Published on 12, July, 2020
I tend to use these words interchangeably.
But when speaking to medical professionals, they signal very different things.
It turns out, after gaining a better understanding of what these words mean to the medical field, I have rarely experienced true Anxiety. Most of my life I have experienced too frequent and much too high levels of unmanageable Stress, which Anti-Anxiety GABA boosting aids can relieve the biological response to, in order to think with clarity through a problem so to properly address it. Sometimes things will take a great deal of time to address.
I have never really had Actual Depression, just normal ups and (severe) downs of being human with intense emotional responses to intense sense-perception or intense sensory assault. Every lack of motivation in my life has been the result of Being Overwhelmed and this is not true depression, which is an end-of-life acceptance 'deflation', allowing the human animal to return to dust (as it were). Numbness, Withdrawal, Apathy or just the "empty" feeling one has after crying your eyes out - none of these are depression but Survival modes, trauma responses or just normal cycles.
After decades of trying to work out what is happening in the world around me and inside me, I have found that much can be solved with clarity, knowledge, engaging with a problem rather than being afraid of working through it, approaching it. Add supplements for focus and gut-health, hydration and minerals, paying attention to botany. At 50, I am still uncovering how to eat properly for my being, and science is still discovering what our gut microbiota should look like, but worlds better today than I have been most of my life.
Please feel free to add to this conversation. It's painful to see how many Autistic kids are prescribed anti-depressants, when this can only make biological function and neurological function much worse, let alone other unnecessary stressors in modern life affecting Autistic and Divergent kids. x
There was a doctor who found me bonkers for even suggesting that my anxiety/depression was caused by gluten which caused me digestive issues, which caused physical and mental health issues, and they didn't care about what I said and they kept trying to peddle me with anti-depressants. Luckily there's more connections being found between digestive health and mental health, even though it seems like a minority, I've been told by another doctor that about 70% or 80% of the population suffers from digestive issues, and they played it off as of it's normal or a common occurrence, while I personally saw it as an epidemic.
There was a video I watched yesterday on YouTube, called:
The Surprising Causes of Autism & Why It's On The Rise | Dr. Suzanne Goh & Dr. Mark Hyman
But I don't know if I'm allowed to link the video, but there's the title to it. It's about an hour long.
There's a lot of medical jargon (which I personally adore, but not everyone's a fan of that), but a summary is that it basically talks about how many people with autism also have digestive issues, and that these two doctors have noticed that in their practice, that helping heal the digestive system, will "improve the symtoms", of course they cannot say "cure," but some of the patients can make a complete turn around from healing their gut and changing their diet. And they explain inflammation that's happening in the body caused by certain problematic foods, can cause the mind to be inflammed as well, in which he said it was like the "brain is on fire." And when they change their diet and improve their digestive issues and their leaky gut, it improves their symptoms as well.
Thank you! Will find and watch this video! I constantly have flatulence and other unpleasant symptoms for years. My doctor said that I’m exaggerating. But for this reason (and not only) I avoid restaurants and it’s also problematic in public. My sister suggested that I eliminate lactose. I did, I changed cow milk with oat milk and it was even worse. She was amazed. Looks like I need to dive into this topic and find out what causes the issues.
The common inflammatory foods are gluten, dairy, and sugar. There are other ones that can cause digestive issues, but those are the main ones. I just chose gluten first and avoided eating for a week, to see how I'd do. I felt a drastic improvement to my overall health. But when I incorporated gluten back into my diet, I felt unwell again. So I just stopped eating gluten all together.
I gradually shifted to avoiding dairy and sugar as well over time, but they don't harm me as much as gluten does. Dairy definitely causes me bloating, and even with lactose-free milk, I'll get stomach cramps. I usually buy almond milk or soy milk. Some people with an allergy to cows milk, can drink goats milk instead, but I don't know how well it'll work on people with food intolerance and digestive issues though.
I recently suffered a very severe bout of gastroenteritis. Just unlucky - caught it from someone I was caring for. It was like no stomach upset I have ever experienced before, lasting a week, and laying me low in bed for several days. Needless to say, it was a complete and extremely thorough “purge” of my entire digestive tract. It took me several weeks to get back to normal and a routine rhythm, but I have to say, my gut health has not been as good as this for years and years. I am convinced that what you experienced was no co-incidence. I feel brighter and more able to cope than I have for a long time. I’m not suggesting you go out and try to catch a gastrointestinal bug. But I do agree - I think some kind of detox or purge can be very beneficial.