in my brain, I know it's not the same.
I tried a new medication and it aggravated it so badly and made me very, very ill and extremely irritable. I think you are smart by lowering the dose. I have to be honest, my therapist told me that Zoloft is better than Prozac for PTSD. I asked him thinking of you tbh. I asked him what drug helped his patients the most and he told me Zoloft.

I am sorry your mother responded to you that way, it sure doesn't help, I know.

If the lower dose of prozac still doesn't help you may consider trying Zoloft. I had such a bad reaction to this last medication, I am not taking anything right now, only a Klonopin if I get really bad and I don't care for how I feel the day after when I take that medication.

OE

[Open Eyes]

Also Tea, I read an article today about how Lyme disease is a big problem now, big problem. While I know you have PTSD, I remember you talking about spending time in your garden too and you might just want to have a blood test just to make sure you didn't somehow get bitten and just didn't know, that "does" happen and it's always safe to make sure.

OE

[Teacake]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Also Tea, I read an article today about how Lyme disease is a big problem now, big problem. While I know you have PTSD, I remember you talking about spending time in your garden too and you might just want to have a blood test just to make sure you didn't somehow get bitten and just didn't know, that "does" happen and it's always safe to make sure.

OE

Yikes! I haven't seen a tick in decades, but boy did that bring back memories of being brushed by the fire so dad could check for ticks. If he got one he had to cut It in half with his pockeknife and burn It, because ticks are virtually indestructable.