Months-long episodes of mental confusion during the past 3 years + secondary symptoms
Posted , 3 users are following.
Age: 25
Sex/Gender: Male
Height and weight: 178 cm, 76 kg
Hello everyone,
I apologize in advance for the very long post but I figured it would be better if I included as many relevant details as possible.
For the past 3 years I have been regularly suffering from lengthy intermittent episodes of mental confusion, marked by a noticeable decline in my ability to plan things, to follow/understand conversations, to solve problems (in a context of very little stress/ emotional distress, just to point that out) and other secondary symptoms such as mild fatigue and leg/forearm pain in the absence of any kind of physical straining.
It all started with a 2-3 month-long episode between March-May 2015, marked mostly by these primary symptoms. At the time, these symptoms did not affect my functioning that badly and I still managed to stay on top of things in my last year of university and graduate with high honors. Symptoms then subsided and I just ignored it all, but about a year later through my first job out of university (March 2016), symptoms returned with an increase in severity, to the point where it became difficult for me to do my job properly (couldn't plan my work as well as I did before, made tons of mistakes in my work, and mood and self-confidence started worsening a lot as a consequence). Things became so bad I fell into a severe depressive episode and had to stay off work for about 5 months (I tried coming back to work about 3 months into the episode but couldn't for more than a month in June 2016, I then quit my job).
After a lengthy recovery from the depressive episode, all mental confusion symptoms I had pre-depression disappeared again (towards the end of September 2016). I returned to my normal levels of functioning and started grad school in a new country. I had a very successful semester up until about April 2017 again, where mental confusion symptoms re-appeared again and started to seriously hamper my ability to study effectively and carry my part-time job as a research assistant successfully. I quit my part-time job to focus exclusively on my studies, worked on improving every aspect of my already-quite-healthy lifestyle (diet, sleeping, exercise), and most importantly, changed my mindset to just focus on surviving and doing my best to avoid falling into another depressive episode. Thankfully, I did not and managed to scrap through 5 months (until September 2017) of reduced cognitive functioning, but it was still quite a difficult feat given the demanding academic context where I had to unfortunately be at the top of my mental abilities to perform and succeed. I also started to get (or maybe notice ?) secondary symptoms such as waking up with 1) fatigue and 2) aching forearms and legs with no discernible cause (e.g. no physical straining to explain it), and that for months. I just pushed through and blamed secondary symptom number 2 on my speed-walking habits on my way to catch the daily subway, but even after trying to stick to normal walking I could not feel any change to them up until September when I fully recovered again from everything. In that meantime (i.e. April-September 2017), I also started investigating non-psychological explanations for my ills: I always thought at the beginning that the mental confusion episodes were perhaps 'pre-signals' for the depressive episode I had in 2016, but after not falling into one again despite suffering from the same mental sluggishness problems I had, I realized there might something else behind it all. While doing my best not to fall into the trap of surrealistic self-diagnoses, I started visiting a couple of doctors in the city where I live to seek explanations for what I had. Normal blood-testing results, normal allergy-testing resting, and comments from the GPs I visited left me without any answer and very disappointed. Because of my student insurance and its limitations with regards to waiting times + language barriers, it has been difficult for me to seek medical advice from as many medical specialists I would like to. I then just focused on scraping through until the time my symptoms subsided yet again.
As predicted and in a now very discernible pattern, September/October 2017 came and with it disappeared yet again all suffering. Again, I excelled in school, revived my social life and took back control of my life throughout that period until March 2018, where the same story started to unfold again. I am now interning at a big-shot company, an opportunity I invested a lot of my energy/effort into to secure, and am now again feeling mentally sluggish, fatigued and with limbs aching for about the past 3 months (March before I even started the internship, and carrying on through April-May while working). My work supervisor has already started noticing my current error-proneness and poor planning abilities and is starting to grow impatient with them. I know I will survive the fog again, but I am starting to feel that this would be now my last chance to uncover and address whatever condition I have at the moment, before graduating and having to plunge back into the engineering workforce, which is not really tolerant of sluggish thinking, poor planning abilities and inattention mistakes.
Maybe sleep apnea ? Or something neurological ? What could explain my ills and/or their pattern/seasonality ? If it's not allergies (2 tests gave back normal results), not seasonal affective depression (given that these episodes never happened to me in winter + the absence of any significant emotional stresses throughout the 3 episodes and the different environments (didn't matter whether I was studying vs. working, or in my home-country vs. abroad) I lived through.
