Hey @Jynx , thank you for the long and in-depth response, it is appreciated. Thank you for sharing some of your own experiences, too. I'm super grateful that people like yourself take the time to offer support.

What I find harder than the diagnoses is the sheer effort that it's taking to find professionals who can diagnose me, and the complete lack of awareness that others seem to have for how hard I'm working just to function. On my own, I have had to find a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a second psychologist when the first one made inappropriate remarks, a physiotherapist, a second physiotherapist when the first misdiagnosed and mistreated me, a third physiotherapist for similar reasons, and an entirely new pain clinic where I will (hopefully) finally get the chronic pain management I need... including a fourth physiotherapist. And throughout all of this, the majority of my friends have apathetically drifted away, and my family hardly ever reaches out, even though I have asked. When they do, as that recent phone call proved, it can be even more harmful for my mental health. So I end up feeling that I'm better off isolated anyway.

I'm not sure whether my mood swings are proportionate responses to having chronic pain/nausea, an eating disorder, depression, anxiety, addiction, and experiencing a lack of support (all on top of remaining employed and paying bills)... or whether there's some other condition occurring here. All I know is that when I experience anger, numbness, and panic, the feelings are obscenely strong. And it's frightening.

I don't really have self-soothing things, aside from preventative actions, such as avoiding activities which will cause pain. The only thing I can do in response to extremely strong emotional states is... go to sleep. It's the only way to reset myself.

I feel like all I'm doing is covering my basic needs and desperately trying to scrape together support for everything that's affecting my body and my brain. I have literally no energy for anything else. I know that isolation is making every single health condition of mine worse, but I have no idea what else I can do. It simultaneously feels safest, and most dangerous.

I don't really know what to do when people advise me to be mindful. All of the physiotherapists I've seen have told me to just be mindful. I know what the theory behind it is, I know that reducing stress responses helps teach the nervous system that there is no continuing injury, but I simply can't be mindful in this situation. I have tried all of the activities/approaches recommended to me, but they either cause physical pain to flare up (eg: yoga), or they're totally ineffective (eg: meditation). So I feel pretty hopeless when mindfulness is suggested.

Part of the reason I'm reaching out to SANE is because I'm hoping that others who are isolated, and who are living with multiple complex mental illnesses, will empathise with what's like to have nobody to turn to whilst managing everything. I have pretty deep experiences of trauma as well, caused by family and by healthcare misconduct, so empathy on that front would also be very appreciated. It would be reassuring to know that some people in SANE have rebuilt a fuller life if they've sought that. To anyone who replies to this thread, thank you so much in advance.