I got thrown from a horse about 10 years ago into the side of a concrete barn, and received my 3rd and hopefully last concussion.
For the next 12 hours or so I suffered from sensory kinesthesia. That’s where the senses get all jumbled up. I smelled taste, and heard sight and such on and off. It never came back.
I have no idea if this is connected to this other thing that happens, but I think it is.
I’m not depressive, but a couple of times a year I get this odd spell. From out of the blue I will have this wave of overwhelming sadness of crushing intensity just wash over me. Its as if the worst thing imaginable just happened to me.
It’s not connected to any event or anything, but it’s so bad it’s almost physically painful. I feel sadder than I have ever felt over anything that was actually real.
In 15 minutes to an hour it goes away, pretty quickly but not all at once. A little while later and I feel great. Better than usual. This optimism and feeling of well-being usually lasts the rest of the day.
It happened today. The last time was somewhere in August.
Does anybody have any idea what this is?
Something to be worried about?
“Remember, there ar no stupid questions, only stupid people.”
Since the causing incident occurred a decade ago, and you’re still alive and functioning, it seems reasonable to assume that you’re not in any horrible danger.
At the same time, you describe your sensations as “overwhelming”, and they are large enough events that you stop and take note of them. It probably wouldn’t hurt to consult a neurologist. At the very least, you may find an explanation that settles your mind once and for all.
Hopefully I’ve demonstrated that I don’t mind being poked fun at or doing it myself.
I just wish instead of 15 minutes of sadness I had a fifteen minute orgasm instead!
Seriously. The best way I can describe it is like if you watch old Yeller or The Champ. You know the movies are tearjerkers and it’s a fake, but the feeling is still there. It’s a lot more intense, and I know it’s not real. I said overwhelming, and it is, but it’s not debilitating.
I am sorry. You posted about a possibly serious medical condition.
You asked for help.
I responded by making fun of you.
I am ashamed.
sensory kinesthesia. That’s where the senses get all jumbled up. I smelled taste, and heard sight and such on and off. It never came back.
I have no idea if this is connected to this other thing that happens, but I think it is.
I’m not depressive, but a couple of times a year I get this odd spell. From out of the blue I will have this wave of overwhelming sadness of crushing intensity just wash over me. Its as if the worst thing imaginable just happened to me.
It’s not connected to any event or anything, but it’s so bad it’s almost physically painful. I feel sadder than I have ever felt over anything that was actually real.
In 15 minutes to an hour it goes away, pretty quickly but not all at once. A little while later and I feel great. Better than usual. This optimism and feeling of well-being usually lasts the rest of the day.
It happened today. The last time was somewhere in August.
As I said, I thought it was funny, so no need to apologize.
It’s extremely disorienting. It made me feel like I was going to throw up, and I had a horrible headache. Part of that was the concussion, but it seemed worse during the kinesthesia. It’s not an absolute replacement of one sense with another(not when I had it, anyway), but an overlap of varying degrees.
A noise in my room might have been red and tasted salty. Most of the time I could still identify it as a noise, and know what it was, but not always. It was just all jumbled up. Apparently this is not all that uncommon with a good knock on the skull.
The Sadness only happens once or twice in a year. I had pretty much forgotten about it. It never happened before that concussion though, which is why I associate the two.
If you haven’t already read it, I recommend Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. I just wrote you a synopsis of a couple of the case studies and then hit ctrl-w thinking I had another window selected … bye bye post. Anyway, it’s a great book, about some very specific right-hemisphere brain damage cases. The point is, the book isn’t about drooling vegetable or serial killers, it’s about everyday people who often have a single, narrow brain condition which cause one weird thing in their lives.
I’m not sure what hemisphere your brain damage is in, or even if you really have brain damage. (My neurophilosophy doctorate is from the University of Freedonia.) My wild guess, though, is that you do have damage to a small part of your noodle, and my other wild guess is that it isn’t going to kill you or turn you into a vegetable. The fact that the suspected cause happened years and years ago doesn’t rule it out as the cause.
