Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar

Woody Allen said this years ago and I once gave an impromptu speech on this quote. 

Our minds crave completion.  Show someone a picture of disconnected lines and our brains fill in the missing space to see a shape.  We do this with personal experiences, too.  Schacter and Singer's classic experiment showed that people interpreted their body's response to injected adrenalin as either joy or anger depending on what others were expressing around them.  I once behaved just like one of Schacter and Singer's subjects.

I was 17 and had been having unexplained headaches.  The doctor had me go to the hospital for a CT-scan.  The technician told me what to expect and warned me not to move.  I was an explicit, law-abiding kind of gal, so when I began to experience severe itching and difficulty breathing, I did NOT move.  I was in a CT-scan machine, notorious for producing claustrophobic anxiety.  I didn't "feel" scared, but I assumed my anxiety was producing my symptoms.  I worked hard at relaxing and breathing deeply. 

The exam seemed to last hours.  When I was finally allowed to sit up, the technicians laughed and said I'd had a "little" allergic reaction.  They gave me an antihistamine and told me to sit in the waiting area until I felt well enough to go home.  Before leaving the room, the technicians had me look at my face in the mirror.  I couldn't believe what I saw.  My face was so swollen I had five folds of flesh in my cheeks.  I couldn't breathe partly because my cheeks had swelled so that my nostrils were closed.  My eyes were barely visible beneath the puffy skin and my ears were the size of my palms.

When I walked out to the waiting room, my parents didn't recognize me.  When they did realize who I was, they were horrified.  My mother took me to the bathroom where I nearly collapsed.  Afterward I still sat dutifully in the waiting room.  Fortunately, the ER was right next to the CT lab.  An ER doctor saw me and asked me what happened.  He insisted on examining me.  I had hives 12 inches long and my blood pressure was almost non-existent.  I was rushed into emergency and treated for an anaphylactic reaction.  I lost my memory of some events following and was in the hospital for five days recovering.

What's my point, you ask?  We all know people who turn every psychologicalissue into a physical one.  But it's just as likely that people are turning physical problems into psychological ones.  Thousands of people are treated for depression and anxiety disorders that have a physiological basis.  All depression and anxiety disorders have physical symptoms, but some physical disorders have psychological symptoms, too.  If, for example, you're suffering with fatigue, you might not be depressed or stressed.  Maybe you have a thyroid disorder or anemia.  Or, if you're me, you might be pregnant. 

Just remember...sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.