twitchcraft galore

Four months later I am back to where I started. No better. Only worse. Wasted countless time and money pursuing ideas that my doctor led me to believe were viable reasons for my symptoms. Little did I know that the whole time he was convinced that I simply have anxiety and plans to refer me to a psychiatrist (whom, of course, my insurance will not cover anyway).

Am I stressed? Yes.
Am I experiencing anxiety? Yes.
Am I slipping into a depression? Yes.
The difference here is that I know the cause of these three things. I know why I am experiencing stress, anxiety, and depression. They are not the CAUSE of my symptoms — they are the direct EFFECT of my physical state for the past four months and my lack of an answer.

So don’t sit there and tell me that anxiety is what is causing my fatigue, dizziness, blurred vision, electric head pains, and dystonia. If you were experiencing all of these things and nobody could help you figure out why — you’d be feeling some fucking anxiety too.

The headaches have buried themselves in my head. Pulsing. Jolting. A constant buzz–thrum–crackle below the surface. An electric current, ready to spark at any moment. Currently, I am able to operate *around* them, but I fear I am doing a rather sloppy job of it. That might be due to other contributing factors, though. In the past five minutes I’ve almost fallen out of my chair a few times. Is it a dizzy spell? Am I on the verge of losing consciousness, but continually catching myself? Am I just falling asleep because of this extreme (note: excessive) fatigue?

It’s hard to sort out. Not only because these three symptoms are all disturbing enough on their own, but combined together it’s difficult to tell what might be causing additional reactions in my body. Or perhaps it’s just that I can’t seem to think clearly. How frustrating is it when I have the words, but can’t speak them? I can see them clearly in my mind. I can feel them, taste them. I am trying, trying so hard to spit them off the end of my tongue, but they elude me. They evade my frantic grasp, as I reach out toward them, as my audience awaits (patience dulling each time this happens), until I give up and let myself settle for a vague, unfit substitute. And then. Then! Then they tumble out of my mouth, almost as an afterthought, because I can’t very well hold onto them now that I’ve finally snatched them up!

And let’s not forget (haha) the problems with my memory. I’ve never been as disconcerted as I was last week, when Kim referred to a solution I’d given her. Surely if I had said that — or at the very least, thought that — I would have some recollection of the event? Wouldn’t I? I find myself wandering around like a blundering fool because as soon as I stand up, or turn around, or move, or stand still, or … well, I just completely forget. Whatever it was that I had decided has slipped my mind so quickly that sometimes I don’t even recall that I had MADE a decision. I’m just wandering off until I stop and ask myself why (and can’t remember).

buzz-buzz-buzz… crackle-JOLT… fade, fade, fade…

I can feel them approaching. Like you can feel an ebb of cicada songs as they rush, almost unwillingly, toward a nauseating crescendo. Then a trembling, trying-so-hard exhale. Fade. Sink back down into… waiting.

Is that what my life has become? Sitting in constant anticipation of a crescendo? A flash of brain-pain. A sway of dizziness. A moment of weakness (as I struggle to hold myself up). The beckoning fingers of sleep, sleep, sleep.

I had an hour-long MRI of my brain on Tuesday. Won’t know the results until my doctor is back in the office on Monday.

Wednesday I felt 5x worse, with the freaky headaches as soon as I woke up, lasting all day. I ended up leaving work early. It got so bad that night that I called my folks to come over and make sure I was okay. I spent the night at their house.

Thursday I stayed home from work. And school. I haven’t been to school at all this week.

Today I returned to work, still feeling pretty bad.

But everything was pushed aside when I got a call from my best friend of 16 years. She’s in the hospital. With a brain tumor. A. Brain. Tumor.

I am still in shock.