The Conundrum

So I've been hallucinating for about a month and a half without the aid of substances, and I've been having a three week long headache to go with it. I've been describing the hallucinations to my doctor, and finally he tells me "They're not psychiatric in nature. They're organic. Essentially, they're either caused by lingering chemical activity from hard drugs, or a mass in your brain."
Hard drugs meaning; PCP, crystal meth, mushrooms, acid...the fun stuff. Stuff I've never done. So I'm stuck thinking I have a mass in my brain for the past few days, either a tumor or an aneurism. I try to stay positive, as the headaches aren't severe, and my doctor doesn't seem to think I have a mass. Anyway, I schedule an MRI for this friday at 10:45 AM. This morning I wake up from a horrible nightmare and have a very sharp pain in the top of my head, as opposed to the general dull pain all over my head that's been going on for the past few weeks. The pain increases in severity for about 15 minutes, then goes away for a few hours and comes back, only to build up again and leave. I go to the ER and tell them what's going on, and get an emergency MRI as well as some bloodwork. They test me for drugs via blood and urine, then send me into the massive magnetic chamber. I wait for 5 hours total to find out nothing is physically wrong with me. I'm told I'm not hallucinating, that the things I'm seeing are peculiarities in my sight that have suddenly occurred. This doesn't explain the waves of color I see when I close my eyes, the people and shapes I've seen in my peripheral vision, the shadows that gather in my room when I turn off the lights (I can no longer sit alone in a dark room), or the fucking squirrel I saw running around on my girlfriend's wall that turned out to be a damned dream catcher. I'm apparently not seeing any of this. The headache I can deal with, I've had migraines before and the current aches aren't really much compared to what I've experienced, except they don't lessen in severity with painkillers.
So, either I have something wrong with me that can't be tested for yet, or everything I see is real.

 

ITT tasty creepypasta.

 

Have you tried training for a marathon? Usually helps get rid of excess energy. If that doesn't help, then welcome to the human mind, neither neurologists nor psychologists know exactly how it works, and just toss out random theories.

 

Can't you get a second opinion about what's wrong with you from a specialist or something? Clearly your current doctor is having difficulty diagnosing your problem, and making you think you might have a brain tumour certainally wasn't a great move on their part either. It's always nice to know definitively what's wrong with you, be it a physical or mental problem, so maybe it would be good to find someone who has the answer.

Also TimothyXL is right, exercise is supposed to help with mental conditions. I'm sure it helps primarily with depression yet I'd imagine exercise might ease the symptoms of other mental conditions too.

 

Yes, you really should get a second opinion from a specialist. Several things come into my mind. Like using, the wrong medication or perhaps it could be possible schizophrenia. However, that does not explain the severe headaches.

 

Man, you crazy.

 

That's actually pretty awesome. You can be a world famous artist (painter for example). Craziness is a big plus when someone asks you what's your inspiration.
Good thing is, you don't even have to be any good. Just draw some shit a 5-year old would laugh at and you're good to go.

 

Hey it works for the Australian Aboriginals.

 

Now I'm only just thinking this, because the logic makes sense, but I'm not sure if the reality suits...

What if, based on your previous lifestyle, your brain is hardwired to see these things? As we grow, our brain continually makes connections based on what we perceive. Once we reach a certain age, however, our brain begins pruning back the connections that we haven't used in a while - and therefore don't need.

Most of the time, this pruning manifests as dreams, but perhaps with you, they manifest as hallucinations because, frankly, that's what you're used to.

And then perhaps the headaches are different altogether. Pain is produced either by the nerves being overstimulated. Possible causes include introduction of foreign objects, absence of bodily objects, increase of pressure, deficiency or too much of a nutrient or chemical, injury, disruption of signals... the list goes on.

It will be a long process, but I suggest following the ICT diagnostic rule - hardware, operational, software. If it's not your body, it could be your behaviour; if it's not your behaviour, it's your thinking. Headaches, unlike most other forms of pain, cannot be fucked around with - you need to keep trying to get rid of the source.

Get well soon, Gross.

 

If it is behaviour related as Jazintha Piper reckons then maybe CBT might help. In any case it would probably help with this:

CBT from my understanding is about managing stress, anxiety and emotions not "considering the source" - it's not about delving into your past for answers so the source is usually quite irrelevant. It's about consciously changing your behaviour to overcome that what's bothering you, and then empirically observing and recording if you are feeling better or worse allowing the results to speak for themselves in time. Anyway, it's maybe something you could look into if you feel like it might help.

Also if you're a big drinker that can make things worse too, so if you do drink heavily maybe you should lay off the sauce for a while.

 

Considering your sensitivity to weed, it wouldn't be surprising. Or that crap you told us you have smoked once.

 

So far, I think TimothyXL has offered the best advice. Try increasing exercise.

 

Maybe you're just really bored. Similar to those people with such monotonous, repetitive lives subconsciously creating and living more interesting secondary lives.

 

Vision problems? Have you seen an eye doctor yet to see if the problem is orginating in your vision? I read that the eye itself possesses grey matter (brain matter) that it is uses for processsing the visual before it sends the information to the brain. So maybe the hallucinations are originating in the eyes.


LSD can be absorbed by the skin, have you ever been near others who used the stuff and might have transferred some onto you without your knowledge?


In "I am Spock" by Leonard Nimrod, he tells of his experience as playing Spock and notes that the suppression of his emotions in order to play the role resulted in emotional outbursts during his downtime as his pent-up emotions tried to recalibrate themselves back to normalcy. If you are suppressing your anger, this can be creating a buildup of stress, while also "concentrating the acidity of anger" (making your anger more potent).

Excersise = Good Stress Reliever

 

The MRI would have shown whether or not there was any suspicious chemical activity going on in my brain. There was nothing.

I've already started a new exercise plan that should prevent my belly from jiggling when I brush my teeth.

My psychiatrist thinks the hallucinations aren't psychiatric in nature because nothing he does helps me. However, I'm more inclined to think nothing he does helps me because not all people respond to medication. Some of what he's given me actually made the hallucinations worse. Now, while it's shown medication is only effective in 65 percent of cases, the fact that none of the medications work on me is extremely unlikely, though not impossible. My doctor tends to think it's impossible. I'm actually relieved that I'll not be under his care for much longer.

 

Do you have a brain tumour?

 

No brain tumor, no aneurism, no chemical activity (that shouldn't be there).
Just a boring case of psyche meds not working for someone with schizoaffective disorder.

 

What an age we live in.

 

Its not a tumour!

 

Gross, have you tried a lobotomy yet?