“its all in your head” and “its coming from a problem in your brain” are, hypothetically, describing the same thing.

the instinct to respond “its NOT in my head” is so valid, & often true. but i really do have mental illness, and i wish i saw more “so what if it was?” #NEISvoid

doctors have told me that my hypersomnulence, fatigue, nauseau, pain, tachycardia, etc are because of depression, anxiety, trauma, whatever. i’ve been on most the psych meds out there, and these symptoms have persisted.

but here’s the thing: i don’t know that they were wrong.

the problem is not necessarily that they made an incorrect or unreasonable hypothesis. it is problematic, of course, that they never presented or explored the possibility that it *could* be anything else. but more importantly, i think, is this:

if all my bodily symptoms don’t respond to exhaustive psych treatment, that does not necessarily disprove mental illness as the root cause. (notably, my psych sx have also always persisted.)

it could simply mean i am getting inadequate treatment for my mental illness.

there are some illnesses that current medical science is able to treat at the root of the problem, and many that it cannot.

perhaps my body problems do stem from mental illness, and its just the latter type. and what do we do in those cases? we turn to symptom management.

everyone with an illness that can’t be treated at the source, physical or mental, deserves symptom management. it would not be unreasonable to prescribe physical therapy for pain caused by depression, migraine meds for migraines from anxiety, and so on.

of course its better to address the source itself than the symptoms whenever possible. but symptom management should be available to everyone when those attempts fail, or when the road to them is long or does not exist. (i could write a whole other thread about this.)

all of this is to say— maybe all my symptoms do come from my head. it doesn’t matter. what matters is that i am having them. fixing my brain didn’t work, and i deserve broader symptom management options, regardless of why i’m having them.

anyway, i get it, but i can’t help but feel a little on the outside when people say “its not mental illness, this is real!”

it can be both, and it deserves better treatment either way.