Psychosomatization buster

I was in the PHD (pile high and deep) grade of a piece of crap state yesterday...  the head on the dark side of the moon and the body in extreme discomfort... all tensed... could barely move... drastically different from the day before... when I happily got back to my walking routine after recuperating from them miserable days with da sinusitis and associated upper respiratory problem.

What happened?

That mother of mine who just had an operation to remove Cataract Friday afternoon won't stop trying to bend down and lift things... including taking the garbage out which involves opening that heavy metal door... while I was sleeping or while I went out for 2-3 hours for physical therapy.  I kept on telling her to stop but she kept on insisting on doing things her own way...

Finally I blew up big...

I don't get mad usually... partially because when I really get really upset, both my body and mind suffer... and really suffer.  My folks are my Achilles' heel, 99.9% of the times, shall there be sudden change in my bodily condition, no doubt... it would have something to do with my parents... and chances are... something to do with their well-being.

So I blew up and go REALLY mad... 氣死, 氣死, 氣死啦!!!

Then, it feels as if my body was blowing up like a balloon with Qi building up without any release... from head to toe... bloated, bloated, and bloated... as if I were to explode.  While in extreme discomfort, I also couldn't keep myself awake... So I took a short nap... only to find out after I woke up that my entire left side spasmed so bad that the body was bending towards the left side... and... the entire left side was semi-paralyzed (unless my mom got me so upset that I had a stroke, sounds familiar... left side semi-paralyzed)... I couldn't lift my left hand and leg.   When trying to get to do my physical therapy, I had to take many a stop because I got tired and out of breath so easily.  And... the way I walked... it was more like I was constantly swinging the left side of my body forward... though I did get my therapy done and got myself home.
To wash hands, I had to use my right hand to lift my left hand.  To get into the bathtub, of course, I had to use my right hand to lift my left leg...  Yet, so I thought... as long as one side of my body works...  at least I could still take my clothes off, take a shower and manage to put the clothes on...

So I went to bed early... by 10 o'clock... only to wake up 4 hours later... wide awake... not able to fall back to sleep and in pain... with severe nerve pain literally from head to toe...  I decided to get up, put some body cream with Lavender essential oil on, and, later, took an Alleve.

Waking up this morning, the left side was still weak but far better than how it was yesterday... Then, after some of my swinging thing (which I couldn't do at all yesterday), I took my less-crappy sory body to see my rehabilitation doctor.

I told him what happened and I couldn't get the Qi in my body to flow because it was too stalled.  The doctor took a look at me and was in agreement with me...

After I laid on my stomach, he did something on my left hip and right hip like what the bakers did in the Japanese anime 烘焙王 (Yakitate!! Japan)... kneading the dough... 8-O lol

After I got up, I felt... much relaxed and Qi flowing down...  I walked in to the clinic with a flavor of a limp, I walked out... less limping and, as I kept on walking on, trying to relax more, I walked better and better...

What I have described so far... after getting all upset, the body became immobile and suffered excruciating nerve pain... you can't get a better psychosomatic example than this... no doubt... psycho (upset) leads to soma...

Since what happened to me is, no doubt, the manifestation of psychosomatization and it took my doctor 2 minutes to get it resolved, so I thought on my way home... observing that the weakness on the left side gone and my getting back to, not limp, walk,...  that should make my doctor the psychosomatization buster... whether you buy in the concept of Qi or not... or you consider it a manifestation of self-fulfilling prophecy or not... (and, of course, the effects might not last too long if I continue with my  "氣死, 氣死, 氣死啦!!!" routine... In a sense, sustainability is dependent on the patient la!)

Pain perception and Psychosomatization

When doing my physical therapy, I chatted with this neighbor who was, apparently, very much in pain and is leaving for the US tomorrow.  Somewhere along our chit-chatting... the notion of relaxing and ignoring pain came up.  Since she had to go, I didn't have the chance to clarify fully with her what I had wished to convey, and since the thoughts have already emerged, I might as well share it with you... some notions I might have spoke of... buried in the scarily huge amount of limited my words... 8-X

When she revealed that she was advised to try to relax, I also suggested to her that when the pain is manageable, it would be good for her to try to learn to focus on anything other than pain (though I have no idea whether things outta my mouth were interpreted in accordance to what I intended to express during our chit-chatting).  

