Psychosomatic vs chronic stress

[PracticingAcceptance]

I saw a post by an ME/CFS sufferer on Facebook where she said that the illness is partly psychosomatic. What she actually meant was that chronic stress feeds into the symptoms, which I agree with. But she couldn't see the difference between emotional stress (causing psychosomatic illness) and chronic stress.

As I understand it, psychosomatic illnesses can get better with therapy and medications for mental health.

The treatments she was talking about were for chronic stress - working on being an over-achiever, for example.

Am I wrong in thinking that these are separate things? Chronic stress and emotional trauma seem like two different things to me.
Are there any articles about this, does anyone know? I've repeatedly explained it to her and linked to several examples but she just doesn't understand the difference.

I've been in therapy since before I got sick with ME/CFS, and dealt with my emotional trauma quite a lot. Yet I haven't got better. My therapist doesn't think that my illness is psychosomatic, ie created by my mind to express my distress.

In fact I do experience psychosomatic pain - when I am sad or anxious and don't express it, I get a pain in my throat, a lump that doesn't go away, for months sometimes. When I cry enough, the lump goes away. My emotions don't have the same kind of impact on my ME/CFS.

PTSD can definitely make a stress response worse and dealing with trauma can surely help with chronic stress, which in turn can help with physical health. I believe in the mind-body connection. But surely if ME/CFS was psychosomatic for a majority of people, a lot more people would find therapy/anti-depressants significantly helpful? Lots of people find it helpful to work on chronic stress, but this isn't the same as emotional problems, right?

 

[Sarah94]

Exactly @PracticingAcceptance I think you are right.

 

[pamojja]

Am I wrong in thinking that these are separate things? Chronic stress and emotional trauma seem like two different things to me.

I would guess any stress - chronic or from emotional trauma - could be compounded by a couple of unrelated things.

I too worked on emotional trauma long before getting ill. And meditated a lot for developing stress resiliance. Nevertheless, just before getting ill being for 2 years at a job with constant stress, made me first think, this chronic stress being one of the causes for the outbreak of illness.

Now I strongly believe it could as well have went a completely other way round, all the infections short before and during that stressful job - schistosomiasis, cystitis, myopericarditis and a first root-canal treatment - already could have primed my autonomic nervous system to become vulnerable to any additional stress. With the following deterioriation of a couple of bodily-systems at once.

Stress reduction helps on the mental side of things, like for example to pace consistently, but if its compounded by physicals things like for example infections, I don't believe it would.

 

[Jyoti]

Now I strongly believe it could as well have went a completely other way round, all the infections short before and during that stressful job - schistosomiasis, cystitis, myopericarditis and a first root-canal treatment - already could have primed my autonomic nervous system to become vulnerable to any additional stress. With the following deterioriation of a couple of bodily-systems at once.

In the West, we are mortifying slow to realize: this being (human) is an unfathomably complex unity. There is no way to successfully compartmentalize the mind or the amino acid or the connective tissue or the emotional heart. They can all be examined on their own but they function together in ways that still elude our understanding, and confound attempts to address and heal the more complicated syntheses.

This realization is growing, but the predominant model still takes each strand as free-standing. I find this a particularly frustrating obstacle in dealing with medical questions. If we acknowledge something like the impact emotional stress has on our bodies, we feed the CBT model which is in no way appropriate to our situation (though it may well be to others). If we do not include it in our understanding, we are robbed of vital information about our own well-being.

If you look at ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experience) research, you see that kids who have had adverse experiences (ie., trauma) end up with a lot more adult health challenges. There is a link between trauma and physical dysfunction that is emerging. But the last thing we need is to have that weaponized and used against us.

All to say--my experience tells me that stress and trauma both play a role in my physical status. But eliminating the stress or dealing with the trauma are not enough to eliminate to my illness. I've done that work for decades. My body is holding many messages--from my mind, my heart, my biochemistry, my structural alignment-and it is doing what it can to maintain some sort of a life. If it were as simple as relieving emotional stress, I know we'd all have piled into therapists' offices and gotten back to work by now.

