Suzanne O'Sullivan > Quotes

“People look for explanations for changes in their bodies, something to account for every unpleasant feeling. There is an unwillingness to accept behavioural or emotional factors, or the effects of aging, as an explanation.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness

“All my patients are individuals with their own story to tell, their own set of problems and their own solution. Even where the symptoms of their distress are very similar, the roads that bring them to me are not. Each of them teaches me something important, just as each new patient I meet reminds me that there is always more to learn.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness

“Western medicine’s love of drawing people into diagnostic categories and applying disease names to small differences and minor bodily changes is not specific to functional disorders – it is a general trend. Pre-diabetes, polycystic ovaries, some cancers and many more conditions have all been subject to the problem of over-inclusive diagnosis. My biggest concern in this regard is the degree to which many people are wholly unaware of the subjective nature of the medical classification of disease. If a person is told they have this or that disorder, they assume it must be right. The Latin names we give to things and the shiny scanning machines make it look as if there is more authority than actually exists. To a certain extent, Sienna pursued each diagnosis she was given, but other people have diagnoses thrust upon them, having no idea that there might be anything controversial about it – and having no idea that they have a choice. Western medicine’s hold on people, and its sense of being systematic and accurate, makes it a powerful force in the transmission of cultural concepts of what constitutes wellness or ill health. But Western medicine is just as enslaved to fads and trends as any other tradition of medicine.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“Those who struggle with the diagnosis may seek the opinion of doctor after doctor in the hope of finding a different explanation — and validation of their suffering. Repeatedly normal test results begin to seem a disappointment, so desperate is the patient’s search for another answer. Some find themselves pushed into a corner where they accept the role of the undiagnosed, someone who cannot be helped, because anything is better than the humiliation of a psychological disorder. Society is judgmental about psychological illness and patients know that.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, Is It All in Your Head?: True Stories of Imaginary Illness

“Physical manifestations of unhappiness are something we all experience; it's not a personality flaw or a sign of weakness, it's a part of life.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan

“People stop looking for answers when they find one they can relate to.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“That is Western medicine's culture-bound syndrome - we make sick people. We medicalize difference, even when no objective pathology is available to be found.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“We physicalize mood, emotional well-being and even personality. Confident people stand with confidence.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“And then came that growing scourge of the Western world: the inability to reliably distinguish opinion from fact.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“Illness is a socially patterned behaviour, far more than people realize. How a person interprets and reacts to bodily changes depends... Personal and societal role modes create expectations of health... Our brains are wired through experience to respond in a certain way to certain provocation.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“The [asylum-seeking] children are embodying a sociocultural phenomenon. Their story has been written across nations, in a combination that has made them unique. It has been impacted by poor social circumstances, poor nutrition, epigenetics, abusers, authority figures, politicians, parents, doctors and the media.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“Memory is tricky; stories evolve in the telling and retelling, with contributions from many parties.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“If you can't say what is happening in the brain, nobody will care.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“Every medical problem is a combination of the biological, the psychological and the social. It is only the weighting of each that changes.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“Pathology is a fact independent of the observer, but how one responds to symptoms is drawn from knowledge and experience.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“... [resignation syndrome was] like being in a dream that she didn't want to wake up from.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“La negación del diagnóstico es mucho más ardua de contrarrestar que el enojo o la ira y, además, tiene muchas menos posibilidades de desembocar en una recuperación.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, Todo está en tu cabeza: Historias reales de enfermedades imaginarias

“Biological correlates are often used to give credence to the experience of psychosomatic disorders. An objective change on a blood test or scan allows others to believe in the suffering.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“Functional neurological and psychosomatic disorders are often a manifestation of a maladaptive response to the mistakes made by the human system of perception.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“That's how modern medicine works: disease impresses people; illness with no evidence of the disease does not. Psychological illness, psychosomatic and functional symptoms are the least respected of medical problems.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“A person looking for help must keep in mind what help there is.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“The brain is a cultured organ. It depends on exposure to learn. Only a small part of learning is conscious.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“At birth, the brain is a blank canvas that is full of possibility. A newborn has more brain cells than an adult.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“The mind is a function of the brain and is created from biology.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“... alternating between anticipation and despondency. That has physical consequences.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness

“The children translate for the parents ... They are their parents' conduit to the new world.”
― Suzanne O'Sullivan, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness