Like dihydrogen monoxide (water),
chemicals can cripple"
The term for people with vague, overblown, or difficult to diagnose physical problems is somatizer. Formerly known as a hypochondriac, the somaticizer exaggerates and repeatly recites their physical complaints, picking them apart to the point of obsession, or a person seized by strange physical ailments for which no physical source can be found.
Many have a psychological problem, or an actual, but difficult to diagnose, physical problem. Regardless, the somaticizer typically winds up in physical medicine. Often, the personality of the somaticizer collides with a medical doctor. In this situation, the somaticizer gets little help, if any.
For most somatizers, if their mental status is not examined, their bodily symptoms may remain obscure. When reporting a physical complaint, the somaticizer is not aware of being neurotic, only conscious of physical analogs to core psychological problems. Deaf to interruptions, the somaticizer rambles on. Whether the doctor sees the droning of the somaticizer as dreary or amusing, to butt in when the somaticizer repeats their list of complaints is useless. “Shut up and fix me” becomes, “Shut up and let me talk.”
If fueled by bizarre belief systems, the symptom list of the somaticizer can be tortuous. Often marked with all natural and supernatural fear, the somaticizer seeks reassurance, asking for frequent consultations. But a meeting with the somaticizer is rarely helpful. They may even see the doctor as an enemy, leaving the doctor with a sense of futility.
Regrettably, the somaticizer avoids the kind of doctor who will expose the real cause of their problem, whether hormonal, neurological, or whatever. The depressed somaticizer often rejects a likely explanation, since they prefer an obscure, fad disease, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, etc. Nonetheless, in comparison with fas disease, depression is highly treatable. And even if the underlying cause is found, the somaticizer may refuse treatment.
