The ants
A formic-able opponent can get under your skin.
It’s a normal reaction to swat at a bug or flick an ant if it’s crawling on you. However, that is not the case for everyone. In my case, it gets under my skin.
If I see an ant walking across the floor or on my body, something changes. I feel the ants are everywhere, crawling on me, both inside and out. There is a mild sensation; hairs stand up, and I feel movement. Sometimes, there is a sting. The number of bugs depends on my state of mind.
In the a la carte menu of mental disorders, this is called formication, a kind of tactile hallucination. I have seven diagnosed mental disorders, or eight if you include the one that is a byproduct of the others. So, I’m in no rush to add another to the list.
Imagine an addict in withdrawal, itching and scratching until their skin is raw. That’s formication. It can also be caused by some medications, anemia, migraines, et cetera.
Not to mix metaphors, but you can pick nearly any dish from the buffet of options that could cause this and I probably have it, including the migraines and anemia — but not a drug addiction.
There are a number of prescribed medications I take that keep the recurrence of formication mostly at bay. Before I was properly medicated, though, this happened routinely. The more serious the bout with depression, the more ants there were.
When people think of mental disorders, depression and anxiety are typically the first that come to mind. Those are far from the only ones, though. Within these disorders, there is a subset of symptoms that can stand alone as their own conditions. The symptom of formication causes your brain to fire off signals to your body to give it that tactile sensation.
Honestly, it is harder to deal with than it might seem. You can’t escape it. You can change locations, use bug sprays, and step on the ants, but that doesn’t make a difference to your brain. It still shoots off that message to your body, indicating that this is still happening.
There is a host of other mental issues and symptoms that are rare and undiscussed. So, while a lot of mental health disorders are normalized, not all symptoms are — through the fault of no one. It’s just uncommon or kept secret, like depression once was.
Until then, it’s easy to feel uncomfortable and even harder to admit. Here’s to hoping that changes.