Hello, I’m a former National Merit Scholar and University Student. I say “former” because Aspartame has utterly butchered my brain.
That’s right. I was a 21 year old with a bright future and an even brighter mind. Traditionally, I’ve scored anywhere between 130-150 on IQ tests with ease. On a recent exam, I nailed just 98 — with difficulty. My mental capacity has been severely, dramatically, and — perhaps — permanently altered due to excess consumption of this chemical disaster.
In the midst of a severe depression, I swilled the stuff in ridiculously extreme amounts. Three 44oz drinks a day were not uncommon. Looking back, it’s easy to conjecture that Diet Coke actually instigated and aggravated my psychological problems. As a statistic of one, I offer the following observations about my experiences, written as honestly as I can muster.
In the beginning, I was an extraordinary skeptic. Diet Coke was my favorite drink, and I trusted the industry funded studies above all alarmist “nonsense”. People I knew warned me about how my habits could affect me, especially given my talents, but I shrugged them off. “MIT dosed people with 14,000 grams of the stuff,” I’d say, “it’s safer than water!”
How wrong I was.
I thought my addiction was merely caffeine, but caffeine never satiated me. I always craved the sweet fizzy brew; a chemical junky, always on the hunt for my next brain fix. Over the months, as my appetite and consumption of Aspartame increased to absurdist levels, I noticed the following:
1. It caused me to stop thinking. I recall having an exceptionally clear mind — sharp, precise, and swift. After drinking Aspartame, I noticed a very clear annihilation of my memory. I could not broach topics or relate ideas. People would ask questions like “What was your favorite movie with actor X?” I simply could not link those words to a face or picture in my mind. It’s as if someone were speaking Spanish. You do not know how disconcerting this is until it occurs.
2. It gave me neurological and heart disorders. At the height of my consumption, the ring and pinky fingers of my left hand went COMPLETELY NUMB FOR TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT. Simultaneously, I experienced a discomfort and thudding sensation in my chest, as though my heart was overworked and on the verge of failure. As is usual with these circumstances, physicians could find “nothing wrong with me”. I’ve NEVER had conditions like these in the entirety of my life, and WHAM.
3. I became profoundly forgetful and dissociated, as though I were walking through a dream or under heavy medication. Daily events and situations ceased to have any personal meaning to me. It’s as though I’d taken a Novocain shot to the cranium.
4. I sunk into the darkest depression I’ve ever known. My emotions were so out of control I’d get dry heaves, have suicidal ideation, sit motionless for hours, lock the door and stay in bed, etc. etc. Had this happened before? Did I have a history of mental illness? No.
All of this and I hadn’t even hit the ADI!
My doc says many of my cognitive difficulties were probably due to the huge amounts of caffeine I was consuming. Bullshit.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve imbibed every caffeinated concoction on the planet in copious quantity: coffee, tea, regular cola, cappuccino, hot chocolate, whatever, and NONE of them have given me symptoms like this.
On the contrary, they usually offer a temporary nootropic affect, giving me better focus.
If you’re considering drinking the stuff, consider this: if any ONE of the three deadly toxins in this hell-molecule lives up to its potential, you’re causing slow, irreparable damage to yourself. Not just your body but to YOU, your mind. Aspartame wears things away, erodes them at a level you can’t perceive. One day, you could conceivably wake up and feel 75%. Or 60%. Or 20%.
After four months without, I still feel as though I’m recovering from a traumatic head injury. My physical symptoms are long gone, as is my depression. My slowness of thought and memory have markedly improved.
Overall, I can only pray that my mind will completely recover with time. if not, I’m purely thankful to have abstained when I did. I very much appreciate life now.
There’s a humble old adage that applies very, very well here: “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
And there’s a good damn deal of smoke around.
BURN MONSANTO!