I am just Fed up

[Al59]

Hello All.
I have posted on here previously but thought I would post again.
I thought I would post something rather than just read others. Firstly I am not wallowing in self pity or looking for sympathy

I am Just Fed Up.

Background is had a stroke in Feb 21 and recovered physically well. Mentally not so much but this ’ rewiring of the brain’ that gets talked about turned me 180 degrees. Pre Stroke in the Fight or Flight scenarios I would primarily choose fight. Post stroke Flight.
COVID hadn’t helped. I mask, I distance, I isolate to some extent to avoid catching. I can make the mental link of COVID increases the risk of clots , clots increase risk of stroke. Even though on meds for clotting, BP, cholesterol etc the ease to which I can become anxious or stressed is amazing.
My family are fed up of me, my friends are fed up of me (as I said I am Fed up).
I constantly have headaches, limb aches and chest aches. Found out Oct 22 I have Arythmia and permanent AFib.
GPs put it down to stress and anxiety and after a few consultations are recommending anti depressants.
Don’t really want them so tried Kinsiology, Seeing a counselor and now trying hypnotherapy. It all costs but Hey ho. Oh should add that the anxiety and stress caused me to belch continually. We have done camera down throat, barium swallow - medically/physically fine. So we are back to anxiety and stress.
People say be positive but it’s like being in a pitch black room, no matter how you try it remains black room meanwhile GPs family and friends say keep trying (as they are in the room opposite with wall to wall windows and light.
So all this is just a rant really.
I am just fed up with it it’s like treading water. If this is it they can shove it. I have accepted I annoy most people ( most probably annoyed a lot on here by this long post) but I cannot be bothered to
Man up
Grow a pair
All the other war cries.
This is me. This is Alan, I am just Fed up.

Thank you for reading

[JuliaH]

Hi Alan @. I offer no sympathy but I want you to know I get it. Particularly the part about being in a dark room when everyone else is some where better.
It sounds like you are proactively choosing to do things (seeing a counsellor and trying kinesiology) that may pay dividends but it will take time and effort. Please keep on trying, accepting that there will be times like this. Equally there will be better times when the horizon is brighter. I realise it doesn’t feel like that is a likely happening when you are in that dark room. Talk through this (I’m sure you have) with your counsellor, and if you really can’t move past it for now, see your GP again.
Keep talking, wishing you every strength, Julia

[Al59]

Thank you.
The counseling has finished after 8 weeks. were we concentrated on calming techniques to reduce stress.
What I found/find almost humourous is on visiting GP me in my mask them not , explain to GP, and they say it’s stress and ask what I think is stressing me.
They so far haven’t got the irony of me saying
Me in a GP surgery, with people coughing and spluttering and not wearing masks…

[DeAnn]

I saw your post almost immediately but could not find the right words to respond. I have given up because they are not coming. I am going to respond anyway. Please forgive me if i say something untoward. I never mean to be contentious or hurtful in any way. First, I certainly understand what you are saying about the dark room, but perhaps see it differently, as I think others are in the dark room and I am in the light, as they are still stressing the rat race while I am free to do as I choose, although I do not always choose well. I think both perspectives are probably a bit off the mark.

Secondly, I abhor being told things are all anxiety, stress, or depression, when I know the pain and other symptoms are real. That said, I do take antidepressant and am so glad I agreed even though I preferred not to. They have helped greatly, and do not cause me any ill affects.

Third: Afib and Arrythmia’s can certainly cause chest pains and they absolutely should pay attention to your concerns. Also anxiety or panic attacks can as well.

And fourth: regarding masking…keep doing it if you feel safer. I get surgical masks at the door of hospital and just be as safe as I can. Staff will wear them with patients who wear them, but they are not still worn in general. Yes, there is some correlation, however, keep in mind, the likelihood is slim. Just keep protecting yourself as best as you are able.

I could not keep myself out of dark places without the medicine, and now this group. I hope you will find your way out as well.

Hugs and Best Wishes to you. I hope to see you speaking up more.

