Can Mental illness PHYSICALLY affect you?

Hey everyone. Happy Thursday.

Now today I'm going to just answer a question.

I was gonna do coffee and a chat, but it is later in the day

and I don't know if you are like me, but I can't drink coffee that late, 'cause then I can't sleep.

It gives me the jitters.

So today's question is actually something that I'm surprised I haven't talked about before,

so we're gonna talk about it.

And the question is "Hey Kati. Can mental illness/illnesses physically affect you?"

Good question.

"I don't mean behavior. I mean physical illness and pain.

More specifically, I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder.

I wake up almost every morning feeling physically ill.

(sick heavy head)" -they say in parentheses-

"but more than that, it's really hard to compare it to any other feeling.

I'm pretty sure it's not an anxious stomach, but it's only when I wake up,

even when I've had a really good night sleep.

I stay off of school because of it and it's hard to explain it to my dad so I just refuse to go."

And the truth of it is that this is very very common.

Yes, it is completely normal to physically feel what's going on with us mentally.

And I'm sure you've heard people talk about how powerful the human mind is,

and how powerful it can be.

I mean I can get anxious and make my stomach upset like finger snap if I want to.

So we know that it is linked, and those are actually called somatic symptoms.

Not to be confused with somatic disorder and all of those different things,

but somatic symptoms are the physical manifestation of mental illness,

and that is very common.

Some of the most common ones that people talk about are stomachaches, headaches, heavy heads

kinda like what she talked about. Like a sick, heavy head.

Those are very common, and that is why we usually end up,

if we've never been diagnosed, we haven't gotten treatment,

a lot of people end up in their GP or regular doctor

or primary care doctor's office first.

Because we don't feel well. We think we're sick, but we don't have like green snot

or other things that tell us we're sick or a fever.

But we just don't feel well and it keeps going on and persisting

so we go to our doctor and we say "What gives? Why do I feel so sick?"

And then they usually refer us to a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, something like that.

So if you are out there and you are feeling achy-

That's the most common symptom by the way that I've heard,

is that people who are depressed or anxious have like body aches

like ugh kinda like when you're sick and you ache.

We feel that way and so if you have any symptoms like that

and you've maybe even gone to the doctor and they checked you out

and they're like "Nothing's wrong but you can take these antibiotics if you want".

This is somethin to think about and consider, because our bodies work as a whole. Right?

Healthy mind, healthy body. That is our motto.

And that is because they're so intrinsically linked.

If one is off, the other's off. If the other one's off, the other one's off.

So you can see that if something is wrong in our brain

If we are feeling really down and out, that body aches might be common.

We might wanna sleep a lot.

A lot of symptoms that we could think of and associate with illness.

So get checked out by your doctor first because we all know it could be sickness,

but if it's been going on and you've gotten checked out and everything is fine.

Ask them for a referral to see a therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist, someone,

some mental health professional, so that you can get properly diagnosed

and get the help that you want.

And if you have not hopped over to the Shorty awards.

I'm gonna put the link in the description.

Mental health is finally being recognized, and we as a community are finally on the board!

And so you can vote once a day, each day. Once a day until February 18th.

And if you put it on your Twitter or Facebook, we get an extra point like another vote

that counts twice. So exciting!

So if you could share the link. Share it on your Twitter or Facebook.

We could really rally the masses and mental health could get an award. That's so exciting.

I used to like beg and plead to try to get us involved in this stuff

and I never heard from anybody. And now we're on it so please vote if you haven't.

Link in the description.

Also I wanna give a whole-hearted thank you to all of my patreon patrons.

I usually put their names at the end of a Monday video but I had a collab this Monday

so everything was off so thank you so much.

Here are the people who give and if you are interested in helping the kinion community

helping us reach more people and supporting this channel,

I'll put the link in the description for that as well.

I love you all and I will see you on Monday. Bye!

I think that's about the only dance I know.