 

[Wishful]

I think it's a case where emotional stress can feed back and make ME worse, even strongly so for some people, but others aren't significantly affected by it. So, it's an individual response, and one answer won't apply to everyone.

 

[PracticingAcceptance]

These are interesting stories.

I guess my question is about semantics, and what terms are scientifically accurate.

Is psychosomatic illness = illness caused/exacerbated by chronic stress? *
That doesn't seem like the correct definition of psychosomatic illness.
Illness exacerbated by chronic stress = most illnesses, because as @Jyoti says, the mind and body are inextricably linked.

Thinking on it more, I have experienced that not dealing with relationship problems, not putting energy into them, can help with my ME/CFS symptoms. However, doing the same thing can result in that throat pain I get, which is psychosomatic. So in my personal experience, psychosomatic problems happen as a result of not consciously dealing with an emotional problem - the problem comes out another way. I'm not sure if this is part of the definition of psychosomatic illness, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were.

Psychosomatic illness = illness created by the mind primarily because of emotional problems. Right?
Cancer can get worse with chronic stress. That doesn't mean it's psychosomatic. It's not the body creating illness because of unexpressed emotional trauma.

*If this was the correct definition, what is my throat thing called? It's not caused by chronic stress, it can come on and go away instantaneously.

 

[Wishful]

From a quick google of the term, I think it means a physical problem caused by emotional stress. So trying to deal with a relationship problem could provide stress which worsens other health problems (such as ME).

Some people misuse the term for imaginary illnesses, where they believe they feel a physical problem but there is no actual physical problem. I'm not sure what the proper term is for that.

I think the tensing of muscles in the throat (or elsewhere) is just one of those quirks due to old instinctive responses. Not really a health problem, just an imperfect mental/physical control system that produces unwanted results.

 

[gbells]

When I looked into somatoform disorder (a type of psychosomatic illness) I learned that it is when symptoms follow an emotionally stressful event. However, in the case of CFS people get ill (i.e. a viral infection) and then have stress from having to cope with the illness. Notice that it is reversed. That is why CFS isn't psychosomatic. Nobody gets CFS from emotional stress. It always starts first.

Interestingly, they don't distinguish this chain when they diagnose it.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

So in my personal experience, psychosomatic problems happen as a result of not consciously dealing with an emotional problem

I would generally agree that psychosomatic is not equal to illness exacerbated by chronic stress...but there can be some overlap.

Personally: its the intestines which have a stand-alone opinion that can arise independently of what I am consciously thinking about it. So two weeks before I schedule dental implant surgery, which I apparently do not want to do on an unconscious level...I generated like Organ-Failure level pain for about eight straight days, until I had to cancel the procedure.

So there are papers discussing how the Gut has its own psychology and opinions, and GastroHypnotists exist.

And I"d love to find one. Like I put the hot water on this awful pain and gave myself heat rash...thats how much time I had the hot water bottle there trying to make the awful pain go away. And I just stand next to my own body and watch it do this. And I. entirely know its psychosomatic.

But I also know my intestines are messed up from ME, and I know that the body is Alarmed when confronting activities it feels it CANNOT do with ME. 1) the dental surgeon indicated he did not believe I was ill- during the patient history moment. I"m quite concerned implants won't work because of inflammation I experience and swelling. Rather than discuss that calmly, he ridiculed me. "You would have to prove that to me, I don't believe you"...Literally he said that, I was dumbfounded. 2) issues with anaesthesia....(see ME threads in PR on that topic, plus I am a red head); 3) timing and bathroom stress....they will only do the procedures at 8:30 am, its three towns away, and I don't do ANY procedures at 8:30 am, and the bathroom...is 1/2 a mile down the hallway out there someplace. I have bladder seizures and other issues and There is NO bathroom nearby completely stresses me out. And I suppose thats a psychological issue: OK...

