#I HOPE I don't have to change this bc a Thing might occur that may affect things etcccc

[dopaminergicaddictions]

I woke up at 3:30. I fell asleep around 7:30 or 7:45. I closed my eyes at 7:25. I don't remember laying there for long. It felt like 3-7 minutes. Which is amazing.

I remember having anxiety about my rapid eye movement and comforting myself saying I've hit rem sleep every single day for months now and then listening to family guy and I was gone.

I finished all of bobs burgers. Family guy has too many dialogue breaks. American dad is kinda terrible. It also had diagloue breaks. And see I like king of the hill but the graphics are kinda hard to watch.

I'm probably just going to rewatch bobs burgers.

So- my hallucination yesterday was kinda bad especially during the shower. I have a hard time listening to music. I sing and i have these awful secondary psychosis thoughts such as I have to wash dead names cunt. I have to clean my pussy lips. It's fucking gross and it makes things really fucking intolerable. I was hallucinating my deadname a lot which is almost all I hallucinate now. Minus, successful right now, happy birthday, i have a birthday present for deadname blanchette. Or it'll try to take over my thoughts and say dead name is washing his cunt.

So it's been pretty bad. I def don't have a thoughts disorder but, if I don't try to think very concise thoughts, I have issues with not thinking dead name I have to do this, no nathan I'm going to do this. It's gross how psychosis associated nathan with my deadname.

I'm not going to lie I'm thinking about changing my first name now. Cause whenever I call myself nathan my deadname follows. Or vice versus, I say my deadname first and then say Nathan...

The sad thing is Nathan is the only name I have EVER identified with. I mean all the other male names I just don't identified with them.

The hallucination at the moment seems less intrusive and less loud. It feels like it's going away but idk. It seems it gets worse when I'm at my peak hours of my circadian rhythm. Whenever I'm the most awake and productive... like between 10 pm to 2 a.m or something like that.

I mean I've been sitting in, "silence" a lot today cause I got new dry erase markers and I've been working on my schedule and doing laundry and I'm still hallucinating constantly but it's quieter and less intrusive. I'm hoping it stays this way and gets better but I'm not at my peak.

Even when it was really terrible it was way better in the morning/early day before I became more alert....

So I've been looking at herbal remedies. As antipsychotics are not ever going to be an option. I'll consider taking my thyroid meds if I get to the 21st and its still there but I'm only taking it until my levels go to normal so I can avoid excessive weight gain... if the voice goes away, then I'm going to stop it. If it comes back..... I might restart it ... but idk... if the voice doesn't go away and I get to normal levels I'm absolutely stopping it.... I'll go on them for max a month and I'm going to gain at least 10 pounds. I'm already 200 and that's more than I used to be. I used to fluctuate around 185 and 195.... now it seems to be 195-200..... despite not having insomnia anymore thanks to Xanax.....

The herbal remedies aren't really promising. I know what's wrong with me bc I studied psychosis and schizophrenia extensively in graduate school and my bachelors program..

Basically my D2 dopamine receptor is overstimulated... when you hallucination, the dopamine in your mesolimbic pathway is excessive and you have more receptors than the average person.

Someone like you may have say 50 receptors. Your presynaptic neuron will excrete dopamine to the post synaptic dendrites and there will be left over dopamine that can't bind to your receptors bc the postsynaptic neuron only has so many receptors and the post synaptic neuron will take what it can and an action potential will occur.

All that excessive dopamine will be removed via enzymatic degradation and re-uptake. Your neuron will only take what it can and it will clean up the excess dopamine or any other neurotransmitter....

Well mine as I have psychosis might have 100 receptors instead of your normal amount of 50. So the post synaptic neuron will take more dopamine and create that action potential which will be in my case a hallucination..... because there are too many receptors and reuptake and enzymatic degradation is not occurring at the same healthy rate as a healthy individual.

So in order to block the excess transmission of dopamine on the D2 receptor you need an antagonist.

Agonist- increase receptor binding.

Antagonist-block receptors.

