At first glance, you may wonder how the mind is connected to Polycystic Kidney Disease.
From a physical point of view, I don’t think a direct connection can be made. I’ve never heard of anybody thinking his/her disease away!
However, the mind is involved in how your perceive your disease.
In my last post on “meaning,” we discussed how each of us creates his/her own perception of what PKD means to each of us.
This perception of what having PKD means to us obviously affects every aspect of our lives.
A further aspect of our mind’s involvement in our own perceptions is how we describe that perception. I’m basically talking about the “half-empty, half-full” concept.
The “facts” of our disease, the numbers, BP, GFR, creatinine, BUN, etc, are precisely that: Demonstrable, measurable aspects of our disease.
How we physically feel, though a fact, is not yet measurable. A scale from 1 to 10 is hardly scientific!
Yet, pain, fatigue, nausea, and cramps are what many of us actually experience!
I don’t know about you, but I never “felt” my creatinine count, nor any other “number!”
So what we actually experience is not measurable! Think about that! Can you measure the level of “good” or “bad” you’re feeling at any given time?
I can’t!
Yet our perceptions are based on these subjective experiences!
Have you ever felt rotten, yet when a friend asked how you were, you answered, “Well, could be better,” or some other statement that tended to minimize your feeling rotten, in order to not look bad to your friend?
Sometimes, because the mind tends to justify what it expresses, you actually feel a bit LESS rotten because of your statement!
(I’m not saying this always occurs. In extreme pain, for instance, this usually doesn’t work. However, sometimes your own description of your condition can be a kind of “self-hypnosis,” leading to a slight reduction of the perception of pain! Hypnosis is often used for pain management.)
So, pay attention to how you describe the perceptions you have about your disease. Telling yourself that “PKD is the worst thing ever” will tend to make that perception more intense for you.
Saying that “Having PKD isn’t the best hand that I could have been dealt, but in this day and age, I have a reasonably good chance of playing my cards right and living a fulfilling life,” will go a long way in making that your overriding perception of your disease, and propel you to act in a manner consistent with that perception!
After all, it’s all in your mind!
No. I take that back.
Some of it is still in your kidneys! 
Peace and Blessings!
Coach Richie Perl
Certified Professional Coach
Certified Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming
The worst of all psychiatric illnesses is psychosis, defined as a profound disconnect between the mental state of the patient and the surrounding reality. To avoid this, the only realistic strategy is to try to understand and respond to the reality around you in the most objectively accurate way possible. If you go around telling yourself lies about how hideous your life with PKD actually is, you are destroying your human dignity by reducing yourself to the level of a psychotic in order to feel happy when there is no objective justification for that mood. You then have what Manfred Bleuler in 1911 first described as ‘schizo-phrenia,’ or ‘divided drives,’ referring to the profound disconnect between the surrounding reality which should logically drive the patient’s mood in one direction, and the inner reality of the patient which was driving the patient’s mood in the opposite direction. I think it is preferable for patients to maintain their sanity by honestly feeling the reality of their condition rather than making themselves insane with idiotic ‘life coaching skills.’
I’m Curious.
Who determines a) “the reality of their condition” and
b) what that “feeling” is, and
where is it written that those, or any “feelings” are fixed?
I don’t understand your statement “the profound disconnect between the surrounding reality which should logically drive the patient’s mood in one direction, and the inner reality of the patient which was driving the patient’s mood in the opposite direction.”
I gather then, you have never tried to “cheer up” someone, or have never been “cheered up” by someone else!
In your scenario, attempting to “cheer up” someone would tantamount to a crime!
In my posts, I never say that having PKD is “good.” I say it sucks.
But people who lived before either of us were born, and people who will be around after we are gone, have OVERCOME the “suckiness” of adversity and lived fulfilling lives.
You certainly have the right to wallow in misery, if that’s your choice.
It isn’t mine.
Peace and Blessings!
Coach Richie Perl
Yes having PKD sucks and not havining any kidneys due it sucks also,I don’t let it get me down tho,I just look in the mirror in the mornings thank God I’m still here and figurge there is someone somewhere worse off than me.
Just keep smiling it make people wonder what your thinking about.
God blees you coach
Steve
Steve,
Yes! That’s the way it works!
THanks for your comments!
Peace and Blessings!
Coach Richie Perl