• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Why can't I ever make anything go right?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Madmaninabox

Confident
Ok guys im not ok.
The last few days have been outside my window of tolerance.
I have really bad asthma. I have since I was a kid.
I have been having a hard time breathing because I'm working on a project that involves things like cutting wood and insulation. Stuff that can irritate your lungs. I called my doctor's office and they said - breathing issues? it could be covid-19!

I was exposed to covid but I had already gotten a negative test result. Well I haven't seen my grandmother in a while I thought this is perfect I know I'm negative I have been cleared by a doctor I will go see her.

So when I called the doctor office and they said it was possibly a false negative I was really freaked out. I thought I had exposed my elderly grandmother.

So me and my whole family we're really worried and the whole time I was having trouble breathing and feeling guilty.

Finely I got another negative test result. Great this is great news... But I'm still having trouble breathing. So I call my doctors office and they tell me they are not seeing anyone with breathing issues. Even if you have a negative test result.
So that was worrying like ya I could have it I could still have given it to my grandma that sucks.

So I ask what do I do now I still can't breathe very well. She told me well you could go to the minor emergency again but they will probably just give you another covid-19 test and send you home so that probably won't help.
So you can go to the emergency room.

I didn't really want to do that because one I could be exposed to covid and two I hate going there. I went there after a suicide attempt I feel like people might recognize me I get embarrassed. But also it just brings up bad memories.

But what else was I going to do I can't breathe I need my asthma medication adjusted. So I start driving and I have a panic attack for the first time in years. My chest hurts and here is the kicker I can't do my normal breathing exercises because I'm having trouble breathing. So I pull over my car and listen to music I get through but it sucks. And I genuinely thought about calling 911 I was wondering if I was having a heart attack. At the same time I knew I was freaking out and it felt like a panic attack. So I didn't and I'm fine. Eventually that passed and I got to the emergency room.

They have to do an ekg even though when they asked if I was having chest pain I said yes but it's just a panic attack.
So I ended up there for way more time than it would have taken because they had to check out my heart.

Now's the part when It gets so much worse. I had what I was going to say to the doctor all planned out. Hello I'm basically just here because I can't see my primary care doctor and I'm having trouble with my asthma.

Well this doctor walks in I'm sure he's a great guy he just happened to remind me a lot of the person who molested me. And ok the doctor was young not a 12 year old but the youngest doctor I have ever seen. He was a young man same slender frame same hair cut and the thing that was more similar them the way he looked was his mannerisms. He walked into the room and the way he closed the door I had instant flashback to being locked in a room with my abuser. He moved in a hurry and like he wasn't paying enough attention. but then he say down and it was worse. The way he moved his hands he leaned up against the wall in a silly way. all of it everything he did scared me.

I don't know if he really was similar or I was just already freaking out and not feeling well. Either way my brain shut down.

I didn't say anything he asked what brought me in the only word I could make myself say was "breathing". And thats not an answer.

He asked me if I ever took a steroid medication for asthma when it was smoky out or I was sick. and I said "no" I literally take one twice a day every day just to function. I usually take an extra steroid pill when conditions are worse.

To which he said oh your asthma must not be that bad then if you never had to take it. I literally just nodded yes.
He asked when the last time I took my rescue inhaler was and I said "an hour not that's wrong I have no idea some time recently" again just not really answering the question.
I was there because I was having trouble with my asthma that I have super bad and I basically just told the doctor I don't take medicine for it and it's really not that bad.

I feel like an imbecile. Why do I have to make everything a million times harder than it has to be why do I have panic attacks or just shut down. Or both within a few hours. This poor doctor making his job so much harder.

I feel like I just make everyone's life's worse my own included. Everyone I have contact with is worse because of it. I have borderline personality disorder and adhd and ptsd. I feel like I just mess everything up all the time especially relationships. I really am feeling helpless and like a complete burden on everyone.

I don't want to die but I really wish I didn't exist for everyone's sake and for my own.

I'm an awful person who hurts everyone. I'm just not doing well and I don't even feel like I deserve to feel well. I have therapy tomorrow I'm just going to avoid doing anything until then.
 
It sounds like you’re seeing a general practitioner to manage your asthma. I strongly suggest seeing a pulmonologist. It’s literally their job to see people who are having breathing issues, and if they aren’t, then they’d be out of business.

While I technically have an asthma diagnosis, it boils down to having a magnesium deficiency aggravated by my medication (Trileptal). I still keep a rescue inhaler, and nebulizer on hand just in case. And while your particular kind of asthma is likely not caused by a magnesium deficiency since you’ve had it since you were a kid, it’s possible that it could be aggravated by not having enough magnesium in your system. Most people these days are magnesium deficient anyway. You don’t have to take my word for it. I actually suggest doing your own research anyway. I use a liquid ionic magnesium supplement and when my breathing is really bad, when I take the magnesium supplement, my breathing issues can significantly ease up within 15 minutes or so. This may not sound like much, but it’s hitting the root of the issue, so the effects are lasting.

This may or may not help you, but I thought I’d pass along what helps me. It took me a number of emergency room visits and an insane amount of research to figure out what was going on. Even so, the emergency room docs did tests and said “your Trileptal levels are fine!”.....which, doesn’t really matter when you’re talking about side effects for a drug. (I was willing to figure out what was going wrong because I’m near the end of the list of meds to try, and nothing else has helped me like this drug has.) But, I digress.....
 
