Mental Illnesses

There seems to be a common problem with mental illness. That problem is that people either think that you are crazy or that you are faking it. Neither of these are true. Mental illnesses are just illnesses only they affect your brain and who you are.  The causes are different for each disease/disorder and they can be the hardest to deal with.

Since there seems to be some confusion I went directly to the source that doctors use for mental illnesses. This source is the same one that our psychologist called the bible for mental health. It is the DSM, and otherwise known as the Diagnostic and StatisticalManual of Mental Disorders. I think it is an eye opening experience to read some of what the DSM has to say about conversion disorder.

The description of the disorder was “Conversion disorder is characterized by the occurrence of certain signs or symptoms that are clearly inconsistent with what is known about anatomy and pathophysiology.” So yes it is physical symptoms appearing for no physical reason. It goes on to say “Patients who find themselves with such symptoms, however, are not to be confused with malingerers or those with factitious illness. Patients who suffer conversion symptoms do not intentionally feign such symptoms, as malingerers do; they experience them as genuine, and their distress over them may be as genuine as that of the patient whose unsteadiness is produced by a midline cerebellar tumor.” So they are not faking it. If someone has lost feeling in their toe you can poke them with a needle and they will not feel it. This is happening even though there is no physical reasoning for it.

I also want to impose the person impact that this devastating disorder and have. I went to the facebook page that the Conversion Disorder Foundation is using while they set up their webpage.  One quote took my breath away. Tom posted “Why do the people that are meant to help me, the so called "professionals" always abandon me.” I can tell you this is exactly how I felt when my husband was sent away from doctor after doctor with no explanation. One doctor actually told him 

“I do not want to tell you this is all in your head, but . . .” That is exactly how he said it and left the room. I wanted to scream. He say my husband on his examination table convulsing and that was all he could say. It took us 2 months to get into a neurologist, and the psychiatrist did nothing other then try to push medications that did nothing. It wasn’t until we sat down with the psychologist that things changed. After three visits we finally moved into a better place. Dr. Stambaugh cared. He listened and he actually cared! He went above and beyond to get my husband back to work before his time to keep his job was up.

So not a whole lot of research this time on why it affects people differently, but I think it is important to point out how difficult mental illnesses are.