[sylphchen]

hi there
i really need some advice. i am 44 years old and i had a massive stroke when i was 25, followed by a terrible depression and a suicide attempt. i refused being labeled as disabled and i did not do anything with a doctor for so many years, because i was ashamed. i don't even know of what. when i had my stroke i was kept im the er for 2 hours longer than i had waited at home (5 hours) and then they discovered it was a stroke. they misdiagnosed me as having a drug overdose. i could not talk anymore or move the right side of my body and they still thought it was due to drugs!
over the years my personality started changing. i became very timid, very anti-social and couldn't maintain my friendships because i closed myself off. i'm extremely sensitive to noises, can't understand things, my memory is shot, even blank at times and i am so slow at work that they cut my hours down from 30 to 10. i did manage to get my masters degree in library science in my 20's but it is just collecting dust on a wall. my depression is so severe that i can't sleep at night and i stay up until i pass out from exhaustion. and this even though i have a little toddler who gets up at 7. the house is a chaotic mess like my mind. i feel like something terrible is going to happen. when i tried to kill myself i was on a cocktail of 5 different antidepressants/antianxiety meds. i have been on everything there is out there and one day i decided to stop. then i started drinking, every day, from when i was 25 until i was 40, just to numb the pain and forget it all. also when you're drunk, people don't notice that anything was wrong, and it made me a bit more social. then i started blacking out at 40 and got pregnant, so i quit that too. it was not hard, because i did not really like drinking. my mind is in chaos and i just ramble through my days and don't really know what is going on. i am extremely lonely and the biggest problem is that no one believes me, because you can't really "see" what is wrong with me. i used to be a fairly intelligent person, but now i feel mentally so disabled that i just feel dumb. i let people walk all over me and just can't get anything out when i want to say something back. i went to a neurologist who said, "yep she's had a stroke, but she looks just fine" and ushered me out the door. my right hand and foot are still cramped up and turned inward and my face is drooping on the right side. in my brain i'm deteriorating. it is getting worse every day.
i'm sorry this is so long, but i needed to get this off my chest. any advice at all, a support group, a doctor in the minneapolis area, or even just words from someone who understands would help so much. thank you so much.

[Kitty]

Hello and welcome to NeuroTalk.

You've found the appropriate forum for your condition but I'd like to suggest that you post in the New Members thread also. This forum doesn't get the traffic that New Members does and you may get more responses if you post in both. It's totally up to you.....I just wanted to suggest that. And welcome you to this site. Lots of very supportive and friendly people here.

Here's a link to the New Members forum.......http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum88.html

[Bashful_one]

Hi Sylphchen. I realize this was posted quite awhile back, but I just read this post and wondered if you were still around. I am now 49 and had a massive right sided stroke when I was 29. I totally understood exactly how you felt, except for a couple of differences, it could have been me who wrote your post.