So I need something that acts as an antagonist on my D2 receptors. Whatever it is needs to block those receptors so that excess of dopamine gets reuptaked or gets degraded.

Antipsychotics target all dopamine receptors. Not just the mesolimbic pathway. So when you take them they decrease dopamine at the D2 receptors but decrease it everywhere else which is why someone experiences the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.... because it also decreases the dopamine in the mesocortical pathway. The negative symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by a DECREASE in dopamine in the mesocortical pathway. That's why Antipsychotics aren't a great way to fix hallucinations.

Atypical antipsychotics are better for negative symptoms or both but they also decrease dopamine everywhere although I believe they increase dopamine in the mesocortical pathway making the negative symptoms less problematic.... but if your mesocortical pathway is excreting the right amount of dopamine, overstimulating the dopamine receptors in the mesocortical pathway can cause other issues with executive functioning and a lot of other things. Which is why they wouldn't give someone like me an atypical antipsychotic because my dopamine levels are normal in my mesocortical pathway.

The problem with antipsychotics go beyond creating negative symptoms. They cause Parkinson and astonia and tardive dsykinesia... that's why they prescribe an anticholinergic. Which as I stated before has the side effect of causing REOCCURENCE. You need the anticholinergics to stop tardive dsykinesia.

Unfortunately those extra extrapyramidal side effects aren't 100% avoided just bc you take an anticholinergic... my uncle who luckily is not blood related to me, has paranoid schizophrenia. He has been on antipsychotics and anticholinergics since he was 17. He has Parkinson now. The reason for this is because Parkinson is caused by low dopamine levels. Someone with Parkinson is prescribed something called, L-dopa. Which is synthetic dopamine and increases dopamine in the appropriate pathway and potentially all dopamine pathways. I'm not as savvy in Parkinson disease. I know enough about it to understand why it happens from antipsychotics. I'm just unsure of what dopamine receptors are affected prior to the meds and then from the meds. However I believe it's the mesolimbic pathway. And l-dopa causes an increase of dopamine everywhere. I could be wrong about that.

All I know is i have an excess of d2 receptors, and the excess dopamine in my mesolimbic pathway is not being degraded or being reuptaked.

So I've been on Google scholar and other site trying to find an antagonist on the d2 receptors. A lot of these natural dopamine depletors have research suggesting they can be an agonist as well. I def do not need an agonist on my d2 receptors....

I have found white mulberry. I have to do extensive research as it does claim to be an antagonist on the d2 receptors. Unfortunately there isn't a lot of research done on herbal remedies. I'm hoping these white mulberries have more research once I find the right words.

D2

White mulberries

Psychosis/ psychotic symptoms

Is what I'm typing in now. I'm hoping I can fine tune it and find more than a literature review discussing multiple plants in Nigeria.

Upon a single google search it claims white mulberry is an antagonist on the d2 receptors but I'm not seeing the research.

It also claims magnesium is but I found research that suggests it's an agonist as well. It seems mixed.

So yea thats where I'm at. I'm trying very hard to fix my problem in a way where I don't lose my ability to be me.

As the days go by and the symptoms stay the same I worry the 20th will come and pass and I'll still be hallucinating.

[mycelier]

My name is Simone and I would like to tell you a tale!

I will not have access to my laptop for some days more and because writing on my phone is kind of painful (physically, because I am working on hand mobility now), this may end up in drafts and taking a while to post. I am going to share what has been happening the last 2 months because I feel like everything went from 0 to 100 in the span of a few weeks and its been really, really wild.

So!!! LETTUCE begin!

For roughly 5 years I've been struggling to get a diagnosis on an extremely painful area of my arm. There was literally nothing visible; no lump, discoloration or any other physical abnormality to indicate anything was wrong. I spent thousands on pretty much every kind of imaging you can do, and was told time and time again that there was nothing wrong and, perhaps, it was psychosomatic and I needed therapy or, more often than not, I was given a shrug and a vague "i dunno" response.

