Anyone got any experience in recovering from Psychosomatic issues?

[ZenAlex]

I have been reading some posts on this forum and came across this - https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/41799-psychosomatic-symptoms-from-anxiety/, whic

 

What this guy said really resonated with me. He talked about him having to focus on certain tasks triggered his physical symptoms. 

I compared that to what I was going through and something clicked. 

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As some of you may be aware, I've been making posts on the forum, mainly in the health section, where I talk about what I'm trying to rule out when it comes to my symptoms. I've had plenty of blood tests done now, and although there were some signs of what could be causing it, there's no clear deficiency or irregularity in my blood work that are proving to definitely to be causing my problems. I've spent plenty of time, when I'm not procrastinating, trying to figure out why my symptoms are there.

A thought occurred to me, when scanning for patterns and connections in the symptoms and what happened, that my stomach issues were the worst in January when my job was the most busy. Towards the end of last year, my call centre was quietish and it gave my mind more time to calm. But at times in january my lightheadedness and stomach problems were the most difficult they'd ever been, and that correlated with me having my mind engaged constantly with taking call after call for the first time since the issues started. 

I do notice a connection between stress/anxiety and my symptoms now, and I believe my mental health at some point gotten worse and these physical symptoms are a symptom of that. I notice that being at work and doing work that I'm doing makes the lightheadedness worse, so it seems stress related.

Any form of mental stimulation is contributing to the symptoms. Monday I spent an hour focusing on a call with my psychologist and reading lots of material, and I felt incredibly irritable afterwards. 

I am dealing with a psychologist now. I've made changes to my diet to make sure I'm plugging up any nutritional gaps just in case that contributes, but not sure if it is. 

Important fact, when I look back to around the time my depression/anxiety got the worst, it was about 3 months after starting this new line of work. I never made the connection, but maybe being such an introverted/socially anxious person combined with having to deal with so many customers every single day just didn't click well together and I was so hyper-aroused by the situation I started to suffer with Hypo-arousal, which would explain years of emotional flatness and anhedonia like symptoms.

https://mi-psych.com.au/understanding-your-window-of-tolerance/ My psychologist gave me things like his to read while we wait for our next session. 

It all starts to make sense now. People who suffer from psychosomatic problems often struggle accept it's all psychologically driven and need lots of negative tests for physical problems first before they accept it's psychological. 

I may be wrong. But we'll see.

[ZenAlex]

The above could explain why arousing activities are triggering my symptoms. 

It could explain why exercise is making me feel like this. I don't have exercise intolerance that leads to fatigue/tiredness, it's leading to worse depression/anxiety/irritability because of these reasons above.

[Princess Arabia]

It is important to note that some of these chemicals they are adding to our so-called foods and supplements can cause symptoms of mental disease. BHT, yellow-5 etc and a host of others.

[ZenAlex]

21 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

It is important to note that some of these chemicals they are adding to our so-called foods and supplements can cause symptoms of mental disease. BHT, yellow-5 etc and a host of others.

It is always possible it's all in my head but I don't know how many tests I need to do to be absolutely sure that it is tbh. 

I'm going to purchase a detailed food intolerance and allergy test and see what happens there. It tests for 200+ food intolerances plus also tonnes of allergies. 

I've got a good psychologist now that seems way more knowledgeable than my NHS one I had previously.

We'll see what happens. It will be a complete assessment of my mind and body. 

If anything comes from all of this hopefully it will be a deepened level of self awareness and mastery.

Hopefully it is resolvable. It has been difficult to calm my mind. It has made me appreciative that, for some people, meditation/yoga and standard self help activities really aren't enough in some people's cases. The stuff that worked for me for a long time isn't as effective anymore.

Edited March 8, 2024 by ZenAlex