The FND Diagnosis | FND Recovery

The Struggle to Accept a Diagnosis of FND

The Struggle to Accept the Diagnosis of FND

Way back in 2000 when my neurological problems began, I was shocked when the horrible, exhausting, uncontrollable seizures I was experiencing were written off as a psychological problem. The first time a neurologist tried to explain the diagnosis, he was kind, but his words didn’t make sense to me and I couldn’t overcome the thoughts in my head of “They think I’m making this up! They don’t believe me! What am I going to do? How am I supposed to convince them that this is real?”. Later that night in the hospital when I was having a prolonged seizure, a nurse trying to administer medication through my IV screamed at me, “Just stop it! How are we supposed to help you if you won’t stop shaking?”. I felt devastated. Here I was, going through the worst health crisis I had ever faced, and the medical professionals that I had trusted to help me were accusing me of faking my symptoms! At that point in my life, I was honest to a fault, and to be accused of making up something so horrifying felt like a slap in the face on top of the terror I was experiencing from the seizures.

Making Peace with Confusion

I’m a person who really likes to understand things. It’s why I majored in science in college. If you don’t have a good explanation for what you are saying, I probably won’t believe you. I’m a hard core skeptic.

Enter Functional Neurological Disorder. It does not make sense to me at all. How can my body just quit working correctly for no good reason?

Barriers to Accepting the Diagnosis

With most illnesses, we don’t have much of a problem believing the diagnosis we are given. Say you have a sore throat and a fever. You go to the doctor, where you are examined and given a throat culture. The doctor tells you that the rapid test for strep is positive, writes a prescription for antibiotics, tells you what to do to get better, what to expect, and when to call if things are not improving. What you are told fits with what you are experiencing.

Now let’s compare that to what happens to a patient with Functional Neurological Disorder. To start with, most of us have never heard of this disorder so we aren’t expecting to hear that diagnosis. We expect to be given a diagnosis that we have at least heard about.