Where did my life go?

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First, sorry, this will be a little long.

I'm that type of person who really dislike to disrupt others with my burdens, and in this context, whenever I do have problems I therefore prefer to keep them to myself, in addition to solving them on my own. But lately there has been so many uncomfortable changes in myself emotionally that I now am struggling to go through it all alone. Recently i have started to "look" at my future in a gloomy manner, a mode of thought that is aggravated each passing day. Gradually I have distanced myself from others, this by isolating myself at home most of the day, which I feel deeply ashamed of..

Something that has affected me a lot lately is the idea that large parts of my life has been squandered, and left this big hole where there really should have been memories. Please do not judge me when I tell you this, since it to me is a very sensitive and shameful topic, but from the time I was 15 until I was 18 1/2, I spent much of my time confined in a hospital undergoing treatment of Anorexia. The time I spent there, caused a lot of pain, I lost most of my friends, my dad rarely came to visit me (in contrast to my mom, my grandmother etc.), I also experienced differential treatment by those who worked there (to mention some, the other patients had more freedom to go out and join activities than i did, this without a valid reason. I also experienced If I had managed to achieve a goal, but not sufficient enough, I got a punishment for it immediately, whilst other patients seemed to let more easily away with it.)

Anyway those years I've spent in that hospital didn't gain me anything good, if it did something it only caused me suffering and pain. The very last time i was discharged (when i was 18 1/2), I came out as a girl with low self-confidence, and felt even more erratic about the "outside" world now than I had ever been. The last four years i have struggled to find back to myself again, as if the real me is still locked up in that hospital. I've become depressed and have turned very self-critical. I so bad want that part of my life I was deprived of back, and the knowing that i never will drags me down. it does not help much either when there are problems within the family, nor that my nearest and dearest does not seem to have much faith in me, and that I can achieve my dreams and goals. It's like I've got a permanent stamp on my forehead saying "once anorexic always anorexic". I've managed to maintain my weight ever since i got out of the hospital, not to mention the fact that I've lived alone in my own apartment since then. But it almost feels as if my relatives does not want me to move forward/progress in my life. This has prevented me from doing the things that I actually have had the desire to do, since I instead the last 4 years has been more committed to satisfy my families wishes..

So now i am sitting here, realizing that 8 years of my life, 8 irretrievable years i have virtually lived as a marionette: If determined enough i would have been able to break myself out of the "strings" holding me back, but instead i chose to give into the manipulator's directions, ignoring my own desire to move towards other directions.

And so what now is causing me to feel even more depressed, is a fear of that my life might come to an end soon. I know that it sounds stupid, and irrational, and for the most part i do not think i'm going to die in a near future, but I've had some strange symptoms which makes me concerned that I might be seriously ill. I have found a lump at the top of my wrist, i have found a few lumps (that comes and goes as pleases) in the groin area, whenever i brush my hair i seem to lose some, I lose weight even if I eat what I need to maintain weight, I'm exhausted and tired even when I have slept out, In addition, I have mood swings, fluctuating headache and some abdominal pain.
At the point i fear it might (at worst) be cancer. Both of my great grand parents (the parents of my grand mother) died of abdominal cancer, my great grand mother with spreading. I've been to the doctors to check before but she didn't take my worries seriously, so now i am being transferred to a new doctor. I won't get an appointment before some time during next month, having waited so long, especially when the symptoms have persisted over a long period, makes me even more anxious. If i was to be sick then i will die without actually having lived my life..

Excuse my gloominess

Here is one possible way to deal with the concept of "wasting your life":

Exactly one of the following three is true......

(1.) You will exist forever, and what you do in this world doesn't affect your afterlife.
In this case, the afterlife accounts for 100% of your total "lifespan", and so your finite life before the afterlife is not something which will haunt you in the long run.

(2.) You will exist forever, and what you do in this world affects your afterlife.
In this case, you should spend your time in this world figuring out how to get the best afterlife.

(3.) You will eventually stop existing.
In this case, in some sense there is no such thing as "wasting your life". It's going to be thrown away no matter what you did with it.

