I greeted in the next patient, a coy lady in her mid-forties accompanied by her well-dressed husband (the fragrance of his cologne suffused the entire room). As she sat in the couch, I asked about her symptoms. She immediately looked at her husband who interceded to tell her story. “Sir, she has been suffering from this low back pain for the past 15 years. We have consulted so many doctors in all fields including allopathy, homeopathy and Siddha without any respite, and we have come here as the last hope.”
A daunting task ahead, I reminded myself. I asked her a few leading questions and examined her thoroughly. Apart from her spine issue, she complained of vague pain and discomfort in almost every part of her body. Despite a thorough assessment, I could not make out anything wrong in her spinal system. As I was ruminating cluelessly, her husband took a bag-full of X-ray and MRI reports and spread them across the couch. I went through them, hoping to clinch a diagnosis, but I could not see even an iota of abnormality.
Slowly I divulged to them the good news that everything was normal. Not unexpectedly, instead of being ecstatic the husband grimaced and said, “Sir, I’ve been working in Dubai for the last 20 years and whenever I visit my home, she annoys me with her complaints. Most of the time we go around hospitals during such holidays and I have never had peace of mind. Please do some surgery and
get rid of her pain.” His credulous statements did not evoke any anger. Rather I was bemused to see the same peaceful look in the lady’s face.
After having been in wedlock since her late-20s, she had been forced to manage the home on her home while the man was earning abroad. Left to run the family on her own, she has gone through a life of misery and distress. Four pregnancies within a span of nine years and raising the young children single-handedly through the vicissitudes of life, she hardly had a shoulder to lean on in times of despair and loneliness. Her unexpressed melancholy and solitude had slowly evolved into psychosomatic pain.
Psychosomatic illness is a physical manifestation of the conflicts of the mind. As the patient is unable to express her longings and lack of love, she subconsciously starts complaining of physical disabilities to her family to gain their lost attention. It is commonly seen in women and its incidence seems to be increasing. As the society continues to get fragmented with people increasingly reliant on gadgets for emotional satisfaction, the rising incidence of conflicts of mind manifesting as bodily pain is bothersome.
While many husbands would despise women in the early 30s to 50s as nagging personalities who constantly pester their spouses with aches here and there, no one understands that it is actually a warning signal from an unheard soul. This is not a phenomenon arising only in women whose husbands stay abroad. Rather it can happen to any woman who have not been given their due respect in their family; who are forced to work at home and toil in the work place; who are taken for granted by the family members; who have not been shown their due love, affection and patient listening; Psycho-somatic pain is also common in many working women. Such women face a routine drudgery as they need to finish all the house hold chores in the morning, then preparing herself for her office job, and back again in the evening to plan for the next day. Such a painful mundane life leads to repetitive psychological trauma which slowly manifests as
psychosomatic pain craving for attention. An office bag with a strip of pain killers cluttered with pain-relieving balms may tell untold stories about a working women’s plight.
Patients like Amruth lead a life of drudgery unable to express their feelings and emotions. Their problems get worsened by their psychosomatic pain syndromes. Unlike diseases like diabetes and cardiac illnesses, these are illnesses incurred by humans due to mishandling of people and poor inter-personal relationship. It is common to see such patients consult a multitude of doctors and quacks without any relief. Unless some one can point to her husband about his foibles and follies, their life is going to be through hell again. I told her husband, “Sir, it is time that you come back to India and stay with your family.” While the husband gave a befuddled look, I could not miss the glimmer of hope and joy in Amruth’s forlorn face.
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