The Psychological Chicken and the Physiological Egg
We all know that mental and physical health affect each other, right? I mean, I would like to think that my writing brings the sort of readers who already know that. But just in case you were not aware… they do.
It’s the teasing apart the knot of physical and mental symptoms where things get confusing. While it would be nice if someone could just say “oh yes, your back pain is caused by depression” or “you are depressed because your stomach hurts,” it’s rarely that easy.
There is no straight line to be drawn from one to the other, no sequential A causes B causes C.
I’ve been feeling physically ill for months. At first, I thought it was an oncoming cold. Then the cold never came and I still felt dizzy and had enough mental fog to make me dim my high beams. Occasionally I was short of breath.
Maybe anxiety? Maybe stress!
The large dose of Zantac that I take for EoE could cause me to be low in certain vitamins, so I asked for blood work.
Ding ding! I was borderline-low in Iron, and Vitamins B12 and D. So I bought all the supplements and that totally fixed me! Except it didn’t. It definitely helped, especially with the dizziness and shortness of breath, but the exhaustion and mental fog continued.
Is the exhaustion because of some underlying issue? Is it because I dream constantly all night long most nights and therefore am not getting quality sleep? Is it the cause or result of depression?
I’ve been tired for years… but there’s always a reason. Most of them named Lorelei and Rowan. But also, any med with a potential side effect of vivid or increased dreaming is going to happily heap that into my night. Beta blockers and SSRIs both have that as a common side effect and I’ve been on one or the other for most of my adult life.
The near-panic and panic are definitely affected by sleep.
The propranolol my psych gave me to help with anxiety was most certainly interacting with my asthma (which we knew it might) so ditch that.
Twice thought I was getting a cold only to have it manifest solely in my sinuses and ears.
Still, the feeling like there was fluid behind my ears continued. And the head full of cotton.
Double ear infection. How long has that been there?
Start Amoxycillan.
Get a yeast infection. Take some Diflucan.
Ears stopped hurting but still felt stuffy. Dr added Flonaise and then Singulair, which has the potential side effect of depression. Luckily, that does not seem to be the case for me, but is anxiety-provoking in its own right.
Neither of those helped. Dr is referring out to ENT. But then I develop an actual cold. So are the Singulair and Flonase helping and the cold just made it difficult to tell?
Prozac is not really helping the anxiety and depression as much as we hoped. I’ve been taking .5mg of Ativan in the morning and another in the evening to get through the day. Go back to the psych because I’m home sick from work anyhow because of the aforementioned cold.
There, we have a multiple choice quiz of medication options. Do we want something to help with the exhaustion during the day? Or sleep at night? Hard to say when the fucking chicken appears to be still inside the egg. Will energy during the day give me the motivation to do the things that could potentially help with depression? All the exercise and leafy greens and homemade power food smoothies or whatever. Or will it just wear me out because I need better sleep?
And how about stress? Maybe it’s all stress. But then that’s a damn Sisyphean nightmare of its own.
I go to DBT to get some better coping skills. But it’s hard to absorb as much of that as I should because depression turns my snark up to 11 and my motivation to 1. And so it starts to cause its own stress. And really, what is the difference between radical acceptance and just giving up? And can someone please help Marsha Linehan work on her acronyms?
I should probably go have blood drawn again to check vitamin/iron. But I also need to go to the ENT, evidently. Maybe more therapy.
When I was home sick yesterday, I basically stayed in bed or the tub all day. Literally, I was in the tub for 3 hours straight and that wasn’t my only bath that day. Is that self-care or depression? Or needed rest while sick? What about all the other days?
In the meantime, I’m shutting my office door for 15 minutes at a time during the day, setting my alarm, and taking tiny little micro-naps. I’m missing work because I’m sick or have a million appointments, which just adds to the stress.
I struggle through work. I fight with myself to at least show up for my kids. Trying to figure out IEPs and therapy appointments and how to best support Lorelei while also occasionally making an appearance as a parent who does fun things. Really that just turns into everyone throwing glitter around and me collapsing and wash rinse repeat. And then there is nothing left and who the hell knows why.
And everybody has a suggestion. And they all rely on everything having one root cause that we can trace it all back to. But there isn’t. There’s just this tangled web. The alternative is trying to get me accept that this is natural course of stress and grief, but that’s not actually all that reassuring right now. Everything affects everything else and “just” anything is never that easy. Just get some rest. Just exercise. Just meditate. Just rinse your sinuses. Just just just. And I swear the first person who says “big pharma” is getting blocked.
Is this blog post a confusing clusterfuck?
Good. Welcome to my life, 2018 edition.
