Depression from hypochondria surrounding brain damage/loss of intelligence.

I have extreme anxiety and paranoia about brain damage. Anytime I hit my head or accidentally cut off blood flow for even seconds, I freak out and obsess about whether or not I killed brain cells and lost some intelligence. When this happens, I associate any unusual feeling as proof for damage, like difficulty reading or failure remembering words. I can't differentiate whether these are actual symptoms of brain damage, symptoms from other factors (not drinking enough water that day etc.) or placebo effect. Brain damage is my biggest fear; all of my life pursuits are intellectual. My passion is Academic debate and I'm majoring in philosophy. Everyone I compete with in my field is already smarter than the average person, I have to be smarter than the average smart person. I can't lose where I'm at.

You're probably disregarding this right about now, but this has really started interfering with my life. For the past week I've been extremely manic, unmotivated, and depressed. Most of my time has been spent sleeping well beyond any healthy amount, or relapsing into habits that I know aren't good for me (but if I've lost the only thing that gives my life value, why would that matter?) This is following my most recent episode where I accidentally hyperventilated while trying to do some breathing exercises to get over my hypochondria, irony is a b***h. I got very lightheaded and my arms went numb. After a few minutes of this not going away, I stopped the exercises and tried to get on with my day. 4 Hours go by, still light headed. Anxiety beckons.

I know that hyperventilation decreases blood flow to the brain and can result in hypoxia. I obsessively scoured the internet for input and found that some of the symptoms of hypoxic brain damage are forgetting words, choosing the wrong words, etc. This is really freaking me out because I've been having trouble remembering words, even while typing out this essay, and I have been mixing up similar sounding words. (I normally don't have this problem.)

This goes back to my previously stated problem: I can't tell if these are actual symptoms of brain damage, of it they're due to me sleeping most of my days away recently and having barely any nutrients/water, of it's just placebo and my fear of brain damage is playing tricks on me.

Please, if you have any neurological knowledge to reassure me that my fear is truly irrational, or anything else that could help me, I need help.

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