Zacison

Hi everyone, long time reader - first time poster I’ve been an armchair practitioner in the Internal arts (mostly Damo Mitchell's academy) for a while, and I was hoping to get some advice. Basically, a long series of stressors over the summer led me to have some form of stress induced illness around the end of September that I haven’t recovered from. For context, I felt like I had been depleting my reserves all summer long due to a new stressful job after graduating college, having to move 4 times in as many months, as well as attempting to start a business in my spare time. I had also been hyper-stimulating myself with movies, media, and sex/porn as well. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was certainly burning the candle at both ends. When I went to work one Monday morning, I had a very strange experience: It was like all of the energy dropped out of my body in an instant. My nervous system felt like it was on fire, or maybe like all the electricity was coursing through it extremely strongly. It was worse than the worse cold or flu I’ve ever had, and the strangest thing was that it literally came on in a minute flat. I had an intense head pressure, I felt like I was going to pass out from the pain, and my ability to concentrate on anything was gone. There was intense nausea, and vertigo as well. The next day I had a panic attack (which I’d never had before) where I felt like I was having a heart attack, and ended up in the hospital. The pain was excruciating for at least a week, and It is easily the worst I've ever felt. I've been depressed for many years, but never suicidally so. I've always wanted life to get better. However, the pain in the first week was so bad that one night I truly understood the mentality of suicidal people - I didn't want to die, but I just wanted the pain to stop. Thankfully, that only lasted one day, and I haven't had any thoughts like that since. It has gotten much better, the pain is more tolerable and I am certainly not suicidal - I still want life to get better Long story short, I’ve been recovering ever since, with some symptoms mostly gone but others sticking around, such as: -A constant buzzing in the nerves -Constant lower back pain, like a deep bruising aching feeling -Extreme fatigue, and rest is not restorative -I feel like I’ve lost a standard deviation of intelligence, and my ability to concentrate and do complex mental work has deteriorated - which really sucks for my tech job I'm barely hanging on to -Terrible short term memory, but my long term memory is okay Having gone to regular doctors, they diagnosed me with anxiety, and I am on low dose beta blocking anti-anxiety meds, which do help, but only a bit - 10%. I'd like to heal without stronger meds, but I'm certainly open to them. I am also seeing an acupuncturist regularly who has diagnosed me with kidney yin depletion as well as some form of liver qi stagnation - I have been taking the herbs they are giving me ever since. I don’t particularly feel the impact of the herbs, but I have been getting slowly better over time so I believe it is helping. For context, I am a bit of an armchair practitioner who enjoys learning about this stuff but doesn’t practice that much. Now, I’m trying to do anything I can to get back to a relatively healthy normal. As such, since I'm familiar with Damo Mitchell's material I’ve started making the "anchoring the breath" practice into a regular thing - I can tell it's helping (even though I've just started to really focus on doing it consistently in the past few days) and I know that it will take time. My question is this - outside of that anchoring the breath practice, what should I be doing to recover from this? For context, I am now going to sleep earlier (10-11, used to be 12-1am for me) and eating as nutritiously as I can, and have removed almost all stimulation in the form of media/tv/movies/sex/porn - mostly just books for entertainment now. (Any good book suggestions anyone? ) I was thinking I would try to build the yin field of the LDT - I know the kidney hui chun works better when the yin field is in place, and I believe that could help the kidney system recover. However, I also realize working with electricity + magnetism with a buzzing in my nerves might be a really bad idea, so I wanted to ask here. Yay or nay? Any other advice would be greatly appreciated as well - thank you very much Also, shamelessly tagging @freeform for any insight you may have - you've always seemed like a cool older brother here, and I've greatly admired your posts over the years - I would appreciate your advice.

Hi everyone, following up from my earlier post, I’m having a rough time of it and was hoping if anybody had any insight. I realize it may be a long shot, but if anybody has dealt with this I would appreciate you sharing. The short version is that it feels like there is a buzzing sensation in my nerves, which has now escalated to feeling like my whole nervous system (and brain) is on fire, constantly - or dipped in acid, or like plugging a fork into an outlet - choose your metaphor, it’s excruciating. I’ve done some hormone tests, bloodwork, mris, which have all come back as normal. I’m trying to get in to see a neurologist, but there’s a few month wait. The only thing that helps relieve the pain is extremely high doses of l-theanine, but that just masks the symptoms. I think some neurotransmitters might have been whacked out of balance in the original incident, and I don’t know how to put them back. I’m thoroughly stumped from a western medical point of view so far, and I’m at my wits end. It feels like I can’t even go to the hospital for relief, since they haven’t found anything wrong so far. It’s infuriating, and I just want to get healthy. Is it possible I’ve accidentally tapped into a pocket of Yang qi somewhere due to the original stress incident? I have been doing the anchoring the breath practice which helps a tiny bit, but the buzzing is always there. Does anybody have any experience with this type of pain? Does anybody know of a good Chinese medical practitioner in Austin Tx? I would greatly appreciate any help 🙏

