Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The Power of Suggestion... by My Weak Mind

There may be some folks out there who believe I'm a very smart cookie. I hope those people read this post and take note that cookies are rarely smart. I think Fig Newtons might be smart, but I don't eat those very often. They seem like a cookie intelligent people might consume. However, this isn't about cookies, it's about noodles. By noodle, I mean your brain. This is your brain. This is your brain on Everyday Underwear.

I readily admit that I'm a complete idiot sometimes. Unlike other idiots, I am usually the first to admit I am a complete idiot and I normally admit it even when I am merely a partial idiot. I admit my stupid thought processes when I have them and people seem to appreciate that a lot.

The time I killed a moth and my daughter said, "Mom, why did you just kill that tortilla chip?" Yep, that went on Facebook. The time I thought there were little black and white bugs in my bed until upon closer inspection they turned out to be poppy and sesame seeds from my daughter eating an "everything" bagel in my bed that morning... yep, I put that up on a Facebook post immediately.

I love to laugh at myself. That poor tortilla chip and the "bug" seeds are powerful examples of how the brain can tell you one thing, you completely buy it, and it turns out to be false. You feel like an idiot. And for just that one tiny moment, sadly, you are. There. I said it. You are an idiot sometimes and I am too.

Sooooo, let's discuss the power of suggestion. I'm reading multiple books at the moment, but the one by my bed is called My Stroke of Insight. It's about a neuroanatomist brain scientist who suffers a stroke and lives to tell about it. I hadn't even cracked the book open yet when I had convinced myself that I had probably had a stroke. Why would I think this? Three irrational reasons:

  1. I'm having problems with my voice, specifically that at 42, I have developed a mild case of what I like to call "old lady voice."
  2. I heard a strange noise in my head recently that I've never heard before (I said noise, not voice).
  3. I choke on my own spit or a harmless drink of water for no reason, more often than previously.
I've had these problems over a span of probably 6 months. Just the other day, however, I finally decided to look in the mirror with a flashlight to see if something might be going on in my throat, like esophageal or vocal cord cancer. Is that a cancer? Well, if it is, I was convinced I probably have it.

The flashlight revealed... wait for it... inflamed tonsils. I think I have tonsillitis. I was relieved. Even though it could still be a growth of some kind posing as tonsils, I don't know. I don't recall ever having tonsillitis before, so I'm not sure what problems it can cause or what it really looks like. But trust me, I've looked at all the images on Google and that's probably what it is, even though mine doesn't look exactly like any photo I saw, so I can't be sure. FYI, I have a doctor appointment for next Tuesday to confirm my complete or partial idiocy.

In short, I'm having ENT problems. Ummm, that would explain numbers 1, 2, and yes, 3. I am not dying after all. Well, I am dying a little every second, lurching slowly through life toward my inevitable death, but aren't we all?

This irrational thought process made me think of the power of suggestion. Your brain can conjure up things that aren't there, aren't true, aren't reality -- before you ever grab a flashlight to see what the light reveals. Let me show you what I mean by sharing a few valid examples of frontal lobe idiocy:

The neighbor kid comes over after being diagnosed with head lice. Your head itches and you feel things crawling after the kid leaves, even though you don't actually have head lice. Admit it, I'm right, aren't I? Not only that, but some of you are scratching your head right now just from hearing me talk about head lice. See?
See any lice in there? Nope, me either.
 And whaddya know, the gray hair post picture came in handy again!

You run into a friend who has recently had the flu. Immediately afterward, your stomach feels queasy. You think it feels queasy. It isn't queasy. You are fine. You are healthy. You don't have the flu and you didn't get the flu from your friend, but for a short period of time, you think you must have the flu simply because you were exposed to the flu.

The preceding examples are called psychosomatic responses. Your mind thinks about the reality of these conditions and you physically react. I can't count the times I have had some symptom and I get on the Internet to research it, only to convince myself I have the worst case of whatever-it-is-itis there ever was. "I'm dying, I just know it. What am I going to do with my remaining time? I'm not done on this earth." The truth is that I am only dying in the sense that I am one day closer to my death every day that I'm alive. Period. End of story. Cindy Brown lives on as we speak. Whoop-ti-do.

Humor me and tell me if you've had a brain fart, a time when your mind conjured up the unreal. I'd love to hear that I have fellow idiots. I mean that in the nicest possible way. I love my idiots. You are the wind beneath my wings.


32 comments:

  1. Hi Cindy. I've been diagnosing myself with fatal illnesses since I was twelve, and convinced myself that I'd accidently swallowed a flesh-eating substance in chemistry class.

    My latest was this year, when I had white painful patches in my mouth (sorry for the TMI). The first thing I did (big mistake) was check my symptoms on the internet, where I was informed it could be one of ten forms of oral cancer. I went through the whole I'm-dying scenario that you describe. Then I went to my dentist who determined that I was allergic to Super Whitening Listerine, or whatever I was taking. I was delighted to have my idiocy proven once again!

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    1. I had a doctor tell me once, "Never, ever try to diagnose yourself on the Internet." But you know me, I have my own mind and it does what it wants whether I like it or not sometimes. It's fun to see what my mind comes up with, even when it's unnecessary paranoia. It entertains me.

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  2. Hi there Cindy! I loved this, very funny, and very true. And I can really relater to number 1,2,and 3, and 3 even more. I often choke just on air!

    By the way, thank you for visiting my post too. :)

    ~Virginia

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    1. Choking on air?! You'd better get the flashlight and check those tonsils, girl! LOL!

