Mind-body connection?

placidjackal97 said:honestly, her therapist should probably be sending us an invoice😉

It feels like we’re doing half his job for him right here... she just comes here to vent, let it all out, throw insults... this forum is basically her personal "rage room."

Sure, she can always head over to RiD if she needs more fuel for the fire... 😉

But northernfalcon30—you always know how to make me smile, even when you're just dropping those little casual comments...😉 🙂 ....

If people still can't see through her bitterness and jealousy after a post like this, then they're just never going to get it...

keep digging your own grave if you want to...😁

Seriously, girl, go get some sleep, for God's sake... I've got this.😎

placidjackal97 said:I wish you nothing but strength. You’re going to need it—anyone would be lying if they said otherwise.

As for me, I am an absolute extremist when it comes to medication. In the sense that I don't even touch aspirin for a headache.

It isn't that the pain isn't there; it's just that I'd rather take a hot bath, go to sleep, or get some fresh air—which is usually the culprit for me anyway, given the dry, warm air and sitting still too much at work—or just take a quick break.

When my husband and I first met, his family reminded me so much of your mother...

They actually had this dedicated cabinet in their house just for medicine 😲 and everyone thought it was perfectly normal to pop some Advil or something similar every single day if a headache cropped up.

So, basically, treating the symptom rather than the cause.

I tried to pass along some relaxation methods to him—alternative techniques and things like that.

He eventually started practicing autogenic training. It’s quite popular here in the States... originally developed by Germans.

I honestly can't remember the last time he took a pill—though, if you had asked him a few years back, he probably would have had a panic attack if we accidentally ran out of stock at home.

Phew, looking at how much stuff we have at home... we also have a dedicated medicine cabinet. Actually, looking back, it's rare to find a day in my life where I don't swallow at least one pill or take at least one puff of Albuterol. Very rare indeed.
And it really is quite sad... spending an entire lifetime being dependent on pills.
That's why I've developed such an aversion to medication, yet somehow, I always end up taking the path of least resistance and just swallowing them.
Instead of addressing the root cause—and goodness knows how many causes there are, I'll be fighting them for God knows how many years 🙄 )
Well then.
The older I get, the less I use them; I spend most of my time trying to convince my mother that I don't need a pill for every little thing.
But those heavy medications have already done their damage... my stomach has become incredibly sensitive. It's awful.
I can only eat certain things, or if I indulge in something I love, I pay the price afterward. 😠

northernfalcon30 🙂

Gotta get some walking in... otherwise my back starts acting up again... 🙂

Kudos to any method out there that actually helps people get better—honestly, I’m really not looking to get into a massive back-and-forth with placidjackal97 or electricdriver78 right now.

But there’s this one thing eating at me, and before I just spit it out, I gotta set the stage a bit:
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been dealing with this chronic endocrine disorder, and basically, my entire existence hinges on taking a specific medication every single day (sometimes even every hour...). To put it bluntly, if I miss my doses for more than a couple of days, I’ll end up in some agonizing hellscape before eventually slipping into a coma and dying. It’s not just me, either—nobody living with this condition has ever "cured" themselves through alternative medicine or any other remedy besides the one I already mentioned. That’s a fact known by everyone, not just MDs. And the reason is pretty simple: if you actually wanted to test whether an alternative approach works, you’d have to stop the life-support meds, which, by the way, were developed thanks to some high-tech GMO 😲

So, I’m asking you—all you folks preaching the alternative route—what would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you ditch my lifeline for some holistic treatment and just gamble with a slow, painful death?

Those powerful pills have definitely done some damage... my stomach is incredibly sensitive. It’s been awful.

That’s exactly why I’m posting about it. They help one thing but wreck another—it’s a real lose-lose situation.

And look, boldeagle3, the main thing is just getting started with the cleaning process—once you actually dive in, things can only get better from there. 🙂

rustymoose54 said:I really respect any method that helps people get through their illnesses, and I honestly don't want to start an argument with placidjackal97 or electricdriver78 right now...

There’s just one thing weighing on my mind, but before I dive in, I should probably give a little context:
I've been dealing with a chronic endocrine condition since I was a kid, and my entire life depends on taking a specific medication every single day—sometimes even every hour. To put it simply, if I miss it for just a couple of days, I'll eventually suffer through some pretty horrific pain and end up in a coma or die. No one living with this condition has ever been cured by alternative methods or anything other than the medicine I mentioned, and that's a fact known globally, not just by doctors. It’s simple: to actually test if an alternative approach works, you'd have to stop taking the life-support medication, which was developed thanks to a certain GMO 😲

So, I want to ask those of you who advocate for alternative medicine, what would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you switch to an alternative treatment and risk a slow, painful death?

well, I've been saying all along that it isn't a cure-all for every disease or for every single person...