Oof yeah, I've got to work on that for sure - that's kinda my default mode. I'm frustrated because my life isn't where I want it to be so I use a lot of "mental forcing" to try to get there - or at least I did. Anytime I try to now, my body physically reacts to me doing that. I'll come back to this and expand on it (as well as the other posts) when I have a bit more free time, but I just wanted to sincerely thank you and everybody else for taking the time to help and respond, I'm grateful.

Hmm, the breath usually gets trapped in the throat/sternum for me, but if it's a good session then I can get down to the diaphragm which relaxes nicely - I've had a handful of times when I've been able to get a decent level of mental absorption into the whole structure and had this fantastic sense of being content & at ease in my own body - but I haven't hit that level anytime recently. Mostly anchoring the breath calms down the buzzing sensation in the nerves, which I'll certainly take at the moment

Thank you! The vertigo is definitely annoying, basically anytime I move my head quickly I can feel it, but if I keep my head on the same plane it's alright. I'm working on my diet, which has been a longstanding issue for me. I've been a very picky eater in my life up to this point. I think some nutritional deficiencies probably contributed to this, and I've been looking into nutrition a lot. I've already added eggs and fish, kefir, and a few other things as well. My Diet roughly consists of: -Eggs + musely/oatmeal -Pb&J/grilled cheese -Fruit - apples, berries, bananas -Nuts - pecans, walnuts, almonds -Goat kefir/greek yogurt -Chicken/fish/oysters -veggies - bell peppers, romaine lettuce, carrots, green beans -Only drink water or goat milk I will add the goji berry tea and will attempt bone broth again - couldn't stand it the first time I had it, but I suppose it's not about the taste. For vitamin D, I've been going outside to soak up the morning sun but I've fallen off of that habit recently - I need to go back to that. I'll add a supplement for it. I've been doing epsom salt baths, magnesium sprays and a few different types of magnesium supplements as it is, so I think I'm covered for that one Emotionally, I'm a mess for sure. I've been depressed for the better part of 10 years, but gradually over the past few years (snowballing especially this year) I've been struggling with anhedonia - it's not that I don't feel my emotions, but the volume knob on the positive emotions are turned down to 10%, and the negative ones are amped up. Consequently things that I would usually enjoy feel hollow, and most entertainment feels like empty hedonism. That's one of the things in life I'm frustrated by the most, I just want to be able to enjoy life. I had a great friend group in high school, but when I got to college I didn't make a lot of friends & was mostly miserably lonely. I did end up making some friends, but as time goes on I feel more and more emotionally distant from them, and people in general. I actually hosted a party today where I saw a good group of those friends, and it was great to see them & reconnect after not seeing them for a while. Today was the first day in a while that I felt joy for longer than a few minutes, and it felt damn good. It was fun, and lighthearted. I've been taking everything in life so seriously, and it was wonderful to lighten up. Definitely going to do more of that. It was interesting, because at the beginning of the party I was having a hard time mentally keeping up with people and following the various lines of conversation, but as time went on I was joking, jovial, and more mentally engaged. Not that everything stopped - my back still hurt, and I could feel the buzzing in the nerves, but the pain was more tolerable because I was having a good time, and I guess I didn't feel so alienated from my sensations since I was in the moment - it's hard to describe, hopefully that explanation makes sense. Happy to clarify if needed.

Hi Searcher, thanks for responding! I do some movement - about a half hour of walking per day - but that's definitely something to work on. Thankfully I did not have a heart attack, and my blood work came back normal - the doctors just diagnosed me with anxiety, which I very clearly do have. I don't believe I have hypertension, though I'm not sure. I will say that my resting heart rate has gone up a lot, and I feel cadiovascularly weak compared to before - and not like "I haven't worked out in a few weeks so I'm out of breath." It feels more like I just lost a standard deviation of body functioning. For example, my heart beats a lot faster (close to racing) even if I just get up and walk around for a minute. It stabilizes after a little bit, but it's like the impetus to activity is more stressful now. My ability to handle stress, physically and mentally, has gone down quite a lot - it's definitely concerning, although I will say it's a lot better than the beginning of this event. I am recovering, albeit way slower than I'd like - I feel like I've hit a plateau in my recovery, so I'm trying to do whatever I can to work on it. I'll definitely check out the qi deviation series, thank you for that!

