The World Theatre VIII - Somaticizing stress in an original way

Over the years I've done (I think) interesting discoveries about myself. This was based on carefully listening to me, both psychological and physiological. Although this practice led me to some unpleasant hypochondriac episode in my young age, has generally proven to be of some use. After all, no doctor spends so much time with me as myself, so although I lack knowledge to remedy my woes, at least I am a good judge of my symptoms.

It is said that one of the greatest diseases in the last century (and this, by extension) is stress. I do not know who, maybe you could remind me, stated that a person is now subject to the same stress in one day as a person did in the Middle Ages during one year, or was it ten years? I'm not sure of this claim. I guess that to expect to be assaulted by wolves in the middle of a dark forest or to receive a raid by foreign invaders should not be negligible. Well, I care little for the headaches of medieval peasants. I have suffered, suffer from time to time, stress. I guess you too.

Image: Stefano Valle / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The funny thing is that often my stress episodes have been accompanied by some form of physical suffering, as if my body had an alarm signal reflecting the state of confusion in my mind.

I say some form, because these forms have changed over time. Let me tell you how (those who are susceptible to the ills of others better not read on).

The first time this happened, I was immediately aware of the remarkable phenomenon. After a long season of stress and tension, the day came when they reached their maximum level, and the following morning I woke up with a sore mouth, a wart on a finger and a tremendous irritation in the stomach. It took me a few days to get rid of the inconvenience, but it was as if a dam had overflowed. Since then, I could identify times of stress thanks to the digestive problems that they were carrying me. They were like a traffic light, and I soon began to interpret them as such, trying to reduce that stress as soon as it appeared. And I succeeded.

Until they changed.

As if my body did not want me to manage the phenomenon, I began to suffer another shameful illness: hemorrhoids (actually do not know if one or several). At first I did not understand why, but after several episodes of suffering in my ass the itching and pain, I figured that was the new way my body interpreted the stress. There was no more indigestion, but a butt on fire, and pardon my words. Thereafter these were the new traffic lights that I had to control.

Years passed, and I could keep this situation with barely another attack. Until a few months later, after repeated and severe muscle aches in the back, finally figured that the muscular tension that forced me to lie on the ground for relief was in fact related to my beloved stress. My internal stress thermometer had changed again. This momentum lasted for some more years.

And so it proved, the symptoms have changed (and I must say that have not been repeated, at least my body is original.) The most recent of my symptoms, especially curious, shapes in a strange allergy in winter, some redness and severe itching directly related to temperature changes, affecting those parts of my body that are most exposed to cold: ears, neck, ankles, wrists...

Well, the latter attacks, uncommon, I have corrected based on antihistamines.

The question of course is how I will catch myself the next time?

And the reflection is that sometimes I'd prefer not to deal with such concerns, grab a sword and begin fighting  a more visible enemy.