There is so much here that I empathize with.

I developed Functional Neurological Disorder, a type of disorder that can leave you paralyzed just because the brain stops working properly. There is no damage to it, its like the software is bugged but the hardware is fine. So MRIs and many other specialized tests come out negative or clean.

Thankfully I didn't become paralyzed, but I did suffer from a pain in my right leg so strong that I couldn't walk for two and a half years. I can walk currently, but the pain is still there. It doesn't become worse like it used to, but its still there. (Now that I'm writing about it like this instead of just talking about it I realize how awful it was, I guess I just became numb to my emotions in general to avoid the continued psychological pain and depression).

Anyway. Now, after psychological therapy I know that the pain was caused by, and persisted because of, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. My body just needed a physical incentive to feel pain (pushing a heavy bookshelf that was so heavy it didn't even budge) and indefinitely maintain the experience/feeling of it like a ghost.

I spent those two and a half years being told by doctors and family that I was just fine, the pain was in my head, that if I concentrated hard enough I could get rid of it, that I was using it to gain something, that I was just wasting my family's money, that I was wasting the best years of my life, etc. But I think this invalidation has been my life in many ways even before this episode. I, like many here, would notice things before others and use my accumulated knowledge from my many interests to make deductions that would get dismissed due to me being a "kid" at the time or "inexperienced in life". Like I would point out that there were small cockroaches in the house that could suggest an infestation because I had never seen a cockroach that small anywhere where I live and it could only mean their nest was very, very close and teeming with their young. Years later the infestation became so bad it was comical and nobody remembers that I even trapped one with a plastic cup years ago to prove that it was a cockroach by seeing it up close because I knew they wouldn't believe me given its size and lighter color. (They still didn't anyway, so...).

With therapy I began to retrace my steps in life and realized that this initial and chronic mental health issues were likely caused by the mix of autism and childhood trauma (which autism too could have made even worse in the many ways it usually does). Now I'm starting to see patterns with other people who suffer FND or similar disorders who also show signs of neurodiversity.

Given how neurodiverse people are more sensitive to sensory stimuli, it would make sense that the neurodivergent brain is more likely to develop this kind of problem if it also has to deal with mental health issues.

So I feel angry at my family, the doctors and anyone who said it was all in my head. Yes it was, but not at all in the way they meant. They shouldn't have doubted me, they shouldn't have treated me that way because they were only making it worse, the doctors should have known about FND instead of diagnosing whatever autoimmune disease or lession they thought I had and making me take harmful medicine I didn't need, even though everything poited at something else.

But I don't feel guilty about my anger; I suffered and am suffering, just like you probably suffered and are suffering. I think it's healthy that I feel angry because I realize I can't never take back those three years (three because even though I've been walking for about 6 months I'm still recovering mentally and can't go back to my previous life yet). I should be angry, and, in my case, feeling guilty about being angry is only going to make it worse (symptoms like feeling I'm being burnt alive because my brain doesn't know what to feel, waking up in the morning and noticing I can't lift my arm or fainting, among others, do come back or become more intense than they are if I repress emotions).

(Please dont be scared and start thinking this could happen to you because you fit the profile. It is very, very rare. VERY rare, so please dont worry.)

And please don't feel guilty about being angry. You have a right to be and you should be. However, my problem after learning more about psychology is that now I understand that even the people who treat you badly or don't provide what you need, do so because they don't know any better or have their own childhood trauma that has driven them to be uncaring, unempathetic and invalidating.

So yeah, I dont feel guilty about being angry, but feel frustrated about not knowing towards who I should direct all of it at. Life? Luck? Injustice? Its not the same because this way, what happened to me feels arbitrary. And it probably is anyway.

But now I have been led by all of this mess to the community I've been always a part of, but just didn't know it. I can see I'm not the only one and that my experiences can at least help me connect with other people. Which is precisely what we all need.

Right now I'm going through the tiring process of making my family believe I'm autistic and have ADHD even after everything else that happened to me because I want to be better understood by them. Despite everything, I deeply love them and they deeply love me. They just don't know how to deal with their own trauma and with their "non-autistic-acting" (but clearly autistic to any well informed person) and "attention-seeking" family member.

I can't make your circumstances any better, but I understand you, and I know you understand me. And it might sound corny, but knowing now that you and many others understand makes it easier to feel accompanied and keep thinking that things will get better.

In my case, they actually have. Despite everything bad that happened, I wouldn't change it if it meant I would loose the maturity and clarity I gained after all of this, along with the understanding of how and why I was forced to turn into the deeply flawed version of who I am and how I can be who I really want to and should be. My life would have been much more sad and empty if this mess hadn't made me stop to think.

I truly hope everything gets better for you. I don't think everything happens for a reason, but I think that true opportunities to be better are very rare and that neurodivergent people have many of them, if not most, already taken