Am I being gaslit or should I accept the diagnosis?

Hey everyone. I was diagnosed with FND but something about it doesn't sit right.

My symptoms fluctuate with flares, but every time a flare ends my baseline drops. It happens every one to three months. Over two and a half years I've just kept losing ground. In just a year, I've gone from being mobile, to needing a cane, to now using a wheelchair.

I've never had non-psychogenic seizures, paralysis, blindness, or sudden speech loss. The things most people associate with FND.

What I have is progressive muscle stuff like stiffness, tics and spasms that range from head to toe, fasciculations that ripple under my skin, breathing failure at night that now needs a BiPAP, and 45 pounds of unintentional weight loss over the past 4 months

I did suffer a Trans Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) included epileptic, non-psychogenic Grand Mal seizure and the doctors believe that caused all of this to begin. I did experience faint tics around that time, but did not develop any other noticeable symptoms for another 13 months after that seizure and onset of tics/jerks.

A short course of prednisone gave me my life back for one weekend about a year ago. I walked a big ass mall. I went to a Weird Al concert. When I stopped taking the trial of prednisone 2 days after the concert (I had been on it for 4 days), I crashed harder than ever and considered a trip to the ER, it was so bad.

No doctor ever showed me the positive FND signs they're supposed to find. They just said my tests were normal. I've had an EEG, EMG, LP, MRI of brain only, Blood tests galore, and a bunch more testing that always comes back "normal" or "clean". I have not had recent imaging with MRI nor testing with LP in a year, so no recent data to compare. I've asked about a spine MRI, but was told that because I experience spasms and tics above the spine that there was no need to investigate, there couldn't be anything on the spine that would impact the shoulders, neck, head, and face.

I'm the one living in this body, and it feels like something is attacking me. Not like my brain is glitching.

I could go into so many more details, so many other symptoms and the documented decline over the almost 3 year period in which this all started. And to be so frank, I know I won't ever be where I once was. I really just need to be able to do my job and keep my benefits, but the doctors keep saying that the only treatments available to me are PT, benzos, and going back to psych. It seems like such a waste when at the start of me seeking treatment a year and a half ago, I did PT and was discharged because it made my symptoms worse.

Also, idk if this matters or not, but (besides going to the doctors) I've been in one of the best mental states for like a year or more. My psych out me on an extra long leash and feels confident I'm doing well, in which I couldn't agree more. I'm no longer on mental health meds, but the neuros keep thinking that (my words, not theirs) just a big ole ball of stress and this is just taking a toll of my mental AND physical health. I can't seems to convince them that I'm in a good spot, mentally. It's them that makes my blood pressure spike.

Has anyone else felt like the label doesn't fit?

Posted Aug 21, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

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