Okay, so life is an excruciatingly slow motion blur, so 2024 was approximately 12 lifetimes ago.
It's difficult to share this part, since I value being seen as a rational, sensible, realistic, and believable (of not relatable) human being. But this is a part of my life experience now and always will be and can't be denied (although maybe forgotten would be better).
I experienced the most bizarre time in my life that spring. I will never be able to explain it well. I experienced an episode that was psychological and cognitive in nature. Major impairments. Psychologically, I was diagnosed with a hypomanic episode, but it had a variety of psychotic features. Delusions, hallucinations. I experienced severe confusion. My dreams were very explicitly mimicking reality to such a degree that I still can't figure out what was real in some cases. My PTSD flared to a peak I hope to never reach again at times. I was incredibly obsessive about incredibly stupid things. I was desperate to understand my reality and what was happening to me. But at the same time, I experienced severe cognitive impairment. My memory disappeared so quickly, including short term memory, long term memory, episodic (autobiographical) memory, and procedural memory, which is terrifying and I don't wish on anyone. I couldn't understand bodily functions. I couldn't do basic arithmetic. However, I was fully aware of my deficiencies and so very scared, not understanding what was happening to me. I couldn't pay attention to anything, partially or largely because I developed overlapping inner monologues that went nonstop around my brain. (I know it sounds weird. There could be 3 or 4+.) I did not feel like sleep was a break from the endless droning on and on, especially because I was sleeping so little due to the hypomania, and my thoughts slipped into reality mimicking dreams and then back into thinking. Thinking felt like an external, tedious, exhausting process. I would either dream or hallucinate floating heads talking around me. My dreams could continue if I opened my eyes partially. 🤷🏻♀️ I could go on and on about strange beliefs I developed.
At the same time, I had a lessening of certain symptoms. No one will ever be able to explain why any of this happened, except I'm certain there were environmental contributors as well as psychological stressors. My temporarily improved mobility and manic symptoms drove me to clear out and redesign my apartment to make it safer for me. My motivation was to never go through the insane levels of torture I had been living, largely due to MCAS and fragrances discovered in my home environment. (I also developed an intense and progressive PT routine that I followed faithfully every day, pushing through extreme pain levels, likely possible due to the mania but also the aforementioned temporary lessening of certain symptoms, including mobility symptoms.) I came into contact with many scented and moldy materials, sniff testing everything, as I hobbled around my apartment, developing many bags of garbage and donations every day. I also did an extreeeeeeemely low dose, topical trial of LDN. Stress-wise, I outlived my own expected death (and was a huge ball of rage, resentment, and fear about that), followed by a near-death illness of my mom. All of these things likely contributed, triggering probable brain inflammation due to my MCAS. (???)
I don't know what else I can tell you about 2024. All of this madness wore off, I returned to feeling mostly like myself, as far as I can remember, and all of my pain and mobility issues returned to previous levels and then continued to deteriorate. My long-term memory may never be quite the same, and I have long-standing attentional issues now, but my cognitive status is stable and acceptable.
My ability to communicate went down significantly this year. Some of that is for obvious reasons stated above. Some of it has to do with PTSD. Fear of sharing information and fear of outsiders. Some of it has to do with needing to maintain the lowest possible stress levels, which meant mostly only interacting with my caregivers. No longer explaining what was going on with me. Just needing to get through my days hour by hour, as they are extremely difficult. No longer feeling any obligation to keep anything up to date.
So that's what I have to tell you about 2024. I plan to add on 2025 next. Things really got bad after that, primarily physically.
