My mind.. a place of chaos

Yeah, so I took another trip to the doctor's office today. I've been crying a lot lately, mostly because it feels so.. terrifying to be ignored when I feel like there's something seriously wrong with me. It's not a good feeling. It's like no one cares. It scares the hell out of me, and I've started imagining things. Like brain tumors and what's worse. I'm feeling dizzy, nauseous, sometimes I'm sensitive to light, sometimes it's like I've been staring at the sun for a long time. My right arm have been feeling numb on and off for some days now, and yesterday my right ear felt numb the whole day. Naturally I'm thinking it's something in my head. Thankfully - or whatever you choose to call it - these symptoms come and go, which is a good thing when it comes to the fear of brain tumors, making it much less probable. And I also know that these problems may very well be caused by my stiff neck, and the numb arm is probably caused by a pinched nerve. Most likely even. But the fear is just as real, just as scary.

Seriously, I'm not the kind of person who thinks the worst every time something's a little off, but it's a bit frightening to be me nowadays. I'm unable to control my mind and it keeps inventing these horrible scenarios where I have all kinds of incurable diseases, which in the end will lead to my death. I've never been afraid of dying, not even when I almost did die from severe pneumonia in 2002, but I've suddenly developed this insane fear of dying. I have no idea why, but the fear is there alright.

It really didn't help that I was told to consider getting a tracheotomy because of my lowered pulmonary function. I'm sorry, but that also scares the living shit out of me. Am I to become even more dependent of other people? Am I to become even more dependent of machines and inventions keeping me alive? Sure, I will absolutely consider a tracheotomy if, or even when that's the way to go if I want to keep on breathing, but please let me deal with this at my own pace! I've been told several times during this whole ordeal over the past three months that my pulmonary function has been stable for the last two years at least, so don't come springing this crap on me when I'm already feeling down and afraid there's something seriously wrong with me. Don't you understand that you're adding weight to the already sinking ship? I've been crying a lot lately, and you're not helping.

We have been talking about anxiety. And depression. I don't know what those two things are. Not the faintest idea. I've always considered myself strong and quite impossible to break, but somehow I think I'm broken. Do I have anxiety? I have no idea. Am I depressed? I don't know. How can I know? I spoke to my doctor about this today. He asked me a bunch of questions about how I'm eating, sleeping, feeling and so on. He asked me if I've been thinking about suicide. Suicide? I used to think of suicide as a way out if I was ever forced to live in a retirement home (I was 26 years old) - but no, to me suicide is the easy way out. I would never do that to the people who love me. See, now I'm crying as I write this. I have no idea why. Thinking of hurting my family breaks my heart. Maybe I am depressed? My doctor told me that I scored high on his depression test or whatever, so he wants me to see a psychologist which I'm quite fine with. Am I supposed to feel embarrassed about seeing a shrink? Well, I'm not. If I can talk my way out of feeling like crap, I'm all for it, it's worth a shot.

I like my doctor, he's a nice man. He listened to me. He seemed to understand my fear, and decided to have me get an MRI to rule out any brain tumors - in addition to seeing the psychologist. Maybe that will make me relax a little. I don't know. I'll just have to try to calm down. I know from experience that I'm much more prone to catching illnesses when I'm mentally down, so I need to pick myself up and be happy again. I've also started going to a physiotherapist for my neck problems, so hopefully that will add to the positive side of the scales.

So there you have it. This is the outline of what's been churning inside my head for the last couple of months. I suddenly remembered why I decided to start this diary, so here I am sharing my inner thoughts. Maybe it'll have a therapeutic effect on me. Maybe it'll even help in some weird way. I really don't know anything these days. All I know is that I need to find my way back to my old self again.