Psychosomatic
July 18th, 2023
๐๐จ๐ฎ๐๐๐ค๐จ๐ค๐ข๐๐ฉ๐๐
Well, Iโve finally gone crazy.
(Okay, crazier than usualโฆ)
It seems my brain has found a way to give my body physical symptoms. Isnโt that fun? ๐
The word psychosomatic even sounds like it means youโve gone nuts. It has the word psycho in it, so thereโs that.
Iโve developed something called neuropathic dermatitis. Also known as neurodermatitis. And dermatitis sounds like there would be a rash but thereโs not; there is no physical, outward sign. Basically, it means that nothing is actually wrong with my skin but my brain tells the nerves in my body โListen, youโre not okay.โ My brain tries to say that to the rest of me some days, too.
I start itching in the same couple of places every night, right at bedtime. And I donโt mean a little annoying feeling where you can scratch or rub the area and itโs gone for awhile. I mean ๐ด๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ itching, like I have never experienced before, that makes you want to scratch so hard that you could rip your skin, and then scratching does ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ to alleviate the itch - it doesnโt even stop for a few seconds. In fact, the worst and most common complication of this diagnosis is skin infection from where people do just that, injure themselves just because they canโt stop scratching it so hard. It feels like you need to scratch ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ your skin.
Yes, I know, if it itches, DONโT scratch it. More histamines start dancing around in there and make it worse. Youโll itch even more. But you donโt understand this kind of itching. Creams donโt help it. Steroids donโt help it. Oatmeal baths donโt help. Warm or cool compresses donโt stop it (in fact getting warm makes it even worse somehow.) Antihistamines donโt help it.
I canโt fall asleep until somewhere around 2:00 a.m. every night and wake up around 5:00-6:00 because Iโm itching; apparently my brain is still working overtime in my sleep when I donโt even know Iโm stressed.
The most common causative factor (often referred to as โtriggerโ these days) of this idiopathic disorder isโฆ(drumroll, pleaseโฆ) SอTอRอEอSอSอ. Yep, you read that right. Stress (also translated as grief in my scenario) has taken over. Itโs in control. Clearly I am not.
Yโall, I really actually checked my bed for bedbugs (and I donโt GO anywhere to even be exposed to anything like that) because I couldnโt figure out what could be making me itch this badly.
Iโm not using new soaps, laundry detergent, lotions, etc. There is no rash. There are no bug bites. If itโs not currently itching (and so Iโm not scratching) then you canโt even see any indication that there is a problem. But it literally feels like something is crawling around under my skinโฆhundreds of somethingโs. It doesnโt spread anywhere, always the same two spots and always at night. These are apparently two hallmark signs of this specific diagnosis. It will occasionally itch a little (same spots) during the day and yesterday I was able to pin those episodes yesterday with times when I actually was more upset and stressed. Fortunately those times arenโt as bad as at night, only mildly annoying.
WHY AM I TELLING YOU ALL OF THIS?
Because it is real and it was 100% caused by my grief journey. They can say it is stress-related, yes, but every particle of stress I have right now is related to losing my husband. I have only mentioned this to a couple of people because it makes me sound like I have either the plague or the creepy crawliesโฆor that Iโm just plain nuts. I am NOT contagious and there are NO bugs! I can neither confirm or deny the rest. I also know that Iโve required a lot of prayer from a lot of people lately and it probably gets old hearing about how screwed up my life is right now. I havenโt wanted to say that there is โsomething else wrong with me,โ plus it makes me sound like a lunatic and like it is โall in my head.โ I assure you, itโs not; if you could see those places on my skin at night or when I first wake up in the morning, youโd know that thereโs more to it but that still doesnโt make it sound any less ridiculous even to me.
Iโm getting very little sleep, am beginning to feel delirious at times, have even less control over my emotions (because Iโm getting no sleep), and it is beginning to feel like more than I can handle...again. I was just starting to feel, not โbetter,โ not less sad or lonely or lost, but maybe just as if, well, if Iโve gotten this far then itโs not going to be fun and Iโm still going to hate this life without him but it looks like Iโm going to do it; Iโm going to live through it. Nowโฆnow it just feels like the task got even bigger. If this is what Paulโs โthornโ was, in the Bible, I know now why he begged to have it removed from him; it would make perfect sense to me now, for it to have been this unexplainable thing that appears to have no reason to occur but, nevertheless, just IS. (I know a lot of experts believe it was epilepsy but Iโm just saying this would have been bad, too.)
Isnโt it funny how, when youโre grieving, you feel like telling other people how you feel is too burdensome? Like, if you keep telling them how awful you feel, itโll just be too much for them and they will avoid being around you? Heck, Iโd avoid being around me right now, if I could, probably. If youโre someone who is grieving and are having more physical symptoms of that condition than you would care to explain, just know that it is real and that our minds can only take so much before it tries to find a way to protect us. Unfortunately for me, this particular coping mechanism may take my mind off of grieving temporarily as I claw at my own skin, but not in an effective way; only in a way that feels even worse than it does at all the other times. And maybe for you itโs not being able to sleep due to insomnia (I had that for the first few weeks), maybe itโs not being able to eat, no matter how much you know you need to (I lost about 12 pounds in the first two weeks and then have continued steadily, albeit less quickly, since then. Maybe itโs nausea or diarrhea (yep, been there, too). Or maybe itโs something I havenโt experienced but itโs making you feel like youโre going insane. Well, insanity is relative, I suppose. I certainly feel that way sometimes now because I donโt recognize who I am a lot of the time. The day I went from a โweโ to just meโฆI lost a piece of myself and it feels like it equates to having an essential part amputated. Like learning to walk again after losing a leg while still having terrible, excruciating phantom pains because your brain often tells your body that the leg is still there when you can look and clearly see that itโs not. But it hurts anyway. That change of identity makes you feel a little โcrazyโ for awhile. I mean, how is it possible for me to not know who I am? Still, it feels as if I donโt because Iโm so different now.
So, for now, I learn to live with a new thorn and just keep praying daily that it will be removed. Life was feeling hard enough, impossible really, before this problem came along so I could certainly use a break. I do know that, even in the roughest nights of the storm, God is still here. He still holds me in the palm of His hand. For today, knowing that is enough. So I just keep swimmingโฆ