1) You're 22. You're just a baby. There's plenty of time to yet waste.

2) Use doctors to make sure you don't have cancer.

3) After you did that, and made sure you don't have cancer, start taking Astaxanthin.

There are medical studies that suggest that Astaxanthin prevents cancer.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19423215
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21628881
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21620794
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22889354

There is also one study that suggests that Astaxanthin does prevent cancer, but if you already have cancer, it may accelerate cancer cell growth: http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/30/6/2171.long

However that is conflicting somewhat with the rest of the studies, which claim that it initiates self-destruct of cancer cells.

That's why I am telling you to make sure you DON'T have cancer, and then start taking Astaxanthin daily. One 4-5mg capsule should be safe as a preventative measure, as long as you take it for years and years. I recommend Viva Labs and Nutrigold brands on Amazon.

4) If you have abdominal pain and it's stomach related (gastritis, indigestion), try taking Dr's Best Pepzin GI (also on Amazon). It is a miracle drug invented in Japan that is VERY safe and acts like a band-aid for your stomach. It adheres to inflamed areas and stays there, increasing healing speed by 300% and promoting normal stomach mucosa.

According to my calculations and experience, it's safe to take up to 8 capsules of it a day. The studies only used 4, however. I take up to 12, but thats because I am healing a more serious stomach problem.

Hey Monolithe,

Don't worry about sharing burdens. Thinking about someone else's burden can be a positive distraction from our own, for the rest of us here.

It seems to break down to these areas

- Regret/Sadness over lost years
- A group of symtoms and worry it might be a serious illness
- Low confidence your life will progress

Lost years - Irretrievable, but there may be things buried there, lessons you can learn.

Symtoms/Illness - Getting medically checked out to see if it is a serious illness is current priority. Do all you can to make it earliest possible date, but once you have made the arrangements try to put it out of your mind temporarily by distraction. Worrying won't help you find out any sooner but instead make the time more depressing. Most all of these symtoms are common and can occur for multiple reasons. Hair loss is very common and can be caused just by an especially stressful period, or many other things (diet deficiency, etc.). Often once the situation is improved it will come back. (Been there and had the little frizzies for a while). Stomach pain can be very many things. Lumps are also common, particularly at joints. Overuse, injury, Rhuematoid arthritis are some causes. Fatigue is also caused by many things. I'm no Doctor but at a layman's glance I do not see any cancer pattern here. Hair loss and Lumps are not symtoms of stomach cancer.

Low Optimism on Life Progressing - Very understandable when you think you might have a serious illness. Most everyone gets scares like this a few times in life and most times it just turns out to be a scare. It is resolvable however by getting it thoroughly medically checked out. Once you get past that you can focus on 1) improving your physical & mental health and 2) focusing on your own planning. Even if you do not have a serious illness, you do have some medical issues to resolve or stabilize. Planning and working towards your goals will snap the binding cords naturally. In other words if you had a controlling parent for example, you do not solve the problem by just seperating from the parent by any means. Instead you focus on your own life and goals and at some point it will pull you away naturally and with lessoned friction/confrontation. Members in your family may easily develop distorted atitudes/behaviors in response to your extended illness.

Have you had your thyroid checked?

I lost most of my life to not realizing I could never be like "normal" people because I wasn't born normal.

About the medical issues and getting medically checked at earliest possible date, i did try to get checked about a year ago when i first noticed that hard lump in of my wrist. Five day's after having found it, i and upon addressing my concerns to the doctor, they just sent me back home without doing anything to find out what it could be, they didn't even come up with thoughts about what it could possibly be.
So after having been there, i figured that hey if they didn't even bother to check out the lump on my wrist properly, then it's probably nothing of importance. But in late August of this year, the time i started to have other symptoms, i got an appointment with my doctor, to get that checked. She did take some random blood tests, but again even with her when i asked if she knew what the lump on my wrist could be, and whether it could be examined, she ignored what i had said and started talking about something else. (LOL no wonder people are discussing possible cancer conspiracy's, that doctors, medical workers etc. wan't patients to get sick so that they can earn money xP )

Nono, i didn't mean that hair loss or lumps could be signs of stomach cancer, but that made me think about my great grandmother who experienced spreading, her cancer had spread before she got to the point of being sick enough to go to get a check up on her condition.I'm not a hypochondriac, but I was a little more attention to the previous illnesses within the family when I am now experiencing several symptoms at a time.

