Physical Illness

[Trev Williams]

Someone asked me to start a thread on physical illness, and although I don't want to change the focus of this Mental Health board, it's important to acknoledge the inpact physcial illness and conditions have on you mental health. All of life effects your mental health, and if there are close friends or family who are going through difficulties, that will impact on your mental health. do disguss if useful..

[Trev Williams]

I have been thinking about if there are other catagories, and probably yes is my answer although I've never thought about it much before. Emotional health, and also spiritual health (bit of a grey area for a lot of people).. these are somewhat different from physical and mental health.. interesting..

[Tessa]

In today's paper I see there's an advert called 'time to change - let's end mental health discrimination'.

Myth: people with mental health problems are different from normal people.
Fact: We all have mental health, just like we all have physical health.

www.time-to-change.org.uk

I think many people are very scared to think that they might get ill - either physically ill or mentally ill - so they try to believe that it couldn't happen to them because they are 'normal' and ill people are not.

If people can accept the possibility that they themselves could get ill, then I think they are more likely to be able to empathise meaningfully with someone who is ill.

[Michael Wenham]

In response to Trevor's query on different 'healths' (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental) and whether they're interrelated, I've always had a disliking for the word 'holistic' because it seems to be an excuse for woolly thinking. BUT I think it's stupid to think that we can be split up into discrete areas (body, mind, spirit etc), as if none affects any other.
Personally I think ignoring our spiritual health (or worse denying its existence) is foolish, but because there are so many quacks claiming expertise out there it's REALLY important to find the genuine doctor.

I think Tessa raised the issue of perceived normality. That seems to me a can of worms, as it's often used as a psychological tool to enforce conformity. I wonder whether it's not healthier to have the starting point that we're all individuals, and that norms are simply convenient shorthand descriptions rather carrying value judgements.

[Tessa]

Yes, I think the ideal is for us all to respect each other as individuals.

Some things about ourselves we choose, but other things are outside our control.

Conformity should be about behaviour, so that we can decide whether to conform or not.

[Zoe 1]

I think the relationship between physical and mental health is a
complicated one, and would be different in different illnesses and
individuals. I agree with Michael that the two (or three or more) are distinct but not separate.

I can only speak from my own experience. When I feel very ill
physically, I don't necessarily have a bad time emotionally, but it is a strain so it makes coping more difficult. When I am struggling
emotionally it doesn't make me more ill in a direct way, however
it does make self-control much more difficult. I need to be disciplined in my activities to avoid a flare up of physical symptoms. Stress can very easily lead to poor illness management and so to increased symptoms. I need to handle stress carefully in order for it not to impact my physical health. Other people will have different experiences and I know many find that stress has a more direct impact on their physical illness.

For me there are also some grey areas which are less clear cut. For example when I feel stressed it generally appears to me to be emotional at the time, yet sometimes in retrospect I can see that the stress reaction was masking physical collapse. My body can produce stress hormones as a way to summon up 'emergency' type energy which delays collapse and can fool me into thinking that I can do more than I can. It is only afterwards that I am overwhelmed by physical symptoms. In other words the stress response can be a reaction to physical as well as emotional stress.

I think significant physical illness, because it is a serious stress, makes it more important for people to look after their mental health. I've had to learn a lot about how I cope, and use lots of strategies to keep myself emotionally stable which I didn't need when I was well. It has pushed me to become more aware of my emotions and coping strategies. In health many emotional needs are met almost automatically, but in illness so much is stripped away that it is more necessary to consciously balance the different aspects of life.

The more severe the illness the more difficult this becomes.
Sometimes it is necessary to 'store up' needs and emotions to deal with later. This happens automatically with short term illness - when someone is flat out with flu they wouldn't bother about tidying up; it can wait until they're better. In long-term illness we somehow need to find a way of meeting long-term as well as short-term needs so the coping strategies are different. Because my capacity for dealing with problems is reduced I have ended up sort of spreading out stress, tackling things as and when I have the capability rather than when they occur. Sometimes this means dealing with things before they become a problem and at other times it means catching up afterwards and recovering emotionally or practically when things are less difficult. Zoe