Since somewhere out there and someone else might be going through the issue of coping with pain and discomfort, I decide to come back to the topic again.

Regardless, somewhere during the chit-chatting, the notion of in your head arise... which, inevitably, reminds me of the notion of psychosomatization.

Let me speak of pain first... it is my believe that among the multidimensionalities of pain, there should be one dimension labeled as "manageability."  Some pain is more manageable than others-- I know it because the aches and pains I have to endure today is far more manageable than what I had to live with years back when the body was in ground zero... after the accident in 2007 and after the chiropractor's manipulation in 2010.  For most people suffering from excruciating pain that takes out the full control of cognitive processing, with proper treatments and therapeutic interventions, the day shall come when unmanageable pain becomes more manageable... at some point.

Personally, after the pain becomes more manageable, it becomes much easier to focus on something to distract myself from bodily comfort, and to practice the art of ignoring pain. (Sounds almost like the notion of ignoring my psychotic symptoms... so it is... the story of my ain't-no-nothing-new-ever-happen life. 8-O lol)  When the time comes for the pain to be manageable, you will know.

I always remember, one day, how my disability coordinator at worker's com said... something like... "You might just have to live with the pain" since that's what many others do.  I was absolutely upset by the notion of "well, just live with that pain" while I can't stop asking myself... "Could it be true that it is me too lame to live with the pain that no one else have problem living with?"   It was not until the pain finally became manageable did I understand that it is possible to live with the pain... except for... it was not until when the pain became manageable to me did I realize that... yes... I might have to live with that pain and I think I can live with it.

So, how does relaxing have anything to do with anything?

When people are stressed, they feel tensed... psychologically and physically.  Think about it... if my nerves are already impinged, what good would it do for the surrounding tissues already two-tents?  Make it three tents, I guess?  Unless enough tents to build a village?  This is why the experts recommend again and again--telling us to relax.  At the same time, though I am no big proponent for pain killers--since I have surely had my share of quota and suffered from it-- when I sense the conditions are to go beyond the level of manageability, I would pop my pill of Alleve to prevent things from escalating.  Yet, relaxing is an art... an art I yet have to learn to master and I don't know whether there would come one day when I will learn to truly relax.  Yet, since it is my own body and my own suffering, who else is to work on it... I guess?

Next in line... it's all in your head... Of course, it really is all in your head since it is your head that performs pain perception.  In addition, them neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine all have been found to work for the department of pain modulation.  Also, organic changes in brain structure been found in people suffering chronic pain.  The only thing I can say about it's all in your head is that... accept it!  It surely is all in your head! 8-O lol

What about that good old notion of psychosomatization?  Psycho and soma are, beyond a doubt, interlinked... sort of like... the serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine in the pain modulation department are the same serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine contributing to, for instance, my private mental department.  Thus, there is no doubt that psycho affects soma and vice versa. (Gotta say though... whether my mental model of psychosomatization is the same as others' mental model of psychosomatization...)

Sounds like more bad news than good news I have been sharing so far...

OK... now I have run through my facts... Yet,  facts are all good but insufficient because what is most important is to say, given the facts, so what can can be done to live when all possible organic changes have incurred or there is nothing organic and when all is but psychosomattic?

For me, personally, it took me years of living with what I have and what I have to live through to come to the following way of thinking... regardless the cause... all psychosomatic, all organic or the combination of both psychosomatic and organic...  Take the extreme scenario for instance... like what my friend Jan had me told when this neurologist speculated the diagnosis of "conversion disorder"... "So you have conversion disorder but what can they do about it?"

