i can't remember for shit and it's. kind of scaring me

^ this is sensible. i also suspect actually keeping notes makes it seem like it's suddenly gotten worse, rather than anything actually changing, because now nothing's slipping your mind. (my experience when i started actually tracking my mood) and *cough* yeah, disclaimers are sensible. my mom's side of the family has a history of having strokes/heart attacks young so my mind kinda jumped there, but that's also pretty uncommon with how young @taxonomicAtrocity is.

 

That too - which means it's a good idea to keep observing and documenting the symptoms you experience, until you have enough data that you can establish what your usual 'baseline' looks like.

 

i was thinking that flailing was fucking me over more too, yeah. and to be perfectly honest? some of it's not a sudden decrease in function, it's me trying to do things that i'd previously avoided because i suspected they'd be a lot harder than they used to be. (see: reading. the reason i have an increasingly large stack of lovely scifi and new comics chilling next to my bed) and i def recall bluescreening during convos before, it's a fairly regular occurrence at this point, i just don't tend to forget that i'm having the conversation, period, which is the notable thing. (as far as i can remember! ahaha i'm sorry but that'll never be not funny to me)
i wouldn't be doing the log thing if i didn't think i had to grub for credibility, which is kinda rough 2 say but yeah, young crazy tranny on things not citalopram isn't a super gr8 thing 2 be if u wanna be taken serious. thank you so so much for the tip, idk why i didn't hit physical symptoms before memory problems. kinda a dumbshit move on my part
will see a medical professional in four days at absolute outwards, so if we can avoid telling me that i have super cancer squared like @Rongeur said that'd be p cool. just seems like it'd muddy the waters? talking about this is good because i straight up don't think to consider a lot of stuff, i tend to miss major things pretty often and it's A Problem, but i'd really prefer to avoid unintentionally latching on to something definitive told to me by people over the internet before i get to talk stuff out with the qualified medical professionals who get to see me in meatspace and prod me however they wish if at all possible? that's why i'm not googling anything rn.
that said, 4 u armchair dxers:
-current meds- lamotrigine 200mg, bupropion 480mg, aripiprazole 2mg: i do have side effects from these, and i'm comfortable blaming some of this shit on them right off the bat, but there's some stuff that didn't start happening in conjunction with some new medication or dosage change, like the shakiness and at least some of the memory issues. it feels different from med fogginess? the information's not clouded over, it's _missing._ if that makes any sense.
-got a whole slew of brainweird, but high blood pressure is the only real physical prob, and it's not too terribly out there ever.
-hypertension on my paternal gma's side of the family, along with thyroid issues(tested last year, waiting for this year's results back now; no issues thus far)
- i think my paternal gpa had some sort of issue but he died a while back and it's never come up. women on my mother's side tend towards breast and ovarian cancer, but not til their late 50s.

 

Well, to be fair, the log is actually a good idea regardless of your demographic - it's a great help to both you and and your physician to be able to track the progression of your condition over time, as well as to have actual solid data to establish a baseline from.

As far as the armchair diagnosis goes, obviously I'm not remotely qualified to even take a guess about any of that stuff. I was just asking to see if there was anything SUPER OBVIOUS that made your situation more urgently in need of checking out (like the family history of strokes at a young age that budgie has). Hypertension does present a bit of an increased risk factor for strokes, but as long as it's nothing insane, it really shouldn't be an issue at your age.

The reason I suggested leading off w/ the tremors is because they're the most "neurological" thing, and thus the one that's most concerning. The sudden "rebooting" of orientation is also pretty weird and concerning. The working memory issues, while they're definitely serious, don't point so directly to a clear pathological process, and can be caused by plenty of perfectly benign things as well, so they don't set off quite as many alarm bells - and alarm bells are what you want.

 

forgot the notebook i've been recording stuff in/phone for part of yesterday so a lot of that's a blank, ended up writing down my classes, room numbers, and times each period started and ended which was p helpful; when i forgot where i was going or, in 2 cases that i recall, and where i was all i had 2 do was glance down at my arm and check. super helpful, gonna make that a thing. was dizzy enough to puke yesterday, which was just awesome, and ended up taking 40 min to copy over 6 lines of text, which was even MORE awesome. starting to think i should tell ppl irl, forgot where boyfriend was going yesterday after he told me three times and i know some friends are ticked at me for forgetting stuff. (not that i...remember which ones lmfao) wanted to hold off to see if there was anything actually wrong, but that's starting to seem impractical. log aside, the forgetting and tremors and etc etc etc have been steadily increasing in frequency for a while, and the amount of bullshitting required to consistently and convincingly lie about this is getting hard to keep up, especially since the forgetting that i'm having a conversation while i'm having a conversation doesn't appear to be a fluke. (happened again today and i think yesterday?)


