Hi,
I'm pretty new to the forum and am glad to have found such an informative place. This year marks my 20th year of dealing with some profound mental issues and I've recently decided to do some research into what's been going on in my head. I realize a lot of this is stuff I should be saying to a psychiatrist, but first I'm trying to fix myself up enough to be able to actually go to one. Apologies in advance for the long, rambling story that takes too long to get to the point. I've also provided surplus apologies at the end just in case.
So, first things first, I think the foundation for my problems was set when I was a child. I had a cold, unaffectionate mother who had a weird tendency to punish me publicly. She would hit me with a belt in front of her friend, frequently laugh at me in front of others, kick me in the back so I'd fall face first into the cement if I was walking too slow to the school bus stop, etc. I also suspect that she became a Jehova's Witness when I was 7 solely to avoid having to buy me the '89 Batman Batcave playset for Christmas. During all of this I was also bullied for years at school by a kid with no eyebrows and still don't understand why it wasn't the other way around. Anyway, between these two jackasses there was no real safe place for me.
I became a shy kid, but it was when I developed acne at age 15 that the floodgates of emotional pain opened. I quickly developed Body Dysmorphic Disorder and, not surprisingly, extreme Social Anxiety. Previous to this I had done very well in elementary school - I was a self-motivated achiever, valedictorian, and recipient of a scholarship. But once the BDD kicked in around 1997 while I was in highschool I started skipping more classes than I was attending and I eventually dropped out. All this emotional turmoil led me to a startling discovery that I would now have to start listening to Korn and Marilyn Manson and put Nietzsche quotes in my MSN messenger name. It was a very taxing time.
I eventually became housebound and would pay my younger sister to walk two blocks to the corner store for me to pick up my staples of pre-cooked bacon and chocolate milk because I just couldn't do it. I also couldn't get a job and would spend my days playing sad synth music on a keyboard by myself until one day I accidentally spilled a can of coke on it and an ant colony formed inside. The ants would come out anytime I hit the keys and my music progressively became fast-paced and staccato as my fingers tried to avoid them. I began to resent the ants for how they'd changed me as an artist and eventually put the keyboard in a garbage bag and, fearing the ants would somehow get back inside my house, threw it over the fence of a nearby school while under the cloak of darkness.
Eventually I mellowed out enough to venture to the corner store myself and even grew the courage to initially resist the extended warranty option when purchasing electronics. It now takes the salesperson pushing the warranty on me twice before I fold under the pressure like a cheap lawn chair. Despite these advances, I haven't looked a passing bystander in the eye in almost 20 years. Small talk still kills me and I'm a dud at parties unless I drink. If I don't drink, everyone around me pairs into groups so that I'm the only one left out. It's always been a depressing phenomenon but at least now I find it somewhat amusing as I marvel at how everyone unconsciously excludes me - like a social immune system forms and isolates that one cancerous quiet dude. It doesn't matter if I promise not to bring up Battlestar Galactica again, no one wants to get involved with me. If I do drink, however, I become a chatterbox and easily talk with anyone. The only problem is I wake up the next day to pictures of me having done stupid stuff I have no recollection of, like carrying street cats home on the bus or showing everyone that I'm wearing Spanx.
Anyway, a list of most of my issues:
- Body Dysmorphic Disorder
- Social Anxiety
- Flat affect
- Pessimistic
- Rumination
- Racing thoughts at night leading to insomnia
- Introverted
- Depressed
- Socially isolated
- Easily overwhelmed by public places/loud noises
- Anhedonia
- Poor eye contact
- Easily startled
- Brain Fog
- Feelings of hopelessness
- Random phobias
- Irritability
- Alcohol dependency
- Harshly critical
- lousy memory (especially forgetful of people's names)
- Frequent suicidal thoughts
- Annoyingly high sex drive
- Self destructive
- Hearing problems (have trouble deciphering words spoken in social situations but can hear fine otherwise)
Based on my symptoms I've come to suspect an excess of glutamate and acetylcholine. I haven't been researching neurotransmitters for too long but these two seem like potential culprits.
I'd say glutamate almost feels confirmed to me at this point because of an incident I once had while taking L-Glutamine 7 years ago. I had been taking it for the better part of a year because it was the best supplement to fight the chronic scalp folliculitis I've had for 17 years that was caused by taking the nightmarish acne drug Accutane. Ever since Accutane, ingestion of choline or betaine gives me raging, bloody folliculitis somehow... Anyway, I wasn't taking a high dose of L-Glutamine and so one night I decided to double the amount, which was still well below what I'd seen other people taking and shouldn't have been a problem. The next morning, however, I fell over in my shower 5 times thanks to my balance being completely off. That same morning I developed speech problems - I was stuttering and slurring and had trouble pronouncing certain words like "guitar". Also that same morning I developed powerful involuntary muscle twitches in my arms and legs that took a year to fade away. It felt exactly like how I'd imagine a Multiple Sclerosis attack would feel. My mother has MS and I worry I'm in the same boat. I was a kid when I found out she had it after she decided to reveal her diagnosis during a family get together by screaming at me in front of everyone that I was the cause of her illness. So that was cool way to find out.
As for acetylcholine, I feel like I have a lot of symptoms that match that as well. And I believe I've read that elevated glutamate will result in elevated acetylcholine. To test things out I briefly tried taking CDP-Choline to see if it would make things worse but chickened out after taking only a single pill. A few hours after taking it I had a particularly bad conversation with my landlord's wife. Awkward conversations are just a part of my daily life but this was worse than usual. Very stilted and I kept mishearing her. I got her daughter's name and her dog's name mixed up and I didn't know how to end the conversation so after a prolonged silence I simply shrugged and said, "Well, I should start walking to the bus station now. Bye." and walked away, whistling. The fact that there is no bus station within walking distance coupled with the fact I can't whistle made it awkward. Also, for the next three days after taking that single pill, anytime I would bend over to pick up a sock or Skittles off the floor, all this fluid would just drain right out of my nose and hit the floor. It was odd and I lost any desire to experiment further.
Before clueing in on these two neurotransmitters I tried out Rhodiola Rosea and Ashwagandha but both of them actually made my social anxiety worse and caused the right side of my thyroid to hurt. I'm now taking L-Lysine and L-Theanine which seem to help lower my social anxiety. Now when I'm ordering food at Arbys I don't feel compelled to stare at the overhead menu to avoid eye contact with the cashier out of social fear - only out of shame.
So yeah, I'm wondering if anyone has been in a similar boat? Does it sound like I'm on the right track with these neurotransmitters?
Any comments would be greatly appreciated and apologies if this was long!
, also wearing trendy glasses gives my bdd really theee peace i needed
