Dear readers,
on Wednesday 3rd June I was released from hospital. I believe that here was the first failure of the health system: had I immediately been directed or referred to a specialist, surely things would have gone differently. At first things started to improve: the anxiety and fear over the virus had almost completely gone away and my physical symptoms improved a bit. However, the connection between my digestive system and my mind had already been severed, so any slightly negative thought or worry would cause problems in my digestion. I continued having what I call psychosomatic episodes: moments when I lost control of my thoughts and soon after physical symptoms started. Moreover, acid played a big role in all this: I had been taking medicine to control it and increased dosage when I noticed that it helped a lot whenever I had psychosomatic episodes. However, in the long run this medicine destroyed my digestive system. It basically acted like a drug: brought relief in the first weeks following an episode, but then created some kind of dependence.
My mind has always been active 24/7: the only time when I really have no thoughts whatsoever is at night. In 45 years of my life, this has never been a problem: never felt anxious, worried or afraid, never felt panic or similar emotions. Suddenly, not even the activities that would normally keep me mentally busy and concentrated (watching a film, listening to music, reading a book, playing the piano, etc...) could prevent episodes. I had to find new ways to spend my free time and I soon realized that only by spending it with other people could I keep my mind from wandering around, thus keeping my physical symptoms under control. I honestly believe that if I lived in a big city, full of activities and chances to get to know new people, I would have managed to overcome my problems in a relatively short time. In fact, in the days when I was most active, my stomach worked better and symptoms stopped. The problem was that I basically almost do not have any friends and have just a few contacts in the city where I live. I actually called out for help, but to no avail: the only friend I have here is extremely busy and could not spend much time at all with me and the others are just slight acquaintances who mostly did not answer my call.
I soon realized that the only option was online: I established a constant contact with my family, contacted some Italian friends, developed new connections and friendships through language exchange activities. The funny thing is that I did not really want to do all this: I live alone and love to spend time on my own. I have never felt lonely in my life, not even with all this going on. I had to change my lifestyle and daily routine because what was for me completely normal before (my thoughts wandering around without problems, even when they were negative), now was causing physical symptoms. At a certain point, episodes started coming for no apparent reason, sometimes exactly in moments when I was feeling well. I remember one day I was having a walk and was enjoying the absence of any discomfort, when I suddenly started thinking: here they come again, here they come again.... and of course, they came. It was as if my body was so used to having symptoms that their absence had become an exception.
I started to occupy my time with many different activities: I bought an Xbox console to play video games and also pencils and pens for colouring and drawing (I haven't started drawing yet, but I still intend to!). I also went shopping very often and I almost developed an addiction! Fortunately, I always bought things that I needed or that I would have wanted to buy anway.
I also started investigating the reasons and circumstances that would trigger episodes in order to prevent them and fight back. I discovered, for example, that one trigger was work: apparently, one or two slight disappointments and dissatisfactions related to my colleagues that I had had in previous years would unconsciously trigger physical symptoms. I managed to address the issue with my coworkers during a meeting and the episodes connected with work slowly decreased in intensity and then disappeared.
In the next post I'll address the physical dimension.
