Only to-day I happen to have a headache. What Lewis Carroll wrote of headache is true of any consuming symptom. Pain, vertigo, pervasive fatigue each can be enervating and disheartening. Any of us even temporarily inconvenienced by a head cold or motion sickness or sports injury realizes the detrimental impact on work, recreation, and even rest.
Symptoms are literally a fall from our usual state of functioning.
Symptom-free, we can focus our full attention and energies on the world around us. Symptomatic, we focus inward, distracted from what we know can and should be done. Generally, we are brave. But not when we have a headache. Symptoms are the principal reason for clinic visits in about half of all outpatient encounters.