Hey guys, I seriously need your help. For the TL;DR types, this will be worth your time, at the very least as a source of amusement, just because of how absurd my circumstances are.
(for some reason the writing software is spazzing out and merging some words together, I've tried to correct it but it reverts back..)
I have been told that my GABA receptors have been down regulated permanently from a combination of moderate cannabis use, a very short stint of Benzo use and chronic stress, mainly because of having poorly functioning GABA receptors in the first place due to poor genetics.
Everything I ingest sets off a stress response (you'll soon understand why GABA comes into this),the triggers of my stress response (SR) vary in severity in how strongly they set it off. The triggers are the following: Cigarettes, caffeine, marijuana (small doses are fine, high doses are the worst trigger), alcohol, low blood sugar, eating more than 10g of quick release glucose, exercise, all food, all herbal supplements and various random ones set it off. When the SR goes off it activates my nervous system and impairs my cognition. It takes me 1hr 15 mins toeat a standard 32g chocolate bar without SR going off....
I have had the SR go off about 5-10 times a day everyday for the past 4 years, one moment i'm barely functional, the next I'm completely dysfunctional, I'm sure you can see how this would affect my daily life in regards to work, socialising, maintaining relationships, personal development etc. As a consequence, because my HPA axis is being chronically activated so often, it has made my condition worse. As you'd expect from having something this bizarre and unheard of, my family and friends have slowly lets just say drifted away, despite me explaining things as eloquently as possible and showing an attitude of disbelief of just how mysterious and ridiculously bizarre this illness is, they have as you'd kind of expect grown tired of this BS and just think its psychosomatic.
My planning/reasoning, problems solving, working memory, memory recall and processing ability is completely kaput. I have blocked thoughts, unable toaccess them, my mind is dead space. Therefore consistently and unrelentingly I have no brain activity that Im aware of going on. I can't hold a thought in my mind AT ALL. I can't access my memory recall, as if there is a wall in the way. My thoughts or lack of are completely jumbled up rather than effortlessly systematic in flow. I guess this is what compounds my issues and people's perspective of it, is the fact that I look fine on the outside, just a bit slow, low on confidence, edgy and anxious. From a concoction of having poor cliquey friends and being unable to manage these symptoms, I have become socially withdrawn.
My processing ability is non existent, I can't process films, TV series, books, basically anything....I just can't follow the line of the story due to my lack of ability to process things. I can't learn anything either, I've hadpersonal development and countless self help/inspiring books just put on the back burner for months/years, its just insane, I can't even help myself by developing my self as a person or my work/life skills. Ican learn very basic things of course, such as changing a light bulb kinda thing.
I have had these issues everyday for the past 4 verging on 5 years. Before this I was a verysociable, witty, kind and friendly person, who was very ambitious. Now comes the odd part, I am still that person. I have had no changes in personality or behavioural changes, its just something has been turned off/down in my brain. If this switch turned back on I'd be back to my normal self. I've had no significant issues with anxiety or depression, I have emotional baggage just like everybody else, although I have been unable to process through it for the duration of this illness. Of recent, to my utter amazement and realisation that I've made no significant improvement in this time period, my stress levels and low grade (situational) depression have got significantlyworse.
Expanding on the 3rd sentence in the above paragraph, if you were to ask my family if I had had personality/behavioural changes, they would say I have. I will explain my defence and there defence in how I can see there view. This stress response is constantly activated, so when I get stressed my body is already in a stressed state so being in stressful situations, being arguments for example, I can lose my temper very quickly, what exacerbates this is the fact that I am unable to communicate my point or thoughts, which is EXTREMELY frustrating. I also come across as edgy and anxious when in conversation, this is because again I am constantly very stimulated because of the SR being activated and unable to fluently and effortlessly get my thoughts/opinions out. I'm just stuck in this CRH/stress vortex.
An incredibly intelligent health consultant I have been working with has explained that my issues stem from the fact that there has been a PERMANENT alteration in my HPA axis activity and stress response from chronic stressors, some people are predisposed to this due to genetics, and obviously Iam one of them.
