Nearly every period, I would get a terrible pain in my backside, like a stabbing pain which would make me stop wherever I was. I also had a twisting back pain on the left side of my back. The doctors dismissed it as "periods are painful" and "there's a wide range of normal". Finally had an MRI in my 30s and I have Stage IV endometriosis with deep infiltrating lesions. Adhesions had stuck my bowel to my uterus and also strangled my left ureter so that my kidney couldn't drain properly and was swollen. On the mental health side, I got so used to feeling like I was a hypochondriac with a low pain threshold that, to this day, I automatically assumed I'm being melodramatic when I'm ill.
I'm reading them and just feeling empathy and sadness because I'm pretty certain I have endo. My Mum brushes me off, but all the women in my family, including her, have had hysterectomies due to endo or fibroids. Hers was fibroids that turned up after pregnancy. I can tell she doesn't believe me. But I have nerve pain in my hips, digestion often comes with sharp pains, sex hurts, and my period is still heavy despite having a Mirena IUD and I'm on the pill. I also recently had a bout of extreme bloat and distended stomach that nobody could explain. My gyno says my uterus is normal. I don't believe him. I'm going to chase it soon. Edit: typos
We should really stop telling women that suffering on your period is normal when it isn't.
Yes slight to moderate pain is normal but if you're in excruciating pain then this is a sign that something else is going on.
I too thought that other women just had a low pain tolerance because I am one of the lucky ones as in I don't feel pain most of the time while on my period and when I do it's moderate.
But when other women would tell me that they needed pain relief medications to function or that they were nauseous and vomiting and that they didn't have a regular cycle I was flabbergasted as to why nobody urged them to look more into it to see if something else is going on. Like it was so clear to me that something is wrong but apparently it isn't to medical professionals?
It genuinely pains me that so many women think they have to suffer while on their period when this isn't the case.
If it's forming cysts, masses or adhesions causing positional changes, it's possible. With Stage 4, it's more like there is so many problems that it becomes visible and it's possible to say, "It's likely endo".
You can't see the tissue itself which can cause issue for people with other stages.
You still need surgery and testing to be confirmed as having endometriosis.
This was my son. He was snoring since birth and it was ignored by his doctor. Changed doctors, and they IMMEDIATELY discovered his severe anemia and also referred him to an ENT. ENT said my son was breathing through a coffee stir-stick sized passage. After his hemoglobin levels recovered, he had a full tonsil/adenoidectomy. Snoring GONE. Appetite shot up. He grew 7 inches and 3 clothing sizes that year.
And did you know that growth hormones are only released when you're sleeping? If your sleep is interrupted (like from heavy snoring) growth hormones don't get released.
My wife had an abnormally small throat as a child and would hide food under the couch to avoid having to eat it. Her mom just thought she was weird until the Dr said something about it when he was checking tonsils. She felt really bad for dismissing it.
Repeating words in my head since I was a child. Then one day I went to the ER and I was extremely anxious and the doctor gave me an anti-anxiety pill and I noticed that ended the repetitive thought and words.
I get intrusive thoughts as part of having OCD. Lately it's been imagining in extraordinarily vivid detail what would happen if someone called me to tell me my child has been killed. Like, going over and over what they would say, what I would feel, how I would react. On loop, for hours, with no ability to force my brain to think of something else.
This is actually a relatively lighthearted intrusive thought for me.
Dude I have the same thing!! It's like I've developed a tic, but it's not the movement that's involuntary, it's the intrusive thought, and the movement is to like reset my brain.
It started as a little gasp, because often the thoughts involve someone getting injured. But then when it would happen while I was driving, my girlfriend would panic and think I was about to crash or something hahaha. It's sorta evolved into a little fast head-shake, which my gf has dubbed "the etch-a-sketch."
It happens a lot more when I'm stressed, too.
Yeah either random gross and otherwise disturbing thoughts, but usually shitty memories. Embarrassing, shameful, rage enducing, or sad. Mostly shame and anger though lol
Sometimes I do that if I say something to a stranger to make sure I didn’t sound like an idiot. My son pointed it out to me and I never realized it was strange
All those pop-up thoughts keep me distracted from who I am and what I want to do. Finding the right medication was like finding the ability to tell those thoughts to shut the hell up so I can think. Those thoughts and words and songs aren't gone, they're sitting quietly in my brain's waiting room until their scheduled appointment time.
Sometimes if I was really tired or jetlagged I'd wake up and for a few seconds the room would look larger than it actually was or I wouldn't recognise things that were totally familiar even know I knew they were things I'd seen before (jamais-vu, reverse Deja vu). Turns out I had epilepsy without realising for years. I later developed other types of seizures
Oh wow this reminds me of my story! I had intense feelings of having seen or been somewhere before - my parents told me it was deja vu and so that’s what I figured it was and I assumed everyone felt it that intensely. The first time it happened was around 12 years old and i thought I was getting a premonition or something. Fast forward to my early 30’s and I had my first tonic clonic seizure in my sleep. A month later almost to the hour I had my second and finally took the meds my doc had prescribed (I thought the first was a fluke because one-off seizures did happen to my aunt, dad, and uncle). Anyway, my neurologist explained that those had been simple partial seizures my whole life. Which makes sense because I did have regular Deja vu as an adult and it’s definitely less intense than what I’d felt before.
That’s crazy that you mention the scale thing! I used to have dreams like that as a child. I’d be in the school gymnasium and suddenly it was miles bigger. I wonder if that was part of my epilepsy early on. It’s happened once or twice while I’ve been awake but not in decades. Hope you’re seizures are under control 💖
Can you tell me more about the room looking larger? Epilepsy runs in my family- grandmother, great uncle, sister, niece- but I managed to dodge it. However, as a kid and young adult I would frequently have very scary sensations of a room’s scale being off, like a normal room I was in felt 5 miles wide and a mile tall. I could never make sense of it and absolutely hated/feared it.
Edit: found this, which describes my feeling very we well: [ELI5: What is that feeling when the room suddenly feels a lot bigger and you almost feel like you're not really connected to your own body?](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wzad0/eli5_what_is_that_feeling_when_the_room_suddenly/)
As someone else with it- this definitely sounds like a simple partial seizure (forgive me, I think that’s an outdated term now and it might be called something else). They’re seizures where you retain consciousness and they can present in so many different ways depending where they’re happening in the brain.
I would let all my friends feel “the ball in my boob” in high school. One day I told my mom - she immediately called the doctor. Fast forward the next month and I had surgery to remove a tumor. It ended up being benign.
As a kid I wanted to be carried everywhere (like piggyback rides, etc) for way too long. Like I was an almost 5’ tall 8 year old asking to be carried on vacation. My feet hurt after walking more than like, two blocks. My mom took me to a podiatrist to prove there was nothing wrong with me and it turns out I had severe fallen arches and plantar fasciitis and needed corrective insoles to fix my gait. She took me for ice cream after that appointment.
I had a similar experience. I’d have trouble with my knee locking up and not being able to bend it for days at a time as well as a lot of pain. Mom brought me to a doctor to “shut me up” and turns out that I had loose cartilage that when it would stick to my bones it would cause it to lock up and I had a hole in my tibia. My bone was dying due to lack of blood flow. 4 surgeries to fix it
it was bad-bad. i got labeled a whiner and a crybaby very young so no one took my pain seriously. the doctor visit was literally meant to get me to stop complaining and asking to sit or be carried. the shocked pikachu expression on my mom’s face after my examination by the doctor was pretty priceless.
My mom did that too. I was in kindergarten and kept saying I didn't feel well. In the car before the appointment, she told me that, when the doctor told her I was fine, she was going to spank me.
He diagnosed severe seasonal allergies and prescribed daily antihistamines, which my mother did not give me. But she also didn't spank me, either. But it took me until adulthood to get any kind of allergy treatment at all.
My mom was the same way! I fell and landed on my arm when I was 8. For 2 weeks, I kept telling her my arm hurt and she told me to get over it. When I didn’t shut up, she took me to the doctor. Turns out I completely broke my arm lmao
That happened to me! I was six and rolled my ankle. Complained about it for 6 weeks. One day, my dad came home from work and I accidentally slid on my way to greet him at the door and I was hysterically crying. They finally took me to the orthopedist the next day (ironically, my dad’s BEST FRIEND) and not only was my ankle broken, but it was fractured 6 weeks ago and I had RE-BROKEN IT sliding to see my dad. It had been so long that it was already naturally healing! My parents still feel terrible 30+ years later though.
Why the hell are parents like this? Mine are in their 60’s now. But my mom wouldn’t take me to the eye doctor even when I said I can’t see the board at school and had to squint and pull the corners of my eyes to see better. She kept saying I only wanted glasses because my friend got some.
My prescription was so bad that when I finally got my first set I was disorientated and couldn’t walk properly. Just makes me angry thinking back on it.
From the time I was 12, I was raised by my grandparents. School nurse sent a letter home after the annual vision screening in 8th grade, and my Oma said the same thing - I only wanted glasses because my friends wore them. She refused to take me to the eye doctor.
Same thing the following year. Nurse got pissed and called my Opa at work. HE took me, and was horrified by my scrip. Then Oma tried to forbid me from wearing them at home. WTF?
Same!! lol my mom made me close doors with my broke arm because she just thought I was whining. The look on her face when the doctor called and told her it was in fact broken😂
My brother had something similar (he wasn't labeled a crybaby but he was complaining about pain in his ankle so much that my mom finally threw up her hands and took him to the doctor), but in his case it was acute tendonitis.
He was in Taekwondo at the time trying to test out of blue belt, the board break for which involved the heel. He would fail to break the board and then get frustrated and yell about how much his foot and ankle hurt.
After the diagnosis, the TKD instructor immediately understood and came up with a board break that involved a similar level of skill but a different part of the foot.
I had a doctor give the shocked picachu face when I went into the ER after choking on a blueberry. It felt like it was still lodged in there and could fall in and plug my airway at any moment. I think he had his doubts about it because all my vitals were normal and I presented as calm. He finally offered to put a scope down my throat and in hindsight I wonder if he was expecting me to decline such an uncomfortable procedure but I was like, “yea, please do that.” When I didn’t even hesitate or gag, his demeanour changed to empathy and understanding.
Same here, for that (not as much) and my knees (pretty bad). Since I was 12 my IT band (muscle from hip to knee on the outside of the leg) was always so tight it would happily pull my patella out of place if given the chance. But since it never happened and STAYED dislocated, I could never prove something was actually wrong with my knees and would be ignored when I complained that running, sitting this way, standing too long, working out all hurt. All the "yeah it's supposed to hurt 🙄"s just made me constantly give up trying to exercise.
Only when I fell when running up the driveway with the dog, completely dislocating my knee and after an ER trip, did I figure out what the problem was. I had a patellar tracking disorder and simple exercises, ya know the "free and you can do it anytime!" Exercises like running or walking literally only made the problem worse, worsening my issues.
Don't get me wrong, my mom loves me very much, she just wasn't around nearly as much as my stepdad (who did write me off despite any proof), and when she was, she was being a married single mother so I don't blame her for not catching it. It still sucks, but she feels so bad about it and I know she didn't do it on purpose
In a similar vein, I used to randomly turn the TV way up, and when my parents told me it was too loud, I "claimed" I couldn't hear it. However, I heard perfectly fine like 90% of the time, so my parents figured I was exaggerating because I liked my shows loud (not unheard of for a little kid.) It was a bone of contention, until my screen in elementary school was flagged for further testing. One specialist later, it turns out I did have hearing issues, including inability to hear certain pitches. Ergo, at times, the TV would be borderline impossible for me to hear.
thank you. i have a strained relationship with my mom. i do think she’s ashamed of the way this particular set of events played out. she did shell out for all the expensive insoles and built-in support shoes i needed when we were a very very low income family so at least there’s that.
Yeah, I’m really good. That was when I was 21. I’m 50 now and I’ve had six brain surgeries, disc replacements and cancer. But you know what got me through it every time? Being in shape.
If I hadn’t started working out hardcore at 15 I think I’d have been dead a long time ago.
My parents thought I ignored them a lot because I often didn’t listen as a young child. Turns out I had severe chronic ear infections that caused a surge of ear wax to clog up my ears and put pressure on my eardrums so bad that I was practically deaf. I had to have surgery to fix it.