I'm not disputing that people can use it at all, but we shouldn't be so exclusive about it—because just like conventional medicine, it doesn't have all the answers...

So, for those of you preaching the alternative route—tell me, what would you actually do if you were in my shoes? Would you really gamble everything on "natural" cures and risk a slow, painful death?

😢

Honestly?

I don't know.

A few years back, I was the one laughing at anyone who even mentioned holistic stuff—it was basically a joke to me.
I stuck strictly to the big-name, proven pharmaceuticals.

But when you hit that wall where it’s either try something else or just give up, you don't spend much time debating it.

In my case, there wasn't even a choice between traditional and alternative medicine. Standard doctors had already thrown up their hands.

Appreciate the honest answer, thanks.

Honestly, I’m not even thinking about trying some alternative stuff—not that I really have a choice anyway. My condition is incurable, plain and simple... it’s never getting better.
The thing is, I actually understand how this so-called "medication" works—it would be a real drug if I wasn't constantly tethered to it—so I know exactly what I’m getting into. It’s not a cure, but hey, it’s life.

I mean, isn't it just wishful thinking to expect anyone who hasn't been given up on by mainstream medicine to actually trust the alternative route? Of course people turn to it, and sure, maybe it works for some folks (I guess)... but when you're dealing with illnesses where actual, effective drugs exist, jumping to alternatives is usually just counterproductive. And honestly, it's because you end up wasting precious time. The whole "results" from alternative medicine aren't reproducible—there's no clear mechanism behind it, and way too much of it just relies on whether the patient or the practitioner believes in the method or not. Once you actually figure out the mechanism and study it properly, it stops being "alternative" altogether.

I have to say, I’m completely unimpressed by the notion that physical ailments are merely symptoms of psychological instability or mental distress.

My own doctor actually had the nerve to tell me to my face that my physical condition was nothing more than a manifestation of my psyche and some unresolved mental issues. Now, I have an immense amount of respect for her expertise, but I can’t bring myself to appreciate what she did there; beyond being genuinely stunned by the diagnosis, I actually started carrying this heavy sense of guilt for being sick in the first place.

It felt like it was my fault—as if I had somehow engineered my own illness due to these supposed "unresolved psychological struggles" that, quite frankly, I don't believe I even have.

Since conventional medicine doesn't seem to offer any real solutions for my issue, I decided to explore an alternative approach. Did it work? Well, no, because the underlying problem remains, but then again, in one specific sense, the alternative path did provide some level of help.

Betty Bennett10 said:I have to admit, I am not at all thrilled by these claims that physical illnesses are just the fallout from psychological issues or mental instability.

Physical illness doesn't necessarily have to be the result of some psychological issue or mental instability—not always, anyway...
For certain individuals, a specific psychological state is simply their baseline reality.
Take fear, for instance.
One person might label that feeling as a "mental problem" or something wrong in their head, whereas another person might see being afraid in a particular situation as perfectly normal—even if that exact same situation feels completely irrational to the first person.
It really just depends on your perspective...

My doctor looked me straight in the eye and told me my physical issues are just a byproduct of my psyche—basically, unresolved mental stuff. Look, I have massive respect for her, truly, but I hated how she handled it. Not only was I already reeling from the diagnosis, but now I’m sitting here feeling guilty for being sick myself!

It’s not just what gets said, it’s the delivery—how someone actually breaks the news to you.

The last thing a doctor should do is make a patient feel responsible for their own suffering. You didn't do this to yourself on purpose, believe me.

Maybe subconsciously? Who knows.

Speaking of doctors and their "tact," I once had an old Chief of Oncology at Mayo Clinic tell me right as I was being discharged—just because your tests look good now doesn't mean you're going to stay healthy.

That the illness will just come back for you eventually. That was his parting gift to me when I was only 21.

And don't even get me started on how he sent me for unnecessary MRIs—he just wouldn't trust his own eyes after the first scan. He was basically desperately hunting for proof that I was still sick, just to validate that his specific brand of medicine was the only one that worked.

Every Christmas, I make sure to send him a card—signed by yours truly, miraculously still healthy despite everything.