Unterwegs zur recovery... face the reality that if you are in pain and in unbearable pain, you are tensed and it surely is mighty difficult for you to relax!  Quit lying to yourself that you are already all relaxed!  Also, accept all possible causes as it is (like... already got done with it many a blue moon before yesterday) so that you can stop worrying whether it is all in your head and it is all psychosomatic with the purpose of accepting it all being--getting rid of the impact of such notion so that you have less to worry about and be more relaxed (rather than accepting it all and continue to worry about its implication).  Thereafter, dedicate your  focus on what you can do to help yourself get better, feel better, and be more relaxed--do the right things you can do one day at a time.  Like what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said...

At the same time, having pain not corresponding to anatomical evidence? Check out... Beyond size and sensation... lol

PS. I know, I know... I have discussed the same notion too many a time... almost like a broken record already... 

The psychosomatic ouch moment

As I was browsing through some older files tonight and came across these pictures I took back in 2005....

I don't quite remember what it was like then although my old blog might give me some clues about it.

One thing I do remember, I used to carry the camera and my precious baby laptop, who used to be a fledgling chick and now a retired old hen-- going all around--- including up and down the park.

So I saw them old picture I took...

Damals-- the hills, slopes and stairs I climbed up and down...

Something felt strangely awful around the area of my chest and stomach... sort of like the kind of sensation you would get when the nerve pain is still bad but the pain killers told your brain to stop perceiving the signals as pain.

I went... "Ouch.  Oops... psychosomatic."  (unless... somapsychotic) 8-O 8-X lol sigh



I have been told that people have the propensity to talk about "damals-- I did this and that..."

So I thought... no no no... mes not yet ready to be old! 8-O 8-X lol

(P.S.  What is psychosomatization other than the label itself?  Some thoughts I would like to share with you soon based on my extensive clinical experiences-- though thoughts still under construction because the Goddess of da fountain of speech might be out on vacation.)

Is "conversion disorder" a "psychotic episode"?

Somebody came to my site with a google search term... is "conversion disorder" a "psychotic episode"?

Can't answer that question...

To begin with, what is a psychotic episode?  I am still psychotic since I got discharged from the psychiatric ward in Feb. 2008... The condition had gone up and down till my present 12.50 mg seroquel days...

Have I been in a psychotic episode for the past 8 years since the symptoms have never gone away?

Or, a psychotic episode is a state within which one's state is at the instutionalizable kinda grade?

Secondly... what is conversion disorder?

To be honest, I can't tell you and no experts could really prove that I have "conversion disorder. .. not even that neurologist who started the entire conversion disorder conversation...

It is and have only been a hypothesis... not to mention that... in a lot of cases where the patients were diagnosed with conversion disorder because of the lack of physiological basis, it was found later that the physiological basis did exist... just not identified.   Check out some of the textbooks on the topic of conversion disorder and you shall be able to find some references.

Back again to the question...

Is "conversion disorder" a "psychotic episode"?

I don't know and I don't know what them experts would tell you.

One thing I do know... if you are psychotic, psychosomatic symptoms can come as part of the package.  8-O lol sigh

Wholly invisibly disable: Psycho and Soma

The accident that turned me wholly disabled, both body and head run only in two speed... "slow and stop"... not to mention, when capable of reading academic papers, I have to live with things such as the deceased author would come to tutor me?

The thing about being wholly invisibly disabled is that... nobody could tell there is anything wrong with you unless you tell them and nobody could tell you exactly which part is causing what wrong.

For these past two years, the recovery of my body sort of plateau while my head kept on getting "better"... as indicated by the amount of meds required in my own book...

"Could it really be the whole thing about body and mind?  The interconnectedness between psycho and soma?  Could it be the chi clearing up at the top, which makes the soma having problems finishing processing?"

Some questions I dare not entertain but can not help wanting to entertain...

I told my shrink and he didn't seem to quite feel like entertaining this idea... and... for the body, talk to the body doctor...

I went to my body doctor and the reaction must have been something like... it's the shrink's question....