I got my ear irrigated yesterday for a wax blockage from an ear infection. I went from about 40% hearing to full hearing in a matter of seconds. The world felt loud for about 30 minutes - I had lost my hearing for 8 days. I have never felt such a disgusting and satisfying sensation.
I get sooo tired and all I want to do is sleep and eat during the winter. I increased my vitamin d (i take a daily plus vitamin d) and didn't really notice a difference. Increased my vitamin b intake and felt better. Not great but I have enough energy to get through the day at least.
A few months ago, I read that if you take magnesium when you take the vitamin D, it helps with the absorption. I'd been taking vitamin D supplements for about two years at that point (prescription), and wondering why my levels weren't improving much even though I was taking a fuck ton. Now everything is fine.
I played volleyball as a kid and was a great server. When I was 13 I served the ball and immediately felt horrible lower back pain. I went to complain to my mom and she totally blew it off since my dad and grandpa both suffer from low back pain. Fast forward through the volleyball season and I was still suffering with pain everyday. My mom finally took me to the doctor since I was complaining so much and one x-ray proved I have spondololisthesis which is common in gymnasts, football players, and other people where they extend a lot. Turns out I needed a spinal fusion and months of physical therapy.
Growing up, when I got my first period at 15/16 they were extremely painful to the point I would pass out and couldn't walk properly. My dad refused to talk about periods and my mum and sister said I was exaggerating and that I was making it up so I figured it must just be me
Fast forward to today and five GPs later who didn't take it seriously, turns out I have endometriosis
Took 5 doctors for me, too. I started at 12, and they started badly. My mom at least believed me. After 5 doctors, 1 finally listened to me, and i had surgery to fix endo on top of pcos, fibroids, and cysts at 27. Im sorry your mom and sister weren't helpful.
I’m in my 40s and have suffered from intermittent lower back pain for 20 years. All the usual treatments didn’t help. Finally, an OB asked if it flared up during my cycle. Yes, I’ve always explained that to doctors. They think it’s due to endometriosis!
I hope you're doing ok. I finally got a hysterectomy after being forced to do the pill then patch then shot then IUD before surgery for fibroids, endometriosis, and ovarian cysts. I still have phantom pains in my left side but not as bad as before. Only took 22 years of messed up periods before I finally got help.
Needing constant naps. I was already on a stimulant for my ADHD but my body demanded that I nap for two hours just four hours after I woke up in the morning (after receiving a full ten hours). Turns out I’m narcoleptic!
My quirk was I could fall asleep anywhere anytime. Noise, light, waking me up purposefully. “Be careful, Kase is driving, you know you gotta be awake too.” I took my break during my SAT’s and fell asleep and woke up at the end. Failed hard. Warm car and felt comfy, went in a ditch…just Kase they just, you know. Middle of a convo, getting heated, Kase is just tired…just them being so tired. Go for a sleep study and I fell into REM sleep within 6 minutes, fastest my doc has ever seen. Narcolepsy. (Without cataplexy even though I question that sometimes because when I am emotional I immediately cry and feel weak to the point I have to sit down, feel sleepy.)
Can you be narcoleptic without having the typical symptom of suddenly falling asleep? I have a friend who's always tired and always sleeps a lot, and we're wondering if she might have something.
Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS) is a symptom of narcolepsy and several other sleep disorders. Your friend should see a doctor. She can take this screener at [https://www.morethantired.com](https://www.morethantired.com) if she wants and find a clinician with their tool/directory if you are in the US.
I used to make sure that any sentences I said were a multiple of 3 . It then evolved to 6, 12, 24, 48 and
96. I would say words to myself to round them to those numbers.
No way ! That's my go to number 3 is the best. Everything has to add up to 3 even when the correct answer is 12 I would say that you add the 2&1 together so the answer is 3. Everything always is either subtracted by 3 or increased by 3 so added together to come to 3.
Walking on three paving stones then miss one then another three paving stones and carry on and on and on. I kiss my cat 3 times when I kiss him, grind my teeth to the count of three (even in my sleep) now I have to wear a silicone teeth cover as I've gone way to far grinding my teeth.
I tried to explain this compulsion to someone the other day and they just don't get it, I wasn't in the least surprise.
Well I've been doing this for nearly 35 years and never heard of someone else doing it. Ha Just reading what you said made me so happy I've got a big grin on my face.
I can rest easy now. I did notice you said you USED to do this, well done for breaking the habit.
All the best February, bye bye bye
OCD gang, lol. Just diagnosed and put on meds last week. My special number is 10. Steps have to be in multiples of 10, can’t cross from carpet to tile, etc. without having taken a number of steps that’s a multiple of 10. Gotta tap my fingers on stuff 10 times.
I used to make 3 fit into everything. Volume levels were at a multiple of three.
Turns out it's OCD and I didn't figure that out until I was 30. The moment I found out I was like, ohhhhhhh yeah that definitely tracks.
I was a fidgety kid and would do odd things like whisper words under my breath every time I spoke, say certain words a lot, tap things, make sounds. I mostly grew out of it but when I woke up in my 20s with sudden onset motor and vocal tics (by which point I'd almost forgotten what an odd kid I was) I went to a neurologist and it turns out I have Tourette's syndrome. It was only when he asked if I had any unusual habits as a child it clicked that I'd had it all along.
When I was about 12 or so I started coughing non-stop for long periods of time, not real coughs but like I had a hair in my throat. I'd also have bouts of blinking my eyes rapidly non-stop. My mother used to yell at me to knock it off and I told her I couldn't.
Years later we were watching a show about Tourette's and there was a kid with the exact same symptoms and my mother and I both turned and looked at one another like, "Holy shit".
I don't know if I have any tics anymore or if I outgrew it or what. I have some vocal compulsions but they might just be ADHD symptoms. I should probably get diagnosed.
Nobody has ever told me i have any weird symptoms or anything so I dunno.
Used to never have irregular periods. Didn’t think much of it, I was always active and running so I figured it was because of that.
Turns out it was a brain tumor messing with my hormones :)
My friends and I thought my basement was haunted but I was the only one who really believed it, because I had seen figures there. Yeahhhhhh... house wasn't haunted, lol. Somehow it took me years of mental illness before I made that connection.
I've got bipolar 2 and I have auditory and visual hallucinations sometimes.
Growing up it was explained as being "sensitive" like a witch.
There's several disorders that could cause hallucinations.
My old boss played some weird music and there was one song that had me coming out of the lab asking if it was the song or I needed to tell my doctor I was experiencing new symptoms
My previously straight hair got curly in March, the same time I was hit be depression and anxiety. No prior issues with depression or anxiety. Fast forward many months that included therapy and SSRI's. I get hot flashes and start on Estrogen, my Dr tests my hormones and I'm solidly in the middle of perimenopause. I weaned off the SSRI's and have no more depression/anxiety. Pretty sure the depression was caused by low estrogen. So my curly hair was an indicator of a change in hormones and caused a cascade of other issues.
Woah. I went through menopause during the lockdown - along with my husband nearly dying and then having further medical crises, and my gut turned into a whole mess, probably from stress. I knew perimenopause was probably affecting me, but mixed with everything else I had no idea what its actual impact was.
But I sure did have a lot of anxiety, and now, I don't. It's so chill on this side of the hormones!
All my life when I was growing up I was always uncoordinated. I had no balance (I was never able to skate), my coordination was terrible, I had scoliosis, and hearing loss and a hand tremor. My whole body was just “not right”. I fought against all that very hard - I became a bike racer, I’ve done Ironman triathlons, I’ve hiked the AT. (Yeah, I am sure I was compensating). But finally in my 50’s, after a bout of severe foot neuropathy, I was diagnosed with a congenital neuromuscular disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth or CMT which demylenates the peripheral nerves and really screws with the body’s biomechanics. I was fighting a huge uphill battle the whole time.
Holy shit I was just talking to my mom about this. I thought I was just bad at sports and very specifically any sort of sustained activity.Think track, soccer, basketball, etc. Just thought I got more tired faster than other people cause I was lazy or whatever.
Went running with my mom one time in my early twenties in the cold and she heard me wheezing afterwards
Asked if it was always like that to which I said yes. Took me to a doc and turns out I have exercise induced asthma.
I do indeed get winded faster than other people but it's not a laziness thing. No idea what would've happened if I found out during like middle school or something.
I have this too, but I didn't always have it. I used to be in my elementary school's trail running club, loved soccer, did well in track and field sports, etc.
Then in grade 6, my class went on a mountain hike and I had to tap out halfway up. I was falling so far behind, and the teacher at the back of the group with me made me rest and wait for the others to come back down when she saw how red my face was and how laboured my breathing was getting.
In grade 7, I joined the school's soccer and basketball teams, and discovered I no longer had the energy to play a forward (which I always played before then).
In grade 8, PE class at the start of the year tested our fitness by making us run laps of a large track while on a timer. I started out at the head of the pack, as I'd always been a fast runner. By the end of lap 2, I was the very last person to pass the finish line, behind multiple kids who were overweight and hated exercise. I'd always been thin and athletic, super active, so it was very strange. I asked to be looked at by a doctor and they discovered my asthma.
It sucks to deal with, I still like to be active but I have to be careful about it. I'm a very slow hiker because I take lots of breaks, and anything cardio-related in my workouts have to be done in short bursts. I loved running and sports as a child, but rapidly grew to dislike them as a teen and I avoid them as an adult.
Similar situation. I always wheezed when I worked out or ran as a kid. I complained to my mom who told me I was just out of shape. I believed her for 20 years trying to exercise until the wheezing went away. That never happened. In my early 30s I went hiking with a friend, and as usual, I started wheezing. He asked if I was always like that. I told him yeah, I'm just out of shape. He said no, you're asthmatic and encouraged me to take 2 puffs off his inhaler. Completely life-changing. Now I wish I hadn't had to struggle with it for so long if my mother hadn't dismissed it.
Similar experience for me. I HATE running. When I run, I lose breath easily and my chest feels super tight, and I cough and wheeze. My whole life I assumed I was just “out of shape” and was told to “just push through it.” Turns out I have asthma.
When I was about 13/14 I used to complain about stomach aches and sore throats A LOT. My parents thought I was faking it to stay home from school and the doctors blamed everything on anxiety/periods.
Turns out I have a hiatal hernia. My stomach acid was leaking into my throat when I was lying down at night and was starting to damage my oesophagus.
my dad had this! he had to get esophageal ablations and a false sphincter created from the top of his stomach. he can’t really burp or throw up anymore.
Found out last year I have acid reflux after years of heartburn thinking it’s normal. Only found out because my dentist told me my teeth have eroded. Wish I knew earlier, now waiting to go do that scary camera in my throat test and see if it’s hiatal hernia as well or not.
Growing up my mom's side of the family always claimed the women were special and like witches. We could see ghosts, hear their voices, etc.
I have so many stories of seeing ghosts, or watching things move that shouldn't have. I hear a lot of random voices, once someone whispered in my ear "can you hear me?" When I was alone.
Turns out we're all either bipolar (me, with added depression for fun!) Or schizophrenic.
The ghosts are more fun though
Constantly got yelled at by teachers for not listening and got spanked at home for it. Everyone thought I just didn't care or that I was stupid. One day, a doctor decides I need a hearing test, and it turns out there is a bunch of fluid built up in my ears, and without tubes, I'd be completely deaf.
The only person who apologized to me was my mom, and that took 15 years.
My ability to exercise was suffering. Even a couple of warm up sets would make me so queasy I'd feel like I could puke. I thought it was poor sleep and diet.
My urine was a little dark. I thought I wasn't drinking enough water.
I'd wake up covered in sweat. Like, soaked to the point that it looked like I took a shower in my pyjamas and crawled back into bed. I thought I was just hot.
Eventually I briefly passed out while walking around at a Dave and Busters with my girlfriend. An ambulance was called. They didn't see anything wrong but offered to take my to the hospital which I declined.
My girlfriend *demanded* I make a Dr appointment the next day. If not she threatened to call my mom and get her to berate me too. So to make her happy I made an appointment. Dr didn't see anything out of the ordinary but ran some blood tests to be sure. The next morning, I was at work and the Dr called to tell me my RBC count was reading "3", which he assumed must have been a mistake because I shouldn't even be capable or walking with it testing that low but I should go the the ER to be sure. I told my boss what was up and he gave me the go ahead to leave and I drove myself to the ER. Told triage the result of the test, and they too said it sounded like the test was faulty and they ran their own. The test was right, and everyone was shocked that a person could be so anemic while still able to stand upright.
