TT1423
08-20-2013, 08:17 AM
I am 15 years old, and for the past several years I have not led a normal life because of whatever is affecting me.
This is a very long one, so please read the whole thing if you have time and just bear with me throughout.
Several years ago after a blow to the head I was having minor to moderate headaches so I went to a doctor because my mom and I were pretty sure I had a concussion. However, the doctor I saw said there was nothing wrong with me, and I showed no other symptoms (no trouble with balance or anything like that). However, I continued to worry that there just might be something wrong. I had always had irrational fears, especially about the well-being of my family (I was afraid, for no reason, that my family members might die or something along those lines) and about my own health. I realized it was silly, but I would worry about ridiculous things like getting ebola or polio, or going blind, even though I had no rational reason to believe tat this would happen. (At this point I should mention that my father also suffers and has always suffered from sever anxiety attacks.) Pretty soon, though, when I was about 13, I started to have all these crazy symptoms. To name a few, I began to see auras and have double vision, but two eye doctors both told me there was nothing wrong with my eyes. I also began to have repeated and severe stabbing headaches that would immobilize me for a few minutes at a time, about twice a day. Since then, everything has gotten so much worse. I am constantly so self-aware about everything in my body and I am always testing myself to make sure I am "normal." But I do not feel normal at all. over the past few years, I have developed a huge number of symptoms that I feel like are ruining my life.
Before I go into all these symptoms, I should say that I have always been a top student and never felt any pressure until high school. However, over the past two years in high school (I will be a Junior this fall) I have felt like my whole life I am under constant pressure and immense stress and that I put so much pressure on myself. I constantly tell myself that I am not meeting the standards I should be, yet I am in all top classes, honors and AP, and I get straight As. Everyone around me thinks I'm really smart but I perpetually doubt myself, which is something I never used to do.
Now I will get into what is really ruining my life. First, the headaches. It seems like every few months I get a new type of headache. Sometimes it's throbbing, sometimes it's just discomfort, sometimes it's pressure, sometimes I just feel wrong. I also have recently had a greatly increased appetite and thirst. If I physically exert myself AT ALL, I feel leveled for the rest of the day; my head kills me, I become sensitive to light and sound, and I don't want to do anything. I have trouble reading and concentrating on things, sometimes because I'm always checking myself and I'm living "inside my head" instead of in the outside world. Then I get spells of apathy where I don't want to do anything, and I feel like everything is pointless because we'll all be dead someday so why should any of us bother? On top of this, I feel like I can never lead a happy life. I am not as happy as the people around me, and I feel like I can never be. Sometimes I have sudden, brief moments where I feel great and optimistic but that inevitably turns back to the usual unhappiness. Additionally, I have these other crazy symptoms like hearing loss. I feel like I can't hear as well out of my right ear, and if I hold my right ear closed I feel like my senses are dull, but I don't have any factual reason to say that. There's nothing specific. I just feel wrong. Because of this I have often worried about a brain tumor. I had an MRI about two years ago and it came back normal, but I worry that something could have changed and that it could be for real this time, although I know this is probably an irrational fear. More crazy symptoms that come and go over the course of my day-to-day life: fatigue, sudden heart palpitations and feeling hot all over, feeling my pulse throughout my body, seeing spots in my vision, neck pain, memory loss, and extreme preoccupation with little things that I feel like I should have done better (Like "I should have done that math problem faster"). On top of this, often when I'm falling asleep I'll just stop breathing and then suddenly wake up realizing that I wasn't breathing, or I feel like I have to voluntarily control my breathing or else it will stop. I score in the 99th percentile on almost all cognitive tests I take, but I feel slow almost all the time. Part of the feeling of being slow is that I often struggle finding words because I always feel like there's a better word for what I want to say, even though I sometimes search exhaustively through online thesauruses and find no such word. This lead my to believe that it is all just in my head. I am also very sensitive to caffeine and alcohol. Another classic symptom of anxiety I have is that when I think about especially stressful situations, like if I'm on a date or if I even THINK about going on a date, I feel nauseous, my pulse accelerates, and my stomach just drops.
I feel better with rest, but as soon as I start to return to my normal life I feel so stressed because I have to deal with all these things I just mentioned and everything goes back to this horrible state. I now find myself constantly worrying about my future. Before these symptoms started, I always felt great and vital and alive. Now I feel like I'm just living out my bleak days one after the other. I know how it sounds, but I have been told by many people that I should do great things in the future. I used to feel like I could do anything I wanted with my life but now I feel hemmed in by this condition.
The only semi-concrete evidence that there might be something physiologically wrong with me is that I do very badly on VEP (Visually Evoked Potential) tests, which are meant to measure how quickly your eyes sends and receive signals from you brain. Unfortunately, my neurologist said this test is very inaccurate and the only thing it's good for is testing for some eye condition which both she and the neural ophthalmologist said I don't have.
At this point, the worst thing about this is that I just don't know what's wrong. I'm no even certain this is all anxiety. Please tell me if you know what could be causing these symptoms or triggering this anxiety. Let me know if you have experienced anything similar, and if there's anything I can do to be free of this.
