Functional overlay

Well... so I've had debilitating indigestion and somewhat unspecified GI malaise for the past 2 months and eating has become a very tiresome feat. This has been in particular detrimental as for many years I have been using food and carbonated drinks as my main coping strategies and now I have lost my (probably only) effective coping mechanism. A scope this week however revealed nothing sinister but mild gastritis, the sigh of relief was small as the disproportionate unwellness experienced in relation to pathology found is rather certainly indicative of functional overlay. and guess what, at work I talk to people with functional overlay and gently explain about functional overlays while acknowledging their genuine distresses etc etc etc. yah...

though I suspect no outsider really cares whether I end up functionally overlaying or not with my psychosocial stressors or the hardness of living life overall, I still find my persisting distress with eating these days very very... defeating. The fact that my very pathological mother developed rather elusive and debilitating upper GI symptoms on the eve of my graduation from med school, and accused all practitioners and investigations of incompetence in understanding her ailment and spilled her dark moods about a sick stomach wherever she can. Looking back the whole matter had a hysterical flavour to it. moreover, her symptoms persisted throughout my medical career and even to this day she continued to assume her sick role and successfully made everyone cater for her debilitating eating habits.

I feel defeated, and embarrassed, and angry that it looks like I am heading down the same path as her, and probably deep down I am just as hysterical as her while loathing how much I suffered under her hysteria all my life, and despite all my professional knowledge about functional overlays and insight and awareness that as I try hard to individuate away from my mother there will be another part of me screaming hard to pledge loyalty to her, the knowledge and insight could not save me from becoming so functional myself...

so... I've been dragging my feet a bit at work despite working again with my somewhat idolised supervisor of many years. These days I am curious about nothing and no one, and even checking facebook makes me irritable as I could not bear to see all these people enjoying food I could no longer carefreely eat. The part of my brain in charge of my imaginary friends---for very strange reasons---worked way better in the past couple of weeks than during the last five years of my shrink training added together... but when I lack the energy for curiosity... am even less curious about my imaginary friends and find them hard work too... I wonder too if I would feel better if I am ignorant of functional overlays and can just project and blame everyone else for my elusive malaise...and nowadays when I pray... I open my mouth and could not say anything or think anything---
I just wail.
but, maybe, just maybe, the wailing is in fact something.

PS. On a much lighter note this is so beautiful I need to watch this on the big screen. Lets hope they do it for the Jap film festival this year.
No. 9 starting at 18:00 is on replay at the moment.