Two weeks ago I scored an emergency appointment with the dentist. I had a searing pain in my teeth and suspected fillings were needed. My dentist took a quick look and told me that no, six months of shoving sugary treats into my gob wasn’t the problem – in fact I was clenching my jaw so hard my teeth were screaming out in protest. “I’ve seen at least two cases every day since we re-opened,” he said breezily, and sent me off with a mouth-guard and instructions to relax more.
So I went to Scotland with my family for a first proper meet-up since March. Between us, there were two insomniacs, two cases of recurrent cystitis, one hip pain flare-up and a very bad case of eczema. Plus, the jaw clenching – don’t forget the jaw clenching. With no other real news to tell each other, we swapped stories of – and remedies for – these recent ailments, trying to figure out their provenance, as if there wasn’t an obvious cause staring us all in the face: 2020, the year sent to test us all.
Ever since I was little and anxiety first reared its panicky little head, I’ve felt the effects physically just as much as mentally. Often more. I once thought I was having a stroke aged 17 in a nightclub when my arm went numb (much to the hilarity of my drunk mates). Actually, I was just having panic attacks in crowded places and didn’t understand that yet. I have had cluster migraines for years, something I used to get very scared about until a nice doctor showed me how the muscles in my neck were tensing up when I got stressed, grabbing my head in a vice-like grip. My body is constantly alerting me to the state of my mental health, I just don’t always care to listen.
Despite understanding how very real conditions like stress and anxiety are, I have still always looked for a more valid reason when I experience physical pain. I’ve written a whole book about how mental illness can affect your life, and yet some part of me continues to see physical ailments as more legitimate, to find it hard to believe that the brain can affect the body as powerfully as it does.
In her book, It’s All In Your Head, neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan explains how often she sees patients with conditions which cannot be attributed to a physical disease or disorder. Often, these patients cannot accept that there is nothing diagnosable and easily treated about their symptoms and get upset and angry. But O’Sullivan is not doubting that their problems aren’t real – on the contrary, she repeatedly emphasises that these afflictions are just as valid as any other condition she sees. Instead, she argues that society doesn’t do well at dealing with health issues caused by our brains. We want a clear diagnosis for our pain, and a bandage or a pill that can fix it as fast as possible.
Have you experienced backache this year? What about bad skin, or nausea, headaches or palpitations? I bet you’re nodding at at least one of these listed. These conditions have been increasingly ubiquitous as we’ve lived through a period of high stress and uncertainty. But the back twinges you’ve felt after weeks of worry are as real as those you might get when you lug heavy boxes (always lift with your legs, people). We just have to work a little harder at accepting that.
Of course, there is another angle to all this. Throughout history, and especially for women, physical problems without an easy diagnosis have often been dismissed as imaginary. Crippling period pains minimised when something serious was going on. So it’s no use constantly telling yourself it’s all in your head when a problem is seriously affecting your life. But I have learned to take comfort in understanding my body better and familiarising myself with the symptoms that anxiety is creating. Knowing that my jaw clenching comes from living through an unprecedented time in modern history doesn’t make the pain go away, but it does help me manage it a little better. There must be a balance.
Despite our efforts to de-stigmatise mental health problems, I still think we prize our physical health over our mental health, and don’t fully understand how tightly connected the two are. If you’re sleeping well, you feel happier. If you’re feeling pretty happy, you’re probably sleeping well. The opposite is also true. Taking a quick MOT of your body can help you figure out how your brain is doing, even if you’re not noticeably feeling sad or anxious. Sometimes my psoriasis flares just before I notice an uptick in intrusive thoughts or a lower mood – a little flare in the dark, alerting me to something I’m ignoring. Instead of being alarmed by it, I try to explore what’s going on in my head. I work hard to block out my instinct to feel stupid at linking the two. As O’Sullivan says, “psychosomatic disorders are physical symptoms that mask emotional distress”. That feels pretty valid to me.
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