Weak in the Knees

Watching another documentary, a woman experienced an emotional-physical symptom she thought was something writers like me use for dramatic effect. Nope, my writing ancestors didn't invent the weak-in-the-knees thing, as she discovered, emotions can cause a physical reaction or symptom. The viewing of a dead body can make a person weak in the knees. Others have similar symptoms in quite different situations. Those of us who suffer from the PTSD have felt the effects of dark emotional thinking in our bodies. I have been unsure about using the stairs to the basement at times when my lower parts didn't feel up to going down, so to speak.

Fear of the stairs is one of the symptoms of mental illness that must be fought or treated. Caution when using the stairs is a different matter, after all many accidents do happen on stairs in homes or buildings. Older homes, such as mine, seem to have been designed with a premium on space. They didn't want to waste any on safety apparently, so a set of stairs can bring to mind a ladder more than we might like. When turning the corner to go down to the basement makes even the cat pause for a moment's reflection, a bit of caution is vital for the big and clumsy human. Of course, I am fleeing the writing on the main subject because writing about the connection between my dark thoughts and bad feelings in the body means that I have to think about it and that in turn can bring the symptoms back and... Ah, well, ruck up as the Army says and get it done.

The mind to body connection is not something we always understand, but it is something we know from experience. The PTSD gets the maelstrom of dark thoughts churning, and soon we feel the physical effects in the throat, head, neck, chest, stomach, guts, bowels, joints, and pretty much everywhere else. No wonder doctors have trouble diagnosing our problem. The mind can make the body feel downright awful. One might think that his time has come; the Lord is calling me, er, I mean, him to come home. So far, the one has not been correct in this kind of thinking. A little concentration on writing or a movie or most anything else to derail the maelstrom, and all of the symptoms - mental, emotional, or physical - ease on down, at least most of the time. Stopping the thoughts may not relieve the physical effects right away, and then the whole process can go back the other way too. A bit of vague pain in the guts, and the anxious or depressed thoughts jump in like a horde of kids hitting the city pool on opening day.

There have been times when I thought that a good clunk on my head might just interrupt the cycle enough to get me free. Of course, those of you coming at this from the TBI side know better. More damage to the mind or body is not what PTSD suffers need, what we need is a pause in the painful thoughts so that we can suffer less pain in the body. The obvious answer is a good old-fashioned prescription for drugs, but that answer may not be the best solution. All drugs have side effects, and while most of the ones that cause Alien-like things to sprout from a person's midsection are stopped in testing, we shouldn't be quite so quick to reach for the pills. Distractions, as we are taught in behavioral therapy, keep the mind occupied with neutral or even good thoughts, and often the strength returns to the knees or the guts calm down and I can stop eating oatmeal for each meal.

Have a better day,
Bucky