PERSONAL

6

2,099

Various Brain Issues!

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago2,148 words

A bit of a frantic, anxious vent about recent brain issues I've been struggling with and distracted by, both physical and mental!

I wrote ∞ another personal post a couple of days ago in which I madly ranted about my creative envy for the ridiculous achievements of that infinitely-more-successful dev who shares my first name, Toby Fox ∞, if you've not seen it and are curious about such a thing.

I'm writing this one though because I've been having brain symptoms, and every time this happens I worry that it's THE BEGINNING OF THE END, so I should write something so that if I drop dead suddenly, at least people will have something to refer to to know why I've disappeared.

I might as well talk about some other stuff too actually, since I hinted at it in the dev post this week, and it's all surely interconnected!



I was struggling with loneliness a whole lot last week, to the point where I couldn't focus on anything and was thinking seriously about suicide again for the first time in ages. Not to the point where I was writing suicide notes - which is the point I was at a couple of years ago - but it was still there in my mind.

The loneliness doesn't always get to me! For a while, I've been quite content to just be by myself, and actually irritated by the thought of being disturbed or having to endure human interaction. Felt peaceful. I've no idea what set it off last week; maybe just-

Wait, I think I know what it might be.

I have this online friend who I occasionally message... or rather she's usually the one to reach out to me. We're close-ish, I suppose, and have met up a couple of times, but as is always the case, she's in a relationship and I'm not (I'm also genuinely not sexually or romantically interested in her, which I feel is worth mentioning whenever talking about an opposite-sex connection).

The other day, I can't remember why, I got thinking about some people I'd briefly crossed paths with back in university. It's frustrating how there are absolutely no opportunities to meet other people around my age where I am currently, so thinking back to these chances I did have is all I really have. I wondered what it'd be like to randomly reach out to them, whether they'd appreciate it or respond.

Ah, I remember now! I saw threads on Reddit where people were talking about just that. Something about the feelings associated with reaching out to people after a delay.

I wasn't sure whether to do it myself since I assumed anyone I'd reach out to would hate me due to some persistent trauma I've been left with, but I thought I'd ask this friend whether she'd ever considered it, expecting her to say it sounded like a weird thing to do and wasn't really something people did.

Instead, though, she told me about like half a dozen guys she'd briefly met years ago and who randomly reached out to her based on extremely flimsy initial connections, and now they talk a lot and are close.

It should have made me think "oh okay, so maybe it could work if I tried it, then!", but instead it just opened old comparison wounds, made me feel that 'most people' are in active contact with several people like that... plus it made me aware that nobody I physically met has ever reached out to me, so I felt lacking, like it was evidence for how I'm such a horribly unpleasant and undesirable person, which is the negative belief I've been left with due to the rejection trauma and childhood experiences of neglect; stuff I talked about in ∞ this post ∞.

So I suppose that made me sensitive to and acutely aware of my own current isolation.

(I suspect it's more likely to happen if you're female, though; guys would be more likely to reach out to you than girls reaching out to some lonely nerdy guy they met once.)

There's another person I keep in occasional contact with, really the only other one that I do...

I should mention here that it's an odd experience, attracting some kind of a following - no matter how minor - online. I certainly appreciate people who know me as a creator, especially those of you who comment on this blog! But there's always this power imbalance, and not in the way you might expect. People who know me as a creator know more about me than I know about them, and I've never known how to handle that. So it's like I have that whole creator me world, and the 'real' world version of me, and they're separate, distinct. The friends - and lack thereof - that I speak of here pertain exclusively to that real world, with me as just some nerdy student rather than a games dev (I never even really talked about the stuff I made with the people I knew in the real world).

I wonder if it's like this for other creators, and they keep the two worlds separate.

Anyway. The other person that I keep in contact with is someone I met at university, in the third year; the only one from there I'm really still in contact with. I wasn't quite as close with her as the other two people I knew then, but it was nice to have a friend when I'd mostly lost the other two (one cut me out, the other's just sort of drifted away and said when I tried to contact her recently that she was just busy but she still considers me a friend, then didn't even read my reply to that).

Mostly we'd been communicating through long essay messages like twice a week; deep, but unwieldy; the kind of interaction I always seem to find myself getting into. So she was there, but I didn't really feel like she was most of the time.

She's currently doing a Master's, some kind of neuro/AI course, and due to the whole pandemic situation, everything's done via zoom calls and there are rules about even leaving her dorms. So she feels isolated and frustrated, plus the work is mainly mathsy and she's not enjoying it (it's an interesting insight into what I'd be doing myself if I were to continue down that path; it doesn't sound like my kind of thing at all).