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  3. What is that choking on saliva thing? It happened to me just this week and I just don't get it. I felt like an old woman two steps away from the onset of dementia and my room at the senior assisted living villa. I HATE that. I'm pretty good at diagnosing myself-comes from having a huge family in the medical field. I under diagnose. Like, I'm sure my cold will pass even though my chest feels like a wood burning stove with every breath. I have to make myself go to the Doctor. Great post!

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    1. I know! I felt that way too, like "What is THAT!?" Choking on my own spit? Come on, life, this is crazy stuff right here. I am not that old! But it was the old lady voice that bothered me more because that was a symptom I hadn't ever heard of in someone my age. That and the weird buzzing noise in my head were strange and foreign to me. I was relieved to find "interference with speaking ability" as a symptom of tonsillitis. Whew!

      Now I just hope I don't have to have my tonsils out. I hear that's really hard on an adult. I don't think they're that bad. Hopefully a round of antibiotics will take care of it (already looked for home remedies - they all said, "Go to the doctor." LOL!

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  4. Please note that I am trying to switch over to Disqus and my comments are still importing and things are a bit wonky as I get set up again on the site. Thank you all for your patience!

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  5. Cindy, you are so funny.  About a year ago I was downstairs watching TV when my daughter let out a blood curdling scream.  When I ran upstairs to safe her life I found her pointing at the world's largest bug sitting calmly in the middle of my bedroom floor.  So I procured a good, solid, bug-killing shoe (hubby's sneaker) and proceeded to wham, whack and smush to smithereens.....a ball of thread!

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  6. Ha! I just spit on my screen laughing at that comment - thread!!! I don't feel so bad now!

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  7. Cindy, this is absolutely one of my favorite posts by you! I'm so much like what you described...right down to the thinking I'm dying sometimes, and then it turns out that all I needed was a Rolaids. Thanks for sharing : ) 

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  8. Ha! You know what I love most about blogging? You find out, "I'm not alone in my weirdness!" and know, "I'm not the only crazy one out there." LOL!

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  9. I know! I felt that way too, like "What is THAT!?" Choking on my own spit? Come on, life, this is crazy stuff right here. I am not that old! But it was the old lady voice that bothered me more because that was a symptom I hadn't ever heard of in someone my age. That and the weird buzzing noise in my head were strange and foreign to me. I was relieved to find "interference with speaking ability" as a symptom of tonsillitis. Whew!

    Now I just hope I don't have to have my tonsils out. I hear that's really hard on an adult. I don't think they're that bad. Hopefully a round of antibiotics will take care of it (already looked for home remedies - they all said, "Go to the doctor." LOL!

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  10. Choking on air?! You'd better get the flashlight and check those tonsils, girl! LOL!

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  11. I had a doctor tell me once, "Never, ever try to diagnose yourself on the Internet." But you know me, I have my own mind and it does what it wants whether I like it or not sometimes. It's fun to see what my mind comes up with, even when it's unnecessary paranoia. It entertains me.

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  12. I'm glad to have discovered you by you discovering me :-)

    What's funny is that I've had that same choking on my own spit thing happening more and more too...but I didn't make any assumptions about it. Yet. As for the stomach bug thing...OMG. You've just hit on my biggest anxiety. I am not kidding! My knees got weak just reading this post! 

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  13. Oh wow, I gave you a psychosomatic response! LOL!

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  14. Cindy, I was having really sharp pains in my breast and KNEW I had breast cancer. Then i realized that the wire in my underwire bra had popped through and was stabbing my boob:)

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    1. Oh my God, that's funny! My underwire always pokes me, so my boob hurts all the time and I think I have breast cancer too, which is a possibility since I have it in my family (dad's side though), so it makes me extra paranoid! I am relieved when I get my mammo results.

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  15. Thank you for making me feel safe to embrace my own inner idiot. I once saw something move in the refrigerator, so I jumped back and yelped in fear. The fridge creature jumped with me. It was my shadow. Yup: I was literally frightened by my own shadow.  

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  16. I was off work for a little bit and watched the first three seasons of House over the course of two weeks. I went back to work with a limp that was definitely psychosomatic. Which was really hard to explain.

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  17. Oh, Cara, that's hilarious! I think I will steal that first line of yours if you don't mind and use it to further promote the blog post on my Facebook page. I might also put it in the What People Are Saying About Everyday Underwear page on the site. Hilarious! I will give you credit so you will be famous-ish.

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  18. I'm always the first person to laugh at myself when I do something less than brilliant. :P This is super embarrassing, but when I was in middle school, I asked my mom is blind people got to park in the handicap parking spots. It took a look from my mom for me to figure out they don't drive. Ugh, total brain fart on my part.

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  19. Well, I'll let you off the hook because you were little, LOL!

    P.S. There was a typo in your comment, so I fixed it - that's why it says edited by moderator ;0)

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  20. Hi Cindy, thanks for adding me to your top commenters.  I will take that widget and add it to mine too!

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  21. I had a really hard time finding one that actually worked, so I was thrilled when this one did! You can customize how many people you want, exclude yourself so you don't appear as your own #1, etc. I just have to remember to change the date range once a month or so. One Top Commentator widget I tried to load in put a search list in place of the names. Hardwood Floors was my top commenter, LOL!

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  22. Very funny. I think all writers are hypochondriacs...

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  23. I once heard mice scurrying beneath a lean-to where I was preparing to sleep, and I woke up convinced there was a skunk in my sleeping bag.

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  24. You may just be correct. And I feel better now that I once again know I'm utterly NOT alone! :0)

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  25. We had chipmunks in the flooring of our old house. At least I think they were chipmunks. Creepy! I swear those things were playing with my mind. I will blog about it someday.

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