I have no idea if anything is wrong at all with the gray play-doh in my skull, and yet something undeniably feels very wrong with it. Had I not been a writer I wonder if I'd ever noticed it, but even as I typed that phrase, I accidentally wrote 'had I been a writer' rather than 'had I not been', and didn't notice the error for two minutes or so. And then, when I typed that phrase with the correction, I didn't notice for at least another two minutes that I forgot to include the word 'that.' And as I typed that next correction, it took me roughly five tries to remember how to spell 'phrase,' and all throughout, there have been other multiple spelling, grammar, and conceptual errors, some of which I can't remember even the moment after I correct them, and some I haven't noticed until minutes later. In any given sentence, I will mistype and misspell as many as 40-50% of the words or more, and without spellcheck I'm pretty sure I would no longer remember how to spell them - and spelling was always a skill I found preternaturally easy.
I don't remember exactly when the trouble began, it may have been as early as ten years ago, but recently, it's gotten much much worse. Things which don't happen to me start happening, and then more things. I don't necessarily even know how else to describe them but 'things.'
First remembering words became hard, then spelling became hard, then recalling certain details from pieces of music I'd memorized in my head when I was a child - and I must sheepishly admit that I've got thousands of hours logged up here...., and then I would start typing different words from the words I was trying to write, and then I would mis-type simple prepositions, like using 'for' when I mean 'of.' And I suppose it's only beginning to happen in speech, and I don't know if anybody else notices it, but I notice it, and it's not necessarily anything at all but getting older, but it does frighten me.
And all throughout that, there are also physical symptoms: I started noticing them when I went to sleep as many as eight or more years ago, twitching extremities as I lay in bed, and something commonly referred to as 'exploding head syndrome,' meaning that I would literally hear something that sounds like bombs going off that would jolt me awake. I noticed it was in conjunction with when I felt thirsty, so I began drinking unreasonable amounts of water and that generally restored things and I would feel this gigantic rush of blood or endorphins or electrolytes to the front of my head. But all throughout the years the occurrences would get more frequent. And then I would notice numbness on the side of my face, numbness that would eventually go to my limbs and all throughout my body. It would be a kind of dizziness, and I would continually keep moving my arms because they felt sufficiently numb that I wasn't sure I was able.
All thoughout this, I just figured it all was simple dehydration, and through my thirties I must have drank the entirety of Lake Michigan. But then, I don't know exactly how many years ago it was, but these physical jolts would begin to happen when I was awake. I was the only one who noticed them, but they were most definitely there, I felt them, and it was very different than a simple bodily tic, of which I can assure you, dear listener, I have ample experience of what that feels like because I have experienced them waxing and waning lo these thirty years. These tics were so entirely unvoluntary that it sometimes it was as though I felt electric zaps in my head followed by a bodily jerk, not ever connected to anxiety until after they happened. They were simply physiological, and they were generally seemed to stop when I was experiencing that mostly pleasant head rush in my forehead.
There are three substances that seem to combat this tic-laden fog, dear listener, one is water, one is fruit, and one is beans. Yesterday, because this has obviously never been the only way in which I'm mentally incapacitated, I bought roughly a hundred dollars in berries. The cashier looked at it and just exclaimed 'OH MY GOD!'
When I began writing two days worth of podcasts, the tics were particularly terrible, and no words were coming to me, who seems to vomit out eight-hundred words every day in his sleep. I've probably eaten forty dollars worth of those berries today, and before that ate a large can of pinto beans. Whether it's anti-oxidants, or electrolytes, or psychosomatism, the words have at least come back along with the headrush.
But even now, dear listener, I'm feeling this pleasant rush in my forehead, and the jerks continue every few seconds, always in a different place. They still seem to be made worse whenever I eat something with too much salt, but they're always there,.
I'm getting an MRI soon, I'm also seeing a movement specialist. I hope to hear that I'm as crazy as we all, I, my editor, and my two listeners, know I am. But there is also a chance that the craziness of my brain has taken its toll, and the insanity of yesteryear is but a foreshadowing of a descent soon to come.
Either way, I hope yet to be well enough to document it for decades hence.
Hear you tomorrow, dear listener.
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