somatoform

I've broken out in hives, in response to nothing in particular. There are gross clusters of swollen, red blanching splotches on my hands, wrists, neck, waist, lower back, and feet; even my scalp itches. There is no defined distribution that would give a clue to an allergen; it's not from jewelry or lotion or clothing. The intensity is intermittent; in the morning they were pretty uncomfortable but I got a little used to them until they flared in the early afternoon. They calmed a bit after a shower. I had started itching a couple days ago but I attributed it to mosquito bites, to which I'm prone, but they got acutely worse last night and upon waking this morning I was pretty confused. After another morning of psychotherapy, in which I've never been more grateful for a cell phone interruption that kept me from bursting into tears in front of the psychiatrist, and then going to a class on somatoform disorders (real physical symptoms that have no physical cause, that instead stem from psychological/emotional roots), I remembered that this has happened a couple times before when I've been anxious, stressed or emotional. Not necessarily sad, but an emotion with a sense of strain.

I have really loved psychiatry for the patients, for how much depth of feeling and experience they show and share and that you explore with them. Much of this comes from the fact that I'm now working on a locked unit, such that the patients live their lives in a limited place, and it's not just hospital beds, it's their bed beds. In this way, living becomes dense and in some ways artificial, except that it's what they experience and so it's real. Being on the outside, students have the privilege of taking it all in. At some point, I think absorbing so much must make the skin break, the inside wanting an out. I really hope I can work towards giving it a worthy one.