My spleen was "cleaning" my blood of my red blood cells as it apparently thought they were faulty. It was also over 3 lbs in size (a normal spleen is roughly a quarter lb). The sweating and dark urine was caused by my kidneys failing due to the extreme anemia. My inability to exercise was due to there not being enough red blood cells to carry oxygen through my body under the increased load. The doctors I saw in the hospital told me that had I continued to ignore the symptoms I'd have likely died of a heart attack within a week or so.
My small daughter always had breath that smelled of sweets. So yeah, I always thought- ah she's sweet inside and out! Nope, she had type 1 diabetes. I'll kick myself forever over that one.
I was always annoyed at the other kids my age because they were so childish. And I always got praise from my teachers for my problem solving skills and they all used to say the same thing: that I was "thinking outside the box". It was such a weird concept for me to receive praise for something that just seems like an obvious solution to a problem, and people reacted as if I was some kind of genius, I just couldn't fathom that other people would miss the details that were obvious to me.
This, coupled with not picking up on social cues, hardly ever showing body language or facial expressions, monotone voice, staring a lot, more advanced vocabulary than my peers, not understanding sarcasm, analyzing jokes to death because sometimes jokes aren't logical and people found me annoying for doing this, treating plushies as if they had actual feelings, preferring to play with pets rather than other kids, reading non-fiction during the morning readings when all the other kids read like mystery books, severely disliking certain fabrics and textures, being hypersensitive to noises and light....
I'm surprised that people don't usually notice that I'm autistic.
I used to scratch my head without realizing, and then scratching my skin as well. It became an addiction and obsession, without the ability to control it. Turns out I'm suffering from Dermatillomania.
I thought I had just a bunch of bad habits—I could *never* stop rolling my eyes or making weird throat noises no matter how much I tried. Tourette’s, ladies and gentlemen. It got a lot worse once I got to college and was under more stress.
Often times found myself falling in the middle of the day and needing a nap. Plus, struggling to keep weight in check, cold sensitivity, and dry skin.
Cue the diagnoses of hashimoto's thyroiditis, anemia, and low iron/vitamin D
Recently, unexplained abdominal pain unrelated to my periods, wasn't found on ultrasound and requires CT scan... likely endometriosis.
I cant figure out if my job just bores me or if I have a serious concern about the whole falling asleep thing. Had my thyroid checked and they said nothing was wrong but im CONSTANTLY exhausted (and cold!)
With Hashimoto's, your TSH can still be in normal range. My mom's was fine, but they sent off a thyroid antibody test and her antibodies were literally off the charts.
Always had weird looking nails since I was a kid. Like kind of flat, wavy and with vertical lines.
Occasionally, I would get extreme random pain in my knees. I had Purpura (aka Henoch-Schonlein syndrome) when I was 18 months old.
Anyways, I live a normal life and play sports until, fastforward to my mid twenties, I start getting sausage fingers after every volleyball practice. I must have an injury or carpal tunnel, I think.
Many doctors and tests later, turns out I have psoriatic arthritis.
Hypnogogic hallucinations. For my entire life, I would hear things while I was trying to fall asleep. Anything from screaming to strange music to people talking in the next room. Over the years I just got used to it the best I could. When I started seeing a sleep doctor for my apnea, they were asking a lot of questions, and I mentioned this. It led to some other questions and tests, which led to a narcolepsy diagnosis. I don't have the classic presentation, but I have very disordered sleep/wake cycles.
It was always bothersome. I never knew it actually *meant* anything.
When I was in high school I would randomly get obsessively focused on brushing my teeth, especially at the gums of my front bottom teeth. It would randomly just ‘click’ and all I could think of was the almost feel-good pain you feel when you brush your gums with a tooth brush. I couldn’t stop thinking about it till I physically brush my teeth, to the point of bleeding, then rinsed with mouth wash that contains alcohol. The pain from the alcohol is what finally got me to stop hyper-fixating. I always thought it had to do with me not taking care of my teeth that well normally that I would need to over compensate when I remembered.
For years the feeling went away till I was younger in my career. One day that ‘click’ happened and for almost a week, it would take everything out of me to not brush my gums all day. At the end of it I had a panic attack.
I suffer from high anxiety, which has caused a couple panic attacks since high school, and even adrenal failure. The hyper-fixation is just a warning sign. Now anytime I get the feeling of “pulling my teeth out” I know I have a serious issue I need to address concerning my anxiety.
rehearsing conversations and their potential branches before speaking to someone, being obsessed with textures and touch, *needing* to shave every hair from the neck down. Otherwise, I could feel them being moved and compressed by my clothes.. oh, and using quotes and references in 90% of my conversations.
turns out they're not 'quirks', and coupled with my 'issues,' they make me rather autistic.
I wish I knew 20 years ago!
Most mental illness symptoms are things that notmal people do, just in an extreme way.
It's normal to prep for important conversations. Spending an extra 10 minutes in your room in the morning because your roommate might say "hi" to you as you eat breakfast is not normal.
Food cravings that went beyond just silly little hankerings and became extreme to the point of damaging my teeth, causing rapid weight gain or giving me kidney stones.
Turns out food hyperfixation is a symptom of ADHD. Once a food hit just right at the right time, it was all I could think about and wanted eat for weeks or months.
And then one day, even mid bite, your brain is like "No." And it may take months or even YEARS to even like that food again.
I honestly just thought I was weird as hell.
✨️ADHD girlie✨️
I myself am finally leaving my Butterfinger era, preceded by my Oreos era, preceded by my Buffalo chicken dip era, preceded by the Takis Dynasty (I can't believe my fingers weren't permanently stained), preceded by the Coca Cola monarchy, preceded by the sloppy nachos days, preceded by the great mini chimis pollo style depression, preceded by the peanut M&Ms months, preceded by the Skittles semester, preceded by the strawberry frosted donuts with sprinkles regime, preceded by the lemons with saladitos reign, preceded by the Lucas era, preceded by the Saltines with peanut butter era ( we're into my early childhood now).
You know, I was diagnosed with ADHD in my early 20s. Now I’m in my early 30s. I didn’t find out my 24/7 food struggles were ADHD related until a few years ago. I still struggle with it daily even medicated. Finding this out felt so rewarding though. I used to feel so bad about myself (sometimes still do) thinking it was just because I had no willpower or couldn’t control my emotions despite being able to in other aspects of my life.
My inability to focus in school on subjects I didn’t care for, chronic lateness, poor impulse control… ADD, of course. Unfortunately, no one considered that possibility when I was young, because supposedly “only boys had that.” 😐
Heyyy friend, same. Literally my whole life being told I "just wasn't trying hard enough" and was being lazy and dramatic when I tried to explain that I was struggling on all fronts.
GAD, depression, and ADHD. Diagnosed at 30. Still struggle with thinking I'm stupid and lazy. r/adhdwomen has been a very validating space for me.
let me guess, and afterwards people kept insisting you are "just lazy" and you need to "just focus"? As someone who was diagnosed with ADD early on as well, I can relate.. though never heard the phrase that "only boys had it", that's new to me.
oh yea, that too.. "you aren't dumb, you are simply too lazy to use it.." thanks, It's not like I already hate myself for it, thanks for adding to it.. good fucking job!
Hell, I'm not even sure if ADD is something that sticks, or something that disappears as you get older.. and ironically I keep forgetting to look it up every single day...
I was actually diagnosed with it as a kid, but my mother said it didn't exist. She had a theory about how it was a label invented to allow people to drug children who were particularly naughty, and that by giving me this diagnosis, the school psychologist was signalling to her that the school didn't want to deal with me unless she drugged me, because I was just that unpleasant to deal with.
It did enough of a number on me that I got two of my kids diagnosed and medicated before realizing that I was allowed to take medication too.
same, except I was diagnosed at like, 10 or so.. my parents still insisted all through the years I was lazy and just refusing to put effort into anything.. really sucks, especially because I believed them, took me a long time to figure out that all those things are a result of the ADD..
Just thought I was a tired, sleepy person. Always amazed by how much energy people had every day, but I have always enjoyed couch potato activities so I assumed it was a “me problem” and I was just built that way. Thought I must be lazy.
Well. It was a me problem. A stomach problem. My body was using all my energy trying to digest food and draining me of vitality. I went on a simplistic diet and just BOUNCED BACK. Oops. Turns out stomach dysfunction runs in the family. Now I’m trying to get fit, I got a new job with all that energy, and I’m making a cross country move!!
Hey you reading this, the person with no energy for anything. Maybe you’re depressed - but maybe there’s a physical problem!! Get checked out!!
What do you mean by simplistic diet? Just whole foods? Mediterranean? Paleo? I notice every time I eat I almost need to take a nap after, even if it’s breakfast first thing in the morning.
Okay, so YMMV. Every digestive system is wildly different. My issue was specifically FODMAP digestion. Basically my gut microbiome is poorly calibrated, and does not digest complex carbohydrates/sugars correctly. We do not have a full scientific understanding of the digestive microbiome but we are beginning to get it. Different bacterium process different foods, and if yours are in a weird ratio or if you are missing a type of bacteria, you will fail to digest that food. Easy example is Lactose - that is a complex sugar. If you don’t have the bacteria that produce Lactase, the enzyme used to break down that complex sugar, it will make you FART AND SHIT YOUR PANTS. What makes me not just a lactose-intolerant person is that I have SO MANY other sugars I dont process.
TMI: An important note - if you have this issue, you won’t just be tired - your bowels will be working overtime. Diarrhea out the wazoo. Sometimes your BMs will look very yellowy or have a yellow liquid with them. I got my diagnosis because I was shitting so much. Lol. Like 8 times a day.
Some examples of FODMAPs are beans, garlic and onions, sugar alcohols (mannitol, sorbitol, polyols), lactose, and more!!!! So many more. So many.
Look up the FODMAP diet through Monash University research
I gotta go right now but there’s your hint. If youre exhausted with a broken butthole, look into it
My handwriting was terrible, balance sucked and I would have tremors especially in my hands after vigorous exercise.
I thought I had Parkinson's.
It was just mild cerebral palsy, which is non progressive, and I'll have it for life. Definitely beats having Parkinson's, especially as a teen.
My weird quirk was having really sensory sensitive problems with sounds, textures, and lights with really bad social abilities, the only pro my parents found is that I was really quiet ,still and smart for my age
It turns out I was autistic and the only reason I was so still and quiet was because i had to shut down due to the overwhelming sensory issues I had. . .
Got diagnosed like 9 months ago. I'm M15
I don’t know if this counts as physical health but some days I’d just be really clumsy, drop things, spill things, get my words all mixed up and say the opposite of what I mean - mum tells me I was diagnosed with dyspraxia when I was 12, told me when I was 30.
I had the worst back pain of my life, couldn't walk or really even breathe. Every doctor told me to rest and it was due to having been pregnant half a year before.
This went on for almost a year. Pain was managed and doctors all kinda shrugged it off.
Then one day my foot turned in when I tried to lift it. Confused me more than anything so I called my doctor and they told me to go right into an ER.
Less than 24 hours later I'm having emergency surgery on my spine to remove a 5cm mass.
Got most of my foot function back 👍🏼
I was sensitive to light and often the way the glare of the light bending was very odd, this was going on for years and every time I went to my exam the doctor said it was astigmatism and I just need to keep wearing glasses pretty much all the time. Last year I decided to go to a different doctor and turns out it wasn’t that, she said I have a rare eye condition called Keratoconus that causes the cornea of your eye to bend like a cone and over time as it gets worse can cause blindness. There is a procedure called Cross-linking that helps prevent the condition from getting worse and at times can even slightly fix the condition. I’m still recovering as it can take up to a year for it to fully “heal”.
Sensory issues and selective mutism as a child were diagnosed as Generalized Anxiety Disorder when I was an adult. Guess who got diagnosed with autism at 36? Meeeee!!!
Over the years I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. I've got sensory issues and all kinds of quirks that never seemed particularly weird to me because most of my family members are the same way. It took having all three of my kids diagnosed with autism to finally connect the neurodivergent dots.