[Al59]

One thing I have learned with stroke survivors is they can not really offend another survivor as we get it.
Thank you for taking time to reply.
It is difficult to explain sometimes. My wife asked if I was giving up and the honest answer is no. If an just fed up of walking in treacle if that makes sense.
I have had ECGs and my heart is okay just A fibbing.
The difficulty is the aches in the head, in the limbs ( legs and arms) and in the chest. It is a constant and I accept it but I am fed up with it.

I am sure thngs will improve
I can find humour in it as going to GP me in my mask , no one else usually, talk to GP who says it’s stress and what do I think is causing it ( they know my views on COVID) I say for example doc it’s like being sat in the GP surgery with people coughing and spluttering and not masked. Doc can go well try not to let that stress you as much , remember you are wearing a mask!!!

[DeAnn]

I totally agree. I forget to be elated to be walking around because I would like to see where I am walking and not feel so dizzy and lost in space all the time. My brain can’t really discern which way is which if I am walking, or moving, or trying to focus via vision or thought. Sometimes I just want to cuss and give up. Easier just to sleep through it. I have a few young reasons to be here because I am still of some help to them even if not nearly as much as before. They keep me going by being my reason.

[Susan3]

Apologies if I say anything untoward. I truly empathise with what you’re experiencing, particularly the sense of being enveloped in a dark room while it appears that others are in more favourable circumstances. Drawing from personal experience, I understand the frustration and difficulty in explaining things at times: It is challenging, leading to frustration evident in tone while speaking. And it takes considerable effort and energy while treading water, leaving you even more frustrated. But keep sharing your thoughts. Best wishes.

[SimonInEdinburgh]

Hi @Al59
Like @DeAnn I saw this immediately and felt I needed to gather thoughts, like her I have a nack of saying what I think is perfectly reasonable and other people take umbrage out which was never anywhere in my intentions: so apologies if I managed to phrase things in a clumsy manner .

Obviously we don’t know each other so I don’t know whether you’re fact driven/rational in your sensing and judging etc.
I suspect if you look up the probability of breaking your neck by falling down the stairs while putting your trousers on you’ll find it higher than your probability of having a neurological event from covid. The Sunday telegraph did once publish a list of A&E statistics that showed that stairs and trousers were more dangerous than for example fireworks. The point of this statistical example is to say that you are fixating on something that you’re aware of while at the same time accepting many more significant risks because they are below the threshold at which society makes them something we take specific precautions against .

This sort of activity is perfectly normal in somebody who’s had a traumatic event - People who have had a recent flat tire are predisposed to believe the probability is orders a magnitude more likely than people who haven’t add one for a very long time.
You say you had counselling etc so I’m going to guess you know the many apps, YouTube channels, techniques like hanging a rubber band around your wrist, that can resources of strategies to deal with things when you find the tactic that matches your comfort zone .

Stress and anxiety if indeed they are the correct cause for the effects you feel do have physical effects see this picture

If you don’t know that it’s legitimate to have these effects from stress and therefore that the only thing causing them is the stress they are in their own right causes of stress and it becomes a vicious circle .

Also be aware though that some of the feelings you describe are potentially side effects from medication - particularly statins. If you search on here there are oodles of threads on statins and if you search on the internet you’ll find an enormous amount: probably enough to make you more concerned about the statins than covid! I’m not suggesting you add to your stresses but you use this as evidence to de-stress the one you’re focused on

A thought to share is that good sleep, good hydration, good nutrition are all foundations for a positive outlook and that is a prerequisite to a good recovery so if you have distracting challenges they will slow things down and so You will benefit if they are a priority to remove

If you’re not a sensing and judging person but a feeling and perceiving one you might consider that the pattern of stress leading to decreasing capability and vulnerability to medical conditions is a probable cycle and therefore breaking the cycle is beneficial .

Wishing you the best in your recovery
Ciao Simon

[Rups]

I know how you feel, this Spike Milligan poem summarises my feelings at times like this …

Have a Nice Day.