The throat lump- sounds like a area of the body where you tense up (throat ruled by venus). I consider my throat problems to be the least psychosomatic of all!! (well, at least its obvious I"m sick the moment I speak, I sound horrible).

 

[Jyoti]

As I am sure you did, @PracticingAcceptance, and as I see @Wishful did as well, I conducted a little search for the definitive definition and did not come up with what I was looking for.

My two cents--your throat lump is tension that arises when you are not letting emotional baggage flow and be released. Here is a pop view on it, for what it is worth: https://www.thehealthy.com/mental-health/sad-lump-in-throat/

I think: that is not an illness, but rather a physical response. Maybe that is one of the key distinctions. When I was 19, I was under a lot of stress at work and in my personal life and I woke up one morning without equilibrium. I wove my way to a doctor who, after I described my symptoms, asked how things were with my boyfriend and my job. Indignant, I assured him they were just fine! He prescribed valium. I was outraged--I had a real physical problem--I couldn't walk a straight line. But when I calmed down (and had thrown away the prescription in a self-righteous rage) I realized that these were causing me problems. I decided to quit my job and break up with my boyfriend. The next morning, I woke up right as rain.

That seems like a psychosomatic 'illness', or rather response, to me--one caused by my mind and immediately remedied by same.

On the other hand, I was struggling under a tsunami of various stressors for 10 years before my young daughter's ICU hospitalization. After she recovered, I got pneumonia and that led to ME/CFS. I believe long-term stress changed my biochemistry. We know that fight or flight for a long period of time--when it gets stuck in 'on,' chronic stress in other words--does create many hormonal and other imbalances which lead to a number of illnesses. The body has actually changed in ways that cannot be undone simply by addressing the emotional.

So yes, chronic stress actually changes the body. Working on alleviating it is always a good idea. But it is dangerous to think that it is enough, and I have always encountered the term 'psychosomatic' used to describe physical problems without any organic basis. Conversion disorder, anyone?

 

[Rufous McKinney]

That seems like a psychosomatic 'illness', or rather response, to me--one caused by my mind and immediately remedied by same.

Well, I had another weird experience with a physical symptom disappearing following a conversation about the symptom. I had a small bump appear below my eye on my cheek. It was there for some months, wasn't sure what it was .then it proceeds to start getting larger and larger. I can start to see it with my eye..its distracting I need this gone. But I "don't want any procedures" is a standard psychology here.

So I find a Chinese Herbalist. I am thinking they can use needles sometimes and tell things to go away. So we have a conversation, in which the herbalist commented that the bump, now about 1/2 across....like a large mole at this point..was located on a meridian, and Had I Considered that it might stem from Emotional Issues.

No, I had not considered that. But I offered no further insights as to: what would that issue be (had no ideas). So this conversation occurs on a Saturday afternoon. On Sunday Evening: my daughter and I are cooking and she says MOM....that thing on your cheek- its going away...literally it like DEFLATED. Within 36 hours, its hardly there and by Thursday, its 99 percent gone. Its never returned. I continue to see that herbalist.

The last part of the tale- might as well finish it- is I had scheduled a biopsy. Which I had no interest in obtaining...but I"m trying to be brave. So that was on Thursday. So I go ahead and show up, I think I'll be seeing a dermotologist, that I can discuss- these types of issues with. OH, how deluded.

No, instead this technician is coming at me with a scalpel as I am trying to tell him the THING is 99% gone. LIke literally I had to physically fight him off me. Get your tray and knives away from me.
So he condescends to make note of the abrupt disappearance, and I promise to come back later..and never do.

