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by Jentri Anders, PhD
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2)
The Lyme personality generates social stress. Social
events can trigger Lyme symptoms and stress can make them worse. That
relationship is now accepted in other diseases as well, including cancer.
The longer a Lyme patient interacts with the world by presenting an image
that others interpret as deviating too far from the norm, the more emotional
stress that patient is going to experience. The “Lyme personality”
is a stress-producer. The more emotional stress experienced, the worse
the disease gets. It’s an insidious downward emotional spiral. As
other Lymies have said, the B-flats make you want to cry or rage and then
give you plenty to cry and rage about.
A suggestion: Acknowledge that there may be truth in what others say about you, figure out how much truth, then work on those things that can be controlled. Research it, there’s a lot you can do about irritability, fog and crying once you admit you have those problems. Meanwhile, I say it’s ok to reduce social contact to a minimum, to simplify your life and focus it entirely around healing.
3) Coming to believe it. The Lyme personality problem gets worse when, after a while, the patient makes her public image part of her self-image. No matter how strong and confident a Lyme patient may have been, constant negative criticism and life experiences suggesting incompetence will have their effect. If everyone, including a long list of doctors and maybe your “ex,” is telling you that you are a mental case and you have no proof of an alternative diagnosis, you might just start thinking, “Well, maybe I am a mental case.” Even with a diagnosis, there is still the problem that a Lyme patient without a cane, chair or walker to indicate physical illness can come off looking deceptively well, making odd behavior that much more off-putting.
One of the social effects of Lyme disease is that the B-flats make it hard for the brain to prioritize information, including social information. Looking back at two divorces and painful scenes between me and my children, I can pinpoint situations in which I know I did not do what was expected of me fast enough because my mind overloaded and jammed up. Social information came in faster than I could process it. Of course that happens to people who don’t have Lyme disease. It’s typical of battered women, for instance. But these were isolated situations, ones so out of the ordinary I could not explain them to myself. They were situations I left in complete bewilderment, thinking, “ My God, how did I do that? What on earth happened to me that I failed to deal with this adequately?” Remember, Lyme symptoms, including mental ones, can flare-up intermittently. You are like that off and on. These failures, too, went into my growing “I’m weird” mental file and became part of my changing view of myself.
A suggestion: Yoga and meditation work for me. Sessions with a good psychologist would help, too, but I can’t afford them and MediCal (MediCaid) doesn’t cover them. Learn what works for you. Mantras, prayer, music, self-hypnosis, needlepoint, whatever you can still do that gets rid of the brutal critics in your mind. Fight the negative voices, your own and the others you filed in your “failure” file. Remember what you’ve been fighting and, in cases like mine, how long you’ve been fighting it. Physical exercise helps, if that is an option. If I catch myself berating myself or brooding over what might have been, I fling myself out the door and try to walk. I have located myself across the street from a state park for that reason alone--to have a good place to walk in. Some days I can only make it to the mailbox. Other days I can walk four miles (with many, many rests). But moving my body around, if I can, helps me control what I call “mind-grind.”
4) The role of body-image. Lyme not only damages the patient’s ability to present a normal appearance to the world by causing obvious physical changes, such as weight gain, loss of muscle tone, hair falling out, Bell’s palsy, swollen eyes, rashes and unattractive skin changes, but it also can cause the patient come to mistrust her body. How can you turn a positive face to the world if you don’t know what your body is liable to do next? Chronic Lymies have so many strange injuries and sensations that, without a diagnosis, they might just come to the defeatist conclusion that they have been assigned odd bodies that are always going to be odd. Your bed vibrates under you in the middle of the night? You sit down on the ground while running because you feel an earthquake nobody else did? Give yourself a black eye on a doorjamb that wasn’t where you thought it was? Stumble and drop things when balance and grace have always been part of your image? Smell things no one else smelled? Twisted your right knee, then watched your left knee swell, too? Your partner’s sexual needs outrunning yours and it’s bugging you? Must be your body betraying you again. next
A suggestion: Acknowledge that there may be truth in what others say about you, figure out how much truth, then work on those things that can be controlled. Research it, there’s a lot you can do about irritability, fog and crying once you admit you have those problems. Meanwhile, I say it’s ok to reduce social contact to a minimum, to simplify your life and focus it entirely around healing.
3) Coming to believe it. The Lyme personality problem gets worse when, after a while, the patient makes her public image part of her self-image. No matter how strong and confident a Lyme patient may have been, constant negative criticism and life experiences suggesting incompetence will have their effect. If everyone, including a long list of doctors and maybe your “ex,” is telling you that you are a mental case and you have no proof of an alternative diagnosis, you might just start thinking, “Well, maybe I am a mental case.” Even with a diagnosis, there is still the problem that a Lyme patient without a cane, chair or walker to indicate physical illness can come off looking deceptively well, making odd behavior that much more off-putting.
One of the social effects of Lyme disease is that the B-flats make it hard for the brain to prioritize information, including social information. Looking back at two divorces and painful scenes between me and my children, I can pinpoint situations in which I know I did not do what was expected of me fast enough because my mind overloaded and jammed up. Social information came in faster than I could process it. Of course that happens to people who don’t have Lyme disease. It’s typical of battered women, for instance. But these were isolated situations, ones so out of the ordinary I could not explain them to myself. They were situations I left in complete bewilderment, thinking, “ My God, how did I do that? What on earth happened to me that I failed to deal with this adequately?” Remember, Lyme symptoms, including mental ones, can flare-up intermittently. You are like that off and on. These failures, too, went into my growing “I’m weird” mental file and became part of my changing view of myself.
