I’m 24 and dealing with high blood pressure. I’ve seen five doctors, had countless tests, and they all say the same thing: “Take these pills and try to reduce pressure in your life.” It’s as though my blood pressure and heart rate have minds of their own, fluctuating freely without any reason.
For the past six months, I’ve felt like I’m on borrowed time. Every morning, I gulp down my pills, hoping I won’t have a stroke or end up disabled. Once, I dared to think I was better and skipped my meds for two days. Unfortunately, on day three, my blood pressure shot up over 150, bringing me crashing back to reality.
I’m not an nihilist, I’m the opposite of that. But facing my own mortality every second of life has hit me hard. Maybe I’m just like a “24 years old kid” tasting life’s bitterness for the first time. I hate to compare myself with others, but seeing friends partying, doing drugs, and sipping coffee just makes me hate this fate of mine even more.
I’m an artist, I studied music and wrote lots of songs (only keep them for myself, not trying to be a celebrity or anything like that…), and music has always been my escape. Lately, though, my songs have been pretty dark.
I’m sharing my story not for sympathy, but to connect with anyone else who’s going through a same journey in their life. If you’ve been there and made it out, please tell me how you did it. Any advice, hobby, or habit would help! And if you’re still stuck in the trenches like me, just know you’re not alone.
P/S: This post has been improved by ChatGPT since I’m not confident in my English.
All the alcoholism in both sides of my family, and I’m fretting about my liver, when I’m taking less than the recommended dose of a prescribed medication that could change my life if I could take more.
And I’m on a COPD inhaler and I’ve never touched any death sticks at all.
Life isn’t fair, I 100% feel you.
I also literally felt you when they put me on amitriptyline and that gave me hbp and they kept trying to act like it wasn’t that big a deal- that with all my other health problems, my blood pressure would start getting off, and I’d have stress, yadda yadda.
It really does feel physically horrible, especially the headaches and sleep issues.
My biggest advice is to never be afraid about a second- or third or fourth opinion with your health, and be gentle but persistent with your goals.
Its the art of pushing without breaking.
Now, this is the experience for me and some unhealthy overachievers, so take the following with a grain of salt:
A lot of times people with underlying health issues actually function their whole lives by pushing until they crash, but hide their crash, and just assume everyone else hides the meltdowns/16-hour sleeps/weekly puke sessions/etc too.
If that happens to describe you, then you’re going to need to get comfortable with giving just 25% effort in a lot of things until you can safely figure out how to actually not hurt yourself.
I’m serious.
Step out of your skin, and treat yourself as you would your precious little sibling or something. Dote on yourself.
Aaand I’ve typed too much. It gets my own stuff going. But good luck.
Thank you for your honest advice and straightforward approach, it’s really helpful. I’ll definitely take a moment to reconsider things that might have slipped my mind but affect my health.
Typing to much means you really care about others! Thanks a lot for that!
And as for hobbies, try needle felting if you feel dangerous.
stabbing is fun, and its not about precision, just the aggregation of effort.