'Help, help, ’ said a man. ‘I’m drowning.’
'Hang on, ’ said a man from the shore.
'Help, help, ’ said the man. ‘I’m not clowning.’
‘Yes, I know, I heard you before.
Be patient dear man who is drowning,
You, see I’ve got a disease.
I’m waiting for a Doctor J. Browning.
So do be patient please.’
'How long, ’ said the man who was drowning. 'Will it take for the Doc to arrive? ’
'Not very long, ’ said the man with the disease. ‘Till then try staying alive.’
'Very well, ’ said the man who was drowning. ‘I’ll try and stay afloat.
By reciting the poems of Browning
And other things he wrote.’
‘Help, help, ’ said the man with the disease, ‘I suddenly feel quite ill.’
‘Keep calm.’ said the man who was drowning, ’ Breathe deeply and lie quite still.’
'Oh dear, ’ said the man with the awful disease. ‘I think I’m going to die.’
'Farewell, ’ said the man who was drowning.
Said the man with the disease, ‘goodbye.’
So the man who was drowning, drownded
And the man with the disease past away.
But apart from that,
And a fire in my flat,
It’s been a very nice day.

• Spike Milligan

[Outlander]

@Al59 I too am fed-up. If stroke or spasticity was a man I would beat him with a baseball bat and throw him in the river…but alas, I am too weak for that. I often look at my symptoms as an evil entity that just wants to torture me. Then I remember its just my poor brain and it has lost the ability to communicate properly with my right side. One thing I’ve noticed: Exercise has not been mentioned?? I had a lot of anxiety and when I started daily exercise : aerobic and strength, my anxiety level went down considerably. I do at least an hour or two everyday without fail. I still have some anger and grief, but the anxiety is gone.
I wish you the best: prayers and good wishes.
Derek

[Al59]

Thank you. I was doing regular exercise pre stroke including Anton du Beke Fit At 50 during lockdown. Found since Post stroke I start exercising and the fatigue kicks in. As you know you can’t push through fatigue.
However some people have recommended Tai Chi or QiGong to start the exercise regime going so looking into that.

[EmeraldEyes]

Ok, so you won’t get any sympathy from me either. However, I will thank you for the truly fascinating 2 hour discussion I’ve had with my daughter regarding your tale of being “Fed Up”. Mainly your trouble with anxiety, stress, depression, “paranoia” (from some of your earlier posts back in 2021) assuming these are post stroke symptoms I take it? So I asked the question, which part of the brain the stroke could have attacked to be the cause of your anxiety etc.

My daughter is in her 3rd year at university studying psychology, so neither of us are experts in the field, though I’ve always had a fascination for it.

The Amygdala is a major processing centre of fear, your 'fight or flight; anxiety, stress, depression, paranoia. This tiny but mighty part of our brain is situated deep in the centre of the brain. Paranoia can also come from the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain.

Amygdala

orbitofrontal cortex

If it were your stroke that’s brought all this on then, at this point, your recovery will going to take as long as any other part of your recovery. And the rehabilitation would be along the same lines of repetition!

So, the reason why everyone suggests going for walks when your feeling down and depressed … because you feel good after. The reason you feel good is not so much because you are out walking, its the rhythmic motion of walking because repetitive motions in general are relaxing, like rocking or the rhythm of a metronome, painting…a landscape or a garden fence, doesn’t matter which.

Serotonin and Dopamine regulate your mood and make you happy basically.
Now here’s the important bit, in my view. Tryptophan is the chemical that makes the chemical that makes Serotonin.

In a nutshell, you need more Tryptophan in your diet, because you can only get it in foods such as

• Cheese.
• Chicken.
• Egg whites.
• Fish.
• Milk.
• Sunflower seeds.
• Peanuts.
• Pumpkin seeds.
• Sesame seeds
• Soy beans
• Turkey

So pick your favourites and eat a lot more of them. This would also be a good preparation for going on to any antidepressant medication. Personally speaking, I think now is the time to try medicinal intervention as it would bridge the links that have been disrupted by the stroke while the brain learns to repair/restore/whatever that disruption, if the stroke was the cause.

UV Light - triggers your brain to produce serotonin so get yourself a UV lamp to shine a the back of your head while you sit reading on those rainy days you can’t get out.

