Conversion Disorder and What it Means For Me

I was diagnosed with Conversion Disorder in 2019 after a series of medical tests with no conclusive cause. The doctor who finally told me this was likely the diagnosis was a kind, knowledgeable doctor who is so good at explaining things in a way that I could understand. 

Conversion Disorder is similar to PTSD in its root cause, starting after a physical trauma or intensely stressful situation. For me that was my experience giving birth to my son, George, in 2016. I had lost so much blood that when I tried to scoot upward to eat that I suddenly couldn't breathe. I've written about this experience before and how grateful I was to the team of nurses and doctors who saved me from going into Cardiac Arrest. 

It felt like I had sustained nerve damage in my left arm for over a year after all of the blood transfusions, but when it was confirmed that I have Protein S Deficiency, I realized that it could have been any number of issues from nerves to blood clots. 

I was also bedridden for weeks. Too dizzy and short of breath to do much of anything. This was a painfully long recovery, and likely the physical trauma that led to conversion disorder, although I had no clue what that was at the time.

I had several small bouts of fatigue and weakness that I attributed to being out of shape. I was "weak" and "lazy". I needed to push myself more. And so I did. And then I would be in bed for two weeks recovering each time.

In 2018 I went with Justin to a library conference in New Orleans and completely overtaxed myself physically, but it was amazing, and I had a wonderful time. 

Ten days later I began to feel a tremor in my left hand. Over the next few weeks, the tremor spread to both hands. It felt like my skin was always buzzing. My speech began to suffer, because my mind felt a weight on it. I couldn't speak as fast, and I developed a stutter. 

I began to lose strength in my hands at random times, and I kept dropping things by mistake. Within a month I began to lose coordination in my legs. I needed a cane to keep from falling, and for a short time I borrowed a wheelchair. 

A doctor suggested it might be MS, but by the time I was able to see a neurologist and get an MRI, over three months of this had passed. I was on the tail end of it. I could walk carefully without a cane (though I still felt more confident when I had it with me).

Every test was normal. The neurologist suggested I see a therapist, and I was frustrated at his obvious skepticism. I wasn't faking it. Why would anyone fake this?

Months later I found a new doctor, because I was having pain in my ribs. Turns out I had a few dislocated ribs, but that's neither here nor there. 

When we went over everything that had happened in 2018 and all the little problems I've had with anxiety wearing me out, he said, "It sounds a lot like conversion disorder." I had never heard of that, but as he explained it and we discussed medicines to help treat anxiety, I felt hopeful.

Over the next year I tried to take it easy, being careful not to overtax myself, failing at times, succeeding other times. I do feel the anxiety medicine helped me get back on my feet a lot faster though.

In the early fall of this year I felt stronger out of nowhere. More excited and energetic. It felt like a hypomanic episode, but who was I to deny the gifted surge of energy. And I did a LOT. I worked on several art projects and challenges, wrote stories, moderated twitch streams like a champion. I was supermom, supermod, and I was finally accomplishing personal goals. I felt unstoppable.

Then came Thanksgiving. Our home had suffered in cleanliness during 2020. We agreed to invite my nephew over, and we cleaned like crazy. I had a fool's hope that because I had already been doing so much that I would be okay.

I was not okay. Within a couple weeks I developed a tremor in my left hand, stuttering, began to lose strength at random moments, and I had to intensely focus to walk straight. And all night and through the day it feels like electric coils are buzzing under my skin. I'm upset with myself for not being more careful. Upset that a little stress triggers it so badly that it takes 3 times as long to type a text message because of my shaking hands.

I know this is neurological and that learning to manage stress is the key to keep myself from relapsing. I want to be like John Nash, who with the medicine and sheer force of will was able to manage and rise above his Schizophrenia. I want to be able to utilize my mental acuity to be able to will myself back to normalcy.

But until then, my hands shake every day, my speech is slow, my skin feels electrified, and walking is difficult. All I can do is wait and plan for the future. 

