A listener's story on misdiagnosed depression
Welcome back it’s Julia Bright with Let Your Genius Emerge podcast.
I hope you enjoy my new set up and I am not overwhelming you with appearing three times in a week now, you can actually listen to me all at once if you like.
I just got an additional note here from a listener who has chronic pain and I thought I would share her story with you.
Here is what she says: I just wanted to let you all know how much it matters to go back to the basics and not overcomplicate things. I’ve been suffering from chronic pain for many years and doctors have had no idea of the source of the pain. I don’t want to abuse pain medication because they might be addictive or lose potency. After years of investigation and frustration, I was referred to a psychiatrist who suggested that I had depression and as depression does hurt, that is the source of my pain. So she turned this all backwards and that didn’t help me at all. Presupposing that the pain was caused by depression was a dangerous path to start to go down. She prescribed antidepressants, then sleep aid, all that just made my condition worse because now I also became a zombie beside being in pain. After a while I got myself off the antidepressants, but what do you know, later on, when I really needed them, I was hesitant to take them because of my past experiences. That's when I remembered Maslow’s hammer: when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. For a psychiatrist it had to be depression, what else would have caused undiagnosable pain? I bet a neurologist would have had a different perspective on it, but we don’t have access to them as readily.
A short while back I had to take medication treatment for two weeks which was really hard on my body causing me headaches, upset stomach, dizziness and the like. My eyesight was fast declining and my headaches remained. I blamed my chronic pain, my treatment, and everything I could think of for this. Then I went to get a new prescription for glasses and the ophthalmologist asked me how much time I spent in front of the screen and if this time has increased lately. Blue light exposure causes tension headaches, tiredness, exactly the symptoms I experienced and I thought it was due to my treatment. I just need new glasses with blue light filter and do daily eye strengthening exercises. But I used to know that! I even had a pair of clip-on blue light filter glasses and I used to do exercises to strengthen my eyes. Why did I let it stop? I guess that is the 64 thousand dollar question! Just as you said before Julia, just assuming without any investigation is a shortcut you can’t afford. And It is as easy of a fix as it can be instead of popping pills for headache everyday! There are so many things you could do to maintain your fitness and health even if you never visit the gym! Who thinks about eye, face and neck exercises? I do now!
Thank you for your story. I am going to look into eye, face and neck exercises to share with my listeners too!
Well, that is our story for today. We will talk again on Monday morning with a preview on self-control.
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Until then, explore, think, create, communicate, let your Humanly Genius emerge, grow and become your authentic self. Meantime I’ll do the same and I will embrace my precious community around me! Talk to you Later!