This is a very long one, so please read the whole thing if you have time and just bear with me throughout.
Several years ago after a blow to the head I was having minor to moderate headaches so I went to a doctor because my mom and I were pretty sure I had a concussion. However, the doctor I saw said there was nothing wrong with me, and I showed no other symptoms (no trouble with balance or anything like that). However, I continued to worry that there just might be something wrong. I had always had irrational fears, especially about the well-being of my family (I was afraid, for no reason, that my family members might die or something along those lines) and about my own health. I realized it was silly, but I would worry about ridiculous things like getting ebola or polio, or going blind, even though I had no rational reason to believe tat this would happen. (At this point I should mention that my father also suffers and has always suffered from sever anxiety attacks.) Pretty soon, though, when I was about 13, I started to have all these crazy symptoms. To name a few, I began to see auras and have double vision, but two eye doctors both told me there was nothing wrong with my eyes. I also began to have repeated and severe stabbing headaches that would immobilize me for a few minutes at a time, about twice a day. Since then, everything has gotten so much worse. I am constantly so self-aware about everything in my body and I am always testing myself to make sure I am "normal." But I do not feel normal at all. over the past few years, I have developed a huge number of symptoms that I feel like are ruining my life.
Before I go into all these symptoms, I should say that I have always been a top student and never felt any pressure until high school. However, over the past two years in high school (I will be a Junior this fall) I have felt like my whole life I am under constant pressure and immense stress and that I put so much pressure on myself. I constantly tell myself that I am not meeting the standards I should be, yet I am in all top classes, honors and AP, and I get straight As. Everyone around me thinks I'm really smart but I perpetually doubt myself, which is something I never used to do.
Now I will get into what is really ruining my life. First, the headaches. It seems like every few months I get a new type of headache. Sometimes it's throbbing, sometimes it's just discomfort, sometimes it's pressure, sometimes I just feel wrong. I also have recently had a greatly increased appetite and thirst. If I physically exert myself AT ALL, I feel leveled for the rest of the day; my head kills me, I become sensitive to light and sound, and I don't want to do anything. I have trouble reading and concentrating on things, sometimes because I'm always checking myself and I'm living "inside my head" instead of in the outside world. Then I get spells of apathy where I don't want to do anything, and I feel like everything is pointless because we'll all be dead someday so why should any of us bother? On top of this, I feel like I can never lead a happy life. I am not as happy as the people around me, and I feel like I can never be. Sometimes I have sudden, brief moments where I feel great and optimistic but that inevitably turns back to the usual unhappiness. Additionally, I have these other crazy symptoms like hearing loss. I feel like I can't hear as well out of my right ear, and if I hold my right ear closed I feel like my senses are dull, but I don't have any factual reason to say that. There's nothing specific. I just feel wrong. Because of this I have often worried about a brain tumor. I had an MRI about two years ago and it came back normal, but I worry that something could have changed and that it could be for real this time, although I know this is probably an irrational fear. More crazy symptoms that come and go over the course of my day-to-day life: fatigue, sudden heart palpitations and feeling hot all over, feeling my pulse throughout my body, seeing spots in my vision, neck pain, memory loss, and extreme preoccupation with little things that I feel like I should have done better (Like "I should have done that math problem faster"). On top of this, often when I'm falling asleep I'll just stop breathing and then suddenly wake up realizing that I wasn't breathing, or I feel like I have to voluntarily control my breathing or else it will stop. I score in the 99th percentile on almost all cognitive tests I take, but I feel slow almost all the time. Part of the feeling of being slow is that I often struggle finding words because I always feel like there's a better word for what I want to say, even though I sometimes search exhaustively through online thesauruses and find no such word. This lead my to believe that it is all just in my head. I am also very sensitive to caffeine and alcohol. Another classic symptom of anxiety I have is that when I think about especially stressful situations, like if I'm on a date or if I even THINK about going on a date, I feel nauseous, my pulse accelerates, and my stomach just drops.
I feel better with rest, but as soon as I start to return to my normal life I feel so stressed because I have to deal with all these things I just mentioned and everything goes back to this horrible state. I now find myself constantly worrying about my future. Before these symptoms started, I always felt great and vital and alive. Now I feel like I'm just living out my bleak days one after the other. I know how it sounds, but I have been told by many people that I should do great things in the future. I used to feel like I could do anything I wanted with my life but now I feel hemmed in by this condition.
The only semi-concrete evidence that there might be something physiologically wrong with me is that I do very badly on VEP (Visually Evoked Potential) tests, which are meant to measure how quickly your eyes sends and receive signals from you brain. Unfortunately, my neurologist said this test is very inaccurate and the only thing it's good for is testing for some eye condition which both she and the neural ophthalmologist said I don't have.
At this point, the worst thing about this is that I just don't know what's wrong. I'm no even certain this is all anxiety. Please tell me if you know what could be causing these symptoms or triggering this anxiety. Let me know if you have experienced anything similar, and if there's anything I can do to be free of this.