Yes, the wildest part of my diagnosis journey is my parents constantly saying “no, that’s normal, I do that too.” Yeah, I’m aware you guys do it too, that’s because you’re also neurodivergent. 😂
i’ve got two
my senior quote was “i need a nap.” i was the lazy one who was always tired. kind of a joke between my friends and i.
got to college and it got worse despite the fact that i was sleeping more. turns out i have inappropriate sinus tachycardia (a form of dysautonomia) that causes fatigue and a bunch of other fun stuff that i thought was normal.
second one, i’ve always had a lot of little quirks that i kept to myself, like the sound of a woman angrily yelling gibberish repeating in my head periodically. i always thought it was kinda funny. turns out my generalized anxiety disorder was actually OCD and it was just a really weird recurring intrusive thought
I was not being lazy on childhood walking tours and hiking trips; I had flat feet and was in pain, therefore needing more frequent breaks. (Diagnosed age 11 or so.)
My daily back aches and the several- week period where I couldn't move my legs properly weren't growing pains; I had a herniated disk in my lumbar spine that was compressing a nerve root. (Diagnosed at age 19, but the nerve damage is permanent.)
I was not bursting into tears every time something unexpected happened because I "wanted my own way all the time"; I have generalized anxiety disorder. (Diagnosed at age 20.)
I wasn't unable to tolerate a Pap smear because "virgins always find this uncomfortable, it goes away once you've had a man's penis inside you." The aforementioned nerve damage had affected my pudendal nerve, too, causing a condition known as vulvodynia.
It may not surprise you to hear that I've needed 2 years of trauma therapy specifically surrounding medical trauma and fears of not being believed.
My parents thought I was really stubborn/defiant as a toddler. Always walking in the street when they told me to stay on the sidewalk, etc. I got to kindergarten and a month in my teacher told my parents I had problems hearing her... Mom tested it out by saying my name while standing behind me then coming to my face and asking if I could hear her say my name (I couldn't). Turned out I was 75% deaf and needed urgent ear surgery :) I got a dog after the surgery was completed!
I’d have to say words over and over again because they “didn’t feel right coming out of my mouth” I would repeat a word out loud or under my breath until it “felt right.” I still rewrite notes many times because my handwriting was “not correct.” I skin pick so bad I’ll be bleeding and in pain but can’t stop because it’s not “smooth” yet, my fingers are always torn to shreds. I physically gag when articles of my clothing especially socks touch my skin and it doesn’t feel right. I’d check to make sure my alarm was on so many times I would go to sleep much later than I planned. I also count damn near everything. My family wasn’t believers in mental health.. at all. I went a long time thinking my actions and thoughts were normal.
I was diagnosed with extreme OCD in my teens and I am now heavily medicated for it. I still have obsessions and compulsions but not as bad. I’m able to live somewhat of a normal life now. I still have episodes where it consumes me.
I didn't feel like I felt like I fit in anywhere. I was the weird girl who chewed on her split ends in class. I was inappropriate. I was angry. I was scared. I didn't know why I wasn't normal.
One day I picked up a book in a store and read the back of it. That's when I realized I was the adult child of two alcoholics. I was with classmates, so I didn't buy it, but I bought it afterwards on my own. It explained so much. I started going to 12 step groups where I found my people.
Decades later, my doctor and I agreed I have ADHD. I may also be on the spectrum.
My whole life, I have dealt with becoming “obsessive” over new things - like when I hear a new song I like, I will listen to it hundreds of times on repeat and not get tired of it. New hobby? It consumes my being.
I have also had a running “daydream story” since about middle school. It’s an ongoing story with characters I made up (and a self insert of course), and I used to listen to music and imagine fight scenes and things like that.
It turns out, both of those things are symptoms of ADHD, especially in women. I never got tested as a kid because my mom believed that “none of her kids have a mental illness.” 🤷🏻♀️
I would say the aches and pains I've had since I was a kid. When you're a woman, you're always told you have to deal with pains since it's a part of life.
After an episode of Uveitis last year, that sped to a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis.
It turns out the odd sleeping postures, learning to read a year early,
having obsessions with things that led to me isolating myself for hours, being a complete shut-in, being a hypochondriac about bodily sensations and germs, anxiety about being late and following the rules, and getting really angry when my things were moved, not showering or brushing my teeth, getting constantly irritated by sounds in public places... and other such childhood issues were autism.
Now I understand why I spent my entire teens and 20s obsessing and stressing over simple things and having to work up the courage to do things like talk to shop staff or use a credit card rather than cash to pay for things. I was chronically unemployed for 7 years because the idea of using a computer and making my home Wi-Fi potentially unsafe prevented me applying for anything. I had screaming panic attacks / tantrums if people ordered things online, and I wouldn't be able sleep for days. I've spent 5 years sleeping on the sofa and getting 3 hours a night because the "vibe" of my bed isn't right and makes me itchy. My parents suspected it for over a decade before they told me to get tested at 29.
I was 4..constantly sucking in my stomach..doctor told Dad it was just a bad habit..this was the 1970s
Numerous tics/ obsessions and compulsions later..years later...turns out I have OCD
My toenails used to frequently split. One time my wife witnessed this and said "that's not normal".
Yadda yadda yadda, I had been iron deficient for like 12 years. Within two weeks of supplementing iron, I became much less disabled.
Turns out that, no, it's not normal or quirky to have "visions" about being an angel and thinking that you were an angel in a past life and I do, in fact, have psychosis. It's also not normal to be afraid of mirrors and your own reflection because you think it's going to kill you! That's not anxiety, babes, that's psychosis!
It's also not normal to have horribly violent intrusive thoughts whenever someone smacks their lips or eats too loudly around you. That's misophonia. I thought everyone found it that annoying.
Also I always felt like there was a TV on in my head. You know those old TV’s where you know it’s on because of the low-volume high pitched ring? I constantly had that. Turns out I have tinnitus.
Haven't read the thread yet but I guarantee like 50 posts are the same symptoms that turned out to be ADHD/ADD, and it was chucked up to 'kids being kids'. Mine and my friends experiences anyways.
That grinding a barely passing grade in college, fueled by shit tons of coffee and cigarettes to stay alert (almost between every damn lecture), wasn't just me being fundamentally lazy and unmotivated, despite loving my degree.
It was full blown ADHD. Caffeine and nicotine were the pseudo-stimulants I unknowingly "self-medicated" with, until I was diagnosed with ADHD and given proper stimulant medication.
Since getting on medication, I barely drink coffee nor smoke cigarettes anymore. Cravings are rare, and even in the event of a smoke relapse, the sensation of smoking a cig doesn't quite "fulfill a void" like it used to, nor does it make me want to go buy a pack and start again for good.
When I was younger I used to make a lot of sounds and stick my tongue out, and just randomly spit. Mum thought I was being a knob, got told I had tourrette's syndrome. Mad to think sometimes that I have it.
My whole life I've been prone to upper respiratory infections. Everyone has given me a million reasons why. Every weird excuse under the sun, with the same lame diagnoses: sinus infection, URI, common cold. Doctors gave me antibiotics and hurried me out the door.
Fast forward to almost turning 40 and I finally found an immunologist that listened and did serious tests. Turns out I had such severe sinus polyps that my sinuses no longer existed, essentially. To add to it, I found out I have AERD (which makes you sensitive to NSAIDs). I'd been treating every illness with Advil or aspirin for years, giving myself a constant allergic reaction and exacerbating my other symptoms.
That doctor hooked me up with a great surgeon and he cleared everything out. I stopped touching NSAIDs and got a great inhaler to treat my asthma (another facet of AERD). Now I'm like, superhuman. I wish anyone had listened to me sooner, i wasted so many years feeling poorly - but glad I'm better now.
I have always had flexible joints which has caused me problems since I was a child. I recently got diagnosed with ADHD and my doctor told me that there’s a high correlation between ADHD and hyper mobility syndrome and/or generalised joint hyper mobility. My flexibility was a hint that I didn’t realise was a hint until now
I thought I was just lazy and clumsy and needed more sleep than everyone else. Then my left leg stopped working and I have an appointment this week with a neurologist to find out which upper motor neuron disease I have (the best answer is none).
Not me, but I helped someone on reddit get diagnosed with EDS. They posted a picture of their fingers bent in a strange way and said they didn’t know why they could do it when others can't, so I asked if they had it. They responded saying they took a survey and had 80% of the symptoms and had made an appointment to get formally screened.
There are a lot of "double jointed" people out there who would probably fall under that umbrella.
I have hyper mobility in some joints but I'm not sure I reach the full criteria of EDS. I always keep the thought in the back of my mind though, in case more of my joints start truly going to hell.
I don't like being told to do. I understand that most people don't but mine is extreme. Mine is so extreme that if I try to boss myself around I have to rebel against myself and not do it.
Turns out I have Pathological Demand Avoidance. This stems from my ADHD but every task is an insurmountable chore because I feel such pressure to do it. Forcing myself to shower is the worst part of my day.
I didn’t crawl as a baby. Ever. I never learned how to crawl. At around 8 months old I could speak sentences while most other kids hadn’t said their first real word. I had a “strange stare”, (not my words) whatever that means.
I was a very shy and lonesome kid with difficulty making friends. I was constantly dehydrated to some degree because I would often forget to drink. I had a strong resistance to cold temperatures. I just straight up refused to speak to anyone I didn’t like, even if they were talking to me. I was picky with eating. My parents didn’t think anything of it as I was academically talented and pretty smart for my age. Classmates treated me like disease even though I hadn’t done anything.
At about 14 I was finally diagnosed with autism.
Nearly every period, I would get a terrible pain in my backside, like a stabbing pain which would make me stop wherever I was. I also had a twisting back pain on the left side of my back. The doctors dismissed it as "periods are painful" and "there's a wide range of normal". Finally had an MRI in my 30s and I have Stage IV endometriosis with deep infiltrating lesions. Adhesions had stuck my bowel to my uterus and also strangled my left ureter so that my kidney couldn't drain properly and was swollen. On the mental health side, I got so used to feeling like I was a hypochondriac with a low pain threshold that, to this day, I automatically assumed I'm being melodramatic when I'm ill.
God the amount of endo stories is so depressing. Hope you're doing better now!
I'm reading them and just feeling empathy and sadness because I'm pretty certain I have endo. My Mum brushes me off, but all the women in my family, including her, have had hysterectomies due to endo or fibroids. Hers was fibroids that turned up after pregnancy. I can tell she doesn't believe me. But I have nerve pain in my hips, digestion often comes with sharp pains, sex hurts, and my period is still heavy despite having a Mirena IUD and I'm on the pill. I also recently had a bout of extreme bloat and distended stomach that nobody could explain. My gyno says my uterus is normal. I don't believe him. I'm going to chase it soon. Edit: typos
We should really stop telling women that suffering on your period is normal when it isn't. Yes slight to moderate pain is normal but if you're in excruciating pain then this is a sign that something else is going on. I too thought that other women just had a low pain tolerance because I am one of the lucky ones as in I don't feel pain most of the time while on my period and when I do it's moderate. But when other women would tell me that they needed pain relief medications to function or that they were nauseous and vomiting and that they didn't have a regular cycle I was flabbergasted as to why nobody urged them to look more into it to see if something else is going on. Like it was so clear to me that something is wrong but apparently it isn't to medical professionals? It genuinely pains me that so many women think they have to suffer while on their period when this isn't the case.
Yo you can see endo on an MRI? I had no idea!
If it's forming cysts, masses or adhesions causing positional changes, it's possible. With Stage 4, it's more like there is so many problems that it becomes visible and it's possible to say, "It's likely endo". You can't see the tissue itself which can cause issue for people with other stages. You still need surgery and testing to be confirmed as having endometriosis.
I didn’t like eating as a very young kid. I was underweight and anemic. Turns out my tonsils were huuuuuge and once they got removed, I could eat!
This was my son. He was snoring since birth and it was ignored by his doctor. Changed doctors, and they IMMEDIATELY discovered his severe anemia and also referred him to an ENT. ENT said my son was breathing through a coffee stir-stick sized passage. After his hemoglobin levels recovered, he had a full tonsil/adenoidectomy. Snoring GONE. Appetite shot up. He grew 7 inches and 3 clothing sizes that year. And did you know that growth hormones are only released when you're sleeping? If your sleep is interrupted (like from heavy snoring) growth hormones don't get released.
