The 'lucky ones' with temporomandibular joint dysfunction know very well all the 'delights' of this condition, which skilfully masks the symptoms of VVD and, moreover, is often their cause. But here, we will speak not about the 'causes and effects' of the illness, but about the consequences that TMJ dysfunction and VVD have for relationships with loved ones and friends. Is it possible to be in loving relationships and friendships in this condition, and what is it like?

A test of 'severity'

With VVD, it is very difficult to communicate, especially with strangers. With TMJ dysfunction too. Interaction simply leaves a person feeling all shaken up. It reaches the point where even loved ones and friends begin to 'strain' them. When TMJ dysfunction/VVD takes a severe form, communicating normally with people is no longer possible. This, incidentally, is the simplest test of the severity of TMJ dysfunction/VVD: if you still enjoy communicating with people and can exchange energy with them—giving your own and receiving theirs—you have a mild form of the illness. If interaction has become burdensome, not only with strangers but also with loved ones and those close to you, you have a severe, persistent form of TMJ dysfunction/VVD.

Derealisation and depersonalisation

When the most important nerves of the cervical region and the arteries feeding the brain are compressed, along with displacement of the first cervical vertebra, the atlas (which is inevitable with TMJ dysfunction), and cervical scoliosis and lordosis, a person develops psychological phenomena such as derealisation and depersonalisation. These mean that the surroundings seem unreal and 'blurred', and the person practically stops feeling themselves, literally 'flying away' from their own body. It is unsurprising that, during derealisation, warm feelings towards loved ones become dulled or disappear altogether. Such a person stops feeling strangers at all.

To understand what happens in this case, you can imagine standing in the middle of a sunny clearing on lush grass, inside a large plastic bag, with ropes wrapped around you underneath it. People around you are enjoying themselves and having fun, moving and dancing, but you can neither move nor even breathe. I think there is no need to describe the feeling of pain and despair that arises in the sufferer. But the mobile people around them, who cannot visually see either the 'plastic bag' or 'internal ropes', do not understand them.

Killing misunderstanding

The person does not want to feel this terrible state, so all they want is to crawl into the shade away from the fun and noise—they do not feel any of it, so it frightens them. This is precisely why interaction becomes unbearable for someone suffering from a severe form of TMJ dysfunction/VVD. With strangers, who do not care about such a 'strange' person anyway, everything is clear. But with friends and a loved one, things are worse—they do care about you. Yet they do not understand you, just as a rich person will not understand a poor one until they are in their place. This misunderstanding by the people closest to you cannot fail to be killing. It is fortunate if you understand what is happening to you yourself and, knowing the reason, can somehow explain your condition. But even then, friends may invite you to a fun event or gathering once or twice, then stop doing so because you decline.

Despite all the psychological advice 'not to think about your ailments' and to 'shake yourself up', at such events, a person cut off from themselves and others feels no pleasure. Such gatherings therefore become, at the very least, unhelpful and, for the most part, painful, plunging them into even greater despair. Inviting friends to your home also becomes problematic: if you are a guest, you can always 'escape', but if someone has come to you, you cannot simply send your friend away, even if you are already on the verge of half-fainting. And explaining what is happening to you every time to people who do not understand it is tiring and humiliating, as if each time you have to sign a declaration that you are a 'moral invalid' (read the instructive story of the Italian Luca on this subject!).

Even the most devoted friends who seek to understand you will, at most, stay in contact by telephone. The other thing is that, because of your 'lack of feeling', even this can 'strain' you. A loved one may sincerely try to understand and help you, but because you lose connection with yourself and, at the same time, to a great extent, your emotional connection with them, you begin to suffer truly in such a relationship, even if you are very much loved.

A loved one's fatigue

TMJ dysfunction/VVD destroys a person's relationships with normal, non-ill people. The thing is that this is biomechanical damage which, besides physiology and the psyche, also changes a person's energetics. With TMJ dysfunction, a person has major problems with energy—there simply is not enough of it! Why is a difficult question, but perhaps the issue is a disruption of energy exchange between the body and head structures, when the impulse passing through the biomechanically damaged part of the neck is distorted—the so-called 'bridge of life', as Eastern alternative medicine calls it.

Perhaps the issue is also disruption of the hypothalamic region of the brain, responsible for distributing torsion energy in the body. We do not yet know this, but the fact is that, with TMJ dysfunction/VVD, a person has little ability, if any, to give their energy to others. Moreover, they live at such an energetic minimum that they need other people's energy to sustain life. And not every close person can become an energy battery for a long time, even for someone they love. They simply cannot do it: their internal 'battery' is emptied, and they can simply 'burn out'.

A 'damaged element'

This is why relationships break down between a husband and wife, or a boyfriend and girlfriend, one of whom suffers from TMJ dysfunction/VVD. After all, all our communication, the relationship between a man and woman, is built on the exchange of energy—giving and receiving it. By giving their energy, a person realises themselves in this world. By receiving energy in return, they compensate for the result of their expenditure. When you are healthy and full of energy, you want to give your energy, share it, receive it back and exchange it. You are literally electrified and sparkling. But if your energy system is damaged from within and you are 'broken', you cannot give your energy, nor can you receive it intensively—because of internal blockages, it simply will not be absorbed.

This is why a relationship between a man and woman, one of whom is 'switched off' by illness without respite, gradually collapses. How long it lasts depends on the person's condition and the degree of biomechanical damage to their body. TMJ dysfunction is therefore actually more frightening than many can imagine. This internal damage knocks a person out of the normal, natural energy exchange in the world; it makes them an outcast among people. And there is only one way out of this nightmare—to cure TMJ dysfunction completely: to 'repair' the internal biocircuits, restoring normal body biomechanics, and energetically become part of this world again.

VVD: a mythical illness, or biomechanical causes of symptoms—here.
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Materials from http://forum.antivsd.ru were used in preparing this article.