Hi Freeform, thanks for responding! To shamelessly quote from the earlier post I made with a bit more info, "By "Armchair practitioner" I don't mean that I'm literally in an armchair, that was poor phrasing on my part. I meant it more like I'm the type of person who reads information because I find it fascinating but doesn't apply it as much - in this context I mean that I've had an interest in the internal arts for a while and enjoy learning about how all of the mechanics work, but I'm not a currently active practitioner. (outside of the breathwork practice, that is)" Basically, I mean that I'm aware of some of the practices that might be helpful, but that I haven't been an active internal arts practitioner for a while - I'm working on making the anchoring the breath a regular practice, and I can already tell that it's helping. I did it last night, and the amount of - idk what to call it, "mental clinging" or maybe "intention" was less today - which gave me a bit of relief. Plus, when I do the practice (if I can settle in to it and my mind calms down/absorbs into the practice a bit) the buzzing in the nerves calms down - not gone away, but certainly better. It comes back after I go back to regular life, but I did feel a difference today from doing it yesterday before bed, so i'm definitely going to continue doing that one daily. Thanks

Hi Apech, thanks for replying. Apologies for the lack of clarity, I should have proofread a bit more lol. By "Armchair practitioner" I don't mean that I'm literally in an armchair, that was poor phrasing on my part. I meant it more like I'm the type of person who reads information because I find it fascinating but doesn't apply it as much - in this context I mean that I've had an interest in the internal arts for a while and enjoy learning about how all of the mechanics work, but I'm not a currently active practitioner. (outside of the breathwork practice, that is) For example, I've been studying the online weekly lessons that the Chinese medicine college Damo runs puts out - not because I want to become a medical practitioner, but because I wanted a better theoretical understanding of what was going on in the main academy. Plus, I just think it's interesting, and I think a lot of the conceptual frameworks are cool. I had began doing the weekly lessons of Damo's Internal arts academy when it had opened a few years ago and took it fairly seriously the first 3 months, but I dropped off after a while because of the time/effort commitment that grew too large. I wanted to focus more on graduating college and finding a job at the time, and 2+ hours per day was a lot, so that's what I did. I still enjoyed learning about the different facets of the internal arts, but I didn't have a regular practice. I was interested, but not committed - very much a dabbler. As to exercise, I've been getting outside and taking walks, 30 minutes or so, which I quite enjoy. I'm working up to more strenuous exercise, but I have been able to do light weight lifting if I do it slowly. You mentioned that "If you have spiritual beliefs you might think about how a higher process is at work beyond body and subtle energy and pray for assistance." I am definitely more of a mechanical type person for sure (working in tech and all) but I have been praying lately, something I have never done, and have never taken seriously, because I couldn't justify it to myself rationally. But, I certainly hit a low point and have been encouraged to pray, especially from my grandmother - she's the toughest lady I know, she survived 3 rounds of cancer and is still kicking at 85. She attributes a lot of her pain tolerance to prayer - I don't really "buy in" to prayer as much, but I can't deny how much it has helped her, so I'm certainly trying it out - practicing gratitude is certainly helping a lot too - before this happened I had always wanted more out of life, mostly drunk on my desires for money and sex. Although I certainly do have a desire to achieve things in life, I'm waaaaay more appreciative of the things in my life I am fortunate to have at the moment. It's really put things in perspective, so I am much more appreciative of the things that matter most - health, family, and relationships.

Hi Barnaby, thanks for your response! I am definitely burned out, and working on managing it the best I can. I'm certainly just focused on recovery right now. As for exercise, I have been walking daily for around a half hour ever since this happened at the end of September. I started slow, but it's gotten better over time. That being said, I am mostly sedentary at the moment - part of that is due to my job, but a lot of it is due to the vertigo/equilibrium shifts I have when I do faster movement now - It's like my sense of gravity has a "lag time" behind my movements, so it's unpleasant to do exercise with that going on. Interesting to note looking back, I actually would get a bit of vertigo whenever I rode in an elevator, but that was the only situation where it occurred - I would always be fine with faster movement. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed riding my bicycle for about an hour per day before this happened - it was usually the highlight of my day to get outside, and get some wind and sun - especially around my local lake. I did a bit of stretching and weight lifting as well, but my most regular exercise was definitely biking. I'm looking forward to being able to do that again eventually