Everybody knows there is something wrong but nobody could figure out how to fix them wrongs.  8-O lol

Even if it is all psychosomatization or somapsychotization.... experts don't seem to quite know either...

After a few rounds of running between different doctors, and, after I started getting dizzy circling around like a diggie chasing its own tail...

All loopy and dizzy... I thought... poor doggie... you could chase your own tail to your heart's content...

How does it help?  8-O lol sigh

You do still ponder, though.

But, you learn to tune it down and make it play in the background... lower and lower... 

Psychosomatisation

Ever since I started going through the grieving process, even my body has gone into a much worse shape with aches and pains and discomfort taking their comeback...

Might have something to do with the cold weather as well...

In any case, perfect scenario of psychosomatisation.

You know it helps nobody to be in this state... Yet, it simply is the way it is until I finally get myself out of it.

Cane-less

While some people in my imaginary world might still be pondering about how psychosomatisation is liked to my need to use cane this past week or two, I finally am cane-less again...

Why does it take longer this time for me to get rid of the cane when comparing to da condition following the MRI scan, for instance?

My rationale...

The MRI scan disturbed the Xi or energy field...

The stupid laptop moving activities caused problem at the physical level...

This might be why it took longer to be cane-less again.

PTSD

Of course, just when I thought I might be able to finish collecting all documents by today and at least send them all out by tomorrow...

And... after waiting for phone calls...

I finally called again to check to see whether the document from one source is ready.... only to find out 15 minutes from closing time... I won't be able to get there to give this stupid initial...

Here comes the loop....

I got irritated...

"Why didn't they tell me I need the initial when I was there?"

"They didn't know until they reviewed it."

"Is there any other way where I can give my initial?" For God's sake, it's a patient requesting her own information! 8-O

"No... you have to wait till Monday."

"Would it be possible to get it by Monday since Tuesday is the optimal deadline?"

"There is no telling?"

"Shit!" So I heard myself over the phone... time to apologise....

So I said to the nice lady on the other end... "I am sorry... I am not saying shit to you... it is the situation..."

The matter of the fact is that....

It is a tiring and trying process... especially when what you are asked to go back and confront is a past you do not wish to look back.... Other than my not liking to talk on the phone....

This is more than somebody else's documentation you are gathering...

This is a whole mess filled with God knows why complications for an utterly simple being.

And... if you don't know... it is ok... because I did not realise it until seconds ago...

So, as I was all tired and trying to drag myself back home with all documents in the backpack, I felt the bag was heavy...

It surely is heavier than my ordinary load....

Yet, at the same time, let's put it... psychosomatisation... its weight on me seems to make it even more heavy....

Perhaps, what I was reacting to was the vast bureau of indecision.

The prolonged process of a strange pursuit.... with the ups and downs of meds adjustment as one major theme through all these years... what I happened to scan through when photocopying a copy of the documents for myself.... what I once noticed when scanning through all my blog postings so far...

The documents so very confidential that it would require an extra initial of mine to get released... apparently... even more sensitive than those for the others...

So I thought of the comment I made right after the phone call...

"If one diagnosis they have failed to assign so far... that would be PTSD..."

Except for... where does the stress originate from? Could it be that "me" unless it is too presumptuous to, again, be me-centric?

And.. unless it is not only "mes"... it's simply human?

Sort of like what junior said after seeing what all my trials and hearing my side of conversation..... "I would have blow off myself..."

Food

I can't stop eating.... food.... I got food on my mind...

Might have started earlier on.... not sure...

However, one thing I am sure is that it has gotten so much worse since last Tuesday after the MRI scan... (correlational and law of proximity)...

I would be eating like a piglet all the way till the middle of the afternoon... early in the evening... I would be hungry again and my governments would ask for food.... 8-O lol

The weird thing...

When the meds first went down such as 3 weeks ago, my appetite actually also got slowed down...

However, it starts again... I want food... sort of like what happens when the dosage goes up...

Yet, what do I know other than.... I need food because Is want food... 8-O lol

Don't know what kind of psychosomatisation it is.... 8-O

Uni-theory

Some days you think...

