Tag: Bipolar

Why I Don’t Care What You Call Whatever’s Wrong with My Brain

Published on by DreamingPanda3 Comments

It was a typical Sunday morning a few weeks ago when it happened. My mom was cooking me an omelet, and dad was reading the paper. I was rummaging through the cupboard to get some honey to drizzle on a banana when I heard it:

“CLAW.” And then there was whispering in a female voice I couldn’t make out, which I somehow knew was about me.

“What’d you say, mom?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

I paused for a moment. “Did you say something, dad?”

He shook his head.

“So neither of you heard it?”

“Heard what?”

A chill ran down my spine as I suddenly realized what just happened: Continue reading “Why I Don’t Care What You Call Whatever’s Wrong with My Brain” →

Could This Antibody Be Stealing My Life?

Published on by DreamingPanda4 Comments

Why would this happen? How could I get worse while getting treatment?

Years ago when I started this blog, every time I had a symptom flare-up, I’d ask myself these questions over and over again sure that if I thought about them hard enough it would all make sense.

Unfortunately, when you have an illness which science has only recently begun to understand, you rarely get the satisfaction of knowing why you’ve gotten sick and what exactly will work to get you better. Sure, well-established, proven guidelines for diagnosing and treating PANS exist (though they didn’t when I started), but all too often, I relapsed without knowing why and had no objective test to prove how sick I was; I’d lose my entire personality, but the autoimmune markers you might expect in someone suffering from brain inflammation never showed up.

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Daring to Dream Again

Published on by DreamingPanda5 Comments
Photo cred: NEPANS.org

This week, despite recently having the best few days I’ve had in several years, my OCD came roaring back, worse than it’d been since 2014. I started ticking again, too. People would say things to me, but their words made no sense. All the symptoms that I thought were gone returned to taunt me. Just as you think you have the upper hand with this disease, it can swoop in to tear you apart all over again!

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I Have No Idea What I’m Doing Anymore

Published on by DreamingPanda10 Comments
I don’t know where I am or where I’m going in life anymore.

With my final semester of college on the horizon and an amazing summer internship behind me, it’s finally sinking in that it’s time to figure out what I’m doing with my life next. I’m pretty sure that anyone about to graduate from college is feeling anxious about transitioning into the “real world,” but for me, as someone recovering from PANS/Lyme, there’s a whole other layer of messiness.

Continue reading “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing Anymore” →