Right, I’m off to bed, my brain is now like a tightly wrung out rag .

[SimonInEdinburgh]

That’s quite an intriguing post @EmeraldEyes

It’s somewhere between sad and inspiring that It’s a stroke forum full of motivated lay people who hypothesize meaningful dietary selection to assist with the emotional state and decision processes in a post-stroke state and not a conversation that’s even been hinted at by any med staff I’ve engaged with.

I’d like to throw a few elements in.
It is the amigdala that is at the centre of fight or flight decisions, in fact a whole bunch of emotional responses, and thus individual behavioural norms - one’s personality. The brain chemistry in this area is described, in the 55 to 60% of us who are labeled as neurodiverse as abnormal - aside: I’ve always thought the 40-45% who exhibit less variety of cognitive process should be called the diverse - anyway - however or perhaps AND brain functions are handled by networks of processing function NOT individual physical areas.
Stroke damage is to a collection of ‘voxels’ - volumes of brain matter. Stroke damage is typically (still) described as to some physical area of the brain but in truth maybe just part of an area or overlap several areas but I hypothesize - because I don’t hear professionals talk about it nor do I see any of the literature they reference talking about it because it’s written before functional magnetic resonance scanning was showing enough detail - but the different as well as similar effects we encounter are because our physical damage interrupts the normal functioning of a collection of networks. For example some of us may have strokes that affect the central executive network those with neglect might also have affected the salience network but those without neglect may be didn’t. We could now postulate a whole number of sites for physical damage that are anywhere in these network’s components.

I watched a presentation yesterday on a vendors gamified rehabilitation tools. I’ve also used a couple in the past. They move in the right direction but so clumsily, they miss assessing a certain je ne sais quoi. The best analogy I have is that the speakers are like listening to somebody who is a native French speaker speaking English (or vice versa ) They get the words right mostly but not the inflection, not the nuanced expression.

Maybe if there was an avenue of exchange we could nudge them in a better direction? And then we’d all benefit?

[SimonInEdinburgh]

If you don’t like my post just press the heart again although why you’d go to the trouble of say so and not just let it pass I can’t fathom
Or have I misunderstood?

[SimonInEdinburgh]

Ok I see.
May be some background in the online conventions would be helpful to you?

The heart-shaped icon indicates a ‘like’
Which means you found somebody else’s contribution helpful or useful or amusing or compassionate or any related positive that you wanted to reinforce and show your appreciation of.

Over the 638 days that you’ve visited here you’ve received 352 (and given two. One to me that you did not mean and one to axnr911.) I’ve previously given you 16. That is nothing compared to emeraldeys who’s giving you 54, deann 30 Rups:29 & Mahoney:19

The like mechanism is provided in order to build community cohesion.
You can all work also add emojis by typing a colon and then a keyword EG colon heart
- so you can sing happy birthday like
too

[DeAnn]

don’t forget the poo emoji! LOL.

[SimonInEdinburgh]

I think that might be called lowering the tone?

But yes you can also use the poop code

And other codes beginning with p are
in fact they are just a few of the ones that start PA is a good many thousand more emojis.

In fact I’m going to start a new thread…

[EmeraldEyes]

The brain indeed is an extremely complex mystery. Take antidepressants for instance, science doesn’t actually know why it takes so long before you start feeling the benefits from. And yet, the side effects can be instant in comparison. That’s why so many people give up on them, but who can blame them if.

[pando]

… and we produce melatonin from seratonin…
i take 2 seratonin gummies every night (rather than melatonin)

[EmeraldEyes]

And Serotonin is the chemical that carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and throughout your body. Do find it has helped your mood any Pando, I remember you were quite low in the beginning, has that improved it at all/alleviated it somewhat? If you think it has then maybe that’s what @Al59 should try before going down the antidepressant route. It would likely take 6/8wks to feel the benefit if there were to be any initially but it’s worth a try, in for a penny and all that.

I know these chemicals come from the food we eat, but a supplement boost such as Serotonin gummies, I hadn’t even considered you could get it in supplement form, the same with melatonin. You learn something new every day