I have been dealing with anxiety and depression for a long time, and it has gone untreated, affecting every area of my life, including my memory, Sleep,mood, happiness, Overthinking at night, forgotten, other things that I can't even recall. I sometimes feel like I am at the top of the list of people who struggle a lot with mental health issues. I'm a 21-year-old man who has been struggling with mental health and still can't find a solution after trying many things to feel better. I haven’t found anything that works for me. I’ve tried almost everything, including meditation, deep breathing, exercise, CBT, and many other things, but my life still feels like a struggle. The bad days outnumber the good ones. All of this started when I was 16, and now, at 21, I still experience intrusive thoughts that make my anxiety worse.I want to find somebody who has similar issues so we can work together and find real solutions to our problems. I would prefer to chat with someone through social media, like Instagram or WhatsApp, without revealing our identities. I won’t show my identity, and I don’t want to know theirs—not even a picture or country—just to focus on finding a solution together. I’m eager to connect with someone who truly understands how I feel, so we can help each other find a way out of this.

Hi, has anyone else here experienced cognitive issues while recovering from trauma?

I’m beginning to worry I’ve been permanently damaged and am in the middle of a cognitive decline. My concentration is short, and my memory feels like it's slipping away from me. Several times a day, I catch myself forgetting what I’m doing or why I came into the room. I keep forgetting my keys in the lock on the outside! Five times this month I realized in the morning that I’d been sleeping with an unlocked door! As a journalist, all my life I used to be sharp, quick-witted, and on top of things, but now I can barely hold a thought in my head for more than a few minutes. I’m distracted, my thoughts are a mess. I’m not coherent when I’m talking about something less trivial, my sentences mingle, and though words are coming from my mouth, I leap from thought to thought, and it makes little sense. My brain has turned against me, and I feel like I'm losing myself more and more each day. This makes me want to isolate myself from former friends, because I’m embarrassed that I can’t make a coherent argument or take part in conversation without letting myself down. As if it’s still me, with all my knowledge and wisdom, but downgraded to someone who was dumb at school... Has trauma erased my intelligence? My therapist insists that isolation is not good for me and that I should socialize more. No one seems to understand the anguish that comes with mental health struggles. I think therapy doesn’t help me. It's terrifying to think that I might never get back to the person I used to be. Everyone expects me to function like a normal human being, but my mind is betraying me at every turn. I want to feel like myself 15 years ago. It's all a cruel joke, and I'm the punchline. I don’t know if I should seek additional help from another specialist for my cognitive issues?

Having ADHD is so weird and agonizing!! I was diagnosed four weeks ago, and it validated most of my life’s failures. I can’t understand people, I hear them speak, but I can’t grasp complex information, at uni I have to make audio recordings of all lectures so that I can listen to them at home. I’m also really bad with numbers. I can’t do math in my head, and I could never keep up with my peers, who grasp it all so easily. It is called dyscalculia? Or something like that.. I don’t know how I finished school, it was a miracle.. I was the one with “learning issues” in sciences, thank heavens, my English and literature were above average. Even when I’m studying the subjects I like, I can’t focus for more than twenty minutes. It makes me fidgety and nervous, I feel unhealthy, as if my battery is always low. My memory sucks, and I’m not making much progress this year. No matter how much I try to study, I end up scrolling reels or playing games on the phone. I’m so privileged to be where I am, and yet doomed to be the one who fails. I’ll always be crawling to my goals like an inadequate dumbass...

Now that the final exams are looming, I’m so depressed I want just to drop out! I told my dad yesterday, and I thought he’d give me a slap. He’d probably do it if we were alone… My new doctor said we’d try the new type of medication aka stimulants. No idea what it is, I just pray they won’t screw up my brains even more. All the nootropics I’ve been prescribed at school were a total fiasco! I don’t mind taking meds, if they help me stop being a mess. Is it even possible to be an adult with an ADHD diagnosis? I want to study like everyone else, I need my degree. This is so unfair!

I apologize if I’m not using this for the right purpose. I’m so desperate 😞

My second therapist dumped me this morning, saying something completely rubbish about not being able to help me. Am I such a bad person to work with? Is my diagnosis so rare or horrible? I’ve been diagnosed with an unspecified dissociative disorder. Later on, my second therapist, who now dumped me, called it dissociative identity disorder (DID). It’s been very stressful to live with it for the last fifteen years. For anyone who doesn’t know what it is, it feels like having different people inside of me, each taking over when I can't handle certain emotions. There's the Childlike version of myself that emerges when I'm feeling shy or vulnerable. As if I regress to a younger, more innocent version of myself. It reflects the part of me that was deeply affected by the traumatic events of my childhood. Then there's Misery, who shows up when I'm upset or sad. This part of me feels like inner paralysis, lacking emotions and making me feel numb. Lastly, there's Mania – that’s how my second therapist called it. I used to call it Party Person. It appears when I'm feeling extremely high-spirited and carefree. This version of me is wild, wearing clothes I wouldn't normally choose, indulging in excessive drinking and smoking, and sometimes doing things I wouldn't do otherwise. When a different personality takes over, I completely black out, and I have no memory of what happens when one of my other identities manifests itself. I’m almost totally losing control of my own self. This used to be very frightening and disorienting, especially when I "came back" and realized that I'd switched to a different identity without any recollection. Over time, through therapy with my first doc, I’ve learned to control the manifestations of my different personalities to some degree. I can recognize the signs of an impending switch and get prepared for it. It’s being hard to accept myself like this, but I’ve learned to coexist with all the other identities. I largely attribute my success in coping with this to my therapy, and I’m devastated that I need to search for another therapist *again*! Is it typical for therapists to say they can do nothing for you? It reinforces my feeling of being a bother to everyone... I’ve actually cried this whole day...