So I have migraines...a lot. They hurt like crazy and it seems like the medicine never works fast enough! On a side note though, I've found that picturing using a tomato stem remover to gouge out my eye seems to help! It hasn't yet been approved by the FDA but I have my fingers crossed for that patent baby!
As I made my way homeward bound I smelled this horrible tree that just...mehhh! It smells horrible and it's not even pretty! The smell of it gives me migraines. I'm super smell sensitive but only with certain smells. But I realized as I was walking that I have always associated the smell of those curs-ed trees with a bad experience I had awhile back. And then I thought hmm...what if some of my migraines aren't triggered by the actual smell of the tree but of the bad experience I had when the trees were present.
I mean...smell is one of the senses that is most closely linked to memory. You might smell something and immediately you subconsciously think of something that happened eons ago in which the smell was present. Seriously, it does happen.
Anyways, keeping this in mind, what if my brain, rather than actually being affected by a certain chemical or whatever in the plant (or whatever else bothers me...the tree is just an example) my brain is being affected by my mind...a psychosomatic effect in which my subconscious is recalling a painful experience after being triggered by a certain smell. As if my mind has automatically linked a smell with pain but even when the actual pain is not physically present, my mind has been so trained to associating that smell with pain that it "conjures" it up. It's like...well one of my friends did chemo and she told me that even though she was no longer on it and had no reason to be nauseous, every time she went to her old school she would vomit because her body just associated early mornings at this particular building with the nausea and vomiting. I guess that's the theory I'm getting at. A psychosomatic migraine. And, to quote my old paid pal (aka my old therapist), if you "don't believe that psychosomatic illnesses and symptoms are real, you're crazy." Think about it! Have you ever gotten really stressed out and then wound up with "digestion" issues?
I think I might be on to something!
What do you think?!?! Seriously!!! I realllly want to hear what y'all think!!!
That's all for now! I'm going to go take my brand-spanking new migraine meds that I hope do not kill me via serotonin syndrome :-)
Keep reading!
-RRR
I've definitely stressed myself out to the point of terrible stomach aches, so I think it's totally possible. What kind of tree is it, Ginko? Those tress smell really bad.
ReplyDeleteI want to be invited to your award ceremony! I have always wanted to go to Norway!
ReplyDeleteI think you are indeed on too something. Things like this is common in people who suffer from PTSD. Even though they are no longer in the situation that caused them to have PTSD in the first place anything that is linked to that situation can trigger it. It causes the body to create sickness or ills to prevent a person from putting themselves back into a percieved situation that could cause them harm. The mind and body is a powerful thing when it works together to protec.t
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you've got a sensory over-load thing going on here (thinking back to when I was a pysch major).... hmmmm....
ReplyDelete@The Tsaritsa: Apparently I hate not just one tree but three (I googled it) ugh. They smell dreadful!
ReplyDeleteI want to chop them all down and feed them to each other then burn them all and bury the ashes!!!!
@The Blogging Nun: it's a plan!!!
@Tristachio: yay someone believes me! but yeah I was thinking along those lines
@Caity: it most definitely could be!!