There are a few ways my brain is affected. The docs think I'm nuts but I'm really not, I'm just describing the way this problem "feels" to me. It feels like there's a physical thing in my amygdala and to a lesser extent in the left cerebral cortex. I can work around some of it but it does often play havoc with some functions. Thought is mostly "unaffected" by this but proceeds abnormally. The result is the same it's just a different route. The gabapentin severely reduces my ability to see connections between disparate phenomena. The pain severely reduces my ability to focus and maintain my attention because it seems to require a small part of my attention to suppress the pain all the time. This can be largely overcome as well but but makes learning extremely difficult since the only way I know to learn is with full attention. Everything has to be broken up into two or three minute bits.

My memory is getting pretty bad. This runs in the family a little but I think this is independent of that because it seems to wax and wane with other symptoms.

For a while I was getting to the point that even paying bills and everyday responsibilities were tough but this seems to be easing a little. It might just be a change in habits since I now do things like pay bills right away rather than living on the edge as I was accustomed to. Short term memory comes and goes while the one minute memory tends to be where some of my big problems are. Walking into a room and forgetting why or going on an errand and forgetting the reason. The doctor thinks some of this is medication and I have no reason to doubt it.

One of the medications causes visual and olfactory hallucinations but if I keep the dosage low enough they are under control.

I had a breakdown when all this was coming to a head a few years ago. I just got to a point that I realized I didn't know what to do next. I couldn't do anything at all. All avenues were closed and I was a quivering mass of pain and fear wholly unable to function and barely able to ask for help.

I really feel fairly good now but the problem never gets very far away. They never gave me my papers despite repeated requests though.

I finally have doctors that I have some confidence in and I doubt the medication regimine can be much improved. All the reuptake inhibitors bother me and the depakote seems to take care of the ups and downs a little and provide a little analgesic effect.

I'm the same person I was but it might be hard to see from the outside.