I hadn't heard from her in a few days, so I reached out to her and, well, long story short she told me she'd been struggling a lot, crying for days, barely sleeping, because of how stressful the work was. It was programming-related, so I was able to help her out (I'd not do the work for her, but just being there is often a help in itself), and more importantly for me, we talked for a few hours in much more regular messages in a way that felt meaningful and really uplifting because I was able to help her out on an emotional/psychological level, a bit, which is where I feel most in my element and most of value. I felt like I'd had a big, tasty meal after starving for days!

That was followed though by a couple of days neurotically reflecting on a lot of unpleasant stuff. She's single, so I wondered whether we could get together. But she's not interested in me, who would be? Nobody would be. I'm not attractive, I'm not even desirable as a friend. I don't know how to be a human. She doesn't really care. Why would anyone? She's suggested we do zoom calls, but I keep putting it off because I I just assume she'd hate the sight of me (even though we used to meet up in person before!) or I'd just say stupid things (even though we've talked a bit about how we both have social anxiety and those worries)... Etc, etc.

Lovely stuff. Essentially turning down opportunities due to mental issues; story of my life, really. It's the result of an insecure attachment style due to childhood neglect, combined with trauma of being rejected - and accused of things - by the two people I was closest to in the past. (Though the fact that I have no space of my own where I wouldn't be overheard is also a big factor re the zoom calls.)

So I try to understand that, and control it (especially since I don't even particularly want to be in a relationship with her because I don't feel we'd be right for one another), but I suppose it brings with it a lot of social-insecurity anxiety that's lain dormant for a long time.

When we talked, I stayed up with her since she sleeps at reasonable times for a student whereas I'm trying to maintain an early bird routine I might not even be genetically suited for (another thing I've been thinking/meaning to write about for a while). That meant I got less sleep than usual, which tends to exacerbate anxiety and bring about physical symptoms like headaches.

I've also had some digestive issues - like persistent nausea, but not any changes in what wonderful stuff I'm grotesquely expelling out of any orifices - which is something I had a few years ago too. They've been going on for a few weeks, and I'm not sure what the cause might be. When I went to a doctor about it years ago, I was told it was 'dyspepsia', which just sounded like "oh, you have a stomach ache, stop complaining", and given some proton pump inhibitors or something, I don't remember.

I think it's probably related to anxiety, though, and from reading about it, 'functional dyspepsia' is a not-uncommon thing which has no clear anatomical cause. So psychosomatic, apparently, and very likely a result of mental issues in the brain.

But of course this leads down a path of worry about it being physical issues with the brain, since oh-so-wonderfully nausea is also commonly associated with brain tumours. And I literally do have a brain tumour, and there's a very real chance it could be getting worse.

I've also been getting headaches, stabbing ones, in the same place every time: the top left side of my head, just above the temple. Google tells me headaches that stab out of nowhere but only last a few seconds are called 'ice pick headaches', and they're not uncommon or a cause for particular concern... but of course every medical article you ever see online also includes "YES BUT IT COULD BE IMMINENT DEATH CONTACT YOUR DOCTOR RIGHT THIS SECOND", so... bleh.

I'm also noticing now that I currently have a pressure feeling on the top of my head. This, the nausea, and headaches are all things I've experienced in the past... but I also had a literal undiagnosed brain tumour in the past, and untreated hydrocephalus, so they were actual signs of something worse back then.

My last scan was 3 months ago, and the next one is meant to be in January, I think. I've been having them every few months, and none of them show anything that concerns the doctor or suggests anything needs to be done. It's unlikely that there could be anything drastic that has happened in these three months... but it's hard to completely silence the worry that MAYBE SOMETHING HAS!!!

Bleh...

If it gets worse, I'll contact them about it, since I have been told to do that... but I don't want to get into the habit of doing that regularly whenever I start worrying about something, which I feel I might do once I've firmly established that it's an option. They've got more important stuff to do with their time, other people to treat! And these symptoms could too easily be attributed to anxiety, which is what they'd probably tell me anyway.

If it starts getting to the point where I'm constantly vomiting or feeling dizzy, then that's a concern and I'll definitely need to do something about it. For now, it's just a matter of trying to control the anxiety somehow...

It's been a while since I regularly experienced anxiety; it's been mostly dull depression for a long time. Flat, rather than this stabbing frenzied mental state. I didn't miss this. I'll have to try getting back into meditation or something...



So yes, if I disappear any time soon, it's because I've suddenly dropped dead due to this. But hopefully that won't happen!!

How are you all doing? I did ∞ a Twitter poll ∞ during the week, and most people seemed to be doing not-badly, or even great. Lucky them!