Let's simplify it... entertain only one theory about the resurrecting pain and disability... etc...

Let's just say... it is psychosomatisation and with the classic definition...

Now I say... what I have been going through are nothing more the manifestation of psychosomatisation.

It is in the hands of the experts...

What are you doing to do about it?  Or, what can I do about it?  The classic symptoms.

Prescribe the cure... I will follow through with it.

Ummm.... excellent... ain't my issue anymore... especially it was never really my issue since it ain't like I am getting paid big bucks as a diagnostician like House, who just got admitted end of last season.... 8-O lol  oops... sorry my sympathy and empathy...

Big problem of mine... can't mind my own business... 8-O lol

Romantic

My body is getting better...

Still use the cane as a support but something tells me that I can do away without it in a day or two...

During my walk today, this thought came to me again....

There is something seriously romantic about the notion of psychosomatisation....

Them people adopting this worldview gotta be seriously romantic.... sort of like so very fussy feeling....

I wonder what it might feel like for someone to suspect whether a patient has conversion disorder...

Whether they go...

"OMG... Finally.... I found the one... all these years of waiting and pondering... I have been preparing for this day for so long..... Where have you been in my entire life!" 8-O lol

Sort of like....

Just my imagination...

As long as you don't ask me what it means to be romantic....

Alternative theory: Pain and MRI

Bumped into this friend on the street... apparently, from his view, my body seems to be pretty beaten down.... me concur.... 8-O

I told him it happened all of a sudden after the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan... (correlational study)...

He asked whether it might have to do with the anxiety associated with it.

I said I only had my knees and the lower part of my thigh in the thing and I sort of felt asleep at the end of the scan....

I do understand where it comes from... the psychosomatisation line of viewpoint...

Yet, so I must have responded to his comment... true... the line of literature available is dependent on the psychosomatisation kinda perspective...

This is why they tell you do come up with a theoretical framework for your studies.... because however you examine your data would be (and would have to be) based on the lens afforded by the chosen framework as well as the arguments you have to make to complete your write up.... with other kind of viewpoints go into the limitation section.... 8-O lol

"I have a different theory. I am sensitive to Xi, Qi or energy. Speaking of the impact of magnetic field on energy (and vice versa).

So he added... "And it resonates...." which inevitably drives my entire body up the wall and going into different directions... I guess... speaking of entanglements.... 8-O lol

In addition, I hope the energy in my body didn't interact with the magnetic field so well that it creates electrical currents through my head... it would turn into a free ECT treatment.... I once heard that ECT with only one electrode works better than that with 2... This is even better than the uni-electrode ones since it requires no electrodes at all.... As long as they don't charge me for the added value.... 8-O lol

With one of the side effect.... man... I can't stopping eating.... 8-O lol

At the same time, I have been doing my swinging exercise with due diligence since it is the only thing really that I could do anyways... Since yesterday, there is been this feeling that there is this cold thing coming out of my head... through my mouth... or.. coming down through my body.... feeling as if some not so conductive chi or qi is getting drastically released.... It feels as if the body is taking a hit by the flooding of the cold chi.... and this is why... the body is taking a hit...

For more elaborated writing, please do a search yourself in the postings I made later part last year... I won't entertain furthermore about since thinking too much does nothing constructive anyway... and might make it destructive.... 8-O

In any case, it's but a theory... sort of like what his face said about m theory or quantum theory.... How do you prove it?

At the same time, there is a difference between my MRI encounters then and now... Essentially, today, the theory I subscribe to is the theory of Qi....

In addition, theories are theories.... because they are not laws... and, I am sort of confused here... I thought the reason why laws are laws is because there ain't no exceptions... such as that apple falling on Newton's head would also fall on your head as well... Yet, don't they say them laws aren't applicable in the quantum world? Just a layperson's dump question and nonsensical thought... I guess....

