“It’s all in your head!” Too many of us have heard that about something or other in our life. When we were depressed, anxious or even physically sick. The truth is, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And in this case, even an ignorant person can be partly right. Our brain is in our head and our brain controls a multitude of neuro-chemicals, hormones, and signals that affect our mental and physical health. So yes. A physical response can come from a hormone or signal that originates in our head. Diabetes, for example. It’s a very real condition but it starts as a simple series of signals (or lack of them) in our brain. The frustrating thing is, lots of folks don’t take this same principle and apply it to other conditions. Thus, they make others feel guilty for treating conditions that need treatment.
Depression can be an inescapable cycle of low serotonin leading to feeling down and feeling down leads to low serotonin and declining rates of other neurotransmitters. It can become a deeper and deeper pit that without help some folks will not be able to climb out of no matter how much exercise they engage in or nature they try to enjoy. No pill can make you happy but my next blog will explain exactly what an SSRI is. (It’s the type of pill most often prescribed for depression and it’s NOT an insta-happy pill the way some folks think. it’s just a helper.) and I’ll link that blog to this one when I’ve completed it for your reference.
While I’m not the type of psychologist who can diagnose/counsel, I am the type who can educate. My MA is research based and I want to use it to encourage anybody who was ever made to feel guilty for taking care of themselves by visiting their doctor/psychiatrist for mental health symptoms to get a prescription… that they absolutely did the correct thing. There is no shame or stigma in treating a condition that has a physiological (body-based) basis with medication designed to help your body.
Panic attacks or anxiety are another perfect example of the brain body connection. The brain can initiate the flight/fight/freeze system and your heart will race, your higher-level thinking will cloud as you try to zero in on the source of (the often times not-actually-there- threat… since the panic attack is basically a misfire of the system). But the results of the system firing up are very, very real within your physical body. Many people with anxiety suffer from stomach issues such as nausea as a result of a vaso-vagal response. (That’s a nerve that is in your stomach area. It can also cause light- headedness and under certain conditions, not related to anxiety, fainting).
I should also mention the amount of cortisol and adrenaline pumped out during a panic attack, or worse, a prolonged period of anxiety, can also make folks feel either jittery afterwards, (that “waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling”) or ready to crash out and need to sleep. These are actual physical symptoms and while a trained therapist can help a person manage their thoughts to mitigate the effects of panic or anxiety, shorten the length of a panic attack, or even find a treatment to reduce the number of panic attacks or strength of anxiety symptoms, that doesn’t negate that the symptoms are far more than thought-based issues. They are intricately woven between our brain and body at a primal level. There is nothing more basic, more instinctual, than fear. On one hand it’s kept the human species alive for a very long time. On the other, it can become as invasive as kudzu vines in the south, overrunning everything. In which case, professional assistance is required. Medications and therapy (often from the comfort of your own couch via telehealth) can greatly reduce the annoying overgrowth of symptoms.
To wrap it up, the sad fact is, too many people bear the weight of caring for family, going to work, doing their part of maintaining the home, AND struggling with mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Some hope they can ignore the problem and it might disappear. Others feel too exhausted to deal with one more thing (helping themselves). But in today’s difficult world, none of us can afford to neglect ourselves. I won’t be trite and say “you have to help yourself before you can help others”. Because there are people out there in survival mode everyday, proving that they can drag themselves around like one of the zombie horde from The Walking Dead, just doing what their kids need or their older parents need or anything and everything their loved ones require. But, obviously, just because something can be done, does not mean it should be. As a reformed zombie walking around in a stupor, I’m telling you that no one can help you. And it’s ok to take time and spend money on a doctor’s copay. It’s alright to discuss how you’ve been feeling. Take a single step on the road. Then another, then another. When you feel better, when you find your joy and your laughter you find the true heart of the love you’ve been pouring out. The love that you gave can finally be returned. We’ll, I should say, you can finally feel it returned.
When you aren’t mentally drained and emotionally exhausted, you can connect again and get your own cup filled. You can feel connected again to those around you. You can think more clearly and solve interpersonal problems better. You have the strength to set boundaries. You have hope again. No, life is never ever perfect, but when you give yourself a chance to find some happiness you start to find that happiness in the small things. It’s those times your daughter sits down to tell you a ridiculous knock knock joke that makes literally no sense because she made it up on the spot, and before you would have just blinked at her, but now you are laughing together. You just made a memory together and love multiplied in your heart. It wasn’t magic or a fairytale existence, but with a little help, you pulled yourself from surviving to living again and thats a wonderful place to be. Life changes when we do. And when we decide to strike a balance in life, finding time for ourselves as well, amazing things can begin to happen. If you are struggling, take a chance on you. Ask for help. You are worth it!