You should consider seeing a neurologist, but I’m saying that mainly out of caution. Some brain conditions can be progressive (funny word, that, your conditions gets worse and they call it progress?). You should think especially hard about going to the doctor if the depressive episodes get worse or more frequent. For all us amateurs and U of F graduates know, you might have some scarring that is affecting your moods. Or maybe a few synapses are bruised, and they go haywire whenever Neptune is in the House of Geraldo or whatever. This might come out in an MRI or something.
Maybe you’ll get a chapter in Oliver Sacks’ next book … “The Cheerful Bulletin Board Afficionado Who Got Really Depressed for a Few Minutes Every Few Months”. Wishing you well.
Hopefully, I can convince you to accept “hopefully” as a disjunct adverb.
Frankly, I would be lying if I said I were confident.
Perhaps this subject is simply too complex for me to explain.
Unfortunately, I would be lucky to explain my way out of a paper bag.
I’m hardly qualified to make a diagnosis, but if I ever experienced anything similar, I’d be thinking in the direction of panic attacks and or some kind of anxiety disorder. Sometimes there are physiological reasons behind panic attacks, but sometimes there aren’t. I suggest you consult your physician…
You say it’s not depression, but it probably is. You should seek some professional help. Just someone to council you, in the least, to discover why this may be happening to you. Maybe you are repressing something. Maybe it is somehow tied to events leading up and/or surrounding your accident.
All the best…
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV
I agree with whitetho, this sounds like a type of partial seizure. Definitely doesn’t sound like depression, in which the abnormal mood must be present nearly every day for a matter of weeks.
This info is from the Epilepsy Foundation:
I don’t see why profound sadness couldn’t result, as well, depending on which part of the brain is involved. Partial seizures can traget very specific areas. This seems to make sense to me as the most logical explanation, expecially since a history of head injury is frequently present with seizures.
I agree that you should see a neurologist, for reassurance that this isn’t serious if nothing else.
one more pop diagnosis to add to the brew could be a mild/developing case of manic-depressive syndrome. i postulate that condition because you mentioned that after the 15-minute sad-attack, you experience a counter-balancing feeling of extreme (or at least enhanced) well-being.
all in all, though, i join the chorus
(all together now): See a good neurologist/doctor of your choice and get it thoroughly checked out!
p.s. as a rider myself, my extreme sympathies and understanding. ah, the joys of the unexpected ER tour.
next one who says “Fates a bitch” gets whacked with my measuring stick.
I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but it sounds similar… Every year or so I’ll be almost completely overcome with paranoia, self loathing, and fear of detection (detection of what, I’m not sure). These episodes last for about 15 to 20 minutes. At the time, it all seems to make sense, but later it all seems non sequiteur and without any merit. It happens just before I fall asleep, but I’m pretty sure that I was awake - at some level because I may get up and walk around trying to think of a way out of my predicament. A little later it will dawn on me that I was worried over nothing and I feel a strong sense of relief. I’ve always suspected that these episodes were some form of anxiety attack, but I’ve never been able to trace them back to any particular source of anxiety. In fact, I’m the least anxious person I know… (I’m so laid back, my wife always has to hold a mirror up to my face to make sure I’m still alive…) Maybe the human mind needs a bit of anxiety and my psyche dishes out a massive dose of it every once in a while.
Anyway, I don’t see how this could possibly help, but it sounds similar so I thought I’d share it with you… (and the rest of the world) Even though it’s emotionally nerve wracking for a short time, I don’t think it’s anything serious.
BTW, not meant as correlative information or anything, but I’ve suffered several very serious head injuries in my life, as well, but I doubt that they are related.
This doesn’t sound like it applies to you, but I recall hearing that if you have a sudden change resulting in new or unexplained types of these wierd experiences that it could be a tumor - thus a neurologist is a good idea.
If it’s happened the same way forever, it’s probably not anything too serious - but always err on the side of seeing the doc.