Thanks for listening. 

Dream, Ponder, and Pray

This morning I had a dream so realistic that I could scarcely believe how detailed it was. Justin and I were living in a small townhome. It was white and minimalistic with lots of windows. I wasn’t sure what any of us had done or said, but for some reason each of us were in danger and were trying to escape the city where we were living.

Justin came home from work one day and revealed to me that we were being watched. Sure enough, I could see a few men and a woman through the windows, watching the house from all sides. I accidentally made eye contact with the woman and faked a casual smile.

Justin told me that friends were trying to make arrangements for us to escape, and that we had to be ready to leave at any moment. Family members and friends who either knew about the plan or knew we needed help came over to help offer a distraction to the watchers and babysit while I inconspicuously gathered clothing and essentials.

Justin told me he was taking me to the store to get more supplies, and I left the kids with the friends and family members thinking I would be back soon. After a while of driving we drove near two sets of train tracks, and at that moment the two trains began to intersect from opposite directions. I said that those trains probably would have offered the perfect distraction needed to escape. Justin didn’t say anything, but as the first train passed he suddenly flipped a u-turn, and we were now traveling on a dirt path between the tracks. I think at that point I knew what was happening, but somehow I wasn't worried.

We arrived at a different house, and I was sneaked out through the side to a garage where I was hiding with a couple more people. Justin had to leave again, and I didn’t see him for the rest of the dream.

More watchers appeared around the neighborhood, though they couldn’t see exactly which house we were hiding in.

Several minutes passed, and another car pulled into a connecting garage. My children were immediately ushered out of that car into the one I was in (which I think was a station wagon with tinted windows), and I was filled with simultaneous relief and anxiety for the safety of my children. I remember feeling slightly struck at how small their backpacks were. It could have fit one, maybe two pairs of clothes in all.

From there we drove to an empty school parking lot, where we waited in tense silence for several minutes. Then another vehicle showed up that looked like an old cross between a van and a small SUV, and all of us were ushered into that vehicle by the driver, who looked and sounded Pakistani-American from my guess. Lydia however started crying and squirming when she was put into the back of the car with us, and actually climbed out of the car, and the man began yelling and panicking that if she drew attention she could get us all killed.

I was worried and scared for Lydia, and I didn’t know if we were going to be able to successfully escape. And then… I woke up.


I have a lot of thoughts and experiences I have been meaning to write down here, but this one is something I need to pray about and ponder I think. Maybe it was meant to show me what other people in the world are going through. Maybe it’s to reassure me that it’s okay to entrust my children with others. I don’t know. I have a lot to think about.

Test- RS LESSON 20NOV2016

Start 10:41
End 14:55

A dream I need to pray about

I had a dream this morning. I was 15-20ish in age at this event where I was being honored for something along with three other girls.  I found a seat next to these two boys within the large crowd who appeared to be brothers. I sat next to the older boy who was a little bit younger than me. He had dark to medium brown hair, and he was a special needs boy. When I sat down next to him, and I offered to play thumb war with him. He had previously been having a bit of a reaction or something that made it impossible for him to calm down. But as I played thumb war with him he calmed down, and I felt this instant connection with him. We talked for a while, and George appeared briefly in my arms. The boy asked if it was my son, and I said it was with a smile. After a bit the mother and a case worker appeared so they could take the boy home. I gave him a hug goodbye and told him that I wished I had met him earlier. And this music that I've never heard before was playing in the background the whole time I was saying goodbye to him. I was at this table trying to write my email address down for him, but I kept struggling to write it correctly. Then Justin woke me up to help with George.
This music piano and cello and violin melody was still in my head. I was so sad that he was gone that I started crying. Has anyone else ever had a dream so powerful that it made them cry? Sob even?

What the sleeping mom heard

Okay, so that title is simply a silly reference to What the Deaf Man Heard...which actually has nothing to do with my post, but I am tired, and I'm going to leave it. lol

Today I dozed off upstairs while feeding George but woke up as the girls got home. I knew Lydia was watching Pokemon on the tablet, so I assumed the girls would be entranced by that until I finished feeding George and forced them to do homework.