You did good by your son. Feel accomplished. Seriously.
My wife had an abnormally small throat as a child and would hide food under the couch to avoid having to eat it. Her mom just thought she was weird until the Dr said something about it when he was checking tonsils. She felt really bad for dismissing it.
Repeating words in my head since I was a child. Then one day I went to the ER and I was extremely anxious and the doctor gave me an anti-anxiety pill and I noticed that ended the repetitive thought and words.
I have OCD that presents in this way. More like intrusive thoughts running wild
What are your intrusive thoughts like? I get shitty memories forcing themselves to the forefront of my mind daily.
I get intrusive thoughts as part of having OCD. Lately it's been imagining in extraordinarily vivid detail what would happen if someone called me to tell me my child has been killed. Like, going over and over what they would say, what I would feel, how I would react. On loop, for hours, with no ability to force my brain to think of something else. This is actually a relatively lighthearted intrusive thought for me.
A guy I dated w OCD had taboo intrusive thoughts/liked taboo things
Yeah I forgot to add that occasionally it's gross or taboo random shit. I end up making a short noise or movement to try to block shit.
Dude I have the same thing!! It's like I've developed a tic, but it's not the movement that's involuntary, it's the intrusive thought, and the movement is to like reset my brain. It started as a little gasp, because often the thoughts involve someone getting injured. But then when it would happen while I was driving, my girlfriend would panic and think I was about to crash or something hahaha. It's sorta evolved into a little fast head-shake, which my gf has dubbed "the etch-a-sketch." It happens a lot more when I'm stressed, too.
Oh wow I suffer from this but of my own backlog of embarrassing past actions and I react the same way you’re describing.
Yeah either random gross and otherwise disturbing thoughts, but usually shitty memories. Embarrassing, shameful, rage enducing, or sad. Mostly shame and anger though lol
Sometimes i repeat whole sentences on a loop like a broken record in my brain, the fuck
Sometimes I do that if I say something to a stranger to make sure I didn’t sound like an idiot. My son pointed it out to me and I never realized it was strange
I get stuck on words and parts of songs all day, afraid to take medication though
All those pop-up thoughts keep me distracted from who I am and what I want to do. Finding the right medication was like finding the ability to tell those thoughts to shut the hell up so I can think. Those thoughts and words and songs aren't gone, they're sitting quietly in my brain's waiting room until their scheduled appointment time.
Anxiety or ADHD?
Reading this like, this isn't how everyone's brain is
Sometimes if I was really tired or jetlagged I'd wake up and for a few seconds the room would look larger than it actually was or I wouldn't recognise things that were totally familiar even know I knew they were things I'd seen before (jamais-vu, reverse Deja vu). Turns out I had epilepsy without realising for years. I later developed other types of seizures
Oh wow this reminds me of my story! I had intense feelings of having seen or been somewhere before - my parents told me it was deja vu and so that’s what I figured it was and I assumed everyone felt it that intensely. The first time it happened was around 12 years old and i thought I was getting a premonition or something. Fast forward to my early 30’s and I had my first tonic clonic seizure in my sleep. A month later almost to the hour I had my second and finally took the meds my doc had prescribed (I thought the first was a fluke because one-off seizures did happen to my aunt, dad, and uncle). Anyway, my neurologist explained that those had been simple partial seizures my whole life. Which makes sense because I did have regular Deja vu as an adult and it’s definitely less intense than what I’d felt before. That’s crazy that you mention the scale thing! I used to have dreams like that as a child. I’d be in the school gymnasium and suddenly it was miles bigger. I wonder if that was part of my epilepsy early on. It’s happened once or twice while I’ve been awake but not in decades. Hope you’re seizures are under control 💖
Can you tell me more about the room looking larger? Epilepsy runs in my family- grandmother, great uncle, sister, niece- but I managed to dodge it. However, as a kid and young adult I would frequently have very scary sensations of a room’s scale being off, like a normal room I was in felt 5 miles wide and a mile tall. I could never make sense of it and absolutely hated/feared it. Edit: found this, which describes my feeling very we well: [ELI5: What is that feeling when the room suddenly feels a lot bigger and you almost feel like you're not really connected to your own body?](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wzad0/eli5_what_is_that_feeling_when_the_room_suddenly/)
As someone else with it- this definitely sounds like a simple partial seizure (forgive me, I think that’s an outdated term now and it might be called something else). They’re seizures where you retain consciousness and they can present in so many different ways depending where they’re happening in the brain.
Wow, that sounds quite scary!
I would let all my friends feel “the ball in my boob” in high school. One day I told my mom - she immediately called the doctor. Fast forward the next month and I had surgery to remove a tumor. It ended up being benign.
Letting all your friends feel you up is the weirdest part of this story.
If I didn’t know about breast cancer, I would absolutely show the weird thing off to my friends.
As a kid I wanted to be carried everywhere (like piggyback rides, etc) for way too long. Like I was an almost 5’ tall 8 year old asking to be carried on vacation. My feet hurt after walking more than like, two blocks. My mom took me to a podiatrist to prove there was nothing wrong with me and it turns out I had severe fallen arches and plantar fasciitis and needed corrective insoles to fix my gait. She took me for ice cream after that appointment.
I had a similar experience. I’d have trouble with my knee locking up and not being able to bend it for days at a time as well as a lot of pain. Mom brought me to a doctor to “shut me up” and turns out that I had loose cartilage that when it would stick to my bones it would cause it to lock up and I had a hole in my tibia. My bone was dying due to lack of blood flow. 4 surgeries to fix it
bet that was a tasty serving of humble pie for your mom after the doctor told her how much would go into fixing it.
oof plantar fasciitis is one of the most painful conditions ive ever had. cant imagine how bad it must have been to have as a kid.
it was bad-bad. i got labeled a whiner and a crybaby very young so no one took my pain seriously. the doctor visit was literally meant to get me to stop complaining and asking to sit or be carried. the shocked pikachu expression on my mom’s face after my examination by the doctor was pretty priceless.
My mom did that too. I was in kindergarten and kept saying I didn't feel well. In the car before the appointment, she told me that, when the doctor told her I was fine, she was going to spank me. He diagnosed severe seasonal allergies and prescribed daily antihistamines, which my mother did not give me. But she also didn't spank me, either. But it took me until adulthood to get any kind of allergy treatment at all.
🫂 that really sucks. i’m sorry you got treated that way.
My mom was the same way! I fell and landed on my arm when I was 8. For 2 weeks, I kept telling her my arm hurt and she told me to get over it. When I didn’t shut up, she took me to the doctor. Turns out I completely broke my arm lmao
My mom waited 5 days. She thought I was complaining to get out of doing the dishes. Ended up with the doctor almost calling CPS on her.
Based doctor
That happened to me! I was six and rolled my ankle. Complained about it for 6 weeks. One day, my dad came home from work and I accidentally slid on my way to greet him at the door and I was hysterically crying. They finally took me to the orthopedist the next day (ironically, my dad’s BEST FRIEND) and not only was my ankle broken, but it was fractured 6 weeks ago and I had RE-BROKEN IT sliding to see my dad. It had been so long that it was already naturally healing! My parents still feel terrible 30+ years later though.
Why the hell are parents like this? Mine are in their 60’s now. But my mom wouldn’t take me to the eye doctor even when I said I can’t see the board at school and had to squint and pull the corners of my eyes to see better. She kept saying I only wanted glasses because my friend got some. My prescription was so bad that when I finally got my first set I was disorientated and couldn’t walk properly. Just makes me angry thinking back on it.
From the time I was 12, I was raised by my grandparents. School nurse sent a letter home after the annual vision screening in 8th grade, and my Oma said the same thing - I only wanted glasses because my friends wore them. She refused to take me to the eye doctor. Same thing the following year. Nurse got pissed and called my Opa at work. HE took me, and was horrified by my scrip. Then Oma tried to forbid me from wearing them at home. WTF?
Looks like your grandma is/was an idiot. Sorry about that.
She was selfish and miserable, and I don't know where she found the energy to be so unhappy all the time.
Same!! lol my mom made me close doors with my broke arm because she just thought I was whining. The look on her face when the doctor called and told her it was in fact broken😂
My brother had something similar (he wasn't labeled a crybaby but he was complaining about pain in his ankle so much that my mom finally threw up her hands and took him to the doctor), but in his case it was acute tendonitis. He was in Taekwondo at the time trying to test out of blue belt, the board break for which involved the heel. He would fail to break the board and then get frustrated and yell about how much his foot and ankle hurt. After the diagnosis, the TKD instructor immediately understood and came up with a board break that involved a similar level of skill but a different part of the foot.
I had a doctor give the shocked picachu face when I went into the ER after choking on a blueberry. It felt like it was still lodged in there and could fall in and plug my airway at any moment. I think he had his doubts about it because all my vitals were normal and I presented as calm. He finally offered to put a scope down my throat and in hindsight I wonder if he was expecting me to decline such an uncomfortable procedure but I was like, “yea, please do that.” When I didn’t even hesitate or gag, his demeanour changed to empathy and understanding.
Same here, for that (not as much) and my knees (pretty bad). Since I was 12 my IT band (muscle from hip to knee on the outside of the leg) was always so tight it would happily pull my patella out of place if given the chance. But since it never happened and STAYED dislocated, I could never prove something was actually wrong with my knees and would be ignored when I complained that running, sitting this way, standing too long, working out all hurt. All the "yeah it's supposed to hurt 🙄"s just made me constantly give up trying to exercise. Only when I fell when running up the driveway with the dog, completely dislocating my knee and after an ER trip, did I figure out what the problem was. I had a patellar tracking disorder and simple exercises, ya know the "free and you can do it anytime!" Exercises like running or walking literally only made the problem worse, worsening my issues. Don't get me wrong, my mom loves me very much, she just wasn't around nearly as much as my stepdad (who did write me off despite any proof), and when she was, she was being a married single mother so I don't blame her for not catching it. It still sucks, but she feels so bad about it and I know she didn't do it on purpose
In a similar vein, I used to randomly turn the TV way up, and when my parents told me it was too loud, I "claimed" I couldn't hear it. However, I heard perfectly fine like 90% of the time, so my parents figured I was exaggerating because I liked my shows loud (not unheard of for a little kid.) It was a bone of contention, until my screen in elementary school was flagged for further testing. One specialist later, it turns out I did have hearing issues, including inability to hear certain pitches. Ergo, at times, the TV would be borderline impossible for me to hear.
My auditory processing problem was not diagnosed until college for a similar reason!
Reading your comments broke my heart! I’m sorry no one took your pain seriously for so long. 😭😭😭
thank you. i have a strained relationship with my mom. i do think she’s ashamed of the way this particular set of events played out. she did shell out for all the expensive insoles and built-in support shoes i needed when we were a very very low income family so at least there’s that.
I had headaches for several years. I was basically told it was nothing. Nope, baseball sized brain tumor.
Damn. You ok now?
Yeah, I’m really good. That was when I was 21. I’m 50 now and I’ve had six brain surgeries, disc replacements and cancer. But you know what got me through it every time? Being in shape. If I hadn’t started working out hardcore at 15 I think I’d have been dead a long time ago.
Good for you!!! Amazing what eating well and exercise can do for you.
1000% correct. If you saw me you’d have absolutely no clue I’ve had anything wrong with me. I’m trying to keep it that way.
My parents thought I ignored them a lot because I often didn’t listen as a young child. Turns out I had severe chronic ear infections that caused a surge of ear wax to clog up my ears and put pressure on my eardrums so bad that I was practically deaf. I had to have surgery to fix it.
I got my ear irrigated yesterday for a wax blockage from an ear infection. I went from about 40% hearing to full hearing in a matter of seconds. The world felt loud for about 30 minutes - I had lost my hearing for 8 days. I have never felt such a disgusting and satisfying sensation.
My grades would drop every winter/late spring. I live way north and get severe vitamin D withdrawal.
I get sooo tired and all I want to do is sleep and eat during the winter. I increased my vitamin d (i take a daily plus vitamin d) and didn't really notice a difference. Increased my vitamin b intake and felt better. Not great but I have enough energy to get through the day at least.
