[theeditor]

Hello, sorry for the length or if this is not the proper place to post.

I'm a 40 year old male. 15 years ago I suffered a massive head injury that went untreated (was traveling at the time), after which my life fell apart. I became introverted, socially inept, prone to impulsive behavior and child-like behavior (even child-like crying). It was like my emotional maturity was reset to an infant, then slowly matured over the years. Also there was a loss of the sensation of emotional time..like, not feeling time pass. This is all in reflection; I was not aware of it while in that state. I was even put under for a surgery within five years of the injury, which seemed to aggravate the problem.

This kept me apathetic and unmotivated for years, along with childish rages, self-harm, self-medication etc. I alienated most of my friends and didn't make more, and could not sustain a relationship. The feeling was like being a child on a Sunday, every day. Until recently, I was unable to even make the decision to investigate the head trauma as the cause, almost as if I was subconsciously avoiding it, sabotaging myself. It was like being emotionally frozen in time.

A few months ago I began to feel slight changes, like little habits or irrational behavior becoming clear where it had not before (like going sane)..then the changes began to speed up, and I found myself realizing that I had been effectively mentally ill for years, as if the last decade of my life was spent as a different person, now seen as if a movie. I went through phases where I felt an intelligence, confidence, and emotional awareness I had never felt before, some times I would feel a sort of pressure behind my eyes and ears leading up to it. Other times the manic-like state would be accompanied by speech problems and buckling knees. All very odd. My hearing and other senses seem more acute, and my speaking skills became better than they had ever been. A CT scan showed no signs of damage.

Things seem to be a roller coaster now (I've never been diagnosed with BPD or anything similar), I don't know what's happening and my doctor/therapist won't/can't understand how profound this change is and is reluctant to attribute it to the TBI. I now barely recognize the mentally ill recluse I've been for a decade, but I'm afraid this is temporary or may be something worse.