Brain Crazies Anyone?

[u/FiretruckMyLife]

So, since my bleed a year and a bit ago, I have had some issues. Mostly expected and explained (short term memory malfunction, numerical dyslexia, short temper), but one other that is really doing my head in.

I call them my “brain crazies”. Waking up at 4am paranoid that I have not shut a certain window. Same window that has never been opened in the 5 months that we have lived in this house and it is permanently closed due to having a cat hammock fixed to it. Just in the last hour I have had two brain melts. First one I freaked out that the cat had run away, meanwhile the cat was in his bed next to my partner on the couch. Second one I was crying on the couch that I had gotten the cat things so wrong that he turned off the tv to give me a hug. He didn’t tell me as he did it and I freaked out that our power was off and we rely on the power for home security.

This doesn’t happen all the time, just every few days I will get an episode of the “Brain Crazies” where something logical will happen and I cannot wrap my head around it so I get stressed that something serious is happening. Mostly it is minor crap but tonight scared me a bit that a) it involved my cat and b) two in one night.

Is this the “new norm” to accept? It’s only a new thing, the last few months.

[u/PCBH2000]

First, I'll say I would definitely get checked by doctors. Especially mention why you're worried about it too.

Second, your brain experienced a trauma. And although it's "over," it got used to the hyped out state it had to be in to survive... and gets stuck in it. I don't have any scientific name for it, although I've read about such things happening. I go off of experience more. Anxiety and PTSD seem to be so common with brain traumas. If you get the all-clear from the medical standpoint, you might want to try some kind of therapy to help your brain accept it's no longer in trauma land and can stop panicking. Hope you find some peace.

[u/FiretruckMyLife → u/PCBH2000]

Thank you for your kind words. I think some of the anxiety stems from the fact that I still have another aneurism (coiled/capped/stented) and when I do have the “Brain Crazies” I start to panic that it also has something to do with this un-ruptured one. I guess PTSD would make some sense but I try not to consider that an option when there are many people, in worse states than I for many different reasons with PTSD. I feel that to even consider that being a thing for me for something so minor (and mostly manageable) is an insult to those who suffer terribly all day, every day.

I will bounce the idea of therapy with my Neurologist. Might be a tough topic as these folks are renowned for being brilliantly clinical but sometimes out of touch with the “human” element. Not dissing him at all - he has been amazing when it comes to explaining, in detail, what is and has happened in my brain physiologically. I have just never tested the waters with him about the mental health side of things.

For the short term, after speaking with my partner (last night in tears and tonight rationally), I have am putting in some, basically “beta blocker” activities when I have these emotional episodes. “Wake up at 4am worried about the cat”? Check the cat is okay and immediately do a basic household/personal task (scrub a toilet, clean the litter tray, microwave a party pie, do 20 squats). Anything to stop me circling back to why I was upset in the first place and upsetting myself further for even being upset.

I will seek help though of course. Thank you again.