Tell me - is IC an emotional disease that needs emotional cure?

[gjthomas2006]

hello friends!

i hope i can post this same message on three different forums here, particularly from the perspective of addressing a critical issue that afflicts IC patients.

I read a book in the recent past that interstitial cystitis actually gets triggered by acute (read very acute) emotional pain in the heart, which is either caused by a failed lover, rape or traumatic situations created by a person whom you loved as if he WAS your eternal lover.

Before I go to a possible answer, let me ask everyone of you whether you all have experienced anything like this that would have triggered IC.

If the answer is yes, can the solution possibly lie in clearing off all misunderstandings with the lover and/or coming together with the lover once again?

Let me ask here whether you personally think that this could be an answer to your problem.

----

I am asking these questions, towards finding a solution, based on my own half-experience.

I am a guy and my life (without whom I am not just being able to live) loved me a lot. We both were married to different people when we met each other and fell in love. We could not/did not go in for divorce from our respective partners. For some strange reason, I was quite comfortable with going public with our love.

THIS and may be other such stupidities of mine (creating huge insecurity in her mind/heart) in a conservative society could have resulted in immense pain, which later resulted in IC.

Our relationship finally broke off 1.5 years ago.

Now, I am trying to find out whether MY EXISTENCE in this world of hers is required to cure her of IC. If not, I would just want to disappear forever, in a way that there is absolutely no possibility of any coincidence of us meeting each other ever.

Alternatively, if my existence of even one single moment can cure her, I would like to live/wait for that moment to come.

god bless you all

G.J.Thomas

[Baba Yaga]

gjt, I doubt there is much data to support that emotional trauma theory. Many many many people go through varieties of trauma, especially heartache, without ending up later struck by IC.

Yes, emotional pain and stress might even be contributors to it, and can certainly exacerbate its symptoms once it is present (primarily, I believe, by the ability of stress to affect spasm of bladder muscles), but emotional pain is not thought to be the primary cause of IC -- certainly not any more, if it ever was.

Are you wrestling with a guilty conscience over a desire to "ditch" this woman altogether and not be bothered with her?

It's hard to say how your presence in her life might affect her experience of this illness. I personally think the best thing you could possibly do for her is be an informed, supportive friend. The illness can be disabling, isolating, burdensome, and scary and confusing in addition to physically painful. She may possibly benefit from your delivering crates of almond milk to her door, or from your giving her rides to a doctor's office, or a whole variety of things, but a caring listening ear will probably mean alot to her as well. Whether this might "torture her heart" depends on your own unique relationship, but your actions alone didn't give her her illness, and, unfortunately, will not cure her either.

[Baba Yaga]

gjt, do not let yourself be manipulated this way.

This woman needs counseling.

And you need counseling as well if you are entertaining notions like what i think you are implying.

You are NOT responsible for her illness, nor for her future happiness. Your first obligation is to your own boundaries, personhood, and survival.

She is not informed about her own illness, or else she is not being rational, or else she was simply lying and distorting things to you to be wrathful and/or destructive.

DO NOT LISTEN TO ANY MORE OF THAT DESTRUCTIVE TALK.

Take a look at these boards, get some books on IC. YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR IT.

I wish you the best of luck in extricating yourself from this emotional entanglement and burden you are feeling and carrying. It is completely unfair to you.

[Mrs. Burschman]

I've heard a lot of crackpot theories, but this one takes the cake.

I do know that many of us also have problems with anxiety. I might be able to buy that we have some sort of genetic predisposition to both problems, but trauma causing bladder inflammation? Please. Sounds like the old "you're just hysterical" diagnosis.

Amy (Mrs. B) :bunny:

[ihurttoo]

It sounds to me like she just wants to be rid of you. If you have told her this theory of yours, then it is no wonder! This theory reaches a new level of offensive! Whether you originated it or not, you certainly should have known better than to repeat it. I hope you find yourself some good psychiatrists to help you.

[ICNDonna]

Emotions can effect any disease, but to say that a failed love can actually cause IC is ridiculous. Your presence, or absence, has nothing to do with another individual's IC. My suggestion is that you move on with your life. I hope she will get some help --- it sounds like she has some serious problems in addition to having IC. Actually it sounds like you could use some professional counselling help as well; I urge you to get some.

Please do not post this on other boards here. Once is enough for you to get responses.

I am closing this topic.

Donna