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vickythecat

Senior member
Joined
Jan 5, 2017
Messages
366
Reason
DX FIBRO
Diagnosis
01/2013
Country
EU
State
Earth
Hi,

I was wondering whether anyone else would like to share their own experiences regarding mental illness and its correlation with fibro.

I've always been a very sensitive introverted child. Growing up I started self injurying mainly because life would simply be too much for me. I'd worry about the state of the whole wide world, the world around me and the world in my head. In my 20's I was diagnosed with major depression, severe social anxiety and borderline personality disorder. I never fully agreed with the borderline diagnosis, but alas. 3 years ago, a diagnosis of PTSD was also added to this lovely mix - yey!

But my fibro symptoms started in my late teens - so I do believe that fibro has been a reaction of my body to the never-resting inner life I have. I am never ever restful in my head.

Living with a physical chronic illness, combined with mental illness can be at times really really difficult. It is so hard to have a mentally ok day when I am having a physical sick day and vice versa. But thankfully I do have some great coping methods (= lots of daydreaming).

I guess once diagnosed with fibro/ME, it is almost impossible not become mentally ill as well, because it affects our lives so much.

So how do you cope with both of these aspects - the physical combined with mental? How do you experience the two together?

Thanks,


Side note: I was surprised to read this week that the kind of daydreaming I've been doing my whole life is apparently called 'maladaptive daydreaming' and will soon be recognized as a mental illness. They talk about 'sufferers', whereas for me it has been the biggest savior of my life. Most days I am not on planet earth, but live in a self-created world in my head. It not only helps with the physical pain, but also helps me fight my inner demons. I know the difference between real or dream, so I don't see why it could be harmful, thus a disorder.
 
I don't think having FMS or CFS/ME is necessarily correlated with having a mental disorder. True, some people with chronic medical conditions do become depressed. And. some people with mental disorders do develop chronic medical conditions. I haven't done a thorough look at the research but the bias in the past has been for physicians to discount the experience/symptoms of persons with FMS or CFS/ME and to attribute the symptoms to a psychological or mental disorder. I would hope that the research is moving toward seeing that these are distinct but sometimes overlapping disorders.
 
I can't speak for everyone but I'm sure the majority of us struggle with depression and anxiety. I too have always been a sensitive person, I care about everyone Ive ever met and I worry, worry, worry. I used to worry so much I would get sick literally. When I went to Mayo clinic for my Fibro, They taught me about this, I believe its called self rumination. Anyway my mind never shuts off, I can't remember the last time I felt even slightly rested. All i can say is I just deal with it day by day, I just know not to get my hopes up about feeling better the next day. My Wife also adds so much stability to my life, she is able to look at the big picture and she doesn't get upset when I have really bad days and I get cranky, she knows it will pass and there's nothing I can do about it.
 
About 5 years ago I had a suicidal episode and put into a psych ICU. They came up with the diagnosis of borderline and bipolar, but I was not properly assessed.
Many females are diagnosed with borderline if you have ptsd. Although I struggle with relationships and tend to isolate, I do not have any characteristics besides PTSD.
It took until last year to get a new psychiatrist, who erased all labels, and just has me as CPTSD. The C (complex) is specific to childhood and developmental trauma. I could also be easily diagnosed autistic, but I'm not.

A few weeks ago I learned that my severe stomach issues mixed with my chronic pain has been fibro. My counsellor wasn't surprised and told me it's very common. Our body holds onto trauma, our minds and muscles never forget.

For people without mental illness and fibro, I don't think there are many out there. It's either mental illness or trauma causes fibro, or fibro causes mental illness like depression. There is not enough stats to really know.
 
Im sure my fibro is attributed to being very sensitive person and a few traumas ( at least to me) one on top of the other over many years...im also a deep caring type like my mind never shuts off too. I set myself high standards and dont like to give in to a challenge ..cant let go until something is resolved either for myself or someone who is counting on me that i care about.

I feel hurts very deeply and in my healthy days used activity and a bit of a front to not let this fester or show but once your physical health goes too and these coping abilities are not available ..you get isolated and loose confidence when you cant do all the things that keep you part of society or achieving things...depression and anxiety creep in when i guess often sensitive people are prone to these already when life gets tough.

Thanks for the thread Vicky i think for some the 2 are closely linked...but not how some doctors and worse when family and partners think the pain is psychological.

I'm the gentlest type of person who is usually very kind and understanding but i think now im so crippled with this illness i feel like i could scream LOL at another person in my ever decreasing circle who makes out its a few aches and pains and whats the fuss about!
 