The stress response is supposed to go off in all humans with behaviours such as eating, smoking and drinking caffeine/alcohol,but there's a control mechanism involved. One control mechanism is GABA receptors and the inhibition of CRH neurons in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN). CRH is released by the PVN, but GABA can inhibit its release and this is one of the main control mechanisms to stop the stress response. Because my receptors are damaged, my stress response is unable to be controlled effectively. As a result this it causes a cascade of symptoms such as chronic sinusitis, shortness of breath, hypertension, popping/gluey ears,hard eyeballs (??), head pressure, twitching/spasms, clicking/popping ankle & knee joints, constantly being on edge/feeling irritable and chronically cognitively impaired.
Therefore my day to day quality of life is about 15% of my normal ability to function.Throughout the day everyday I use my phone (which is an asbolute god send with this disorder) as a tool to to keep my mind occupied and distracted doing mindless things, quite the opposite of what I would like to be doing with my time, but I have no choice because the things I want to do I can't get absorbed into, simply due to my lack of ability to process them. My brain is compeletely brain dead, so if I didn't have my phone or some sort of multifunctional electrical media device I just wouldn't be able to cope. Boredom would just be too intolerable.
I have a shed load of devices and GABA agonist supplements which don't seem to cut themustard, there pretty good at suppressing an activated stress response but don't cause any significant improvements in cognition, quite possibly because the damage is so severe, obviously I hope not but as time goes by my hope is fading.
Benzo's are the only thing which has shut down the stress response, improved my glucose tolerance and kept me balanced. But ideally I wouldnt want to stay on them for the long term for various reasons. Baclofen which works on the GABAb receptor which has also been shown to inhibit the HPA axis looks like a much better option due its lower tolerance.
I get no sense of reward on a daily basis, so I continued to smoke MJ (now stopped) and eating an obscenely poor diet, instead what remains are these obscene eating habits and needing to be using my phone the whole time, otherwise its just insanely boring as I don't have thoughts/ideas to get lost in anything.
I clearly need some psychiatric help but have no idea on what to do. Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thankyou for taking the time to read my story.
(for some reason the writing software is spazzing out and merging some words together, I've tried to correct it but it reverts back..)
I have been told that my GABA receptors have been down regulated permanently from a combination of moderate cannabis use, a very short stint of Benzo use and chronic stress, mainly because of having poorly functioning GABA receptors in the first place due to poor genetics.
Everything I ingest sets off a stress response (you'll soon understand why GABA comes into this),the triggers of my stress response (SR) vary in severity in how strongly they set it off. The triggers are the following: Cigarettes, caffeine, marijuana (small doses are fine, high doses are the worst trigger), alcohol, low blood sugar, eating more than 10g of quick release glucose, exercise, all food, all herbal supplements and various random ones set it off. When the SR goes off it activates my nervous system and impairs my cognition. It takes me 1hr 15 mins toeat a standard 32g chocolate bar without SR going off....
I have had the SR go off about 5-10 times a day everyday for the past 4 years, one moment i'm barely functional, the next I'm completely dysfunctional, I'm sure you can see how this would affect my daily life in regards to work, socialising, maintaining relationships, personal development etc. As a consequence, because my HPA axis is being chronically activated so often, it has made my condition worse. As you'd expect from having something this bizarre and unheard of, my family and friends have slowly lets just say drifted away, despite me explaining things as eloquently as possible and showing an attitude of disbelief of just how mysterious and ridiculously bizarre this illness is, they have as you'd kind of expect grown tired of this BS and just think its psychosomatic.
My planning/reasoning, problems solving, working memory, memory recall and processing ability is completely kaput. I have blocked thoughts, unable toaccess them, my mind is dead space. Therefore consistently and unrelentingly I have no brain activity that Im aware of going on. I can't hold a thought in my mind AT ALL. I can't access my memory recall, as if there is a wall in the way. My thoughts or lack of are completely jumbled up rather than effortlessly systematic in flow. I guess this is what compounds my issues and people's perspective of it, is the fact that I look fine on the outside, just a bit slow, low on confidence, edgy and anxious. From a concoction of having poor cliquey friends and being unable to manage these symptoms, I have become socially withdrawn.
