I'm going to start off by saying my condition/illness or whatever it may be is a medical mystery to six doctors (physicians, neurologists, psychiatrists) and that I am unemployed and rejecting job offers because my condition limits my abilities and brain function. It is a roadblock in my life and I can't seem to drive around it. I am a healthy and fit 24 y/o male who has been suffering from transient, hard to describe disorientating episodes/spells that I first had the pleasure of experiencing at 18. Since then, the episodes have occurred almost daily but do not last all day long - they are TRIGGERED by certain situations and environments. I can feel the spells gradually, but pretty quickly coming on (they don't occur at the drop of a hat) and I actually have the ability to stop them by laying down in a dark room and literally putting a pillow over my face and just "shutting down" for a couple minutes. Weird, I know. The "spells" last anywhere from 10 minutes to multiple hours, depending on if I get to a dark room with a pillow. I've tried multiple migraine medications and none have even remotely helped.
Triggers:
-Focusing on something for more than a few minutes - even talking to a person! I can't even talk to a freaking family member face-to-face without falling into one of these spells. One minute I'm fine and then there's a total disconnect between what I'm seeing and my cognitive function. Depth perception also throws me off here.
-Similar to focusing...when I'm talking for an extended period of time. It feels like my brain is totally deprived of oxygen and I then fall into one of these disorienting episodes
-Light contrast situations, especially when I'm in a well-lit room when it's dark outside. It's like my brain doesn't "agree" with what i'm seeing and the light situation
Symptoms:
In addition to feeling extremely disoriented, the other symptoms include a general feeling of disconnectedness, brain fog, a headache of pinpoint pain in the back right of my head that occurs during most of the episodes, a massive drop in mood and overall emotion (apathy I guess you could say), a minor lack of memory of anything that occurred during one of these episodes (for example if I read 5-10 pages during one of the spells I wouldn't remember specific details of the read but would remember the general theme and whatnot), and extreme cognition trouble (speaking, writing and even focusing on a person and their eyes). One minute I'm thinking and speaking clearly and the next minute one of these episodes can surface and I start to totally jumble my thoughts, words and sentences and I sound like a complete idiot. At this point in the dizzy spell, I want to just lay in bed and cover a pillow over my face in the dark. When I do that, it's literally like hitting the reset button and the symptoms decrease significantly.
These episodes or spells or whatever they are are affecting my quality of life. I used to be a very happy, energetic and social person and now this issue is somewhat holding me back, though I do go up against it daily in hopes that I can increase my tolerance of the spells, which I can't. Any advice, support or help would be extremely appreciated here.