Anxiety and depression here. I have been anxious all my life and finally got treatment as a young adult. My anxiety and depression IMO is directly linked to my fibro.
 
I'm the gentlest type of person who is usually very kind and understanding but i think now im so crippled with this illness i feel like i could scream LOL at another person in my ever decreasing circle who makes out its a few aches and pains and whats the fuss about!

Some days its so bad, The pain and feeling horrible is so bad that it takes %200 if my mental capacity just to deal with the pain. Then friends and family joke around or try to get me do do something or ask me a billion questions, and they don't understand that I'm so mentally exhausted and I just don't have the Ability to deal with them at that particular moment. I have pretty much lost all friends and family because of this happening. Well its actually because of that or because the all famous, " Fibro is just a wastebasket diagnosis, blah blah blah, Nothings wrong with you, its all in your head, blah blah blah, I'm not supporting you even though you need my support the most right now, etc."
 
I did find a research study that found a relationship between trauma and fibromyalgia. It was very interesting that people who had an injury to their neck (like a whiplash) had a much higher chance of developing fibromyalgia. Perhaps any form of trauma could make someone more likely to develop it?
 
I felt that this is actually a very heavy post while putting it in such a lovable way , thank you for posting this so sincerely and beautifully Vickythecat XOXO

I used to having day dreaming too as a child but to me that was normal even when I lost tracks of reality many times i often got lost, don't know how I got there so far away , but because I can focus on reading which I love to do so i was deem to be borderline ok. :shock: I was unable to paid attention in any class unless it's creativity or physical. I'm 70% B personality which is pretty odd enough to get MDD ( Major depressive disorder) to begin with but here I am. I also was almost diagnosed with Pica but that was just do to my iron deficiency that came from Anemia problem that I also have. I was very skinny, one time I must have ate something dangerous cause I remember being rushed to ER and been forced to throw up over and over. Most of the time I have no memory of eating anything weird but the only thing I remember was ice craving lots of ice crunching till my mouth frozen thanks to the brain freeze that woke me up I didn't get any frostbite just some bleeding wounds from accidental bite inside my numbing mouth. But that's just about it for my childhood phycological mishap. As of now i can see some resemblance of those symptoms emerging here and there thanks to my anemia with other uncontrollably mineral deficiency episodes brought to me by fibromyalgia ( hurray) , now I'm often see the double of my own shadow chasing me around the house , popping up in the mirror spooking me half to death. While waking up the next day crunching and swallowing on eggs shells . So much fun.

I also fighting with Panic disorder, and PTSD some win some loses. Fight on the crazy one Fights on !!!
 
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I did find a research study that found a relationship between trauma and fibromyalgia. It was very interesting that people who had an injury to their neck (like a whiplash) had a much higher chance of developing fibromyalgia. Perhaps any form of trauma could make someone more likely to develop it?

I often entertaining my self with the idea that "all those pains might have kept me sane " theory. I had a few accidents involving delay suffering whiplash condition in my life. I'm not sure if that's the case but if it's interfered with my nerve activity connected to brain it might have somehow contributed to it . A while ago I've learned that fibromyalgia brains was prove to be different than the normal brain or the brain that once was, in theory is that fibromyalgia brain have completely stop producing our dopamine , and with the lost of dopamine effect through our body that's why we suffering side effects such as restless leg syndrome and other mimicking conditions that's belong to many other illnesses that suffering from the dopamine decreasing. Our body now will overreact to all minor threats both physically and mentally over and over so therefore killing my self is getting harder than it should these days, brain fog might have made me forget the old heartache memories cause now I'm too busy trying to remember what did I just do? I don't get lost outside anymore do to agoraphobia, I can't eat funny stuff cause now my teeth are now too brittle or painful to carelessly chew on any. I suffering the massive sleep disturbances because of my nightmares won't stop playing on the loop so my leg say no more and continue to running away in my bed while I'm trying to go back to sleep.
 
While i've never been diagnosed with a specific mental illness, I've suffered from varying amounts of depression and anxiety over the years. Part due to past events, part due to hormonal/nutritional imbalance. my teenage years/early 20s were a roller-coaster ride of overemotional reactions. My panic attacks increased up until I went gluten free 8 years ago and have slowly gotten better (anxiety/panic was one of my worst symptoms and still a sign I ate something I shouldn't have). 2-3 years ago the anxiety attacks got worse again and I saw a CBT therapist for a while. Huge help. I've been meditating for several years which has also helped, but learning to recognise symptoms of anxiety before they spiral out of control has saved my butt more than a couple times. Since then I've realised that most of my panic moments have been over reactions to physical symptoms (hellooo fibrooo). I never took any antidepressants previously, but Cymbalta has greatly helped my anxiety, so when I am in pain I don't end up worrying it into getting too much worse.
A friend of mine with serious mental illness recently said that if all our emotions were felt physically it would be too much to handle. I wonder if our brains are unable to keep all that pain inside our heads and it spreads through the body instead? (Not very scientific, but it's a thought). I do think that learning to deal with our emotional pain will help our fibro pain and vice-versa. They tend to feed off each other.
 
