"My wifeknew that since I've been ill, I wilt in the heat (I have an autoimmune disease that forced me out of work as a psychiatrist and often into the hospital as a patient). But I was anxious to get outside and use my camera, so off we went. I didn't wilt and got some good pictures but what I did not do was go outside with my wife. I felt tired, my joints hurt, and as always, I felt vaguely fluish."
"As a disabled psychiatrist, I can tell you from personal and professional experience that those suffering from depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders have a similar experience. You hopefully feel better than before you had treatment, yet you are wrapped in well-intentioned bandages that keep you in and the world out. Some of these are medication side-effects and some leftover symptoms that just don't go away. Whatever the cause, you wear it like an overcoat in the summer."
Chronic physical and mental illnesses create an internal barrier that isolates people from shared experiences. Symptoms such as fatigue, joint pain, and vague flu-like sensations can leave a person physically present but subjectively trapped inside their body. Days with few symptoms feel simply normal rather than clearly better. Medication side-effects and residual symptoms act as ongoing constraints that limit interaction and sensory engagement with the environment. Companions may move through surroundings while the ill person remains focused on internal limitations. Normalcy of body and mind functions as the protective skin enabling connection, participation, and mutual sensing.
Read at Psychology Today
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