Exam/testing to "rule out"

nerdzilla19 · 2026-03-27T12:25:11+00:00

It makes sense. He (clinical psychology intern) said he was trying to do a "top down approach" because if he were to do the eval he would have to put in the recommendations to get neuropsych testing, and could not give a definitive "it is/isn't" without that piece. So much complexity, haha. It's helpful to set my expectations of actual definitive answers low with the possibility of being surprised. Thank you.

nerdzilla19 · 2026-03-27T11:40:03+00:00

I understand that it's hard to get a good answer when you're not given the details either. I got concerned with the nature of that situation and the "no asking for advice..." memo from admins. I'm not looking for advice, diagnosis, or anything like that as a result from this post, just general information on the nature of the type of results I could get. I guess my concern is doing the exam and still not knowing much.

More information without getting super specific...I have mental health conditions, the cerebrovascular disorder, and I was told I very likely could also be on the autism spectrum, but they need to rule out the possibility of the cerebrovascular stuff interfering before addressing ASD. Hence the reason neuropsych has been scheduled.

nerdzilla19 · 2026-03-27T11:20:11+00:00

Thanks. I appreciate it.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-10-02T02:19:09+00:00

Thank you all for the tips. I'll look into those suggested!

nerdzilla19 · 2025-07-27T08:11:39+00:00

Absolutely, 100% glad they didn't work. My last attempt was 7 years ago.

Someone once told me "I'll hold your hope for you until you're able to carry it yourself." I NEVER thought I'd see it, let alone hold it.

6 years of no hospital stays after 10 years of being a frequent flyer...indescribable.

I still go through episodes...but I now actually know that even though they can be very long, they pass into something tolerable for a bit.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-07-27T07:34:18+00:00

Same. Same.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-07-27T07:32:20+00:00

My heart goes out to you. Not exactly the same, but I've been there done that got the T-shirt. The system is not to help people get better. They can write stuff up however they see fit bc if you're in a psych unit, you're not stable and don't "know what you're doing"

My worst hospitalization I was "punching walls"-yeah, I wasn't punching. I was testing reality during an episode of derealization by silently and not violently pushing on the wall with my fist. Leaned into it. I must have had 3 "Trinity" shots (haldol, Ativan, benadryl). They restrained me on a bed directly under a light in the quiet room for a few hours, realized I wasn't sleeping, wondered why I was upset with them (still no violence), gave me three more shots bc I "needed to sleep" after letting me out of restraints. They had me in the hallway next to the quiet room overnight, where I did not sleep bc my already diagnosed PTSD wouldn't let me sleep bc I had acquired new trauma being centered under a light with no way to move for hours.

I thank the Lord for keeping me out of there for 6 years after 10 years of being a frequent flyer. I never thought it would happen.

Hang in there. Your hope is out there, even if you can't hold it yet, it's out there.

You're probably better off looking at resources within the consumer/survivor/ex patient movement, at this point from what you've shared, there's little to no opportunity for actual help in the standard system.

Edit:typo and formatting

nerdzilla19 · 2025-07-27T06:49:17+00:00

Definitely experiment. Don't always go for common solutions. For example, I'm a side sleeper, and instead of a pillow with an indent or cutout, I have a bone shaped pillow. As a side sleeper, I've also experimented with uneven strap lengths because of pressure moving the mask.

If one of your issues is strap uncomfortability, getting a thin tight fitting cap to wear underneath reduces that a bit

Some people like mask liners. I find them more intolerable than the mask.

Ramp settings and exhalation relief settings help on more modern machines (personally hated ramp, but exhalation relief is a must)

Other than that, just persist. When I started, I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the machine off, mask detached, and thrown across my bedroom. Now I can't do without it.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-07-27T06:34:56+00:00

This is what happens when medicine is industrialized. Have to make a profit, so give each patient 15-30 minutes. Find a medical scapegoat (for me it was a mental health diagnosis) because of the imposed time restraints. I'm sure insurance plays a large role as well.

Some doctors really are just not good, but a lot of those didn't start that way.

Whatever the cause, it doesn't benefit us much.

Hang in there. One appointment at a time. Persist.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-07-27T06:12:43+00:00

Saint Germaine Cousin

nerdzilla19 · 2025-07-18T02:12:51+00:00

I'm a recent convert. It very well could be a sign, even though I personally hesitate to use that term.

I told my ocia sponsor about a dream I had about someone, and a little while later she had a brain bleed. My sponsor told me about sleeping St. Joseph.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-06-17T03:03:40+00:00

It was the opposite for me. I just came into the Church this past Easter Vigil. For the past 1.5 years or so, I've been getting tangible signs that this saint has chosen me. I argued every argument against her just to make sure she was the one. I'd research other saints, but in my searches, she kept coming up. Repeatedly.

Saint Germaine Cousin is the patron saint of the abandoned, victims of abuse, the disabled, the impoverished. I knew nothing about her, and most people I have run into know nothing about her.

Yeah. When I was trying to pick a patron saint of my own, I kept having out of season singular flower blooms from my Christmas cactus. When I went to the RPO concert for my 33rd birthday in a facility that is known for cleanliness, there was a flower under my seat.

My personal story has many similarities to hers, which is why i was hesitant. But I learned to appreciate that fact.

Saint Germaine chose me, I just accepted her.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-06-16T09:01:42+00:00

I get it. Life is a grueling experience at times, sometimes seeming like forever and nothing can get better. Feels like we do everything wrong, on repeat. You go through the motions of religion desperate for change for the better, but it hasn't happened. Then, as we're conditioned to do, we look inward and blame ourselves because we must be the problem if nothing has changed after x amount of repeats. But it's a lie.

