Stress
The condition of stress in relation to a medical problem was virtually unheard of 20 years ago. I first heard it referred to as such while visiting a cousin in hospital about 12 years ago.
We were in the rest room and a nursing sister stopped for a chat. The talks centred on illnesses in general and she pinpointed one particular case she was involved in at that time.
A man had been admitted to one of her wards and after four days and five different doctors nobody could say what was wrong with him. However they all agreed he was ill.
The sister however informed us that she knew the problem but it was not for her to tell doctors how to do their job. The man she said was suffering from stress and she had seen people in the same situation who had been sent home because nobody understood the problem. Her point was that unlike most illnesses where the body showed signs that could be recognised by doctors or machines, stress was of the mind and was not always obvious. Even the sufferer could not explain what was happening to them.
Little did I know then, but four years later I was to suffer two years of pure hell with stress. It started three days before Christmas 1986. I went to bed at midnight and awoke at three in the morning. I was gasping for breath and felt I was living in another world. My heart was thumping so I got dressed and stood at the front door gulping in air and in a state of panic.
For the next week my family thought I was having a mental breakdown. I was doing strange things. Everything in the world seemed to have no purpose and worst of all my life did not seem worth living. Every day seemed dreary and when my Grandkids visited I would clasp them to me as if I was never to see them again.
It was a week before I saw my doctor and she sent me for an x-ray for the breathing problem. O one visit she asked if I had any bad problems and I said no. But on second thoughts I told her that in the previous 18 months I had lost my mother and two brothers, had been laid off work, was in debt and having problems at home. She was shocked, mentioned stress and depression and put me on a course of tablets.
The advice I received was be positive. So for two years I was telling myself that what I was seeing and thinking were not the real world and I eventually steadied myself. I still have moments but I manage to shrug them off.
A thought that does come to mind though is that a hundred years ago people suffered stress and had more reasons than we do today. Wondering where the next meal was coming from, how to pay rent and other debts with virtually no or very small incomes. I wonder how many people showing signs of depression (and some could be violent) ended up in institutions for the mentally ill. I did read of one case where a woman was released after 40 years and nobody could say why she was in there in the first place. We truly owe a lot to medical science.
All problems caused by over population.