I hate panic attack the most more than any pains I ever have experienced in my life including fibro cause it happens way too quickly more than my body and thought could act to prevent it most of the time. So far I can recognize it enough to stop or fix it and making it shorter than it supposed to . However I still have to experiencing the fear. So fearful I'm panic from the thought of that I might get panic. To me it's like dying everytime . It's been 6 years now with full blown panic attack I used to get it every single day I even get it during sleeping. It was so overwhelming I did wanted to kill my self , but funny things is that I was more worry about that I will get panic while dying. How ironic .
 
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i have had bad panic attacks but personally for me it doesnt come close to the relentless debilitating pain of fibro ripping through my body day after day. Panic attacks come and go and i could teach myself while the symptoms are awful at the time they will blow over and wont actually hurt you....except of course the anxiety can make the fibro pain go from tolerable to unbearable..then the panic becomes more of a fear for the pain it will cause afterwards....the actual attack symptoms..heart racing, nausea sweating breathlessness dizziness weak legs.... i can just let it do its thing as even though it feels like you are dying it wont last a life time like fibro 24/7.

That's not to minimise how awful panic attacks are..they can be life altering for many people...if you can get to the root cause and get support or treatment and tell yourself the feeling will pass.

I think severe fibro in itself is enough to bring on panic attacks out of the blue..even in the night.. being in bad pain that never reduces and for me now house bound ..unable to do as we want ..loosing confidence and becoming isolated..feeling useless and dealing with other people attitudes ..maybe loss of relationships and longing to be free and in control of our lives again....if this is the cause of panic its hard to overcome as these are reasons to be in panic that wont pass over as we have this condition for life and can never escape..like one endless roller coaster.
 
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I guess my panic is kinda like what you've said, many started with restless legs leading to insomnia lots of sleep disturbances, tired and exhausted, then pains spreading through body up to facial nerve on pins and needles lead to sinusitis and severe migraine dry mouth and eyes, dehydration, heartburn nauseous, overwhelmed with pains couldn't find the way out feeling caved in , raising heart beat hyperventilating and voila' Panic attack! Sometimes just a strong sunlight on my skin felt like being burning alive from head to toes literally burn under my skin , the whole world turn white , then hyperventilating, which leading straight to panic attack no nauseous this one but might get a quick pass out after the attack , woke up then threw up. Or remember old trauma events , feeling abandon , depression, heart feeling heavy squeeze. Short breathing and boom! Panic while possibly full of tears choking crying at the same time usually this one last the longest almost an hour but felt like eternity. Very hard to snap it out.
I guess all my panic is very much are the result of fibro/ mental pains on steroids while having panic at the same time it's doesn't separate ever. I couldn't distinguish the different . It would be nice if I could just suffer either or in each of their own time I wouldn't be so fearful about it. Cause after Panic passed it just left me with flare up fibro which mean if I can't manage the flare up I'm gonna have to suffer more panic tomorrow which isn't enough time!. Best I could do is trying to distracting my self with other completely different type of stress to send my self to anxiety drowsiness mode and put me to sleep for a few hours to get some rest which isn't easy to do either. But if I can manage fibro and my mentally at the same time from the beginning I can prevent panic from happening in the first place. Took me years to manage to get out of the panic loop. But still fear of being pull back in to the loop again cause I'll never know when I'll fail to maintain it.
 
I totally understand...its a vicious circle....oh my what we have to cope with...my heart goes out to you Tipnatee.

Panic attacks are basically overwhelming fear..feeling out of control...too much for the mind to handle......when fibro is long term severe with many additional symptoms that increase over the years we can and for me i do feel its out of my control.

Once i had this disease at a more manageable level and so naturally while still many ups and downs its easier to manage the inevitable anxiety high pain brings when you have better days that allow some feelings of safety and normality to help hold on to that 'in control' of my life feeling humans need...... its almost impossible not to feel scared when pain and weakness is severe for a long time let alone debilitating for years.
 
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