Thank you for those links. I’ll look through, but I’m not super hopeful, as I’ve trialed dozens of medications, all of which have had zero or negative effect. Not even a glimmer of improvement, apart from amphetamine, although that only worked a couple times before tolerance, and is not a practical treatment.
As for therapy, I’ve tried a few times, and maybe it would work if I wasn’t so dang tired. But the work required for therapy takes a lot of energy I don’t have.
And as for ME/CFS, there aren’t many effective treatments. There are a few that work in some people, like LDN or antivirals, although I’d have to find a doctor who not only believes it’s a real disorder, but is up to date on the latest potential treatments, and those doctors are few and far between.
I’m hopeful in the promise that a ketogenic diet could improve my symptoms. One reason is the ever increasing anecdotal and study data showing large improvements in all sorts of chronic illnesses with the diet. Another reason is that removing carbs feels very similar to the withdrawal I felt from the psychiatric medication, so I think it is possible that it is like drug withdrawal, and I would feel better after some time off of them. Unfortunately, the withdrawal is so bad and lasts so long, I can’t just jump right in, so I’m very slowly tapering, just like I did with the medication.
Thank you for sharing your insights.
So my big ambitions mostly hinge on my hope that my health conditions go into remission. I continue to improve after removing the medication I mentioned, and I’m pretty sure I’ll eventually get to where I was before it.
Although where I was before was still not well enough to undertake a full running of a non-profit. Constant generalized anxiety, mild brain fog, moderate social anxiety. As for that, I’m cautiously optimistic that a ketogenic diet or carnivore diet will take me all the way to “normal”. I’ve spent a lot of time searching the web for things like “keto cured my social anxiety” or “keto cured my brain fog” and I’ve seen a heck of a lot of people say they are pretty much fixed of chronic, treatment-resistant problems, after simply cutting out carbs.
I’m not so confident that “Social anxiety is treatable, even curable” with behavioral treatments for everyone. For me, it feels very tied to my ME/CFS, which is increasingly being accepted to not at all be amenable to psychological treatments. No behavioral change has ever changed my anxiety in the slightest. Not talk therapy, not exposure therapy, not meditation. Whenever the ME is worse, say, during a crash from overexertion, the social anxiety, and generalized anxiety are also worse.
I’d compare it to someone who is in severe withdrawal from opiates, going through horrible anxiety. Even if maybe some behavioral technique could ease it a little bit, I don’t think any practice, or any amount of effort, apart from direct alteration of brain chemicals, such as through drugs, will cure that person’s anxiety for the time they are in withdrawal.
Similar to the plea of the ME/CFS community to the medical community to stop believing it is a psychological disorder that can be treated by CBT, I think my social anxiety and anxiety fit into the same category. Not saying everyone’s does, and I’m sure lots of people do get helped. But for me, I think it’s more like the guy withdrawing from opiates and unrelated to behavior/thought.
I would not be opposed to trying the programs you offered if I had more energy, but given my very low expectation of them working for me, it’s not worth the effort while I’m this fatigued.
Overcome is very cool, and thank you for making that. One thing I would suggest is put specific details on the website. I was searching for where the science behind the program was, and couldn’t find anything. I’d recommend adding what the credentials of the people training others in the techniques are, what the exact practices are, and link to research papers showing those practices work.
But anyway, thank you for your feedback, I’ll keep it in mind!