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So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

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Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#261

Post by anaerobicover »

mjgs wrote: post #180
dTal wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your brain. All sound perception ultimately comes from there.

It’s wild that the brain can just make sounds up like that. Now I’m wondering how much of the soundscape I hear is real. Seems like that’s something that could be exploited.

A quite simple demonstration is to be in an environment with constant but not overwhelming repetitive noise, such as a slightly loud fan. While you are concentrating to do something else, perhaps reading, the sound will disappear from your awareness. Now suddenly the sound stops. It is a strange sensation, as if a new noise was present, but in fact it is a silence or lack of noise. An auditory illusion like some optical illusions of staring at a spot then looking elsewhere and having an afterimage.

Nothing sensual is presented directly: it is all contextual.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#262

Post by kayodelycaon »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #237
kayodelycaon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds exactly like a psychotic break to me. I had a massive one and it started with a pop in my mind followed by half a year of similar symptoms. In the end, I was diagnosed Bipolar type—1. Some people often ask, the story is here: https://kayode.co/blog/4106/living-with-psychosis/

Do you still experience yourself as a wolf with paws and wind in your fur?

No, but I have developed a different issue with disassociation.

If I’m outside under bright sunlight in an open area, I can sometimes see trees starting to become pixelated. I slowly find myself thinking in a character in a video game. This is somewhat dangerous. Actions in a video game generally has few meaningful little consequences. In the real world, death has a annoying tendency to be rather permanent.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#263

Post by tartoran »

bladegash wrote: post #199
Matumio wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One issue with "self-care" is that it reinforces the idea that those problems are just individual problems. And to some extent, they are. But to let an employee go and send them on a quest to fix their personal issue is such a very easy distraction from more systematic causes. No need to fix work culture if it was just that one person. No need to question social norms that might nudge people into working an unhealthy…

True and all fair points. However, I think it may also suggest that people are not powerless/helpless in their situation, even if they are stuck in a job or society that places too much pressure on some. Personal opinion, but where I think many may begin to really suffer from burnout is when they feel like they cannot do anything to improve or change their situation, and that it is futile to even try. If nothing else…

The problem is that the culture kindof pushes people to extremes where they inevitably burn out. After the first burnout, which is a very scary new experience, people learn not to push to those limits, but there’s always new people to burn out. We’re lucky that the stigma of burning out is diminishing, before we’d have to suffer in silence and shame.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#264

Post by Robotbeat »

sneak wrote: post #203
Robotbeat wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had similar things happen. It’s not uncommon. It is a physical thing. I’m not sure it’s caused by burning out all the glucose or whatever (as that is short term addressable). Dopamine, that’s possible. In my case, it was caused I think by not getting enough sleep combined with cognitive load, perhaps exasperated by high sodium, and poor nutrition. Stimulants (such as caffeine, but also Ritalin, adderall, etc) if…

There's nothing in your comment to suggest that your constellation of symptoms is in any way related to the constellation of symptoms (or purported underlying cause(s)) in TFA.

He mentions seizures and micro stroke. This isn’t too far off. Qualitatively different effects, so the underlying physical cause could be different, but I wasn’t intending to imply that mine and his effects were identical.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#265

Post by wittyreference »

garganzol wrote: post #233
GordonS wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, when it's mild your brain is not actually starved of glucose at all, and hypoglycemic symptoms (e.g. brain fog) are caused by your endocrine system changing hormone levels (such as cortisol) to "signal" your body that it needs glucose to increase blood sugar levels. If it gets severe enough, then the brain can run out of glucose and the person can die - but AFAIK the body prioritises the brain for fuel above a…

Glucose can be present in blood but the brain can be still unable to consume it due to diabetes (insulin absence) or some form of a mitochondrial disease (inability to transfer glucose to ATP via oxidation). In both cases this is a panic situation from brain's point of view which is compensated by a spontaneous "stop" (seizure as OP seems to call it) and by injecting adrenaline with a corresponding response from endo…

Neuronal glucose uptake is via transporter GLUT1, which is insulin independent. Insulin-dependent glucose uptake is primarily GLUT4. Even in insulin absence, the brain gets its sugar.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#266

Post by quonn »

cryptofistMonk wrote: post #8
ohazi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first two lines of that tweet: > The healthcare system in the US is a failure. > You have to do it yourself. You have to research things yourself. You have to hunt for doctors & specialists yourself. It is pretty scary. It's not a matter of whether you're going to need the healthcare system to work for you, it's when . Everybody gets older, everybody starts to lose function in various ways, and everybody dies. Th…

> You have to do it yourself. You have to research things yourself. You have to hunt for doctors & specialists yourself. That's true everywhere, though. Just because basic stuff is paid for in Canada doesn't mean we've got crack teams of doctors tracking down your diagnosis.