 

[andyguitar]

It's a bit of a tricky subject @PracticingAcceptance as it raises some fundamental questions about the human self. Such as what is the 'Mind'? Something created by the brain or a separate thing that exists entirely on it's own? But if we were to suppose that animals do not have a 'Mind' in the same way that we do then it would be fairly safe to say that chronic stress can cause physical illness, as animals (when exposed to chronic stress) become ill. So without a 'Mind' their symptoms could not be psychosomatic.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

But if we were to suppose that animals do not have a 'Mind' in the same way that we do then it would be fairly safe to say that chronic stress can cause physical illness, as animals (when exposed to chronic stress) become ill.

What a great possible answer!!

Except I'm not yet totally convinced animals "don't have minds". I think they don't have a consciousness for clocks ticking.

 

[Wishful]

Interestingly, they don't distinguish this chain when they diagnose it.

Whenever doctors asked: "Were there any changes in your life before this happened?", I could tell they were fishing for a psychiatric excuse. I simply said: "No, my life was continuing the same as it had been, with low stress, and one day I developed these flu-like symptoms that keep flaring up."

I wonder how many of the 'undiagnosed ME' cases are missed because the victims could come up with some stress or change in their life, and they were stuck with the label "psychiatric disorder'.

 

[ljimbo423]

I wonder how many of the 'undiagnosed ME' cases are missed because the victims could come up with some stress or change in their life, and they were stuck with the label "psychiatric disorder'.

I wonder too. I was diagnosed with depression and told for years, that's what was causing my fatigue. When all along it was ME/CFS.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I was diagnosed with depression and told for years, that's what was causing my fatigue

I wasn't even whining about fatigue when I did about a 10 year session of receiving Care Zero. I'm in there with my mouth all swollen up, teeth being squeezed out of my head and it is suggested I take an Anti-Depressant.

This: makes virtually no sense, does it.

Happened at the gynocologist, when I'm there chasing an ovary pain. Since I already KNEW this was a likely scenario, I did not succumb to their suggestions and Happy Pamphlet.

They know nothing about you: and come up with THEIR excuse to not treat you.

Then I asked about side effects, they lied. The pill DID in fact have adverse effects that I could not tolerate, which were described in the first paragraph of the Label..

 

[PracticingAcceptance]

This is making less sense to me than before.... partly because of brain fog! There's different angles expressed here, it's not forming a cohesive picture for me, so perhaps it's not clear for many other people too? I'm going to put it in the ice box - I can't understand right now, might try again one day.

Whenever doctors asked: "Were there any changes in your life before this happened?", I could tell they were fishing for a psychiatric excuse. I simply said: "No, my life was continuing the same as it had been, with low stress, and one day I developed these flu-like symptoms that keep flaring up."

I was open about having been stressed with high-pressure work. It was never suggested to me by a doctor that it was psychiatric or psychosomatic (which I'm not sure are the same thing).
I guess this is why I think it would be great to have a clearer picture of what's the mind-body link, what's chronic stress, what's psychosomatic, what's doctors' shame for not being able to help, what's patients' shame for possible mental health problems, what's patients' fear of being dismissed. Lots of factors going on and they all blur together.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I'm going to put it in the ice box - I can't understand right now, might try again one day.

That is an understandable response....to Hang That Up for a later- moment when perhaps it CAN be further contemplated.

I rather don't think these topics fall neatly into discreet boxes. Its humans who think things fall into neat boxes.

 

[gbells]

Whenever doctors asked: "Were there any changes in your life before this happened?", I could tell they were fishing for a psychiatric excuse. I simply said: "No, my life was continuing the same as it had been, with low stress, and one day I developed these flu-like symptoms that keep flaring up."

I wonder how many of the 'undiagnosed ME' cases are missed because the victims could come up with some stress or change in their life, and they were stuck with the label "psychiatric disorder'.

A big reason this was pushed was to dismiss CFS medical insurance claims. Disability policies have a 2 year max payout for mental disorders. Many people were screwed out of their disability money using this lie. Insurance companies still try to do it but now it can be defended against.

 

[Wishful]

Happy Pamphlet

Oh no! They tried to get you with the dreaded Happy Pamplet?

I got a good laugh out of that one.