Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Pursuing Happiness - Part 2 - I discover the dark secret hiding in my brain

It wasn’t until my junior year of undergrad that things got really scary. I had always been “high strung” and got sick easily but now I was stressed to the max and practically bed-ridden. I was getting sick all the time and in many different ways. I was always nauseous. No matter what I would eat, the stomach pains were always in the background. At the best there was mild discomfort and at the worst I was doubled over in pain, crying my eyes out. The doctors ran tests and nothing came up so they sent me back home with a box of prilosec. Then the chest pains started. My breathing was always labored. My chest heavy. One night I woke up with stabbing pains in my chest, radiating down my left arm. “Something is wrong with my heart” I thought “How can this be? I’m 20.” I checked the internet. It said that I was loosing precious seconds and should get to a hospital immediately to avoid permanent brain damage. My boyfriend at the time called 911. The line was busy. He hung up and called the campus EMT’s. They responded and we were rushed to the ER. Tests were inconclusive and I was sent back home.
 
Still, what really scared me were the mental symptoms. I remember walking through a grocery store one day and being suddenly overcome by the strangest sensation. My head began to throb and my vision blurred. Lights became overwhelming. Everything sounded like static. The whole world was suddenly crushing in. I was disoriented and confused. My teeth were numb. The task of picking out groceries was suddenly an impossibility. I made my way out of the store slowly and then sat in the car until my mental balance equalized. I spent the rest of the day nursing a migraine in bed. 


And that was my reality for a while. Every attempt I made to live my life was met with sudden unexplainable sickness. Every muscle in my body was painfully knotted and sore. Back-rubs were little help, giving momentary relief before my shoulders snapped back up to my ears. I was constantly missing class. I stopped spending time with friends. I was basically living in bed and occasionally making it out for food or class. I knew something had to change, but I didn’t know how to change it. The doctors hadn’t come up with anything, so  I started googling symptoms. Brain tumor? Heart problems? A strange parasite living in my stomach? I had no idea what might be causing my uncontrollable symptoms but the options alone filled me with dread. No matter the outcome, something was definitely wrong. I wanted to know what it was. I wanted to fix it, but the answers eluded me.

I don’t remember how many days I spent searching before I finally stumbled upon a description of GAD - Generalized Anxiety Disorder. As I scrolled down the list of symptoms, I felt realization creeping across my awareness. On a list of twenty or so unrelated symptoms, I had about seventeen. I knew this was it. This was what I had been going through. This was what I had been going through my whole life. I read as much as I could that night. It was like reading my fortune. And my fortune said “This is a chronic illness. You will feel like this forever.”

 
The medical webpages coldly informed me that the chemicals in brain were off-balance. I was broken. I had likely been born that way. In fact, it was deep in genetic history to be overly anxious. I later confirmed this when I discovered relatives on both sides of my family with anxiety disorders. I had gotten a double dose.

Most people discover their anxiety disorders in their early 20’s. It’s not clear whether it’s a biological timer or if it simply coincides with the first stresses of adulthood. Either way, I was right on time. I was studying for grad school and desperately trying to keep a high GPA. The stress factor was high.

Still, I felt unfairly judged by these descriptions. I wasn’t obsessing over everything that went wrong. I was quite satisfied with my life (minus the sickness) I was just busy. I just stressed. My brain was always going, always circling, but it wasn’t circling around any issues in particular, it was just running on overdrive.

I read further to understand what I was experiencing. The impersonal pages explained that most people have a flight or fight reaction in response to situations of high stress. If a lion jumps out of the bushes at you, a flood of chemicals will pour into your brain, giving you the magic ingredients you need to quickly begin your escape (although in the lion case you may be out of luck). If life throws enough at you that you are experiencing extreme stress for an extended period (say.. a loved one dies and you are mourning) then you will likely experience the symptoms of extreme anxiety - difficulty breathing, headaches, nausea, insomnia, muscle tension, exhaustion, edginess - to name a few.

For those of us with GAD that flight or fight reaction is switched on all the time. Anxiety producing chemicals - which might give us the edge in limited quantity - are pouring into our system constantly. It always feels like we are in a desperate situation. It doesn’t always seem like this mentally, but it does physically, and this is the extremely confusing part.

I didn’t know how to feel about my self-diagnosis (which was later reaffirmed by my doctor). I spent a lot of time staring at the screen and sobbing uncontrollably. On one hand, I was extremely relieved. GAD was not terminal, although it could create secondary problems that were. I no longer worried that my heart was on the verge of stopping, or that a secretive tumor had burrowed itself into my spinal cord. I had an answer. I had something to work on. There were treatments I could try. 

Still, the word “chronic” rattled around my brain imposingly. This was something I would have to deal with forever. It wasn’t going away. It was a part of my biology.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I stayed up and researched my options. There were a few things I could try on my own - exercise, giving up caffeine, taking up meditation - but the real hope was in medication. The problem wasn’t my lifestyle, it was the chemical imbalance in my brain. I printed out my list of symptoms and the next day I made an appointment to see the doctor. I was going to fix my brain.

2 comments:

  1. Please write more :-) Have you found ways to manage your GAD? I'm just starting to try to address my anxiety (it's gotten to a debilitating level of severity) and would love to read about strategies you've found helpful to quiet your mind.

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  2. Thanks for reading Elizabeth. I have definitely found ways to help manage my anxiety, although the physical symptoms are still something I struggle with on a daily basis. If you are looking for some good starting points, there are a few things you can try. Exercise is really the best medicine if you are able to find something active that works for your body, it can be great to just bike or go for walk. I always kick myself later for not exercising because I always notice an improvement when I actually get my act together with it. It literally gives your body the chemicals it's looking for and releases a lot of tension. It also gives you the time and space to not be thinking about anything in particular. Letting your mind rest is really key to slowing down that cycle of spinning through all your problems and responsibilities.

    I would have to say that the most effective for me has been meditation. Buddhists actually have a whole branch of psychological teachings, and through meditation and reading I have become able to gain more control over my mind and my own reactions to situations. Often, I can stop a panic attack before it starts by noticing a pattern. Understanding and becoming comfortable with your own mind is so key. You might try reading the book "Turning your Mind into an Ally" by Mipham Rinpoche.

    Medication has been helpful as well but I would really caution you to be careful about what medication you use. Most antianxiety medications on the market (including the two that I am taking) are highly addictive and are thus very difficult to stop taking. If you can avoid starting, you are saving yourself a world of heartache in withdrawal pain. You can't take them while pregnant and for me, that means I will have to stop them eventually to have children. If that is at all a concern for you, you should also be advised that there is new research showing a connection between some anti-anxiety meds and birth defects, even after a year of being off the meds. If you are in a state with legal medical cannabis, some strains are particularly affective for anxiety and cannabis is non-addictive so does not come with withdrawal symptoms.

    Finding the right combination of tools to manage takes some experimenting because it is all about what works for the individual. But those are some of the things that I have found helpful.

    Hope this is helpful to you :)

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