TL;DR especially if you're grossed about human anatomy.
I lost my mind back in November of last year when I woke up one morning with excruciating abdominal pelvic pain. Turned out to be an inflamed colon (don't know how or why I had an inflamed colon.) I went through a series of tests; blood work, colonoscopy, panendoscopy, stool samples and urine samples. In my urine samples they found high levels of porphyrins, so I was referred to Hematology & Oncology. Had more stool and urine samples taken, and was diagnosed with an unspecified porphyria (rare blood disorder).
Since the time I had an inflamed colon until now I've went from 226lbs down to 155lbs: 71lbs lost in total. I lost the weight because I became afraid to eat, and every time time I did, I would just end up in pain and defecating it out less than 30 minutes later. The primary things I did eat consistently were mostly bland; Boost nutritional drinks, scrambled eggs and toast. I didn't get much sleep either due to the pain, even though I already have insomnia. The most sleep I would get would be 2-4 hours, if I was lucky. I was constantly having panic attacks, too. My clonazepam didn't help, or the xanax I bought, and neither did smoking marijuana. I was also very stressed to the point I ended up smoking two packs of cigarettes in one day, because all the symptoms I was experiencing matched up to an acute porphyria, and it was a diagnosis I really didn't want to have.
Fast forward to today: I still can't gain weight even though I eat. I still experience abdominal pelvic pain and now rectum pain because I have a grade 1A hemorrhoid (which I also have an irrational fear of from childhood. Basically anything that has to deal with the anus. I know it sounds dumb, but it hurt to defecate when I was a child. Also learning your anus can prolapse didn't help either, which I learned at a young age by reading an AOL article about how a pregnant woman's vagina and anus both prolapsed going to the bathroom) and I can't defecate without using an enema or suppository. It's like the defecation reflex is no longer there anymore no matter how I hard I try going. I'm still constantly stressed that my brain always hurts, I can't sleep, still, for the life of me. I'm taking medications that seem like they're not doing a damn thing. And I'm my father's caregiver since he had a seizure one night at home, and then numerous strokes once he was at the hospital.
My father is now a type 2 diabetic, has COPD, hypertension, and lost his peripheral vision in his left eye (I'm sure there's more diagnoses, but I have no idea where my mother puts his paperwork.) His memory is still iffy, he walks into things, slurs his words, can't cook for himself or do a blood glucose reading or give himself insulin. So, while my mother is at work all day (and she has health issues herself: COPD, had a triple bypass last year because she was so close to having another heart attack she would've died, and a type 2 diabetic) I have to do all of that for him because he fucked himself over at outpatient OP/PT/ST (while I helped him with his exercises and homework) because he's a stubborn asshat that now does nothing but constantly bitch and complain all the time.
My entire life he's done nothing but emotionally abuse me, which is a hell of a lot worse now after his strokes. He also doesn't want a stranger in the house taking care of him and wants me to get paid, even though it's not much, and all the money I do make goes to my mother to help pay for bills, groceries, and medications/medical supplies. I also ended up losing my ex-fiancé who I thought was my soulmate, but apparently not after I got sick, and then what happened to my father. Everything was going great until November of last year; was a medical assisting college student, and only had two more semesters to go, planned on buying a new car, getting married this year. Now my life is just one big shitfest. I am so tired of being stressed out, emotionally abused, and being in mental and physical pain all the time. I just want peace.
I'm sorry you had to read this terrible post. But, if you have any questions, please feel free to PM me. I get on SS when I have the downtime.