You know controlling parents like you mentioned, that's the thing here, mine aren't controlling in that manner (my dad used to be when i was younger in fact he was really strict, so strict that my cousins ​​and my grandmother was a little afraid of him at times). The people who are more controlling of what i am to do etc. are my aunts and my grandmother. Whenever i have talked to them about things i would like to do, usually they always response by saying things like "What if you fail? I think it's best and safest if you stay here.. What if you lose your weight again?" yadda yadda.. With them i feel stuck in the past, it's like their blind to how much i have changed, and how mature i am in comparison with several others at my age. For example in late 2011 when i was to travel to Paris alone, all the while my grandmother and aunts were to do the same, but the meaning that since I stayed at a different hotel, I would spend some of my time there to do what I wanted, and meet them occasionally for example if they were to go to points of interest or restaurants in the evening. It ended up with them persuading me that I had to follow with them most of the time, since paris according to them was not that safe. Although my hotel was 5 minutes away from theirs, it also always ended the evening up with that they would follow me all the way back to my hotel, before heading return to theirs. Of course I am happy that I have a family that cares about me, but now that I'm an adult, I know that it's important to me that they show me that they have faith in me and trust that I make the right choices. They should know by know since, I've never been that girl who experiments with drugs, do criminal acts etc, Aka. this girl her has basically lived by the good-girl syndrome.

I think i will sit down someday and talk to my aunt and grandmother about how i feel about their approach on my wishes and goals for my life, and how important it actually is for me to start doing the things I want to. Maybe they will understand better if i tell them why i need to do it.

No i haven't. How does that work?

Getting the proper medical treatment isn't always automatic, as you have seen with your experience. It is a very common occurance to be sort of brushed aside. The important thing is to have your concerns addressed to your satisfaction. A few things I do are: Write down my concerns, just brief notes like a list to refer to during my appointment. If I do not get satisfactory responses I try to be assertive and bring it up a second time before leaving. Bring in a family member (like your Mother), familiar with the condition, with you to the appointment. This will show the doctor you are serious and they will have a harder time brushing you both off. Trusting your doctor is important, and if you do not feel comfortable with them, look in to getting another. Don't be afraid of hurting anyone's (medical staffs) feelings. Ultimately you have only yourself to ensure that you get adequate treatment. Look at it as your job.

It does sound like it is a case of over-protectiveness, but that they mean well. That is quite easy to develop with people who have been seriously ill or are handicapped, etc. It can also be difficult or at least a process with your family making the transistion from thinking of you as a girl to an adult on equal footing. Your idea about sitting down and talking about it is very good. You never know how a conversation will work out, but even if it is not resolved on the spot, it may over time and with additional conversations. Some people take time to process and accept things.

Paris! What a interesting but crazy city. So many great things to visit, but watch out for that afternoon traffic. And tourist price gouging too. If you get a good guide book it can tell you how to not get ripped off. For example one trick I like is for lunch don't eat on the main thouroughfares. Instead follow the laborers into the side streets and go where they eat for their lunch break. The food will be good, there will be more of it, and it will cost 50-75% less. But the guidebooks will tell you which side neighborhoods are safe, for it still is not a good idea, even in Paris, to just go off into unknown districts.

Someone said thyroid...I second that. Sounds like someone I used to know very well. It also caused her to feel emotionally very low at times.

Please go and get it checked out. Today. Tell the doctor the exact symptoms you have just written.


Sounds positive - you are recognising that you have choice.

You're 22. You don't have to 'be' your past. It's gone, as much as you can let it go.

I wish you well.