Apologies again for the lengthy post. I have done a home sleep study a couple of weeks ago and am eager to know about its results (my doctor appointment is in about a week), but I would still welcome any alternative suggestions with open arms. This has been really destroying my life !
0 likes, 6 replies
david911 adam54527
Posted
I can confidently tell you right now that it's all in your mind, and unless you get your mind under control your symptoms and your suffering would persist and worsen. Work on your mind and remind yourself that there's nothing wrong with you because there really isn't. Think positive!
Often times people create mind problems for themselves and go into self inflicted depression. Don't let it be you. As crazy as I might sound to you right now, you need to take charge. Find a way to occupy your mind with positive thoughts. Before long you'll be fine. Just don't let this ruin your life. In my own case, I'd let a mind disease cause me more trouble than I should have had to deal with. At the end of the day, I'd allowed something that wasn't even in existence put a dent on my life. Well, I finally decided to take charge and here I am today completely free from mind torment. Therefore, I encourage you to do the same. It's possible, but only if you believe and are willing to liberate yourself. Good luck!
adam54527 david911
Posted
First of all, thank you David for talking the time to write a reply to my post !
Trust me, I have thought the same thing last year at the height of my desperation, and even went on months last year trying to ignore what's happening and telling myself that it is all in my head... I also started a thought journal (quite a good idea in general I must say for self-improvement and analysis) and have did my best trying to work out potential psychological roots to the problems that have been plaguing me during the same period. The truth is, it has not changed anything at ALL: my grades still kept falling, my performance in my part-time job was still worse than normal, I still had problems focusing on literally anything.... And this has been happening for 3 years now, irrespective of what occupation/country/mindset I did/live in/had. This is the reality that mere positive thinking (which I personally believe is a very maladaptive way to approach problems in life, adopting a balanced evidence-based perspective is how I rather try to approach things) and therapy/psychological aids (which can actually be helpful/effective) could unfortunately not change. If anything, I had to draw a lot on determination and mental grit to live as normal of a life as possible despite all the challenges of university studies + work life. If that isn't "taking charge" then I don't really know what is lol !
I might be wrong and you might be right of course, but all what I am saying is that the evidence/experiences I've accumulated so far throughout my episodes suggest something else might be in play. Could you please be more specific about what you did exactly to fix your situation ? And what do you mean exactly by the mind disease you had (anxieties, depressive symptoms,etc ?). Thank you again for your input David
david911 adam54527
Posted
I totally understand your perspective. But what you're doing isn't working probably because you're extra conscious of it. Learn to not look for instant result because an instant result in this situation realistically isn't guaranteed. Give your intervention some reasonably natural time to take root. The result would kick in when you're not expecting it.
In my own case, I'd believed that I had ibs-G (IBS with gas) when I really didn't. It caused me great anxiety that would trigger off stomach upset and result in stomach noises and occasional flatus at an inopportune time. It was embarrassing and killing me that I started transitioning into depression. I shared my experience with a friend. He said something that made a light go off in my head and I realized that I was the cause of my problem.
I never had such GI issues all my life until I started imagining what might become of me if I ever passed gas in public. I kept imagining this happening until it actually started taking root in me and filling me with anxiety. My imagination became a reality, which was attributed to ibs. But as soon as I realized that it in fact might not be real, my liberation from my torment came. I've been a new person ever since. So, I encourage you to picture your issue as an illusion because it could be. Start from there and see how it all plays out for you.
Guest adam54527
Posted
Hoping you are better! I hope you are better! Are you on meds right now? You are smart and educated and don’t let nothing stop that! Pray and go to church because there you will see everything go away! You have everything to gain! What country may I ask you are living g now? I have a niece who has the exact same thing as you! She has also a masters degree and so smart but can’t hold on to jobs because of her confusion!
You will get better!
adam54527 Guest
Posted
Guest adam54527
Posted
Besides what life has for us we have to keep on! Like I said before you are educated and smart! I know you can pull through and reject negativity! I tell my niece the same and as a young lady she isn’t as strong minded as maybe a young man! Right now we lost track of her and the mom is very worried! She is now we know living in New York City but we don’t have an address! As you said that you have a job and that’s wonderful because you have to keep your mind busy and always take the right meds! I am goes through shingles and that makes me very tired! I still have an active family life and with my grandchildren I try to take things off my mind too! I still have a daughter at the university in New Hampshire studying too! Well I hope you feel better and remember prayers are always answered!
Myrna