A suggestion: Yoga and meditation work for me. Sessions with a good psychologist would help, too, but I can’t afford them and MediCal (MediCaid) doesn’t cover them. Learn what works for you. Mantras, prayer, music, self-hypnosis, needlepoint, whatever you can still do that gets rid of the brutal critics in your mind. Fight the negative voices, your own and the others you filed in your “failure” file. Remember what you’ve been fighting and, in cases like mine, how long you’ve been fighting it. Physical exercise helps, if that is an option. If I catch myself berating myself or brooding over what might have been, I fling myself out the door and try to walk. I have located myself across the street from a state park for that reason alone--to have a good place to walk in. Some days I can only make it to the mailbox. Other days I can walk four miles (with many, many rests). But moving my body around, if I can, helps me control what I call “mind-grind.”
4) The role of body-image. Lyme not only damages the patient’s ability to present a normal appearance to the world by causing obvious physical changes, such as weight gain, loss of muscle tone, hair falling out, Bell’s palsy, swollen eyes, rashes and unattractive skin changes, but it also can cause the patient come to mistrust her body. How can you turn a positive face to the world if you don’t know what your body is liable to do next? Chronic Lymies have so many strange injuries and sensations that, without a diagnosis, they might just come to the defeatist conclusion that they have been assigned odd bodies that are always going to be odd. Your bed vibrates under you in the middle of the night? You sit down on the ground while running because you feel an earthquake nobody else did? Give yourself a black eye on a doorjamb that wasn’t where you thought it was? Stumble and drop things when balance and grace have always been part of your image? Smell things no one else smelled? Twisted your right knee, then watched your left knee swell, too? Your partner’s sexual needs outrunning yours and it’s bugging you? Must be your body betraying you again. next
Ticks carry more than just
Lyme disease! Including:
0 -Ehrlichia;
o -Bartonella;
0 -Babesia;
o -Q- Fever;
0 -Tularemia;
o -Tick-borne Encephalitis;
0 -Mycoplasma;
o -Relapsing Fever;
0 -Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and others.
Never WAIT and SEE about a tick bite, please! Quickly and properly treated infections are less likely to progress to later stage or chronic disease.
Sometimes tick bites are
mistaken for spider bites!
Some diseases may be spread by animal bites or scratches and from mosquitoes, fleas or lice.
There is still so much to learn about Lyme disease and related infections.
Sometimes Lyme disease and related infectious diseases are undiagnosed for years, even decades!
Watch closely for symptoms after tick bites. Some never see a tick or a bulls-eye rash.
Don't ignore tick-borne disease symptoms!
If you feel sick, ask a doctor!
SYMPTOMS may include:
0 -Tick bites;
o -Fever; Flu symptoms;
0 -All kinds of Rashes;
o -Muscle; Joint; Neck Pain;
0 -Body Aches; Weakness
o -Light /Sound Sensitivity;
0 -Bells Palsy; Nerve pain;
o -Insomnia; Poor memory
0 -Headaches; Numbness;
o -Mood disorders; Confusion;
0 -Extreme Fatigue; Exhaustion
Never let tick-borne diseases progress!
Lyme and associated diseases are often MISTAKEN FOR OTHER ILLNESSES, Including:
0 -Chronic Fatigue;
o -Fibromyalgia;
0 -Hypochondria;
o -Multiple Sclerosis;
0 -Lupus;
o -Rheumatoid Arthritis;
0 -Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS);
o -Alzheimer's and
0 -Parkinson's disease
******************
Don't be fooled about ticks and their diseases.
******************
Directly affecting humankind, worldwide:
W H A T H A P P E N E D
when the U.S. Senate addressed the Centers for Disease Control regarding Lyme disease?
Consult a good doctor!
Visit ILADS, LDF, LymeNet or LDA to find a specialist in your location.
Protect your children and your family.
Learn about ticks and their many diseases.
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TICK
BYTES:
- TICKS KNOW NO BOUNDARIES -
Tick-borne diseases are spreading rapidly in many countries across the world -not only in Scandinavia, UK, Hungary, Scotland, USA, France, Germany, China, and Australia.
- ONE BIG PROBLEM WITH TESTS -
There is NO 100% accurate Lyme disease test currently available to detect infection or cure. more...
- WHERE TICKS LIVE -
Ticks can be found in and around leaf litter; grass; logs; animal fur; bird feeders; and deer, mice, squirrel, and other small animal habitats.
- HOW TO REMOVE TICKS -
There is only one right way. Promptly and properly remove ticks to avoid infection. Here's how...
- TICKS KNOW NO BOUNDARIES -
Tick-borne diseases are spreading rapidly in many countries across the world -not only in Scandinavia, UK, Hungary, Scotland, USA, France, Germany, China, and Australia.
- ONE BIG PROBLEM WITH TESTS -
There is NO 100% accurate Lyme disease test currently available to detect infection or cure. more...
- WHERE TICKS LIVE -
Ticks can be found in and around leaf litter; grass; logs; animal fur; bird feeders; and deer, mice, squirrel, and other small animal habitats.
- HOW TO REMOVE TICKS -
There is only one right way. Promptly and properly remove ticks to avoid infection. Here's how...
How
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Ticks travel on mice!
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Never let tick-borne
infections progress !
Tick-borne diseases can
affect any body part,
organ, and any system
of the body.
Lyme disease and Syphilis are both caused by a type of bacteria called a spirochete.
Tick-borne diseases can KILL!
Ticks travel on mice!
ALWAYS Get Ticks Tested!
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