This year, something changed. I deal with chronic pain (my spine is congenitally fused in my neck and lower spine and I have baby bone spurs all over), and in the process of trying to work on that I brought up my arm again to a dr I no longer see. He'd told me my arm was SEVERAL things over the years I had been seeing him but this time said it was a fibromyalgia knot, something I had been told by a team of doctors some time before that. I said okay cool and was sent to a physical therapy rehab center where the dr worked with myofascial release and stretches to help with injuries. This amazing man fixed my plantar fasciitis and helped get my chronic headaches under control but NOTHING we did helped my arm pain. Within a month he was worried bc we had started to notice that there was a hardness to the spot that never changed with any exercise or massage.

Worried that there was a nerve being trapped or crushed (another diagnosis I'd gotten over the years), this amazing man sent me to a neurosurgeon who immediately frowned and said he didn't think my neck pain and my arm pain were connected. He ordered an MRI of my arm and despite it not being visible on an MRI 2 years before, he found something PHYSICALLY THERE where I said I had pain. He considered doing the surgery to remove it (despite being a neurosurgeon he was fascinated with this weird horribly painful spot) but eventually sent me a surgeon for an oncology center, assuring me it was because this new surgeon was one of the best in Texas for removing soft tissue tumors, not because there was any thought of cancer.

I met with the surgeon who gave me one more diagnosis of an AVM (arteriovenous malformation), snd said they were benign and not necessary to remove as well as the possibility that if removed it would likely return. Truly, at this point after 5 years of constant nauseating horric pain when someone brushed against me or if I gently brushed against ANYRHING, a pain so bad that it had basically made me stop using my right arm as much as possible (of course I'm right handed lol), I said GET THAT FUCKER OUT OF THERE MAN and my first surgery was scheduled.

Surgery one occurred Nov 5th and was an out patient event. I went home and passed out. At some point my mom said that while I'd been in recovery the dr said the thing in my arm hadn't looked like what he expected so he had sent it to pathology. I went back to work and was hanging out until the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when I went in for a super immediate meeting with a different doctor who told me that what had been in my arm was a synovial sarcoma, aka, cancer! He, this incredibly kind man I did not know, gently discussed chemo and told me I needed to have a CT scan immediately. Based on the CT, i was either in stage one or stage four if it has spread to lungs. The day before Thanksgiving I received the news that it was stage one, it had not spread, and i was so fucking happy.

Then it was time talk about next steps. My surgeon marked out a circle on my arm to indicate how much he was gonna remove in order to guarantee clear margins..but it was not enough of a meeting for me to grasp the surgery I was about to receive.

The day of my second surgery, dec 8th, came quickly and i met with the plastic surgeon, the kindest, most patient man. He moved my arm around and explained how he was going to hijack a vein from my forearm in order to keep the blood flow health to the flap he was gonna take from the donor site: My inner thigh.

It has been 11 days and I am living in an inpatient rehab facility, working on dealing with the nerve damage/pain, the EXTREME pain of my donor site, and the lost mobility that I am working on getting back, both in my leg and my hand. The majorities of my arm is numb...except where the nerve pain burns my wrist and forearm and makes it painful to wear my arm sling (I can't fully extend my arm, nor can I lift, push, pull or use my arm in any way that would stress out my new arm flap). Also may have a brand new urinary tract infection but as I write this I'm chugging water for a urine sample to hopefully get that treated. Below are some pictures I have taken/had taken of my arm! Im not ready to look at my leg outside of the bandages (which, since having the wound vac removed today, hell yeah, will need daily dressing changes).

EDIT: I tried posting pictures of my arm last night and my post disappeared immediately so I will try to make a new post with these photos in case the whole post was erased because of them. I will tag them as post surgery photos. I do not consider them gory or excessive but hey that's just me.

I intend to post more things as I keep healing and as I gain more mobility. I was given "independence" in my room yesterday which means I can officially get up without any assistance needed (using my badass new cane to help me lift my foot in and out of bed)!!!! Which also means I can get up whenever I want without the bed alarm going off. I have a badass cane that has been the best tool in helping me get around (and has inspired my mom and others to suggest and look into getting me a cane sword which makes me laugh REAL hard). See below me using the cane to move my foot in and out of bed!