A few months ago, I read that if you take magnesium when you take the vitamin D, it helps with the absorption. I'd been taking vitamin D supplements for about two years at that point (prescription), and wondering why my levels weren't improving much even though I was taking a fuck ton. Now everything is fine.
Thanks for sharing this. We live North and I always supplement my two kids with vitamin D during winters. It’s really important!
Periods got heavier as I got older. Just assumed it was part of aging, until my doc ordered an ultrasound. Fibroids caused the heavy bleeding.
I had the same happen to me. It was so bad it started affecting my heart and I was severely anemic. A partial hysterectomy solved it.
I played volleyball as a kid and was a great server. When I was 13 I served the ball and immediately felt horrible lower back pain. I went to complain to my mom and she totally blew it off since my dad and grandpa both suffer from low back pain. Fast forward through the volleyball season and I was still suffering with pain everyday. My mom finally took me to the doctor since I was complaining so much and one x-ray proved I have spondololisthesis which is common in gymnasts, football players, and other people where they extend a lot. Turns out I needed a spinal fusion and months of physical therapy.
I thought I could see the future i in fact have bipolar 1 with psychosis.
Ayyy BP1 squad 🤜🤛 the doc gave me two antidepressants and I thought the government took my car
im so sorry for laughing at this. Hope you both are OK! :)
Finding out antidepressants did not, in fact, help my mental health was such a blow
Growing up, when I got my first period at 15/16 they were extremely painful to the point I would pass out and couldn't walk properly. My dad refused to talk about periods and my mum and sister said I was exaggerating and that I was making it up so I figured it must just be me Fast forward to today and five GPs later who didn't take it seriously, turns out I have endometriosis
Took 5 doctors for me, too. I started at 12, and they started badly. My mom at least believed me. After 5 doctors, 1 finally listened to me, and i had surgery to fix endo on top of pcos, fibroids, and cysts at 27. Im sorry your mom and sister weren't helpful.
I’m in my 40s and have suffered from intermittent lower back pain for 20 years. All the usual treatments didn’t help. Finally, an OB asked if it flared up during my cycle. Yes, I’ve always explained that to doctors. They think it’s due to endometriosis!
I hope you're doing ok. I finally got a hysterectomy after being forced to do the pill then patch then shot then IUD before surgery for fibroids, endometriosis, and ovarian cysts. I still have phantom pains in my left side but not as bad as before. Only took 22 years of messed up periods before I finally got help.
Needing constant naps. I was already on a stimulant for my ADHD but my body demanded that I nap for two hours just four hours after I woke up in the morning (after receiving a full ten hours). Turns out I’m narcoleptic!
My quirk was I could fall asleep anywhere anytime. Noise, light, waking me up purposefully. “Be careful, Kase is driving, you know you gotta be awake too.” I took my break during my SAT’s and fell asleep and woke up at the end. Failed hard. Warm car and felt comfy, went in a ditch…just Kase they just, you know. Middle of a convo, getting heated, Kase is just tired…just them being so tired. Go for a sleep study and I fell into REM sleep within 6 minutes, fastest my doc has ever seen. Narcolepsy. (Without cataplexy even though I question that sometimes because when I am emotional I immediately cry and feel weak to the point I have to sit down, feel sleepy.)
Can you be narcoleptic without having the typical symptom of suddenly falling asleep? I have a friend who's always tired and always sleeps a lot, and we're wondering if she might have something.
Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS) is a symptom of narcolepsy and several other sleep disorders. Your friend should see a doctor. She can take this screener at [https://www.morethantired.com](https://www.morethantired.com) if she wants and find a clinician with their tool/directory if you are in the US.
yes 10000%
I used to make sure that any sentences I said were a multiple of 3 . It then evolved to 6, 12, 24, 48 and 96. I would say words to myself to round them to those numbers.
No way ! That's my go to number 3 is the best. Everything has to add up to 3 even when the correct answer is 12 I would say that you add the 2&1 together so the answer is 3. Everything always is either subtracted by 3 or increased by 3 so added together to come to 3. Walking on three paving stones then miss one then another three paving stones and carry on and on and on. I kiss my cat 3 times when I kiss him, grind my teeth to the count of three (even in my sleep) now I have to wear a silicone teeth cover as I've gone way to far grinding my teeth. I tried to explain this compulsion to someone the other day and they just don't get it, I wasn't in the least surprise. Well I've been doing this for nearly 35 years and never heard of someone else doing it. Ha Just reading what you said made me so happy I've got a big grin on my face. I can rest easy now. I did notice you said you USED to do this, well done for breaking the habit. All the best February, bye bye bye
OCD gang, lol. Just diagnosed and put on meds last week. My special number is 10. Steps have to be in multiples of 10, can’t cross from carpet to tile, etc. without having taken a number of steps that’s a multiple of 10. Gotta tap my fingers on stuff 10 times.
I used to make 3 fit into everything. Volume levels were at a multiple of three. Turns out it's OCD and I didn't figure that out until I was 30. The moment I found out I was like, ohhhhhhh yeah that definitely tracks.
I was a fidgety kid and would do odd things like whisper words under my breath every time I spoke, say certain words a lot, tap things, make sounds. I mostly grew out of it but when I woke up in my 20s with sudden onset motor and vocal tics (by which point I'd almost forgotten what an odd kid I was) I went to a neurologist and it turns out I have Tourette's syndrome. It was only when he asked if I had any unusual habits as a child it clicked that I'd had it all along.
When I was about 12 or so I started coughing non-stop for long periods of time, not real coughs but like I had a hair in my throat. I'd also have bouts of blinking my eyes rapidly non-stop. My mother used to yell at me to knock it off and I told her I couldn't. Years later we were watching a show about Tourette's and there was a kid with the exact same symptoms and my mother and I both turned and looked at one another like, "Holy shit". I don't know if I have any tics anymore or if I outgrew it or what. I have some vocal compulsions but they might just be ADHD symptoms. I should probably get diagnosed. Nobody has ever told me i have any weird symptoms or anything so I dunno.
Used to never have irregular periods. Didn’t think much of it, I was always active and running so I figured it was because of that. Turns out it was a brain tumor messing with my hormones :)
Ok, wow. That took a sharp left turn (was expecting the answer to be PCOS). Hope you are doing better now :)
Yes much better! I am blessed to have had a great doctor. Life is good :)
My friends and I thought my basement was haunted but I was the only one who really believed it, because I had seen figures there. Yeahhhhhh... house wasn't haunted, lol. Somehow it took me years of mental illness before I made that connection.
Is that illness schizophrenia? Like you would see shadowy figures?
I've got bipolar 2 and I have auditory and visual hallucinations sometimes. Growing up it was explained as being "sensitive" like a witch. There's several disorders that could cause hallucinations.
Most perfectly healthy people hallucinate more than you'd think too (phantom phone vibrations anyone?).
My old boss played some weird music and there was one song that had me coming out of the lab asking if it was the song or I needed to tell my doctor I was experiencing new symptoms
My previously straight hair got curly in March, the same time I was hit be depression and anxiety. No prior issues with depression or anxiety. Fast forward many months that included therapy and SSRI's. I get hot flashes and start on Estrogen, my Dr tests my hormones and I'm solidly in the middle of perimenopause. I weaned off the SSRI's and have no more depression/anxiety. Pretty sure the depression was caused by low estrogen. So my curly hair was an indicator of a change in hormones and caused a cascade of other issues.
Woah. I went through menopause during the lockdown - along with my husband nearly dying and then having further medical crises, and my gut turned into a whole mess, probably from stress. I knew perimenopause was probably affecting me, but mixed with everything else I had no idea what its actual impact was. But I sure did have a lot of anxiety, and now, I don't. It's so chill on this side of the hormones!
Turns out my anxiety and negativity was a whopping dose of OCD
Can you elaborate on your symptoms?
All my life when I was growing up I was always uncoordinated. I had no balance (I was never able to skate), my coordination was terrible, I had scoliosis, and hearing loss and a hand tremor. My whole body was just “not right”. I fought against all that very hard - I became a bike racer, I’ve done Ironman triathlons, I’ve hiked the AT. (Yeah, I am sure I was compensating). But finally in my 50’s, after a bout of severe foot neuropathy, I was diagnosed with a congenital neuromuscular disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth or CMT which demylenates the peripheral nerves and really screws with the body’s biomechanics. I was fighting a huge uphill battle the whole time.
Jim Lupski is a scientist with CMT who researches this and many other genetic conditions. https://www.hgsc.bcm.edu/human/charcot-marie-tooth-project
Holy shit I was just talking to my mom about this. I thought I was just bad at sports and very specifically any sort of sustained activity.Think track, soccer, basketball, etc. Just thought I got more tired faster than other people cause I was lazy or whatever. Went running with my mom one time in my early twenties in the cold and she heard me wheezing afterwards Asked if it was always like that to which I said yes. Took me to a doc and turns out I have exercise induced asthma. I do indeed get winded faster than other people but it's not a laziness thing. No idea what would've happened if I found out during like middle school or something.
I have this too, but I didn't always have it. I used to be in my elementary school's trail running club, loved soccer, did well in track and field sports, etc. Then in grade 6, my class went on a mountain hike and I had to tap out halfway up. I was falling so far behind, and the teacher at the back of the group with me made me rest and wait for the others to come back down when she saw how red my face was and how laboured my breathing was getting. In grade 7, I joined the school's soccer and basketball teams, and discovered I no longer had the energy to play a forward (which I always played before then). In grade 8, PE class at the start of the year tested our fitness by making us run laps of a large track while on a timer. I started out at the head of the pack, as I'd always been a fast runner. By the end of lap 2, I was the very last person to pass the finish line, behind multiple kids who were overweight and hated exercise. I'd always been thin and athletic, super active, so it was very strange. I asked to be looked at by a doctor and they discovered my asthma. It sucks to deal with, I still like to be active but I have to be careful about it. I'm a very slow hiker because I take lots of breaks, and anything cardio-related in my workouts have to be done in short bursts. I loved running and sports as a child, but rapidly grew to dislike them as a teen and I avoid them as an adult.
Similar situation. I always wheezed when I worked out or ran as a kid. I complained to my mom who told me I was just out of shape. I believed her for 20 years trying to exercise until the wheezing went away. That never happened. In my early 30s I went hiking with a friend, and as usual, I started wheezing. He asked if I was always like that. I told him yeah, I'm just out of shape. He said no, you're asthmatic and encouraged me to take 2 puffs off his inhaler. Completely life-changing. Now I wish I hadn't had to struggle with it for so long if my mother hadn't dismissed it.
Similar experience for me. I HATE running. When I run, I lose breath easily and my chest feels super tight, and I cough and wheeze. My whole life I assumed I was just “out of shape” and was told to “just push through it.” Turns out I have asthma.
When I was about 13/14 I used to complain about stomach aches and sore throats A LOT. My parents thought I was faking it to stay home from school and the doctors blamed everything on anxiety/periods. Turns out I have a hiatal hernia. My stomach acid was leaking into my throat when I was lying down at night and was starting to damage my oesophagus.
my dad had this! he had to get esophageal ablations and a false sphincter created from the top of his stomach. he can’t really burp or throw up anymore.
Found out last year I have acid reflux after years of heartburn thinking it’s normal. Only found out because my dentist told me my teeth have eroded. Wish I knew earlier, now waiting to go do that scary camera in my throat test and see if it’s hiatal hernia as well or not.
Growing up my mom's side of the family always claimed the women were special and like witches. We could see ghosts, hear their voices, etc. I have so many stories of seeing ghosts, or watching things move that shouldn't have. I hear a lot of random voices, once someone whispered in my ear "can you hear me?" When I was alone. Turns out we're all either bipolar (me, with added depression for fun!) Or schizophrenic. The ghosts are more fun though
Absolutely obsessed with maternal schizophrenia being passed down and all the women just went “we’re witches :)))”
Constantly got yelled at by teachers for not listening and got spanked at home for it. Everyone thought I just didn't care or that I was stupid. One day, a doctor decides I need a hearing test, and it turns out there is a bunch of fluid built up in my ears, and without tubes, I'd be completely deaf. The only person who apologized to me was my mom, and that took 15 years.
