Starting earlier this week and getting progressively worse, my skin was itching. Itching everywhere. Red welts rising on the surface from all my scratching. Lots of itching and bumps and irritation.
We tried to narrow down the suspects. I hadn’t been using David’s man-soap, same detergent as usual, no weird lotions or anything. Oh, yeah, David pointed out that I had started on antibiotics Monday.
I itched my way home and called my Aunt Sue. She’s almost done with Nursing School, she’s smart and she knows about these things. Also, she’s very matter-of-fact so I knew she wouldn’t scare me or anything. I told her what was going on, she asked some questions, told me it was probably the antibiotic and as long as my throat does not get swelly I will be fine.
I was fine. I use the word ‘fine’ loosely here as I felt like a billion tiny pins were pushing their way out of my skin. I didn’t hurt, but I was uncomfortable and irritated.
But then I got to thinking. I had a skin related allergy reaction last week. How peculiar. I don’t usually have allergic reactions to anything anymore. I used to, but not recently.
In high school and for a few years after I was always having allergic reactions to stupid things, apples, carrots, hazelnuts, life, whatever. Mostly they would make my lips and mouth swell and get irritated. I then read a book and learned about the connection between the mind and persistent health issues like body pain and allergies and the like.
Basically, your mind is a series of chemical reactions to everything, stress, happiness, colors, conversations, anger, smelly feet, driving, whatever. If there are things that are upsetting and not dealt with, like stress or depression or a deep burning anger about the price of peanuts it will affect you. Your mind/brain/body all work together, they exist together, they are all part of the same system. If your mind is upset but things are dealt with, your body will feel the consequences. That is a really simplistic way of describing the book.
The chronic pain or allergies or headaches or whatever are physically very very real. The people aren’t making up the symptoms, it’s just a matter of finding the actual root of the symptoms that is the issue. We don’t see the mind as a physical aspect of our bodies so we tend to forget that it affects our bodies.
And so, I forced myself to get over my allergies. Mind over matter. I also forced myself to really think about any other chronic health health issues I had and how they might be related to emotional issues. I worked on this and I started to feel better, both physically and mentally. They go hand in hand, you can spiral either way. You get depressed, your body hurts which makes you more depressed which makes you allergic to toilet seats which upsets you and you get migraines and so on and so on. Or, you stop feeling so tired and you’re a little more cheerful which helps to reduce your discomfort which makes you feel brighter so you overcome your allergies and your self loathing lightens up and you are able to lose weight and on and on.
It’s not that simple, but it’s a good model.
What am I saying with all this? I’m saying that I think my allergies are psychosomatic in nature. There are any number of things that bug me that I’m probably not dealing with. Any number of things that I don’t have the luxury of getting rid of. Hell, there’s a lot there that isn’t fun and good. pfooooot, I’m going to be spending a lot of time really evaluating myself and trying to get things in order. I don’t want to be allergic to everything and I certainly do not want to allow this to spiral out of control.
Wish me luck.