Max's Morning Mayhem

You have my sympathy, and empathy %100, functioning is dire and everything feels a %100 worse when you've not had a decent sleep.

I take an antihistamine before bed just incase something has got into the bedroom that I'm allergic to, I dust the room regularly but sometimes if my regular washing powder isn't in stock and I have to use a different brand it can take me weeks to build up a tolerance to the new scent on all the bed clothes, pyjamas, and such. So Antihistamines it is to stop my nose from getting sniffly in the night. Do you have any allergies that you know of or maybe suspect to be the cause of your snot issue if it's not a regular virus?

I can't put anything in my ears but I have not in-ear buds but sit-in ear buds and I play a playlist I can both pay attention to when my mind is racing but is also so familiar I can drone it out when I actually start falling asleep and if the earbuds don't fall out because I've snagged the wire with my arms when I roll over then it's not music that will wake me up with any sudden louder parts. If I have an alarm set though I try take the buds out just as I feel like I'm dropping off. Also to stop the ear buds getting waxy I use a q-tip to do a quick removal of any excess wax before bed.

Maybe that could work for you? I dunno.

My ears also produce gunk in the night so I sleep in ear defenders rather than earplugs, which is proving much more successful. If I have really bad sleep for a few nights than I take a (first generation, drowsy type) antihistamine before bed which knocks me out.

Don't know what to suggest for the snot. I've been struggling for the last few weeks with one cold after another, seems to be some awful stuff going around at the moment.

My experience with Doctors has lead me to really lower my expectations of them. I find the best approach is to treat them a little like a robot. I just want to say here that this is really my own very subjective perspective on it. Even though I us language like "you have to", please take it with a pinch of salt. I hold these opinions quite firmly but I'm just one guy.

Their main problem is that they are incapable of engaging with any information that doesn't fit into what they already know or what they already think they know. They really are literally incapable. I think it's because they are very busy and it's the way their training is. If it doesn't fit into a box they already have, then they don't know what to do with it, so it goes nowhere.

The result of this is that you can be reporting extremely dramatic and distressing things to them, and they, effectively, ignore you. This is very bad. But it's not something that's going to change any time soon.

And, I can tell you're hurting from this neglect, and I've been there too, I know how much it hurts. But, to get anything out of doctors at all, you have to stop expecting them to behave like you expect doctors to behave, and work out how to adapt to their way of thinking so that they can be useful to you. Really, you, and/or whoever cares for you, has to become the doctor, the person/people who take ultimate responsibility for your care. Doctors are just agents who can either help or hinder your access to therapy.

So this comes back to treating them like robots. They have boxes, with labels, and those boxes are the only things that exist to them, So to get a doctor to listen to you, you have to take your symptoms, and then find the closest word or terms that you think a doctor may have on one of their boxes.

For example, before I had an autism diagnosis and I was having what I now call meltdowns and shut downs, I would go to my doctor and say "Sometimes my whole body convulses. Sometimes my legs collapse. Sometimes I find it difficult to talk." No dice.

So then I think, okay, what's a box that a doctor has? So next time I go to the doctor, and instead of telling them everything that happens, I just say "I'm having seizures." because that's another way of saying "my whole body convulses" except this time, it's something a doctor has a box for. And bang, I get a referral to neurology, and eventually some kind of psychotherapy, which helped a little.

I hope this helps. I'm not sure how to translate what you've described into something a doctor would act on, but I would just try wording it in different ways. They always prioritise the physical, but they will tend to ignore it when they think it's "just psychosomatic". You will tend to get better results from doctors when you can separate the physical from the mental. They are really really really really REALLY bad when there is a crossover between the two, it's like telling a robot "here is a 1 but it's also a 0".

So yes, I think my approach there would be to separate your physical symptoms from your mental symptoms, and present them to your doctor as totally separate things. Possibly even in different appointments, to different doctors. And try just going for one at a time. For example your ears gunking up. Or your sleep difficulties.

I hope this helps, I know I'm a wordy brotherducker. For me there was something deeply painful about being ignored by doctors, like being let down and ignored by a figure you really trusted, who was meant to look after you. I no longer put my faith in doctors, though I do benefit from the skills and knowledge they do have from time to time. I am much happier now I expect much less from them.

Hi Max

I recognise some of this. I get lots of physical affects that doctors shrug at, including your pains and sweating, snottiness, dizziness, unintelligible thoughts. Nerves like someone is dragging a net over me. Feeling like I'm going to fall over. I've had tests and zilch.

What I have found out over the years though is that food is key. I mean, really the difference between mood chaos and suicidal thoughts and sleepless nights like you describe and sleeping okay, feeling stable etc.

Maybe you already know all this, but if not take a look at sugar intake first, that's the worst for me. And by sugar I mean anything that raises your blood sugars, like starchy foods, alcohol, fruit, processed stuff.

My Mum had the same symptoms as me but wouldn't accept her diet had anything to do with her health (and she didn't eat badly but couldn't tolerate what she did eat). She ended up on steroids for the pain for years and died miserable. Every time I eat too much of what makes me worse I feel like I'm on the same path.

Hope you're feeling better by now, life is hard for sure.

I'm sorry to hear you are struggling so much with mornings currently. I'm not really sure what to suggest with the physical symptoms. It's hard when doctors don't even try to understand.

I know when I start the day extremely anxious it is hard to regain control and the day can become a complete write off. I find that having a routine can help somewhat, as long as something doesn't disrupt that then it's easier to calm and regain control.

Max has left the platform (them/they) said:

And now ppl are marking my comments as abuse. 

Bye.

I'm sure it's the automated spam filter that is flagging your comments, not that anyone is marking them as abuse. The wording on the emails needs to change and I've raised that issue with the community manager previously. Basically if it gets flagged as soon as you post it's the oversensitive automated spam filter at work.

Don't worry, it happens to most of us at times and is frustrating.

And now ppl are marking my comments as abuse. 

Bye.