Dysauto-what?

November of 2012 I was diagnosed with Dysautonomia (I'll break it down for any of my fellow dyslexics or dyslexics-at-heart: pronounced 'dis-auto-no-mia'. It took me about two weeks to finally get it right and then another month to remember it right off the top of my head.) It's a form of POTS which is short for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. Trust me, I completely understand that, unless you or someone you know very well has either of these, you have no idea what you have read so far.

Start with POTS.
POTS is a physical disorder that compromises the bodies ability to combat gravity. A completely healthy body, when standing upright, is able to counteract gravity by contracting arteries in the legs to keep blood flowing throughout the body instead of getting stuck in the lower extremities. The main symptom of POTS is an extreme increase in heart rate when you change from a sitting or reclining position to standing up.

So Dysautonomia basically means that my 'autonomic system' (things that my body should be able to control without me thinking about it) is completely out of whack. Enjoy this scientifically accurate drawing of my body vs. a healthy human's body:

So the combination of POTS and Dysautonomia results in these symptoms:

- dizziness or vertigo when changing from laying to sitting and sitting to standing and sometimes just when I stand for too long

- extreme, chronic exhaustion

- an insane inability to exercise

- weird, spotty, purplish-blue legs when I stand for too long

- extremely low blood pressure

- extremely high heart rate

- headaches usually associated with not having enough blood circulation to the head due to dehydration

- this thing, commonly referred as 'brain fog', which is caused by low blood circulation in the head which results in an inability to focus and short term memory loss; the name pretty much describes how it feels

- many, many others that are ridiculously widespread and seemingly unrelated

All of these symptoms make my life extremely difficult; the act of simply changing positions from laying to sitting in the morning has proved to be one of the most frustrating parts of my day for about three years now. But the hardest part of this process was the two years I spent not knowing why I was sleeping for up to twenty hours a day, why I was not able to focus on even the most basic work in school, and why I just could not get any better. 

This blog, along with simply being an outlet for me to vent my sporadic thoughts, (I hope) will become one more place where people can find out they are not alone in what they are going through. Whether you are struggling with Dysautonomia, POTS, depression, anxiety, or just being a person in this 'whatever' world we have to live in, I hope that, at some point, something I write hits home and lets you know that there is at least one other person in the world you can relate to at least in the smallest way possible, because I know what it feels like to question if anyone will truly ever know my reality.