Can you email your primary care doc and tell him that your twice daily steroid isn't working? Seems like most practices these days have a portal where you can message someone. As a steroid dependent asthmatic, the doctor will know that you need to be stepped up ASAP.

If you have ever been given recommendations like: if the rescue inhaler isn't working, double the steroid dose for a short period of time and then go back to the regular dose, you should do that, now.

If that isn't an option, why not go to another emergency room/urgent care with all of your daily medications written on a piece of paper and just hand it to the doctor when they come in the room? I have had patients do that when they couldn't communicate well for whatever reason.
 
1. Forgive yourself for kicking into fight/flight response in the hospital, and saying/doing anything you needed to in order to get the f*ck out, and get out now. It’s PTSD. It happens.

2. What @Cypress said. Follow your green/yellow/red protocols. Email your PCP, go back to the ER (with no shame necessary, flight response just happens sometimes), do what you need to do to get your o2 sats up.

3. I hear ya... my lungs have been RUBBISH for the past 18mo, or so. That’s 90% Covid (not having it, just not having access to my pulmonologist and PCP the way I’m used to having them), and 10% my climate sucks. Whilst I can usually work around this f*cking climate (cold&damp) by keeping my home/car/work in warm/dry mode, and during the worst of it escaping the damp altogether for the mountains and their cold/dry air, and indoors warm/dry... I’ve been stuck at my parents’, whose home is cold & damp, whilst all my time out of doors is cold & damp. Aaaaaargh. I’m f*cking miserable, my lungs are trashed, (which also means my anxiety is up to my eyeballs as a baseline, because that’s a noooormal response for low o2 sat) and I’ve been half living on albuterol, steroids (oral and inhaled), Sudafed (the real kind, not the antihistamine crap), and bourbon/whiskey/gin/vodka/whatever is high proof and readily available (to dilate my red blood cells and increase o2 transference)... just to stay off supplemental o2. It SUCKS. Totally unnecessary atelectasis, and pneumonia, and uncontrolled bronchiospasms, oh my. 😡 It’s temporary, for sure, but it still f*cking sucks.
 
1. Forgive yourself for kicking into fight/flight response in the hospital, and saying/doing anything you needed to in order to get the f*ck out, and get out now. It’s PTSD. It happens.

2. What @Cypress said. Follow your green/yellow/red protocols. Email your PCP, go back to the ER (with no shame necessary, flight response just happens sometimes), do what you need to do to get your o2 sats up.

3. I hear ya... my lungs have been RUBBISH for the past 18mo, or so. That’s 90% Covid (not having it, just not having access to my pulmonologist and PCP the way I’m used to having them), and 10% my climate sucks. Whilst I can usually work around this f*cking climate (cold&damp) by keeping my home/car/work in warm/dry mode, and during the worst of it escaping the damp altogether for the mountains and their cold/dry air, and indoors warm/dry... I’ve been stuck at my parents’, whose home is cold & damp, whilst all my time out of doors is cold & damp. Aaaaaargh. I’m f*cking miserable, my lungs are trashed, (which also means my anxiety is up to my eyeballs as a baseline, because that’s a noooormal response for low o2 sat) and I’ve been half living on albuterol, steroids (oral and inhaled), Sudafed (the real kind, not the antihistamine crap), and bourbon/whiskey/gin/vodka/whatever is high proof and readily available (to dilate my red blood cells and increase o2 transference)... just to stay off supplemental o2. It SUCKS. Totally unnecessary atelectasis, and pneumonia, and uncontrolled bronchiospasms, oh my. 😡 It’s temporary, for sure, but it still f*cking sucks.
Wow I'm so sorry you are going through this that sounds awful.
Good job taking care of yourself as best you can.
I understand covid is dangerous and really bad. It can cause the lung issues that your experiencing... But there has to be a better system because this can obviously be dangerous to people who have lung issues... I don't know what the plan needs to be but there has got to be a better one than this.

First off I wanted to say I'm actually doing ok. I was eventually able to calm down and tell one of the nurses what was happening and explain everything. They gave me some stuff to help me breathe and a prescription for something to take at home to keep everything going good.
I definitely have good oxygen and everything now. I feel super tiered but besides that I'm ok. My lungs are ok as long as I'm able to take care of them.

I was just mad at myself for having any kind of reaction that wasn't rational.

Thank you I needed to hear that I never forgive myself I never give myself an inch when it comes to ptsd. I feel incredibly ashamed when I let ptsd get in my way at all.
I know I was terrified I know I was in fight or flight. But I can invalidate my own experience like no other. It's like my super power.

I had therapy today and realized I was feeling super guilty about having any medical problem at all. I thought I was just being dramatic and waisting people's time. I have been diagnosed with asthma and I have to take medication and have for a long time. But I didn't know it was real. My dad told me a lot I was just being dramatic and needed to calm down and breath... My therapist explained that's not how asthma works and I was actually confused. Because ya it is that's what I have been told my whole life.

I wasn't ever traumatized by my parents... But sometimes I realize some of the things my parents did were maybe not the best thing to do. They did the best they could... They just couldn't handle emotions and a kid that can't breathe has emotions. Kids have emotions in general.

So ya I wasn't giving myself an inch with asthma so I definitely never said to myself it's ptsd it happens. Because that's in my head and not real just like asthma. I never said to myself it's asthma it happens. So giving myself any room to have a ptsd reaction is honestly really hard.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top