In Pain and Of Mental

I have a dream... one day, I am going to find a world of literature showing chronic pain could lead to the worsening of psychotic symptoms with the underlying model in human all figured out...

Yet, to date, the only thing I could find is a case study reporting how a lady who initially reported tick bites eventually had a full-blown psychotic episode... Good luck to her and wish her a full recovery and no more relapses...

When scanning through the Chapter Assessment of Psychiatric Disorder in the Handbook for Pain Assessment, the authors did a, presumably, comprehensive review of pain-related psychiatric disorders including Depressive Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Somatiform Disorders as well as Substance Abuse and Dependence. Yet, there is not much mentioning about psychosis.

In line with the structure of the above chapter, when searching for literature concerning pain and psychosis, it appears to me that the consensus the experts has achieved so far is that people with psychosis are insensitive to pain and have high pain threshold..... 8-O

I do have to mention that there do exist literature looking into the the pain perceptions of pain as part of the delusions and hallucinations.

Granted, much has been written about how depression often follows the onset of chronic pain and how patients with depression have the propensity to report worse pain level in various dimensions (as long as you don't ask me how they come up with the baseline since I have not had the chance yet to go much into the original research papers).

Of course, despite of my idiopathic pain, one thing I am trying to accomplish is to understand how my psychiatric condition, namely, although Schizo (psychotic) also affective (neurotic), might have had an impact on the unfolding of my recovery process from my spinal injuries and chronic pain, and, how pain might have had an impact on my psychiatric condition, be it Schizo (psychotic) or affective (neurotic).

As you could tell through them purple texts, it appears that more studies have done and theories have been formed concerning the association between depressive symptoms and pain.

Maybe it has something to do with the garbage-can nature of da Schizo syndrome, there seems to be far less research done in examining psychotics in excruciating pain.

This leads me to wonder...

How does my being both psychotic and neurotic, or, both the propensity for insensitivity and sensitivity to pain, have an impact on my pain experiences? Is there an additive effect when they simply cancel each other out or might there be an interaction effect although I am not quite sure how they might interact? Unless, it is simply choosing the more miserable outcome effect I am pondering about and speaking of.... Or, what it be like if the pain I was supposed to perceive should have actully be more.... 8-O lol sigh

And, perhaps, the specific topic I have in mind concerning pain assessment would be around the alley of the assessment of pain for people with some kind of mental health condition(s).... with the pain, perhaps, neuropathic?

(This writing is cross-posted in my Ratology in Disability Blog)

Walker

For years, I do not want to use my mental health condition as a crutch... an excuse for anything at all...

Then, I am asked to provide some compelling reason for my having been a lost soul in limbo, not able to get things finished like any ordinary soul, especially, I guess, for the time past this past two years or so...

The answer is simple...

I was in pain and unable to move. At some point, I became depressed and later I was overwhelmed by the increased level of psychotic symptom... so mental that I went into the psychiatric ward... And, I try to recover one step and a time... with the recovery process moving forward and backwards at its own leisure...

Sort of like the process of working on a dissertation when, some days, all that you could afford to do is to delete two or three paragraphs...

So I sent out something like the above as the rationale.... or the compelling reason...

Then, as the email went out... dramatising or not... I felt it in my heart... cut like a knife... Ouch... and Ouch some more... (and, psychosomatisation... so it is...)

Something I would never want to do while, perhaps, it is something I need to learn to do... to accept and acknowledge the impacts...

Fight no more... acknowledge the impact and move on doing whatever else you could do to live on with your beautiful life....

So I thought... a crutch...

Then, it occurred to me... this vision of the past... both physically and mentally handicapped... my trying to move around in the psychiatric ward using a walker... not a cane... not a crutch... a walker... 8-O lol sigh

From Ratology Reloaded

Going from never using the word "suffering" and tauting the term "insanity".... today, these two words finally emerge in my dictionary... 8-O lol sigh

So I thought... this is another life's lesson for me to learn... after all these times... something unnecessary (and, hopefully, incomprehensible) for them lucky normal people...

And, like how the song goes...