My processing ability is non existent, I can't process films, TV series, books, basically anything....I just can't follow the line of the story due to my lack of ability to process things. I can't learn anything either, I've hadpersonal development and countless self help/inspiring books just put on the back burner for months/years, its just insane, I can't even help myself by developing my self as a person or my work/life skills. Ican learn very basic things of course, such as changing a light bulb kinda thing.
I have had these issues everyday for the past 4 verging on 5 years. Before this I was a verysociable, witty, kind and friendly person, who was very ambitious. Now comes the odd part, I am still that person. I have had no changes in personality or behavioural changes, its just something has been turned off/down in my brain. If this switch turned back on I'd be back to my normal self. I've had no significant issues with anxiety or depression, I have emotional baggage just like everybody else, although I have been unable to process through it for the duration of this illness. Of recent, to my utter amazement and realisation that I've made no significant improvement in this time period, my stress levels and low grade (situational) depression have got significantlyworse.
Expanding on the 3rd sentence in the above paragraph, if you were to ask my family if I had had personality/behavioural changes, they would say I have. I will explain my defence and there defence in how I can see there view. This stress response is constantly activated, so when I get stressed my body is already in a stressed state so being in stressful situations, being arguments for example, I can lose my temper very quickly, what exacerbates this is the fact that I am unable to communicate my point or thoughts, which is EXTREMELY frustrating. I also come across as edgy and anxious when in conversation, this is because again I am constantly very stimulated because of the SR being activated and unable to fluently and effortlessly get my thoughts/opinions out. I'm just stuck in this CRH/stress vortex.
An incredibly intelligent health consultant I have been working with has explained that my issues stem from the fact that there has been a PERMANENT alteration in my HPA axis activity and stress response from chronic stressors, some people are predisposed to this due to genetics, and obviously Iam one of them.
The stress response is supposed to go off in all humans with behaviours such as eating, smoking and drinking caffeine/alcohol,but there's a control mechanism involved. One control mechanism is GABA receptors and the inhibition of CRH neurons in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN). CRH is released by the PVN, but GABA can inhibit its release and this is one of the main control mechanisms to stop the stress response. Because my receptors are damaged, my stress response is unable to be controlled effectively. As a result this it causes a cascade of symptoms such as chronic sinusitis, shortness of breath, hypertension, popping/gluey ears,hard eyeballs (??), head pressure, twitching/spasms, clicking/popping ankle & knee joints, constantly being on edge/feeling irritable and chronically cognitively impaired.
Therefore my day to day quality of life is about 15% of my normal ability to function.Throughout the day everyday I use my phone (which is an asbolute god send with this disorder) as a tool to to keep my mind occupied and distracted doing mindless things, quite the opposite of what I would like to be doing with my time, but I have no choice because the things I want to do I can't get absorbed into, simply due to my lack of ability to process them. My brain is compeletely brain dead, so if I didn't have my phone or some sort of multifunctional electrical media device I just wouldn't be able to cope. Boredom would just be too intolerable.
I have a shed load of devices and GABA agonist supplements which don't seem to cut themustard, there pretty good at suppressing an activated stress response but don't cause any significant improvements in cognition, quite possibly because the damage is so severe, obviously I hope not but as time goes by my hope is fading.
Benzo's are the only thing which has shut down the stress response, improved my glucose tolerance and kept me balanced. But ideally I wouldnt want to stay on them for the long term for various reasons. Baclofen which works on the GABAb receptor which has also been shown to inhibit the HPA axis looks like a much better option due its lower tolerance.
I get no sense of reward on a daily basis, so I continued to smoke MJ (now stopped) and eating an obscenely poor diet, instead what remains are these obscene eating habits and needing to be using my phone the whole time, otherwise its just insanely boring as I don't have thoughts/ideas to get lost in anything.
I clearly need some psychiatric help but have no idea on what to do. Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thankyou for taking the time to read my story.