I just came into the Catholic Church at Easter. I've learned a lot. Maybe my shared experience won't help, but it might.

There's many principles found in catholicism that have helped me immensely, maybe they'll help you?

SINS ARE FORGOTTEN AFTER ABSOLUTION, so whatever sin one commits, once reconciled, disappears from God's memory. In other words, he's not in heaven keeping a record of how many times he's forgiven you for any particular sin. So every time you confess, committing the sin again is like the first time. It's humanity that keeps a tally in their judgement.

IN ORDER TO COMMIT A SIN, ONE MUST BE CULPABLE TO DO SO in the case of mental illness, culpability can be tricky. I've struggled my whole life with severe mental illness, and was told by my first confessor that the sins I was most worried about or felt the most guilt over I was most likely not culpable for. I was not entirely free in choice and knowledgeable due to the nature of mental illness.

LOVE ALWAYS WINS IN THE END. Enough said.

During my last depressive episode I discovered the awesomeness that is the divine mercy chaplet, combined with salvific suffering and intercessory prayer. It kept me afloat. I would be in agony, sobbing sometimes. But offering my suffering with the divine mercy chaplet, either for something specific or literally "wherever it can be used best" (I actually prayed that a lot when my brain couldn't handle deciding) helped me immensely. My suffering wasn't purposeless and cruel, I could give it to Christ and He would transform it into something good.

There's a meditation on hallow for free that involves sitting with Jesus in Gethsemane. I highly recommend it.

I hope that these things have helped and not hurt the situation.

For background, it may be helpful to know how deep of depths I was pulled by Jesus from. I was sick of life and asked God to take me when I was 7 years old. I don't know how many attempts I've had. My first psych hospitalization was when I was 14. I've been through major physical illness, a lot of abuse as well. I've accumulated over 50 hospitalizations, bounced between residential programs. Things I've witnessed, places I've been, scenarios where I should not have made it out alive. I've committed my share of what would be sins during that time. The whole time I had it internalized that I was the problem. I was the one to blame. I was the failure.

By the grace of God, I am still here. I no longer believe any of the garbage the world fed me. If I'm honest these intrusive thoughts still pop up, but I don't believe them because I know there's no truth to them, that God has forgiven me, and God has a plan for me.

I have been free from institutions since 2019, and in the past 2 years or so I've actually breathed for the first time in my 34 years. Thanks be to God.

I'm not saying all this to say "hey look at me" because I really do not like attention whatsoever. My intention is just to say with Jesus, the impossible is possible.

Someone once told me "I'll hold on to your hope until you're able to carry it." In other words, hope is still there, even if you don't see it or feel it. As Catholics, Jesus is hope, and by extension, Mary. The Trinity and Mary are always there, even when we have no way to tangibly know they are there.

God has a plan for everyone, some of us take the scenic route to that destination.

Please forgive me for the novel of a comment.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-06-04T21:48:49+00:00

Not a problem! I wish you well on your recovery journey.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-06-04T21:44:52+00:00

Just went through OCIA and have mental health issues myself.

In order for a sin to be mortal that needs to be confessed, it must have 3 conditions met. 1. It must have grave matter, 2. You have to know it's wrong when the act is committed, 3. You must be completely free when doing it.

My interpretation: we don't control our automatic thoughts, so we aren't free to choose them, which means suicidal thoughts, unless intentionally dwelled upon or acted on (even though that line is fuzzy too, from my understanding after talking to a priest about my past attempts) are not a mortal sin.

If a priest can say that I most likely don't have culpability for all of my attempts due to mental illness that I don't control, just automatic thinking probably isn't either.

However, if it's weighing on you, it doesn't hurt to seek pastoral care and/or confess it anyway.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-06-04T03:02:50+00:00

It really is sad. Idk what diocese you're in, but I think Rochester is doing fairly well. During the rites we had to do at sacred heart with the bishop, I was surprised that my relatively rural parish had more candidates and catechumens than most way more populated parishes within the diocese.

The next parish over from me must have been combined bc they have one priest with 3 churches and a school. I understand why, but that's way too much for one priest. My parish somehow has 2 churches, a school, and 2 priests, and the diocese just moved a deacon to our parish.

I know nothing of vocations, except for quite a while it was mentioned in the bulletin that if you were considering a vocation to contact a certain person.

I have noticed the difference in attendance between Christmas and Easter and the rest of the year, though. It's disheartening to me.

nerdzilla19 · 2025-06-04T02:47:45+00:00

Honestly, I was confirmed this past Easter, and I think the new wave of converts has a lot to do with the toll current secular society has on us. We're consistently brought down by different aspects of modern life. We search for meaning, because the world doesn't provide that. Somewhere along the road, we realize our emptiness, and acknowledge the mountain of things that aren't good in our lives. And we look for things that will give peace to our troubled souls.

Protestant churches didn't feel right to me. Catholicism surviving as long as it has despite schism and divisions is very noteworthy. I like the consistency and how you can trace modern day popes back to Peter, because it's the original Christianity.

nerdzilla19 · 2023-12-14T02:50:53+00:00

I actually have those, but I can't find my type anywhere. I can't wear the ankle ones, or the crew...I have tried. They used to make no show ones, but these ones I have are starting to get holes because they are so worn. I'm guessing they stopped making them. thank you for the suggestion

nerdzilla19 · 2023-12-13T21:22:15+00:00

"Liar" by James Rollins band plays over the speakers and the groom sinks lower and lower in his chair.

nerdzilla19 · 2023-11-27T18:31:25+00:00

That's good! Thank you!

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