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you

Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out

Helping you out

Now that all has been said and done...

So I think to myself...

Ain't no nothing so bad anyways....

Why pain now

As I was taking the shower, I tried to think of the plausible reason why I, all of a sudden why be in such much pain... above and beyond the contribution of da theory that I might have slept wrong two night ago...

1. One theory would be that this is a form of psychosomatisation.... the pain has come back out because I am undergoing high stress level....
2. Another theory would be that I am more studious than I know... Since I have to go back to the pain literatures, my body and mind or my conversion disordered self decided to bring pain back out as the supplementary learning materials... 8-O 8-X lol sigh

And, if you ask me, what about them pains running around different places...

1. The first theory would be it is the manifestation of psychomatisation... whatever that means...
2. A second theory I have is that it has something to do with the qi moving....
3. The third and last theory would be... my prefrontal cortext is going out of wack and it is interpreting signals that might not even exist...

8-O lol 8-X

Zu Hause sein: Being at home

I have been spending some time in this online social networking place and, today, I found this discussion forum titled "The Mental Ward"...

No offense to my normal people... However, as I was browsing through the postings... I had this strange feeling of... Zu Hause sein: Being at home...

It was then did I realise that... I have been Andrew in the movie Bicentennial man who spent all these years for the others like him and finally find them....

Following is what I posted in this forum:

Just want to say that this feels like heaven to find somewhere where people also have psychosis and/or neurosis as their profile....

Wonderful sense of belonging...

It is as if I have been Andrew in the movie Bicentennial man who spent all these years for the others like him and finally find them....

Following are my responses:

1) Where are you from? Originally from Taiwan, Now in NYC

2) What's your diagnosis? Through out the years, I have been given many different labels, ranging from depression, delusional disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, panic disorder... a neurologist I went to see for my back problem and inability to walk suspected that I might have conversion disorder, a type of psychosomatisation although I have never been officially diagnosed by a psychiatrist with this label

3) Are you on any meds? If so which ones? Through out the years, I have taken zoloft, wellbutrin, zyprexa, risperdal, dapakote, clonazapam and Seroquel. Currently, I am on 500 mg Seroquel daily and Clonazapam whenever I have something like a panic or anxiety attack.

4) Are you under psychiatric care? yes.

5) Do you seek counseling? I used to see a therapist. Nowaday, no because I don't have the money for it.

6) Have you ever been hospitalized? Yes. Three times.... three full-blown psychotic episodes.

7) What other methods do you actively employ for your recovery? Vitamins, walking and qi kinda exercise (the only exercise I could do due to my back condition)as well as a web of social support from family and friends

In addition, my psychosis is late onset... it was not until I was in my 30s when I first experienced psychotic symptoms. I went in and out of the psychiatric ward twice when I was working on my dissertation. Moreover, I was running the experiment for my dissertation all the way till I got locked up and went right back to run my experiments right after I was released... and, I eventually, living with symptoms that never cease, got my doctoral degree...

In other words, neurotic or psychotic, although we might need to take a detour at times, we can do it!!!

Pain

An interesting quotation I encounter in the opening chapter of the Handbook of Pain Assessment...

"Just as 'my pain' belongs in a unique way only to me, so I am utterly alone with it. I cannot share it. I have no doubt about the reality of the pain experience, but I cannot tell anybody what I experience. I surmise that others have 'their' pain, even though I cannot perceive what they mean when they tell me about them." (Illich, 1976 cited in D.C. Turk & R. Melzack, 2001)

So very true... I could only appropriate the pains others suffer by referencing to the experiences of my own.... There is no object measure such as a pain thermometer... and it is also difficult to equate our idiosyncratic scales...

At the same time, if only our beliefs about our experiences could be so very strong...

For... many a time, we go back to revisit this plausibility...

Is it simply in my head-- a manifestation of psychosomatisation?

Even so--- how would it matter and what does it inform us about how to to move forward?

