Hello! This is my very first post on this forum. You all look to be a lovely community and I'm elated to try and become a part of it. Please bear with me and my tendency to waffle.
I was born the year this forum was started and I'm currently undertaking my first of two years of an extended high-school senior study program. In November, I get to celebrate the second anniversary of a ~mysterious illness~ that tailgated the worst two-week bout of the cold I had ever experienced in my life.
I'm not even entirely sure if I belong on this forum - but it started with feeling sick, like the flu, then sicker still. I used to get infrequent headaches, but they became daily - headaches became migraines, and those crept to a near-daily occurrence, too. I would sleep for over ten hours and woke up feeling exhausted. I felt my memory running away from me, words and my comprehension of them gradually melting into an incomprehensible sludge. I'd feel hot and cold and sweat and freeze at the same time. I'm covered in a brown rash, and one side of my body swells now and then. (There's more, but I won't bore you with it!) And still, I trudged through it, thinking it was just a really, really nasty cold.
Now, two years later, I've developed a pretty violent depression which catches the blame for the rest of my symptoms (naturally, I detest this - the depression is a result of the symptoms, not the cause!). Among this, I've made friends with tentative diagnoses, such as POTS, pseudodementia (yikes!), chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia, etcetera. They've looked at every angle of my brain and it is - unsurprisingly - unremarkable. All dead ends. I'm truly, honestly desperate.
I used to be a smart kid, sharp memory, sharper wit, what-have-you. Today, I'm called an attention-seeking freak, a self-saboteur. I feel like my life is running away from me and every day is worse than the last. I am as lost as I feel awful. I hope that you can find the compassion to tell me your experiences or what you think of all of this. Right now, I'm on two medications (agomelatine, amitryptiline) that I feel haven't helped (or have even exacerbated) my situation.
Thank you for taking the time to read. I really appreciate having this outlet. Take care.