Please Help

[cordyceps]

For about 6 years, I have been developing a number of symptoms:
-depersonalization/derealization
-severe anxiety
-panic attacks
-depression
-"seeing the air"
-seeing flashes of bright lights in both eyes
-memory problems
-people appear to be glowing near their head
-large, moving shadows
-deja vu often
-"stutters" in time
-distorted temporal and spatial perception (things move very slowly or look very far away, or sometimes they are expanding outwards)
-limb weakness
-not "recognizing" my face in the mirror
-difficulty reading/understanding during an "episode"
-sweating, nausea, have always been tired, shaking, crying without feeling sad
-dermatillomania
-feeling of things happening over and over
-inability to speak during an episode (hard to form words, feels like my muscles aren't working, but also speak very slowly)
-eyes randomly focus in and out
-waking up every morning with eyes (the actual eyeballs) shaking uncontrollably
-hypnopompia
-scintillating scotoma, only once, without preceding any sort of headache
-confusion during episode (preservation of person, place, and time)
-numbness in hands
-more intense deja vu
-difficulty using hands (maybe a problem judging depth?) during episode
-feeling as if literally sinking or falling

I have taken prozac, keppra, klonopin, cymbalta, buspar, and adderall. Adderall helps much of the time, but sometimes does not work at all for no given reason (unrelated to dosage).

I have had a number of tests done, all which came back negative (EEG, MRI, CT scan, bloodwork, etc). I saw an opthamologist who told me that my eyes appear to be fine.

Family history includes severe stutter, thyroid disorder (not sure which), heart disease, genetic serotonin problem which seems to strike around 35, leaving women in my family nauseous and unable to swallow or function otherwise (does not appear to affect men), depression and anxiety, and alcoholism.

[Peter Forster]

Sorry for my delay in replying to your post, I have been thinking about it.
Lots of ideas could come to mind, but I realized after re-reading your message that you didn't say what kind of help you wanted.
In general, the thought that comes to mind the most readily in terms of help would be to find a good, thoughtful doctor who is willing to work with you in exploring these symptoms and trying to understand them.
Given what you wrote, I suspect that the answer is more likely to be found in a process of exploration than in a dramatic result from a new test... although certainly thinking of tests that need to be done is part of that kind of exploration.
Do you have a doctor who you are working with? How is that going?

[whitecat78]

I am not a expert but you could be experiencing conversion disorder symptoms. Usually in conversion disorder the patient has all these unexplainable symptoms and the test all come back negative. Also you could have a hypochondria type OCD with severe anxiety.

[Jaquta]

That sounds like a whole lot going on.  I was just wondering which ones you experienced first or in which order did they appear.

I have no idea but I'll chuck out some very random ideas.
Severe stress and anxiety.  These could account for many of your symptoms.  Maybe even psychotic features.

I've had some visual issues myself at times and I have been told that these are likely visual migraines.  Stress makes these worse.  Also some of the symptoms can represent a TIA or mini-stroke.  (For me that was loss of vision in one eye, slurred speech, etc.)

I expect the expert will have other more appropriate suggestions.

It's a tough one.  If the tests came back negative it could be appropriate to get a decent psych assessment.  Regardless, I think psychotherapy could be helpful.
I'm not sure about potential medical causes for these symptoms either.  Many it would seem have already be ruled out.