If physical illness was treated like mental illness..

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kraftiekortie
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14 Nov 2014, 10:16 am

Anxiety can cause physical symptoms. It is, primarily, to me, an emotional disorder, though.



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14 Nov 2014, 10:49 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
Anxiety can cause physical symptoms. It is, primarily, to me, an emotional disorder, though.


Anxiety gives me executive dysfunction (or the other way around) or shutdowns or meldowns. It sucks. Trying to hold in a meltdown just leads to chest pains and shortness of breath or dizziness. I guess I give myself panic attacks if I don't let myself have a meltdown.


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kraftiekortie
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14 Nov 2014, 10:52 am

Anxiety makes me screw up socially. Anxiety makes me say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Anxiety makes me come up with snap judgments--which are without a basis in fact. Anxiety had made me make bad choices in life.

Anxiety causes me to have diarrhea. Anxiety causes me to have headaches. Anxiety has caused me to vomit before. Anxiety causes my heart rate to race.



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14 Nov 2014, 11:09 am

It makes my muscles ache because I automatically tense them all the time. And clenching my teeth. I have to be mindful to stop myself from doing these things. Walking my dog helps.



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14 Nov 2014, 12:44 pm

And yet NTs don't lack empathy?


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B19
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14 Nov 2014, 3:15 pm

The physiological impacts of anxiety are numerous because just like other stress, it impacts on all systems of the body, with raised cortisol levels, increased inflammation (not the kind you can see), and if chronic these can be precursors to very serious illnesses. I'll post a link about the inflammatory impact of depression later, when I find it, it may surprise many.



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14 Nov 2014, 3:49 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Anxiety makes me screw up socially. Anxiety makes me say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Anxiety makes me come up with snap judgments--which are without a basis in fact. Anxiety had made me make bad choices in life.

Anxiety causes me to have diarrhea. Anxiety causes me to have headaches. Anxiety has caused me to vomit before. Anxiety causes my heart rate to race.


The only thing missing from this list is the weird feeling in your hands and wrists... Sorry that you also go through this.

I can vividly recall my first week of working as a freelance graphic designer on a trade magazine job... I had a bag with some specialized tools:
Syquest 44 cartridge, personal set of schaedler rules, pens, loupe, maalox, kaopectate.
Dealing with the gastric consequence of stress was just as important as getting the type and color right.



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14 Nov 2014, 3:51 pm

http://discovermagazine.com/2014/julyau ... flammation

If this link interests you, you can find the research on depression and inflammation easily on Google, and articles similar to the one linked here.

To me it is a very interesting and relatively recent breakthrough by the researchers. Curiously, given the huge impact and incidence of depression, it had been given little attention by the medical profession and psychiatrists. One reason for this, unfortunately, is that drug companies have a bonus-payment-per-prescription system in quite significant amounts. Not many countries allow this, but the USA and New Zealand do, and they allow it to be hidden from the patient-consumer. However that is another topic for another day.

In this thread we are discussing the serious flipside of the cartoons - which made the point that "mental" illness merits the same acceptance, understanding and respect the "physical" illness does. We have collectively made the related point - with surprisingly few exceptions - that the conceptualisation of illness as either "physical" or "mental" is arbitrary and more a matter of prejudice and ignorance than fact and reality.



Adamantium
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14 Nov 2014, 3:59 pm

I think this false dichotomy is a legacy of Cartesian dualism and is continuously energized by the desire to believe that our minds have "free will" and are not subject to forced change as a result of fluctuations in our physical beings.

Some people feel a deep existential dread when they confront the idea that their minds are inseparable from their bodies.



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14 Nov 2014, 4:31 pm

Right on with that observation!

(On a lighter note, you hear "I'm afraid of losing my mind" but not "I'm afraid of losing my body" LOL) Curious in a way!



androbot01
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14 Nov 2014, 4:49 pm

Adamantium wrote:
I think this false dichotomy is a legacy of Cartesian dualism and is continuously energized by the desire to believe that our minds have "free will" and are not subject to forced change as a result of fluctuations in our physical beings.

Some people feel a deep existential dread when they confront the idea that their minds are inseparable from their bodies.


I've noticed too that people think their "goodness" is consistent over time. But really our reactions and behaviour can vary from day to day. There is no always good person. Judgment can be effected by hunger, fatigue, chemical imbalances. I think as we learn more about brain chemistry people's behaviour will be fairly consistent as unhealthy deviations could be medicated away. Like optimized biological machines.



kraftiekortie
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14 Nov 2014, 4:54 pm

Absolutely....nobody is always "good."

It doesn't mean, though, that one cannot aspire to be as decent as one can be.

I'm also a firm believer in the symbiotic relationship between the "mental," the "emotional," and the "physical" within all kinds of illnesses.

Do I believe in "free will?" Absolutely--in most cases.



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14 Nov 2014, 5:05 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Anxiety makes me screw up socially. Anxiety makes me say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Anxiety makes me come up with snap judgments--which are without a basis in fact. Anxiety had made me make bad choices in life.

Anxiety causes me to have diarrhea. Anxiety causes me to have headaches. Anxiety has caused me to vomit before. Anxiety causes my heart rate to race.


+1 and add on panic attacks. Its a horrid experience.



kraftiekortie
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14 Nov 2014, 5:28 pm

I'm fortunate I've never had a panic attack--but I've come close.



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14 Nov 2014, 7:28 pm

Anxiety - experienced in the mind as a distinctive state. Experienced in the body as a distinctive state. Anxiety: a distinctive state affecting mind and body: mind + body = a distinctive experience with underlying physiological unity between brain and the rest of the body.

http://www.anxietycare.org.uk/docs/biol ... ffects.asp



kraftiekortie
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14 Nov 2014, 7:44 pm

It's physiological, yet experienced as "emotional."

It has an "emotional" impact upon me.