I think that it's more complex than this. Sometimes it is extremely helpful to know that something is wrong with you, because it enables you to do what you need to do to look after yourself, and because it gives you an explanation for why you and your life and your struggles are the way they are. And sometimes it's just pathologizing and…
I think that it's more complex than this. Sometimes it is extremely helpful to know that something is wrong with you, because it enables you to do what you need to do to look after yourself, and because it gives you an explanation for why you and your life and your struggles are the way they are. And sometimes it's just pathologizing and makes you feel bad about yourself, or makes you put unnecessary limits on yourself. So it's a very fine balancing act and is something that needs to be worked through in therapy (if you are going to give your client a diagnosis) so that it is a positive thing for them not a negative thing for them.
For example, I have coeliac disease. Until I got this diagnosis (that something was fundamentally wrong with me) I had no energy and difficulty concentrating and was unwell all the time and felt viscerally as though I was rotten on the inside and couldn't exercise and had low key chronic pain. Other people understood this as me being lazy and not eating a healthy diet or doing enough exercise. I understood it as myself being lazy and a hypochondriac. The coeliac diagnosis told me not only that there was something wrong about me, but that it wasn't laziness, poor diet or hypochondria (moral weakness basically), but a badly damaged gut and an overactive immune system. It told me that I needed to give up gluten, which I did, and within day's my chronic pain, chronic depression and feeling of being rotten all vanished forever. So walking around knowing that there is something fundamentally wrong with me, and because of that I have to be very very very careful about what I eat is extremely helpful to me, because it enables me to have as close to a normal life as I can have (I can't eat at restaurants or other people's houses and there are a lot of foods that I can't eat period, but as long as I do that I can be well and live an otherwise normal life).
None of this is to say that pathologizing things that are normal or fairly common is a good idea. And yet again, on the other hand we are in the middle of an enormous epidemic of mental illness (and other chronic disease too of course) thanks to the incredibly unhealthy lives people now live in the west with chronic stress, and artificial light, and lack of exercise, and food that's of low nutritional value and full of poisons, and phytoestrogens in the air and water, etc etc etc. So a lot of people are genuinely unwell, a lot more than used to be.
I’m genuinely gluten intolerant but not coeliac fully. I recognise your description of removing gluten. The exclusion diet which diagnosed gluten as my problem made me feel better that quickly too.
I have struggled with ongoing viral meningitis symptoms for more than two years. Been tested for everything under the sun. Scans, lumbar puncture but no diagnosis.
I’m now cured, do not know whether the things I did or just time did it. Not having a diagnosis was frustrating but didn’t stop me getting cured.
I’m a runner, I love it to bits so am highly motivated to exercise. I think this desire prevented a slide into hypochondria. I tried running twice over the years but crashed with bad return of symptoms.
I think that it's more complex than this. Sometimes it is extremely helpful to know that something is wrong with you, because it enables you to do what you need to do to look after yourself, and because it gives you an explanation for why you and your life and your struggles are the way they are. And sometimes it's just pathologizing and makes you feel bad about yourself, or makes you put unnecessary limits on yourself. So it's a very fine balancing act and is something that needs to be worked through in therapy (if you are going to give your client a diagnosis) so that it is a positive thing for them not a negative thing for them.
For example, I have coeliac disease. Until I got this diagnosis (that something was fundamentally wrong with me) I had no energy and difficulty concentrating and was unwell all the time and felt viscerally as though I was rotten on the inside and couldn't exercise and had low key chronic pain. Other people understood this as me being lazy and not eating a healthy diet or doing enough exercise. I understood it as myself being lazy and a hypochondriac. The coeliac diagnosis told me not only that there was something wrong about me, but that it wasn't laziness, poor diet or hypochondria (moral weakness basically), but a badly damaged gut and an overactive immune system. It told me that I needed to give up gluten, which I did, and within day's my chronic pain, chronic depression and feeling of being rotten all vanished forever. So walking around knowing that there is something fundamentally wrong with me, and because of that I have to be very very very careful about what I eat is extremely helpful to me, because it enables me to have as close to a normal life as I can have (I can't eat at restaurants or other people's houses and there are a lot of foods that I can't eat period, but as long as I do that I can be well and live an otherwise normal life).
None of this is to say that pathologizing things that are normal or fairly common is a good idea. And yet again, on the other hand we are in the middle of an enormous epidemic of mental illness (and other chronic disease too of course) thanks to the incredibly unhealthy lives people now live in the west with chronic stress, and artificial light, and lack of exercise, and food that's of low nutritional value and full of poisons, and phytoestrogens in the air and water, etc etc etc. So a lot of people are genuinely unwell, a lot more than used to be.
I’m genuinely gluten intolerant but not coeliac fully. I recognise your description of removing gluten. The exclusion diet which diagnosed gluten as my problem made me feel better that quickly too.
I have struggled with ongoing viral meningitis symptoms for more than two years. Been tested for everything under the sun. Scans, lumbar puncture but no diagnosis.
I’m now cured, do not know whether the things I did or just time did it. Not having a diagnosis was frustrating but didn’t stop me getting cured.
I’m a runner, I love it to bits so am highly motivated to exercise. I think this desire prevented a slide into hypochondria. I tried running twice over the years but crashed with bad return of symptoms.