TawnyToad

Hi

Please don't be put off by the size of this post. I know it's long but I have so much to say and it is all important. I know I've posted similar things so you may simply consider this an "update" to what I have already posted. You will also find some new things which I hope I can get some help on (please). I seem to be very scatter-brained and foggy-headed lately and some of the crazy things I do have gone past the point of being comical and are now starting to scare me somewhat.

Earlier, I was washing a pot out in the sink so I could boil water in it for spagetti. I soaped it up and was scrubbing it when my roommate starts up a conversation with me and the next think I know, I'm rinsing and drying my hands off and the pot was still sitting there with soap suds all over it because I'd gotten distracted while talking to my roommate and forgot all about the fact that I had been washing a pot.

Another thing I do is put the wrong words in the wrong places. For example, I told my roommate that; "I'm gonna have to find out what's wrong with THIS" rather than what I actually *meant* to say which was that "I'm gonna have to find out what's wrong with ME".

I also find my mind not working much of the time and I get a feeling like what you would get if you crossed your eyes and left them that way for a few minutes (a dizzy, spacey, zone-out, buggy-eyed, weird feeling).

I get very angry (and increasingly so) when my mind does'nt work like it's supposed to and sometimes I will smack myself upside the head (physically) and say a lot of four-letter words about how my mind had BETTER work or it will get smacked again. I know this is crazy but I just become so enraged when my mind does'nt work - it's as if it is trying to defy me or something.

I can't even begin to count how many times I have forgotten things right away either. For example, going to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, going to the bathroom, going to feed my animals (or whatever) and then when I get ready to do these things, I'll completely forget about what I was supposed to do and so I'll start looking around the house for things that might help "remind" me of *why* I came out to the kitchen or why I am in the bathroom, etc.

I remember growing up that my maternal grandmother sometimes did wacky and scatterbrained things like the time she picked up the dog dish, washed it in the sink and then proceed to pour cereal and milk in one side and cut up some grapefruit in the other. She got as far as the grapefruit before she realized what she was doing. My other grandmother is so scatterbrained that her own son (my father) even called her a "ditz" once. Both sides of the family have severe depression, OCD, anxiety and a few other phycological disorders and sometimes I feel like I got everyone else's bad genes or something. I do have my share of problems but I don't ever remember feeling this spacey and weird. It is both frustrating and very scarey at times because I feel like I am about to lose it mentally and emotionally. When it gets really bad (and it has lately) I sometimes taker a xanax. Sometimes this help a lot and other times, not so well.

Still another thing that frightens me is that at certain times, I seem to be what I'll call "keyboard dyslexic" which is to say that it's like my fingers were 10 times their normal size and when I try to type a letter it is full of typos and errors because my brain seems to be misfiring and I'm having trouble getting all of the letters or words in the right place and still other times, I write a letter and then have to go over it and change it a half-dozen times until it just "sounds right". This can drive me nuts!.

One thing I have noticed that may help someone tell me what all of this sounds like is that my "condition" seems to work in cycles. For example, I will have a few weeks where I start some new and exciting project, get a lot done on it, make some extra money, meet new people and life just seems wonderful and I feel like I'm really "going places" and I get the very satsfying feeling that I'm accomplishing something and improving my life. However, once I get all of these things done and there's nothing left to do, I fall right back into the same old boring, depressive state of mind where I constantly feel gloomy, get irritated very easily and feel foggy headed and spacey (this is the worst it's ever been though). A few weeks later, I latch onto some other "feelgood" project and I'm back to my old self again (or at least what's left of me after the last bout).

Sometimes (and this is probably because of my anxiety) I will become concerned that perhaps I have mad cow disease, cancer or alzheimers disease. I'm a 40 year old male and I'm not sure how old you have to be to have some of these things but I certainly hope I don't have any of them. We don't have any Alzheimer's disease in our family.

My roommate has told me a number of times that he lives in "fear of me" because of my unusual behavior but I try to let him know that I have OCD, Turette's, Anxiety and depression and that these are mental problems that don't *usually* cause a person to become violent and that my history should tell him that I am a very mild-mannered (albeit, high-strung) person who would never do harm to anyone - not even an ant.

More times than I can remember, I will be trying to have a conversation with someone and it's as if I have to carefully "analyze" each word before it comes out for fear that it will come out in the wrong order or that it won't come out in the proper context or even be the wrong word. What happens is that my sentences usually get messed up and this makes me very angry and then I get panicky because I wonder if I have some kind of brain disease that is causing this.

I have become a very bitter and angry person because of all this. To use an analogy, it's as if I was a dog and some kid (this disorder I have) is teasing me each day on his way home from school and some days I feel like I could just lose it (non-violently, of course).

I went to the doctor a few days ago and he said that I needed to stay on my blood pressure medication (which I had'nt been taking lately). My BP usually runs 150/90 with a pulse of 100 or higher. After I went back on my meds, my reading was 125/75 with a pulse of 65 and yet I STILL feel weird and spacey!.I'm sure my blood pressure has at least something to do with the way I feel but even after going back on the Atenolol (beta blocker) and Hydrochlorothiazide (diuretic) again, I still feel spacey and weird so unless my high blood pressure has caused permnanent brain damage or something, I really doubt my high blood pressure is the cause of this but who knows.

Finally (and I usually don't tell people this for fear they will think I'm strange) but I have several farm animals that I let take turns sleeping in my bedroom (a goat and a goose). The goose sleeps in my bed and the goat sleeps on the floor. Neither of them are in my room at the same time. I have been told that since I suffer from Allergic Rhinitus and Chronic Sinusitis, that this is NOT a good thing for me to be doing and yet I love animals so much and this is a habit I have had for about 20 years now. I hate sleeping or being alone in a room all by myself and my animals are freindly and provide me with a feeling of comfort and security. How can I just suddenly stop now?.

Anyway, I won't go on any more. I've written a novel here as it is. I would really appreciate any input you wonderful and knowledgeble folks can provide as I am starting to get really desparate here.

Thank's again.