@Rongeur i was gonna say something about logging 2 u i think but i keep on losing what i've read b4 i can type up a reply so i'mma just. give up on that rn. can't @ myself i don't think but i'm makin a note 2 come back 2 this later

 

@taxonomicAtrocity since you said you can't @yourself, i'm hoping this reminder is useful to you.

 

okay, talked to my psych and got an appt w/ a neurologist w/in the next couple weeks, oh hell yes. literally all i had 2 do was mention a couple symptoms and he was all 'aight it's imaging time' jesus fucking christ this was so much easier and more productive than that last appointment. visibly losing words in convos, patching out a lot more, forgetting where i am a lot. hands were shaky enough 2 make 2 square knots take 2o min and even then most of the grunt work was done w/ teeth cuz i couldn't thread anything thru or even hold reliably. no clue what i was gonna say up there so i'm just giving the fuck up on it, sorry.

 

Sheeeeit. I mean, I'm glad that you're getting treated, but I'm so sorry you're going through this, bruh.

 

I am so happy this doctor took you seriously, yeesh. You deserve good help!

 

i'm failing all my classes cuz i can't do the work and jesus fucking christ i need a fucking 2.0 why is it so hard to get a 2.0 it's not like the work is intellectually challenging ever
(i looked at some writing from last year and then today and it just. this is depressing. this is depressing and i want it to stop and i'm going to forget being upset in like three minutes)
hoping i can maybe beg a dr's note off neuro lady before my grades completely tank so i have an excuse for being this fucking stupid

 

i'm glad the psych didn't put you through the same bullshit as the doctor(s?) did.

also i'm pretty sure you could even call the psych's office to get a dr's note, because even if he doesn't know why this is happening he knows what sort of limitations your symptoms are placing on you, and all your teachers should need is a 'look there's medical shit going on' note, not a novel.

 

i'd need to get it w/out my rents knowing somehow, because this apparently isn't bad enough to justify poor marks and it's just an excuse to be lazy until i am literally at caveman speak level. i was thinkin neurologist just cuz that'd prolly be legit enough to make them simmer down

 

yeah, a neurologist who's scanning your head to see if you have LITERAL BRAIN CANCER is probably legit enough, I'd say.

I mean, I realize that part of parenting is pushing your kid sometimes

but you'd think that in a situation like this, where there's a very real possiblity of devastating brain disease, you might want to back off just a smidge

if only because: imagine what a total dick you'd look like if the diagnosis came up positive

like Jesus Christ that is some Dickensian-ass Lifetime movie villain shit: "my kid had a stroke/meningioma/abscess/Chiari malformation/tumor and I told him he was being lazy"

 

well, parents and teachers are two different matters. it might be worthwhile to see if you could get the psych to mail/fax something to the school office to help tide over your grades, if not letting your parents know about it is a priority.

(also, dude, i am so sorry about your parents.)

 

i'll call my psych thursday, i know he's in that day. New Psych's p cool; he's the first psych i've had that's listened 2 me and actually bothered 2 read my file before meeting me 8)

 

this is what i'm doing so i know where i am. workin p well so far! def been having to check more 8/

 

Clever!

 

been patching out during conversations more (four times today plus losing a chunk of another convo! new record) so i'm hiding in my room n avoiding ppl, going 2 a party 2morrow night but i have no idea how imma swing that. please don't be a shit for one day, brain. just one day.
(can't tie knots, hands shake too bad, having trouble doing detail work in pottery. fucking pottery. i can't make mud do what i want it to, jesus fuck. can this quit being a thing i don't appreciate it)
forgot all my homework for the umpteenth time, made several amusing errors when trying to guess abt the nature of the convos that i patched out during, skipped some classes to clean in the pottery room and was slower than usual because the tremors are really starting to fuck things up 4 me, managed to forget where i fucking was while kissing my boyfriend, which. little bit jarring

 

Ouch :( Any luck with your psych?

 

@prismaticvoid he hasn't gotten back to me 8/