But wouldn‘t your main doctor refer you to the specialist if you want to?

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#267

Post by csnover »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #218
Robotbeat wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had similar things happen. It’s not uncommon. It is a physical thing. I’m not sure it’s caused by burning out all the glucose or whatever (as that is short term addressable). Dopamine, that’s possible. In my case, it was caused I think by not getting enough sleep combined with cognitive load, perhaps exasperated by high sodium, and poor nutrition. Stimulants (such as caffeine, but also Ritalin, adderall, etc) if…

Burnout and stress related disorders are very real, but trying to explain them away as purely physical illnesses isn’t accurate, nor does it help with finding a resolution. > It is a physical thing. I’m not sure it’s caused by burning out all the glucose or whatever (as that is short term addressable). Dopamine, that’s possible. No, you don’t simply run out of dopamine, nor can you use it up by thinking too hard. The…

> The real problem here is that mental illness still carries too much stigma. Some people are so resistant to accepting a mental health diagnosis and treatment that they will go to great lengths to reframe their problems in physical terms, thereby dodging what they feel (incorrectly) would be an admission of mental weakness.

I feel like suggesting that someone would try to ‘reframe’ their condition to avoid stigma inadvertently perpetuates stigmas by reinforcing the false dichotomy of mental vs physical illness.

Cognition is an extremely complex and poorly understood physical system, but a physical system nonetheless. There’s no separate ethereal plane where consciousness lives, no great uniqueness to its dysfunction. It’s not surprising to me that some people would introduce their own worse pseudoscience when physicians claim their problems are not physical problems, and I think that can happen regardless of stigma.

I believe we would do well to stop cleaving ‘mental illness’ (and, you know, ‘dentistry’) into a separate category from any other physical health problem. These conditions are physical conditions, just with such complexity that we’re not currently able to measure, understand, or treat them with the same level of precision as others. This sucks, but at least it’s honest.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#268

Post by akomtu »

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #174
sciurus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this too. I have also experienced this at times, although I wouldn't have found these words to describe it. I don't think it's been tied to any particular conditions like heat or stress. Usually it happens when I'm in bed and beginning to fall asleep. Googling turns up https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome which sounds like what I've experienced.

Mentioning the falling asleep part reminds me of a few cases myself. I have trouble sleeping myself and when I fall asleep very slowly I've noticed similar 'illusions'. flashes of light, voices, fractal patterns, a conscious state while dreaming and the very rare loud noise that comes from nowhere. Usually the noise doesn't prevent me from finally falling asleep. I've always wondered how many people experience these…

Purposefully inducing the "out of body experience" (whether it's imaginary is besides the point) is almost always accompanied by this rare roaring sound during the transition moment. I guess that most people freak out and snap back to the normal awake state. Edit: I find the wiki article describing the "problem" highly entertaining. It reminded me of a quote (from that gervais principle book probably) that the modern healthcare manufactures well adjustedness, i.e. they try to square peg everything unusual into their rigid grid of normalcy and if something unusual doesn't fit the square hole, the healthcare system doubles down with rough chemicals.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#269

Post by andrekandre »

spython wrote: post #241
tartoran wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you not feel stress anymore? I started taking on less and expecting less in order to manage my stress levels and it worked. I also started listening to my own rhythm but that translates sometimes to brain dead days and other times with very productive days. I accepted that and am no longer pushing. But I still take on things but at a slower pace. Id still avoid taking on as much as I was doing in my early 20s,…

I'm not tluyben2 and really interested in his secret, but here's what helped me most: – not taking what my inner critic says too literal. I imagine someone else saying such critical things to me – it would be ridiculous and I'd tell them to go to hell. So I just accept that something fuels my inner critic and take care of it in a different way. – enjoying the little things in front of me instead of obsessing about pr…

one thing for me, was to realize that whatever is happening, its not about "me"

i think sometimes we internalize situations and make it about "us", and while we do indeed cause our own stressful situations sometimes, usually things are in motion (work, poliics, environment) that have really nothing to do with us and internalizing it, as if we are "100% responsible for it" can make one more stressed than it should be

another bad situation to be in is, being responsible but not "in charge", meaning one gets blamed but is powerless to fix the situation (work), then in those cases again, its better to not internalize because in a lot of those cases its politics or bad general management etc... better to see the big picture and put things into perspective...

then even if something was "100% our fault" then just take it as a learning experience "debugging reality", we can do everything right and still completely fail, and that is normal... better to learn and move on (easier said than done, i know)

at least for me, this kind of thinking helped alot with overcoming stress

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