Part of why I'm posting this is because I really needed to talk about it and while later posts may not be this long or expository but I wanted to have a base post to explain other ones related to this one!!!

I will update with some newer pics tomorrow night when my mom comes by to help me take newer pics. The arm flap looks super healthy (according to the drs), and when they changed my leg dressing they said its looking really good and healthy!

I......also really wanted to post my Amazon wishlist. Due to this stupid wild bad lottery ticket, I've been struggling to pay my bills and rent but!!! I have good insurance, thankfully (since I live in the US and my hospital stay and this rehab stay would have more than bankrupted me), and im hoping my disability checks will get here in time for rent!!! I'm putting up my wishlist bc I can't afford some of the "essentials" on there and, also, because I havent been able to have any kind of comfort during any of this. I never ask for anything for holidays because usually i...dont want to burden people with spending money on me since I know how hard money is, especially right now. And if I don't have enough for rent later I might have to create a go fund me...but right now everything looks good for rent and bills just...not for anything fun.

Thank you so much for your time!!! And happy holidays you wild bastards!!!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/36PG6BAYD18U7?ref_=wl_share

#tw for many things! #cancer mention #surgery mention #i tried to add photos of my arm post surgery and my post disappeared so I will try again in a separate post #everything relating to my cancer or recovery i will label as badass battlestar bc it makes me feel cool #badass battlestar

[fangirlinginleatherboots]

I'm not sure if you're awake right now but I wanna ask, can you describe some things your ocd causes(I don't know if that's a good word to use but it's all I can think of) you to do? I'm wanting to write a story involving a character with ocd, while I'm doing research I remembered (I might be wrong though so feel free to correct me) that I think you said somewhere before you had it and since you kind of inspire me to go after things I thought I ask. If it's too personal feel free to delete!

Also, ocd story anon, I read that trauma can be a cause of ocd, do you believe that your ocd could've come from your trauma?

This is a very very long response going into a few of my (and some alters) OCD traits and some reasoning behind them and the range of responses I have to various triggers. It actually helps me analyze my traits better when ppl ask stuff like this so I may have gone overboard as stuff kinda clicked in my brain but hopefully somewhere in here you will get your answer.

So, I’m going to start with the last question first. MY OCD was not caused by my trauma, however my traumas have completely shaped my compulsions and obsessions to a point where my OCD traits are almost inseparable from my PTSD. See, I’m autistic, and OCD is part of this co-morbidity package a lot of autistic people end up with, to a point where the co-morbid disorders are often not even diagnosed after the autism is because its that common. (They’ll diagnose separately if you need treatment for one of them. like the reason i have ADHD and OCD listed as dx’s is because the doctors count them separately on me bc i need medication for them, but they’re extremely common to the point of being expected with most ASD dxs)

Yes, I have OCD and have always had, but my trauma caused so much anxiety that the disorder reshaped itself around specific triggers. There are many layers to my OCD, it’s actually a strange sort of nonspecific looking presentation because of how many alters also have OCD, so it becomes difficult to tell who has which O and C thus there being a lot of inconsistency in whether or not a trigger affects me.

It’s also worth nothing that some doctor’s feel that I fit under the specific label of “scrupulosity” or rOCD (Religious OCD) because of how much of my stuff revolves around religion. I don’t always agree that it’s this because while my O and C are based on religious themes, I don’t believe in the concepts behind the things. I believe most of the religious stuff is just from religious trauma.

On one layer, I have a number obsession. There are certain numbers that are tolerable, a few that are “cursed,” and one that is “blessed” and one that is “perfect.” I will do anything to change things to match my blessed and perfect numbers. I will even fudge the truth a little (not a lie, often an exaggeration, by about one or two digits) to make something fit those numbers. To randomly come across a cursed number or even just a slightly intolerable one, makes me very anxious and can shape how i spend my day and how much time i spend with my better numbers. The way my trauma shaped this compulsion was that my numbers tie to religious stuff, since my traumatic environment was often religious, or trauma would be inflicted with religious reasons.