The whole idea that we’re somehow "to blame" for some biological glitch that turns into an actual illness is just plain unfair—honestly, it feels more like a convenient excuse people use when they don't actually know what caused the problem in the first place. I was just a kid when I got sick, but I remember my parents going through this phase where they tried to rationalize the diagnosis in the most cowardly way possible... like, maybe I was just too stressed out with schoolwork, or maybe I was overthinking things because Mom remarried (which was total nonsense, since I actually loved my stepdad more than my biological dad anyway, who passed away when I was only three)... and all that stuff. After years of grinding through school, getting degrees, and stacking up credentials—all thanks to the opportunities they gave me—I finally sat them down and mapped out exactly what was happening inside my body... and let me tell you, it had nothing to do with anything external, at least nothing we could actually control.

Anyway, I'd much rather take a handful of pills that actually work (and we all know how they do) than mess around with some alternative therapy that might help, or might just be a complete waste of time.

placidjackal97, look, your doctor was being a total jerk with those comments he made right before walking out—super tactless, honestly—but why on earth are you expecting him to just buy into some alternative remedy? The thing is, your cure doesn't fit into his little box of everything he knows and understands (and let’s be real, the guy knows a hell of a lot), so it’s only logical that he’s skeptical.

I wouldn't go so far as to say my doctor was being tactless. On the contrary, she clearly holds a sincere belief in the psychosomatic approach, and she genuinely felt that psychotherapy was the necessary path for me, assuming my physical issues were merely symptoms of some underlying psychological disorder.

However, the mere suggestion that I—whether consciously or subconsciously—was the architect of my own suffering triggered this overwhelming sense of guilt. At the same time, I simply couldn't bring myself to pursue therapy because I didn't believe then, and I still don't believe now, that my physical ailments have any mental origins at all.

placidjackal97 said:That’s when they tell you your illness will come back to haunt you. Those were the exact words used to kick me out of the hospital when I was just 21...

😢
Jesus, this is a textbook example of what it actually means to be a "soul killer."
Is there anything worse than people like that? Honestly, I know far too many of them...

It's just typical of the American healthcare system.
And we all act so incredibly self-righteous about it...👎

rustymoose54 said:placidjackal97, look—your doctor was definitely out of line with how he handled things when he left, but why would you expect him to buy into alternative medicine? The reality is his way of healing didn't fit into his specific worldview—and let's be honest, he knows a ton—so skepticism is just part of his programming.

And again, what he wanted to say isn't really the point—it’s the HOW that matters.

The guy is forty years older than me—you'd think he'd have picked up some basic bedside manner by now.

Knowing medicine is only half the battle; the other half is actually being a decent psychologist.

Sadly, most doctors seem to find that part pretty foreign.

Betty Bennett10 said:No, just the mere notion that I—whether consciously or subconsciously—caused my own internal struggle created this overwhelming sense of guilt. And at the same time, I simply wasn't in a position to pursue psychotherapy because I didn't believe, and still don't believe, that psychological factors are the root cause of my "illness."

I don't mean to sound harsh, but this sounds a bit like a child refusing to admit they were wrong.
If you didn't believe in psychotherapy then, and you still don't... well, naturally, you aren't going to view it as a valid reason.
It’s just how your mind is wired, and no one is ever going to talk you out of it.
For instance, no one could convince me that I’ll be healed just by having faith in God or sitting in a church pew every Sunday...
The moment someone brings that up, I immediately put my guard up. Period.
But you aren't grasping the point—that you might be responsible for your own situation.
Look, nobody is actually pointing a finger at you; you aren't "to blame" for things happening in your life when you didn't know better or couldn't help it... so where is this guilt coming from?
That feeling of guilt is incredibly destructive—please, don't do that to yourself...

Like I said before, I honestly don't buy into the idea that psychological issues are the root cause of my illness, or more accurately, my condition.

If someone tries to tell me, for instance, that my sickness is just the fallout from some "unresolved tension with my mother," 😕 I find it almost laughable—I’m not a child, I’m thirty-five years old, and it feels absurd to suggest that I somehow lack basic insight into my own relationship with my mom.

But when you're sitting there facing a devastating diagnosis and someone suggests that your own mind brought this on you, it’s hard not to spiral into thinking, "So, I did this to myself." To make matters worse, my doctor actually told me that what I'm experiencing is a "textbook case of self-aggression."

I don't carry the weight of guilt for my diagnosis anymore, mainly because I don't subscribe to the notion that my mental state caused it—though I will admit, when I first heard the news, it was an incredibly heavy thing to process.

Winona, what kind of tumor were you actually battling, and how did you finally manage to beat it? I am genuinely curious about your entire journey... You have only given us tiny fragments of the truth, leaving so much unclear... 🙂 😕 If you are willing to share your story with us... 👋