Re: Thought everyone here would enjoy a good laugh

On Fri, 05 May 2006 02:06:21 GMT, "RhondaM" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


. I was told by a counselor in my therapy group that once I confronted my
past my RA and Lupus will disappear. What do you think about this?


I think that it is very unfortunate that a counselor would say
something like that to a client implying that disease is a) your fault
and b) something that can easily be fixed if you do something to
improve your life.

while I do believe that there may be a psychosomatic component to many
diseases, I do not believe that one can assume a cause-effect
relationship when you are talking about something that is immune
related. In my own case, I have been at times depressed and at others
ebullient. While I may notice my symptoms less when I am happy, they
are still there, and in the throes of depression I may be so
profoundly down that I don't experience pain in the same terms either.
Having said that though, I do recognize that stress can influence the
disease and exascerbate a flare.

I developed JRA at 15 and probably when I was much younger. I never
even knew what stress was at that time.

I had a psych professor tell me something similar to what your
counselor told you. When I was taking developmental psych I really
struggled with out of control RA. At that time in the 70s I was only
treated with entrophen (coated aspirin) and I do not remember ever
being out of a flare. I WAS depressed. I missed classes because I
could barely drag myself out of bed. At one point I fainted at the
university among strangers, and no one even came to help me, but I
could not get up by myself. I think that I missed several classes
after because I didn't really care if I ever went back. The RA caused
the stress, the stress caused the depression, the depression
exascerbated the flare. So there is the psyche- soma component. A
hopeless mind affected by out of control disease.

Fortunately better medicines came along and I did not have to stay in
that dark place. Better meds resulted in greater disease control;
greater disease control meant I could do more things and had a more
positive outlook.

Sorry to go off on a rant. I usually don't talk about myself that
way.I just get irritated when people who are supposed to know better
rationalize disease on very simplistic terms. If it were only that
easy...



Rose @}>->--
Being educated means that rather than fearing the unknown, one seeks to understand it. RB

Please remove "Ima" to reply.
.

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