I like to use the term "battling" a mental condition for what it represents. I don't know if it makes much sense of if it's just my very own way of finding magic in a topic that's usually taboo. I'll discuss a very common thing, that's becoming even more common and it's the mind-body relation when it comes to physical illnesses.
I'm no doctor and not a psychologist yet, just a woman who've heard the word "psychosomatic" way too many times. And I don't know about others' experiences but at least in mind, there's something that is really frustrating about that term. Stating the facts: you have a mental condition, depression and anxiety in my case, which comes with marvellous symptoms that you in fact feel and express. You feel the anxiety raising up in daily harmless situations that somehow your mind interprets as dangerous, you've cried one too many times, you go to therapies and talk about all your nightmares and difficulties. And somehow you start feeling something in your body. Tangible. It may be uncontrollable rash in your skin or the sudden lack of air, digestive issues or my all time favorite and latest discovery, the ability of your own body to become mute, blind, paralyzed all of the sudden.
You feel it. It's real. One day you are walking (I've never been very coordinated but I defend myself on the basics) and in an instant, panic rises very high and BAM you can't move your legs. For real. You know you have legs, you see them, you feel them, but they've entered a strike. It goes like this:
Me (looking at my legs): move, now. I demand you to move. MOVE!
Legs:...
12 hours later....
Me: Good morning body, hope we have a calm day today
Legs: Oh hey! It's right leg here. Sorry about last night. That was loco. But... Lefty is still unresponsive.
Me: are you kidding me??!!!
Right leg: nope. Lefty has left the building, I repeat: left leg has left the building.

And here I am. In the E.R because my psychiatrist is "pretty sure it's just a panic episode and a somatic thing, but wants to make sure if fine neurologically". I know I'll go in there and everything will be fine and the tests will be ok and the doctor will bring up again my favourite word "somatization". And I'll be walking again as before in no time and I'll be talking again as a parrot in no time (lately my voice likes to play hide and seek when emotions are too strong and I go mute and then I get this weird french accent but I didn't adressed it in this post directly because hey, one thing at a time).
I've always hated the psychosomatic stuff. Because as far as I get, it's the language of your body speaking for the emotions you've kept hidden. But hello! I exhale emotions, I sweat emotions, for God's sake! I'm aware of my emotions and I cry them and express them and feel them. Body darling, won't you please work with me? Psychologically I'm in pain, and physically too because apparently I've got more to feel than what I already do. Great. I've got to admit that since the whole depression thing started my health has had some changes. I've welcomed in my life asthma, fibromyalgia, dermatitis, restless legs syndrome, alopecia, and now the voice-legs thingy. There are times when I've talk about myself as a self-proclaimed Somatization queen.
But once again, I could keep fighting against my body and it's particular way of expressing itself or I could just accept it and move on. So I go back to the start. Battling, battlefield.  My body is a battlefield. Of myself against my mind. I imagine myself as this tiny warrior in a silver armour with a helmet bigger that my head, a sword and a shield. And my contender is of course the big black monster of depression and anxiety. The territory we are fighting for: my body. Little warrior Mariana is hopeful and joyful and smart, and a little lazy. She's everything I am. And she won't give up until she's able to rule her territory. She knows she might never kill the scary monster, but she hopes for a peace treaty. Like in my country. Some days pass by without confrontation, but others... they fight with all they've got.
I feel them fighting for my lungs, and those days I have to use my inhaler and stay warm, which are troops that get into the fight to help the warrior. Some fights are simpler than others, some are won by Mariana and some, I have to admit are temporarily won by the monster. Those are my bad days in which my physical symptoms are huge and unbearable, like if depression and anxiety said "now that your vocal cords are mine, I'll leave you voiceless forever", while exploiting the psychological symptoms too. But then backups come from outside, a good therapy, a nice message from a love one, a picture from my godson, a joke from my brother, a hug from my mom, comfort words from my father, a piece of chocolate, a nap. I don't know what, but it wakes up the little warrior. And she's back, dusts herself off and goes on the quest to conquer what belongs to her. And she does! And I start talking again... slowly. Recovery is way to slow for my taste. So I figure out after these huge fights my body remains like those villages in movie scenes after the troops came and tried to conquer it. Some stuff is burnt, some is broken, some strong structures stand still. And you have to rebuild from there.
All this tale is the only way I've found I can deal with the physical symptoms. So now, everytime I wake up and my body hurts or I have trouble breathing,  I just think it's part of my battle. And I know the warrior inside me will win the war even though some battles may seem impossible. And I've given a new meaning to the somatization stuff, they are just proofs that I'm alive, and that I'm battling daily to be the best I can be.