There is an alter that has a compulsion to say a prayer. When we have intrusive thoughts (which you super need to research if you’re writing OCD bc it is a KEY PART of the disorder but ill go into it later here), someone starts reciting the prayer. Sometimes I will as well just because it’s easier to go along with it. Not completing the prayer is not an option. I mean that with absolutely every intent. Not completing the prayer is NOT AN OPTION. It does elieviate some background anxiety, so whoever is dealing with that is being helped by the compulsion, but it is extremely frustrating and upsetting, especially since i am as non-religious as i can possibly manage to be. The prayer is also said whenever something is uneasy or something triggers specific flashbacks.

One of the most obviously noticeable and upsetting for all involved O and C is being “dirty.” There’s a VERY wide range of triggers here, from actually dirty/germy/unclean things, to unpleasant/intolerable sensory triggers, all the way to conceptual dirtiness like sin, virginity, and lying. This can affect me subtly sometimes, like how i compulsively tell the truth and over share so that i feel clean or how i cannot go to sleep after a fight if it has not been resolved. (”never go to bed angry” they said, well shit now i literally cant cool.) This can also hit me violently and to a point where I am a danger to myself. I worked at a movie theater for a summer some time ago and touched something that was a bad sensory feeling while cleaning a dirty theater. I then proceeded to scrub my hands in near-boiling water for almost fifteen minutes in the break room, broke down sobbing, and when I got home i sat under very very hot water in the shower until my skin was raw and red for days. It doesn’t often get to that point, but when it does, I’ve been held down for my own safety since I’ll literally rip my skin and bite myself to punish myself for being dirty. It is frequently bad enough that I will let myself do something “dirty” as a form of self harm since it seriously makes me miserable and sick. This stuff comes both from religious trauma and from just....crappy normal autism feelings and manifests as my most disabling OCD trait.

There are other things like closing drawers and straightening and arranging things that are done to feel that I am being “good” because of reprimands I received in the past that made me feel like I am “bad.” I am sometimes able to not act on these compulsions, though it takes conscious effort to choose not to. Whether or not this stems from trauma doesn’t really matter to me. I know that most of the fronting alters have these “little OCDs” be it through me or for their own reasons. Tia for instance has to keep things in the kitchen a certain way and Phoebe has to complete certain physical activities a certain way or else she gets upset or feels she did a very bad job/failed.Since I’m really just. going at this question lmao lets talk a little about intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are upsetting/disturbing/unacceptable thoughts you do not take pleasure in. For me, a few of them make me feel dirty, which triggers my compulsions very badly. Some relate to trauma, others don’t make sense. There are very common ones such as urges to kill or mutilate self or others, urges to do disastrous things (like causing a huge car accident), urges to do disgusting sexual acts (to self or others, often to unacceptable people like children, elders, and the undesired sex), urges to become a serial killer/rapist/shooter/etc, and other such painfully upsetting things such as those. These are often what fuel the obsessions in OCD and the compulsions are to make these thoughts stop or hurt less. Personally, I get a lot of sexual ones because of how poorly the topic was handled in my childhood. I get ones about elaborately slaughtering a specific abuser, about doing things that will kill me, about mutilating myself and mutilating pets (those are the ones that fuck me up the most i think), and about doing very destructive things that would harm a lot of people. I also get some about terrorism happening where I am, but that one is FOR SURE a trauma thing so maybe it could just be my PTSD. 

Intrusive thoughts occur with a LOT of different disorders!!!!! It’s just OCD when you have compulsions to cope with them. Even then, it has to be a certain way for it to qualify.

I hope I was able to give you somewhere to start in terms of information. OCD is a very big disorder and is a major reason why I’m unable to function in a workplace environment. I didn’t go into the specifics of every compulsion, but if you have questions, I don’t mind talking about this stuff. It helps me process it to explain it to others and I end up healing a little through oversharing I think.

#bootsie's advice column #collective #bootsie's adventures #Anonymous