They did for a while, but when our neighbor's 2nd grade twin boys knocked on the door to ask if the girls could play, Hannah did something I didn't expect.

She told them they couldn't play, because she and Abigail hadn't started their homework. She closed the door and declared to Abigail and Lydia. "Okay, you guys, it's time to turn off the tablet and do homework."

AND THEY DID! George had fallen asleep, but I was too curious to sleep at this point. So I listened. Hannah set the kitchen timer on the microwave to 5 minutes and had Abigail press start so she could do her timed math. Then Hannah picked out a book, went up to her room, and read for twenty minutes. Then, after all of her homework was complete, she politely reported to me and asked if she could play! I was so impressed with her initiative that I didn't even make her do chores.

Abigail was pretty close to being done with her homework as well, so they got to play outside with their friends for a good 2 hours.

I just had to document this. It's the first time I've ever noticed Hannah being so responsible. I hope it continues, because it was awesome!!

For my good

Today began normal. I felt a little dizzy but nothing to give me pause.  I fell asleep during George's nap after making sure Lydia couldn’t get into dangerous things and had a snack.

George woke up for a feeding, but it took several minutes for me to wake all the way up to feed him. It was 10:30 before I made my way downstairs for breakfast. I felt dizzy and a little nauseous but chalked it up to not having eaten. So I cooked my standard sausage biscuits and eggs but the ill feeling did not fade. It got so bad that Justin had to come home, and I was in awful shape. I managed to eat a piece of toast for lunch, but it didn't help.

I tried taking a shower to break my fever, but I almost passed out in the shower. I started praying for help, and had a fleeting thought that this shouldn't be happening because of my blessing that nothing bad would happen while I served my calling. I had the distinct impression that it wasn't bad, and that meant it was for my good.

There was a point when I felt so weak that I'd slumped to the ground and I thought I would black out. I kept hearing a voice saying, "You need to get out now.", but I was so weak that just fell lower on the floor of the tub. I prayed that Justin would come up and help me, but I knew he couldn't hear, and I was too weak to shout or try pounding on the wall.

I started to feel faint when I felt a voice firmly say, "Get up now.". I felt a slight boost of strength and somehow pried myself off the floor.

I got out and was shuddering and shivering so badly that Justin heard me in yhe baby monitor and helped me to the bed. I laid there for several minutes just wrapped in a towel, breathing.

After I managed to get dressed (with Justin's help) I slept for hours, waking up only to feed George and force myself to drink water.

I am still really cold in spurts and nauseous, but it is better. I ate a third of a muffin for dinner and drank more water, and hopefully I feel better tomorrow.

I don't know why I had to go through this on my last day of my twenties, but I felt peace knowing that it was for my good, however that may be.

Catch Up Post

Several days ago I had another dream that felt similar to the one I last posted. It was much shorter, and all I was doing was walking throught my room after "waking up", but I distinctly remember that I wasn't wearing contacts, but somehow I could see everything with perfect clarity. It was cool.

We had a coupon and got KFC for dinner tonight, but I ordered about two times too much. I sat there after we ate, contemplating how the leftovers don't usually taste good the next day and wondering what I should do, when a thought popped into my mind. We have a neighborhood facebook page, and I felt a gentle prompting to post that we had extra food (5 or 6 pieces of chicken, 4 biscuits, an unopened thing of potatoes and gravy, and an extra coleslaw) to anyone who wanted it. Within five minutes our neighbor across the street claimed it.

Yeah, I would've eaten the leftovers, but it wouldn't have been as good, and we were happy to share. My neighbor asked if she could pay us, and I jokingly said she would owe me a favor, but I don't think I'll ever collect on it.

Between that and Womens Session of Conference, it was an uplifting evening. I am excited about General Conference next week...and turning 30 just after that! Woooooooo!