(This is cross-posted in my Disability in Ratology blog)

The heart has its reason.... 8-O

Last night, after I went to bed, I experienced again them poundings of the heart, which is extremely annoying.

Surely, while there might be really change in the heartbeat rate, the lack of other stimuli present when trying to fall asleep might make it especially easy for me to have heightened sensitivity towards perceptions concerning my bodily function. In addition, due to the more frequent occurrences of such experiences, it is plausible for me to start behaving like Pavlov's dog to whom the ring of the bell could actually result in the increase of secretion of saliva... 8-O lol

Yet, tachycardia or rapid heart rate is one of the documented side effect of Seroquel and I have been experiencing them on and off through out the years... In addition, although rarely do I take Clonazepam, I have also experienced pounding heartbeat after taking this medication...

In other words, to be honest, there is no telling, you see, whether them pounding heartbeat at crazy rates is simply due to the side effect of the meds or the psychosomatization of heightened anxiety level.

One insight I gained as I was feeling them heartbeats pounding up a storm last night is that...

Whatever the causes might be, I gotta find a way to help myself engage in biofeedback kinda exercise....

Such as.... staring at a goose fixing its feather or another one dosing off under the summer heat by the pond... (wow, never occurred to me that geese could dose off, too... 8-O lol)



By the way, it was very funny when, at times, while me staring at the goose and the goose stared at me. Is it me staring at the goose or the goose staring at me? Pretty zen... isn't it? 8-O lol

And, I think, the goose must be thinking to itself... "What on earth is this strange thing doing staring at me?" lol

Copy cat

As I was doing my exercise in my room, I saw Brian Greene appearing on NY 1...

Two things he spoke of caught my attention...

First, he is not really a proponent for the string theory (remember that 10 dimension thing) since it has not been proved.



Second, he translated science into common language...

So I thought...

First, am I a proponent for the xi, qi, or chi? I am not quite sure since all that I do is letting the body moving itself and there is no proof that it is really the chi, xi or qi moving my body... (and, God knows, provided shall God exist, whether it is but an alternative interpretation for psychosomatizations although God knows, again, what psychosomatization really means... 8-O lol)

Second, for all else I have not accomplished.... at least, what I have done with my verbal diarrhea is to translate all things I try to describe into Bad English.... 8-O lol

One thing I know is that...

The trip home was a difficult one because the whole chest etc was making me feel really uncomfortable....

Now that I finished doing the moves for the second time in the day....

For reason unknown... both of my hands are freezing cold... and the feet are getting really cold as well...

In any case, I suspect I am in a better state because I am finding them 8-O lol in my writing again.... which, in the meanwhile could be argued as the placebo effect, provided there is anyone who give a rat's ass about what had come out from my mouth to be making an argument... 8-O lol

Body and mind

As I am sitting down, though lower in energy level since the beginning of the day, still quite capable of browsing through the job postings listed in the chronicle of higher ed...

All of a sudden, it hit me again...

Psychosomatic symptoms which take charge of the majority of my cognitive processes...

While in dasein, let me describe to you this state of my body and mind...

So, it is heavy around my chest.... and it feels as if something is pulling my chest inward... then, at certain point, it feels as if something is tearing me inside of my chest or the place you might called the heart...

It causes pains... real physical pains... from chest on to the other parts of my body...

It also feels so heavy and tight... so heavy that it seems to be causing me problem breathing... so hard to breath that led me to take deep breaths in order to get some air... This, at the same time, reminds me of the experiences of anxiety attacks or panic attacks...

So, it is painful when the forces pull my chest inwards...

At some points, it does the opposite... the chest gets pushes outwards and painful feelings, both psychological and physical, remain... In this kind of condition, it feels so very empty inside....

The cognitive processing power, through out the whole time, involuntarily becomes dedicated to perceiving all these physical symptoms... while, at the same time, it feels as if the head is all tightened up...

At points, it also sends out signals reminding me that... it is not only my body... I am also in a depressive state of mind...

Now I am done describing the symptoms... I think it is time for me to go do some of my swinging exercises...