How do you tell if what you are feeling, the symptoms, are real or Somatoform? I have experienced panic attacks and IBS that heal like a heart attack or Stomach flu. I have had and cough and runny nose, flu ike symptoms that lasted to long to be the flu and suddenly disappeared shortly after I started E.M.D.R. I have lock my feelings up for so long I don't recognize them except as physical pain.
How can you tell when you have a real physical aliment and when it is your head?
It's my understanding that our nervous system is the first thing to be affected by the suppression of our feelings due to traumatic events. The stress system becomes over activated without our conscious awareness.
It is then that underlying neural development that affects how we see ourselves, how we think, act, feel - these patterns can be seen in brain scans as energy and blood flow.
For instance, my low grade depression changed my ability to think, has impaired my memory and attention as well as processing speed, decision making skills, lowering my cognitive flexibility to adapt to goals and strategies. Sadly, I only learned of these things decades after experiencing their impact by researching to understand my diagnoses.
Our stress response is a set of profound involuntary physiological changes in response to challenging and often traumatic experiences.
Does this help?
It's a very good question, Kitten58. Thank you for raising it.
I think trauma can affect everyone differently and some people are impacted more on a physical level. My first PTSD symptoms were physical and I didn't even have any mental issues.
I had trouble sleeping and felt very unwell. Tested in hospital for lots of things and luckily all was good.
Hearing about how trauma affects the body really made a lot of sense to me. I started somatic experiencing therapy and it really helped.
It's really hard to be sure whether it is a physical illness or a physical manifestation of trauma. Having a good GP that understand trauma is really helpful. You can raise your concerns and the doctor can help find out what is causing the symptoms.
A good resource is "The body keeps the score" by Bessel van der Kolk.
Believe me a lot of us have had moments where we can’t tell especially for anxiety if you can talk yourself down from an anxiety attack or do some meditation so if you notice that the symptoms begin to subside then you know that was just psychological because that will work
but if things keep getting worse then you know that it’s physical I hope that helps.
Daily users of benzos willing to share?
Betrayal triggers - rigid pride, secrecy, and dishonesty 
I could never sleep at night 
Triggered and need to unwind