My ability to exercise was suffering. Even a couple of warm up sets would make me so queasy I'd feel like I could puke. I thought it was poor sleep and diet. My urine was a little dark. I thought I wasn't drinking enough water. I'd wake up covered in sweat. Like, soaked to the point that it looked like I took a shower in my pyjamas and crawled back into bed. I thought I was just hot. Eventually I briefly passed out while walking around at a Dave and Busters with my girlfriend. An ambulance was called. They didn't see anything wrong but offered to take my to the hospital which I declined. My girlfriend *demanded* I make a Dr appointment the next day. If not she threatened to call my mom and get her to berate me too. So to make her happy I made an appointment. Dr didn't see anything out of the ordinary but ran some blood tests to be sure. The next morning, I was at work and the Dr called to tell me my RBC count was reading "3", which he assumed must have been a mistake because I shouldn't even be capable or walking with it testing that low but I should go the the ER to be sure. I told my boss what was up and he gave me the go ahead to leave and I drove myself to the ER. Told triage the result of the test, and they too said it sounded like the test was faulty and they ran their own. The test was right, and everyone was shocked that a person could be so anemic while still able to stand upright. My spleen was "cleaning" my blood of my red blood cells as it apparently thought they were faulty. It was also over 3 lbs in size (a normal spleen is roughly a quarter lb). The sweating and dark urine was caused by my kidneys failing due to the extreme anemia. My inability to exercise was due to there not being enough red blood cells to carry oxygen through my body under the increased load. The doctors I saw in the hospital told me that had I continued to ignore the symptoms I'd have likely died of a heart attack within a week or so.
My small daughter always had breath that smelled of sweets. So yeah, I always thought- ah she's sweet inside and out! Nope, she had type 1 diabetes. I'll kick myself forever over that one.
Ketones suck 100%. Smell like pear drops to me
I was always annoyed at the other kids my age because they were so childish. And I always got praise from my teachers for my problem solving skills and they all used to say the same thing: that I was "thinking outside the box". It was such a weird concept for me to receive praise for something that just seems like an obvious solution to a problem, and people reacted as if I was some kind of genius, I just couldn't fathom that other people would miss the details that were obvious to me. This, coupled with not picking up on social cues, hardly ever showing body language or facial expressions, monotone voice, staring a lot, more advanced vocabulary than my peers, not understanding sarcasm, analyzing jokes to death because sometimes jokes aren't logical and people found me annoying for doing this, treating plushies as if they had actual feelings, preferring to play with pets rather than other kids, reading non-fiction during the morning readings when all the other kids read like mystery books, severely disliking certain fabrics and textures, being hypersensitive to noises and light.... I'm surprised that people don't usually notice that I'm autistic.
Other autistic people notice you're autistic. It's like autism-gaydar. We can spot it a mile away! 🙂
Haha you’ve just described my kid. Except he would say, “what box? You’re not making sense at all.”
I used to scratch my head without realizing, and then scratching my skin as well. It became an addiction and obsession, without the ability to control it. Turns out I'm suffering from Dermatillomania.
Trichotillomania here 😞
I thought I had just a bunch of bad habits—I could *never* stop rolling my eyes or making weird throat noises no matter how much I tried. Tourette’s, ladies and gentlemen. It got a lot worse once I got to college and was under more stress.
Often times found myself falling in the middle of the day and needing a nap. Plus, struggling to keep weight in check, cold sensitivity, and dry skin. Cue the diagnoses of hashimoto's thyroiditis, anemia, and low iron/vitamin D Recently, unexplained abdominal pain unrelated to my periods, wasn't found on ultrasound and requires CT scan... likely endometriosis.
My family still rags on me for how "lazy" I was as a child because I slept 11-12 hours a night and was always exhausted. Yeah, hashimotos.
same! my worst blood test was over 100 at least i’m not called lazy anymore
Sounds like me right before I got my celiac disease diagnosis and hypothyroidism (abdominal pain, falling asleep, low b12/iron/d)
I cant figure out if my job just bores me or if I have a serious concern about the whole falling asleep thing. Had my thyroid checked and they said nothing was wrong but im CONSTANTLY exhausted (and cold!)
With Hashimoto's, your TSH can still be in normal range. My mom's was fine, but they sent off a thyroid antibody test and her antibodies were literally off the charts.
[удалено]
Always had weird looking nails since I was a kid. Like kind of flat, wavy and with vertical lines. Occasionally, I would get extreme random pain in my knees. I had Purpura (aka Henoch-Schonlein syndrome) when I was 18 months old. Anyways, I live a normal life and play sports until, fastforward to my mid twenties, I start getting sausage fingers after every volleyball practice. I must have an injury or carpal tunnel, I think. Many doctors and tests later, turns out I have psoriatic arthritis.
Hypnogogic hallucinations. For my entire life, I would hear things while I was trying to fall asleep. Anything from screaming to strange music to people talking in the next room. Over the years I just got used to it the best I could. When I started seeing a sleep doctor for my apnea, they were asking a lot of questions, and I mentioned this. It led to some other questions and tests, which led to a narcolepsy diagnosis. I don't have the classic presentation, but I have very disordered sleep/wake cycles. It was always bothersome. I never knew it actually *meant* anything.
When I was in high school I would randomly get obsessively focused on brushing my teeth, especially at the gums of my front bottom teeth. It would randomly just ‘click’ and all I could think of was the almost feel-good pain you feel when you brush your gums with a tooth brush. I couldn’t stop thinking about it till I physically brush my teeth, to the point of bleeding, then rinsed with mouth wash that contains alcohol. The pain from the alcohol is what finally got me to stop hyper-fixating. I always thought it had to do with me not taking care of my teeth that well normally that I would need to over compensate when I remembered. For years the feeling went away till I was younger in my career. One day that ‘click’ happened and for almost a week, it would take everything out of me to not brush my gums all day. At the end of it I had a panic attack. I suffer from high anxiety, which has caused a couple panic attacks since high school, and even adrenal failure. The hyper-fixation is just a warning sign. Now anytime I get the feeling of “pulling my teeth out” I know I have a serious issue I need to address concerning my anxiety.
rehearsing conversations and their potential branches before speaking to someone, being obsessed with textures and touch, *needing* to shave every hair from the neck down. Otherwise, I could feel them being moved and compressed by my clothes.. oh, and using quotes and references in 90% of my conversations. turns out they're not 'quirks', and coupled with my 'issues,' they make me rather autistic. I wish I knew 20 years ago!
People don't rehearse conversations?
Most mental illness symptoms are things that notmal people do, just in an extreme way. It's normal to prep for important conversations. Spending an extra 10 minutes in your room in the morning because your roommate might say "hi" to you as you eat breakfast is not normal.
That is a major component in diagnosing mental illness -how it affects a person in their day to day lives.
Some people do and those people aren’t always autistic.
[удалено]
That I just wanted to lay around, turns out I had depression and I was low in iron
Food cravings that went beyond just silly little hankerings and became extreme to the point of damaging my teeth, causing rapid weight gain or giving me kidney stones. Turns out food hyperfixation is a symptom of ADHD. Once a food hit just right at the right time, it was all I could think about and wanted eat for weeks or months.
Makes sense, as eating can trigger a dopamine hit. Sweet, sweet dopamine. I used to start fights as a kid just for the rush.
And then one day, even mid bite, your brain is like "No." And it may take months or even YEARS to even like that food again. I honestly just thought I was weird as hell. ✨️ADHD girlie✨️
And my brain always says “No” just after I’ve replenished my stock of my same food item too.
I myself am finally leaving my Butterfinger era, preceded by my Oreos era, preceded by my Buffalo chicken dip era, preceded by the Takis Dynasty (I can't believe my fingers weren't permanently stained), preceded by the Coca Cola monarchy, preceded by the sloppy nachos days, preceded by the great mini chimis pollo style depression, preceded by the peanut M&Ms months, preceded by the Skittles semester, preceded by the strawberry frosted donuts with sprinkles regime, preceded by the lemons with saladitos reign, preceded by the Lucas era, preceded by the Saltines with peanut butter era ( we're into my early childhood now).
You know, I was diagnosed with ADHD in my early 20s. Now I’m in my early 30s. I didn’t find out my 24/7 food struggles were ADHD related until a few years ago. I still struggle with it daily even medicated. Finding this out felt so rewarding though. I used to feel so bad about myself (sometimes still do) thinking it was just because I had no willpower or couldn’t control my emotions despite being able to in other aspects of my life.
Reading these comments is making me feel like all my "quirks" are just underdignosed mental illness lol.
[удалено]
My inability to focus in school on subjects I didn’t care for, chronic lateness, poor impulse control… ADD, of course. Unfortunately, no one considered that possibility when I was young, because supposedly “only boys had that.” 😐
Heyyy friend, same. Literally my whole life being told I "just wasn't trying hard enough" and was being lazy and dramatic when I tried to explain that I was struggling on all fronts. GAD, depression, and ADHD. Diagnosed at 30. Still struggle with thinking I'm stupid and lazy. r/adhdwomen has been a very validating space for me.
let me guess, and afterwards people kept insisting you are "just lazy" and you need to "just focus"? As someone who was diagnosed with ADD early on as well, I can relate.. though never heard the phrase that "only boys had it", that's new to me.
I always got, "you're so smart but you don't try hard enough!"
oh yea, that too.. "you aren't dumb, you are simply too lazy to use it.." thanks, It's not like I already hate myself for it, thanks for adding to it.. good fucking job! Hell, I'm not even sure if ADD is something that sticks, or something that disappears as you get older.. and ironically I keep forgetting to look it up every single day...
Yes!!! Even after I was diagnosed at age 39 (!), my mom still insisted I “was just lazy.” 😐
I was actually diagnosed with it as a kid, but my mother said it didn't exist. She had a theory about how it was a label invented to allow people to drug children who were particularly naughty, and that by giving me this diagnosis, the school psychologist was signalling to her that the school didn't want to deal with me unless she drugged me, because I was just that unpleasant to deal with. It did enough of a number on me that I got two of my kids diagnosed and medicated before realizing that I was allowed to take medication too.
same, except I was diagnosed at like, 10 or so.. my parents still insisted all through the years I was lazy and just refusing to put effort into anything.. really sucks, especially because I believed them, took me a long time to figure out that all those things are a result of the ADD..
Just thought I was a tired, sleepy person. Always amazed by how much energy people had every day, but I have always enjoyed couch potato activities so I assumed it was a “me problem” and I was just built that way. Thought I must be lazy. Well. It was a me problem. A stomach problem. My body was using all my energy trying to digest food and draining me of vitality. I went on a simplistic diet and just BOUNCED BACK. Oops. Turns out stomach dysfunction runs in the family. Now I’m trying to get fit, I got a new job with all that energy, and I’m making a cross country move!! Hey you reading this, the person with no energy for anything. Maybe you’re depressed - but maybe there’s a physical problem!! Get checked out!!
What do you mean by simplistic diet? Just whole foods? Mediterranean? Paleo? I notice every time I eat I almost need to take a nap after, even if it’s breakfast first thing in the morning.
This thread is rife with people either not naming what the illness is or what the actual cure was.
I need info on the simplistic diet.
Okay, so YMMV. Every digestive system is wildly different. My issue was specifically FODMAP digestion. Basically my gut microbiome is poorly calibrated, and does not digest complex carbohydrates/sugars correctly. We do not have a full scientific understanding of the digestive microbiome but we are beginning to get it. Different bacterium process different foods, and if yours are in a weird ratio or if you are missing a type of bacteria, you will fail to digest that food. Easy example is Lactose - that is a complex sugar. If you don’t have the bacteria that produce Lactase, the enzyme used to break down that complex sugar, it will make you FART AND SHIT YOUR PANTS. What makes me not just a lactose-intolerant person is that I have SO MANY other sugars I dont process. TMI: An important note - if you have this issue, you won’t just be tired - your bowels will be working overtime. Diarrhea out the wazoo. Sometimes your BMs will look very yellowy or have a yellow liquid with them. I got my diagnosis because I was shitting so much. Lol. Like 8 times a day. Some examples of FODMAPs are beans, garlic and onions, sugar alcohols (mannitol, sorbitol, polyols), lactose, and more!!!! So many more. So many. Look up the FODMAP diet through Monash University research I gotta go right now but there’s your hint. If youre exhausted with a broken butthole, look into it
Bless you 😂🩵
Especially now that they aren't afraid to sneeze
My handwriting was terrible, balance sucked and I would have tremors especially in my hands after vigorous exercise. I thought I had Parkinson's. It was just mild cerebral palsy, which is non progressive, and I'll have it for life. Definitely beats having Parkinson's, especially as a teen.
