Weird physiological phenomena??

[katrinioso]

Okay so my whole life I've had this weird thing and whenever I try to explain it people think I'm crazy, so I'm just gonna throw it out there 'cause I'm really curious if anyone else experiences this:

The human body fascinates me, but I can't talk about it, read about it, hear about it or learn about it without feeling like my skin is crawling/abdomen is icing over/muscles turn to pins and needles/weak at the knees/have to poop (lol... seriously!). Even when I was a kid, we'd be talking about BASIC anatomy type stuff and I couldn't even hold my pencil. If you dug up my notes from 10th grade biology class I shit you not my handwriting changes because I physically can't write "aorta" or "tendon" or "spinal cord." My whole hand cramps up and I can't even hold a pencil. It's not that it grosses me out (although some things do). It sucks cause I like watching ER/medical-mystery-type shows and I work in a total-care home which is practically CNA work. If I could I'd go to med school because I can actually handle gross stuff when it's actually in front of me but it's as if my physical BODY PARTS respond to the sheer subject by plugging their metaphorical ears and saying LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

Does anyone else experience something like this? Perhaps with something else, like bugs or gunk/grime/mold or others' dirty fingernails? Is this simply what "I feel sick just thinking about it" means?

[Aum]

How interesting! I don't think I've heard of this before.

One thing that comes to mind is that maybe you can be strongly influenced psychosomatically, and that your mind-body connection is sensitive. Are you sure there are no emotions involved in this experience? Maybe not fear but, something else? It sounds like you can handle the information and technical details about anatomy, but some part of you is uncontrollably reacting to the visual representation of it.

The other thing is maybe you are just strongly empathic? You see body parts and feel them as if it's your own body. The change in writing could be a sign of your reaction. I have that happen when I'm watching horror movies, or when those surgery shows used to be on TLC. I don't get twitchy but I do sort of feel what I'm watching. Someone like you would be really good at learning to do something just by watching someone else, as opposed to being given written instructions.

[katrinioso]

Some things actually bother me, like "soft spots" or whatever, not so much ticklish but kind of a phobia lol (I get that from my mom, she broke her sternum when she was young so now she's so bad about it that can't even watch someone else touch their sternum--like for example, say "I do" while motioning at their chest"--so that could be a learned behavior). I'm bad about ribs, sternums (ex. cracking someone's chest during CPR), and neck/collarbone/jugular--esp. when people pop their necks. I've never had any related injuries but I hate those spots. And when people pop any joints for that matter. I don't even like to sleep with my neck or torso exposed. "Prone" and "supine" even creep me out.

The areas of discomfort aren't typically sympathetic with the specific part of the body being discussed, it's kind of just a general weakness/achey feeling all over.

Also just realized this happens immediately and twice as intense when I am reminded of things that have brought me a great deal if emotional stress. Like a microscopic sticker-burr-thorny-ball-thing rolling down one fiber per muscle from my neck to my toes.

[Sonic#]

I've experienced a discomfort rather like this in Biology courses. It usually comes from transplanting something that's unusual or bizarre onto myself (perhaps what Aum means by empathy). One example - there are frogs (or toads?) that carry their young tadpoles embedded in their skin while they developed. I imagined my cheek... oh god. Yeah. Alert, because it grosses me out.

I imagined by cheek wriggling with these, me scraping the layers off so that they could get out, leaving holes in my face.

It's horrible.

This makes giving blood difficult as well,

because I imagine an air bubble growing in my vein, or hitting an artery...

As far as reactions to static parts, I could have little visceral twinges, but I think the only thing that ever made me react that way was the vas deferens, but my reaction wasn't as severe; I just felt uncomfortable. I think I got over it with time.

So I don't think you're that odd.