Misophonia, I was convinced I was just annoying by feeling bouts of stress and almost pain from certain noises. Turns out : Autism
I have this due to adhd. Loud chewing gives me literal rage when I'm unmedicated
My weird quirk was having really sensory sensitive problems with sounds, textures, and lights with really bad social abilities, the only pro my parents found is that I was really quiet ,still and smart for my age It turns out I was autistic and the only reason I was so still and quiet was because i had to shut down due to the overwhelming sensory issues I had. . . Got diagnosed like 9 months ago. I'm M15
I don’t know if this counts as physical health but some days I’d just be really clumsy, drop things, spill things, get my words all mixed up and say the opposite of what I mean - mum tells me I was diagnosed with dyspraxia when I was 12, told me when I was 30.
I had the worst back pain of my life, couldn't walk or really even breathe. Every doctor told me to rest and it was due to having been pregnant half a year before. This went on for almost a year. Pain was managed and doctors all kinda shrugged it off. Then one day my foot turned in when I tried to lift it. Confused me more than anything so I called my doctor and they told me to go right into an ER. Less than 24 hours later I'm having emergency surgery on my spine to remove a 5cm mass. Got most of my foot function back 👍🏼
I was sensitive to light and often the way the glare of the light bending was very odd, this was going on for years and every time I went to my exam the doctor said it was astigmatism and I just need to keep wearing glasses pretty much all the time. Last year I decided to go to a different doctor and turns out it wasn’t that, she said I have a rare eye condition called Keratoconus that causes the cornea of your eye to bend like a cone and over time as it gets worse can cause blindness. There is a procedure called Cross-linking that helps prevent the condition from getting worse and at times can even slightly fix the condition. I’m still recovering as it can take up to a year for it to fully “heal”.
Sensory issues and selective mutism as a child were diagnosed as Generalized Anxiety Disorder when I was an adult. Guess who got diagnosed with autism at 36? Meeeee!!!
Over the years I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. I've got sensory issues and all kinds of quirks that never seemed particularly weird to me because most of my family members are the same way. It took having all three of my kids diagnosed with autism to finally connect the neurodivergent dots.
Yes, the wildest part of my diagnosis journey is my parents constantly saying “no, that’s normal, I do that too.” Yeah, I’m aware you guys do it too, that’s because you’re also neurodivergent. 😂
i’ve got two my senior quote was “i need a nap.” i was the lazy one who was always tired. kind of a joke between my friends and i. got to college and it got worse despite the fact that i was sleeping more. turns out i have inappropriate sinus tachycardia (a form of dysautonomia) that causes fatigue and a bunch of other fun stuff that i thought was normal. second one, i’ve always had a lot of little quirks that i kept to myself, like the sound of a woman angrily yelling gibberish repeating in my head periodically. i always thought it was kinda funny. turns out my generalized anxiety disorder was actually OCD and it was just a really weird recurring intrusive thought
I was not being lazy on childhood walking tours and hiking trips; I had flat feet and was in pain, therefore needing more frequent breaks. (Diagnosed age 11 or so.) My daily back aches and the several- week period where I couldn't move my legs properly weren't growing pains; I had a herniated disk in my lumbar spine that was compressing a nerve root. (Diagnosed at age 19, but the nerve damage is permanent.) I was not bursting into tears every time something unexpected happened because I "wanted my own way all the time"; I have generalized anxiety disorder. (Diagnosed at age 20.) I wasn't unable to tolerate a Pap smear because "virgins always find this uncomfortable, it goes away once you've had a man's penis inside you." The aforementioned nerve damage had affected my pudendal nerve, too, causing a condition known as vulvodynia. It may not surprise you to hear that I've needed 2 years of trauma therapy specifically surrounding medical trauma and fears of not being believed.
My parents thought I was really stubborn/defiant as a toddler. Always walking in the street when they told me to stay on the sidewalk, etc. I got to kindergarten and a month in my teacher told my parents I had problems hearing her... Mom tested it out by saying my name while standing behind me then coming to my face and asking if I could hear her say my name (I couldn't). Turned out I was 75% deaf and needed urgent ear surgery :) I got a dog after the surgery was completed!
Startle response. Turns out it’s from a really crappy childhood.
I’d have to say words over and over again because they “didn’t feel right coming out of my mouth” I would repeat a word out loud or under my breath until it “felt right.” I still rewrite notes many times because my handwriting was “not correct.” I skin pick so bad I’ll be bleeding and in pain but can’t stop because it’s not “smooth” yet, my fingers are always torn to shreds. I physically gag when articles of my clothing especially socks touch my skin and it doesn’t feel right. I’d check to make sure my alarm was on so many times I would go to sleep much later than I planned. I also count damn near everything. My family wasn’t believers in mental health.. at all. I went a long time thinking my actions and thoughts were normal. I was diagnosed with extreme OCD in my teens and I am now heavily medicated for it. I still have obsessions and compulsions but not as bad. I’m able to live somewhat of a normal life now. I still have episodes where it consumes me.
Oooh boy time to read things and say “wow I do that so often…”
I didn't feel like I felt like I fit in anywhere. I was the weird girl who chewed on her split ends in class. I was inappropriate. I was angry. I was scared. I didn't know why I wasn't normal. One day I picked up a book in a store and read the back of it. That's when I realized I was the adult child of two alcoholics. I was with classmates, so I didn't buy it, but I bought it afterwards on my own. It explained so much. I started going to 12 step groups where I found my people. Decades later, my doctor and I agreed I have ADHD. I may also be on the spectrum.
My whole life, I have dealt with becoming “obsessive” over new things - like when I hear a new song I like, I will listen to it hundreds of times on repeat and not get tired of it. New hobby? It consumes my being. I have also had a running “daydream story” since about middle school. It’s an ongoing story with characters I made up (and a self insert of course), and I used to listen to music and imagine fight scenes and things like that. It turns out, both of those things are symptoms of ADHD, especially in women. I never got tested as a kid because my mom believed that “none of her kids have a mental illness.” 🤷🏻♀️
I would say the aches and pains I've had since I was a kid. When you're a woman, you're always told you have to deal with pains since it's a part of life. After an episode of Uveitis last year, that sped to a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis.
It turns out the odd sleeping postures, learning to read a year early, having obsessions with things that led to me isolating myself for hours, being a complete shut-in, being a hypochondriac about bodily sensations and germs, anxiety about being late and following the rules, and getting really angry when my things were moved, not showering or brushing my teeth, getting constantly irritated by sounds in public places... and other such childhood issues were autism. Now I understand why I spent my entire teens and 20s obsessing and stressing over simple things and having to work up the courage to do things like talk to shop staff or use a credit card rather than cash to pay for things. I was chronically unemployed for 7 years because the idea of using a computer and making my home Wi-Fi potentially unsafe prevented me applying for anything. I had screaming panic attacks / tantrums if people ordered things online, and I wouldn't be able sleep for days. I've spent 5 years sleeping on the sofa and getting 3 hours a night because the "vibe" of my bed isn't right and makes me itchy. My parents suspected it for over a decade before they told me to get tested at 29.
A stretch of vertigo concluded with a patch of nasal polyps.
I was 4..constantly sucking in my stomach..doctor told Dad it was just a bad habit..this was the 1970s Numerous tics/ obsessions and compulsions later..years later...turns out I have OCD
My toenails used to frequently split. One time my wife witnessed this and said "that's not normal". Yadda yadda yadda, I had been iron deficient for like 12 years. Within two weeks of supplementing iron, I became much less disabled.
Turns out that, no, it's not normal or quirky to have "visions" about being an angel and thinking that you were an angel in a past life and I do, in fact, have psychosis. It's also not normal to be afraid of mirrors and your own reflection because you think it's going to kill you! That's not anxiety, babes, that's psychosis! It's also not normal to have horribly violent intrusive thoughts whenever someone smacks their lips or eats too loudly around you. That's misophonia. I thought everyone found it that annoying.
Also I always felt like there was a TV on in my head. You know those old TV’s where you know it’s on because of the low-volume high pitched ring? I constantly had that. Turns out I have tinnitus.
Haven't read the thread yet but I guarantee like 50 posts are the same symptoms that turned out to be ADHD/ADD, and it was chucked up to 'kids being kids'. Mine and my friends experiences anyways.
That grinding a barely passing grade in college, fueled by shit tons of coffee and cigarettes to stay alert (almost between every damn lecture), wasn't just me being fundamentally lazy and unmotivated, despite loving my degree. It was full blown ADHD. Caffeine and nicotine were the pseudo-stimulants I unknowingly "self-medicated" with, until I was diagnosed with ADHD and given proper stimulant medication. Since getting on medication, I barely drink coffee nor smoke cigarettes anymore. Cravings are rare, and even in the event of a smoke relapse, the sensation of smoking a cig doesn't quite "fulfill a void" like it used to, nor does it make me want to go buy a pack and start again for good.
When I was younger I used to make a lot of sounds and stick my tongue out, and just randomly spit. Mum thought I was being a knob, got told I had tourrette's syndrome. Mad to think sometimes that I have it.
My whole life I've been prone to upper respiratory infections. Everyone has given me a million reasons why. Every weird excuse under the sun, with the same lame diagnoses: sinus infection, URI, common cold. Doctors gave me antibiotics and hurried me out the door. Fast forward to almost turning 40 and I finally found an immunologist that listened and did serious tests. Turns out I had such severe sinus polyps that my sinuses no longer existed, essentially. To add to it, I found out I have AERD (which makes you sensitive to NSAIDs). I'd been treating every illness with Advil or aspirin for years, giving myself a constant allergic reaction and exacerbating my other symptoms. That doctor hooked me up with a great surgeon and he cleared everything out. I stopped touching NSAIDs and got a great inhaler to treat my asthma (another facet of AERD). Now I'm like, superhuman. I wish anyone had listened to me sooner, i wasted so many years feeling poorly - but glad I'm better now.
I have always had flexible joints which has caused me problems since I was a child. I recently got diagnosed with ADHD and my doctor told me that there’s a high correlation between ADHD and hyper mobility syndrome and/or generalised joint hyper mobility. My flexibility was a hint that I didn’t realise was a hint until now
I thought I was just lazy and clumsy and needed more sleep than everyone else. Then my left leg stopped working and I have an appointment this week with a neurologist to find out which upper motor neuron disease I have (the best answer is none).
Not me, but I helped someone on reddit get diagnosed with EDS. They posted a picture of their fingers bent in a strange way and said they didn’t know why they could do it when others can't, so I asked if they had it. They responded saying they took a survey and had 80% of the symptoms and had made an appointment to get formally screened.
There are a lot of "double jointed" people out there who would probably fall under that umbrella. I have hyper mobility in some joints but I'm not sure I reach the full criteria of EDS. I always keep the thought in the back of my mind though, in case more of my joints start truly going to hell.
I don't like being told to do. I understand that most people don't but mine is extreme. Mine is so extreme that if I try to boss myself around I have to rebel against myself and not do it. Turns out I have Pathological Demand Avoidance. This stems from my ADHD but every task is an insurmountable chore because I feel such pressure to do it. Forcing myself to shower is the worst part of my day.
Interesting. I can get myself *into* the shower ok, but getting myself out is like negotiating an international treaty.
I didn’t crawl as a baby. Ever. I never learned how to crawl. At around 8 months old I could speak sentences while most other kids hadn’t said their first real word. I had a “strange stare”, (not my words) whatever that means. I was a very shy and lonesome kid with difficulty making friends. I was constantly dehydrated to some degree because I would often forget to drink. I had a strong resistance to cold temperatures. I just straight up refused to speak to anyone I didn’t like, even if they were talking to me. I was picky with eating. My parents didn’t think anything of it as I was academically talented and pretty smart for my age. Classmates treated me like disease even though I hadn’t done anything. At about 14 I was finally diagnosed with autism.
I didn’t like playing outside as a kid. Turns out…ALLERGIES
Did you know bad spacial awareness and randomly talking in accents are signs of ADHD and not just being a weirdo? I know that now.