probably an unpopular opinion of mine (the fake pregnancy storyline)

while drafting the outline for “the desert’s rose”, I started having this dialogue on the fake pregnancy track with my sister. for one, the fake pregnancy track was one of my favourite storylines in the serial, so I decided to take a trip down the forum search to read opinions from older posts on this track to find out that most of the thoughts about this were negative. the major consensus was that the track would not have made sense being that this is the 16th century but now, I think it would have actually.

as much as this track did not initially make any sense to me either, it did catch my attention as a psychology student. after all, I did take a course (psychopathology) where we discussed somatoform disorders. these disorders are caused by environmental stressors which makes a lot of sense as this scene took place after Jodha had to deal with the maulvis attempting to force her to convert. that and the body heat fiasco where she was unconscious and had no idea what had happened that night. those two incidents would have posed stress for poor Jodha and might have led to her developing functional neurological symptom disorder.

the point I’m trying to make here is that the mind is a crazy place and, in its attempt, to protect an individual, it can end up being the most treacherous place as well (PTSD, for one). anything can happen which can trigger it to go way south. now, pair this with the mind playing tricks on the body as well to the point a woman who is already under extreme stress believes she’s with child.

but then, the possibility of her having a somatoform disorder got ruled out with the hakim ruling her out as being pregnant. with somatoform disorders (like functional neurological symptom disorder), the patient’s symptoms do not have an organic source i.e. they may find themselves paralyzed but medical tests show that there is nothing wrong with the organs, neurotransmitters and cells which are involved in movement. this conclusion led me to believe foul play was in effect here.

anyway, this was just my thoughts and I am open to any discussion on this

Man, I love learning something new every day! And this is interesting because I agree with everything you've spoken of here.
It's true that the mind can sometimes become a man's greatest enemy (much as it can become a man's greatest weapon)- Seneca put it perfectly when he said,
'We often suffer more in imagination than in reality'.
And we DO suffer, don't we? From things like anxiety and depression to even day-to-day overthinking which often leads to indecisiveness- these things can make even a healthy person feel wretched...so much so that a physical injury would be much preferred because at least then there would be something tangible to blame for the 'imagined' misery.

And our bodies do react to mental stimuli- like lack of hunger when depressed. Or puking when you hear something disgusting. It definitely would make sense that stress made Jodha have such symptoms.

Originally posted by: lkdaswani

Man, I love learning something new every day! And this is interesting because I agree with everything you've spoken of here.
It's true that the mind can sometimes become a man's greatest enemy (much as it can become a man's greatest weapon)- Seneca put it perfectly when he said,
'We often suffer more in imagination than in reality'.
And we DO suffer, don't we? From things like anxiety and depression to even day-to-day overthinking which often leads to indecisiveness- these things can make even a healthy person feel wretched...so much so that a physical injury would be much preferred because at least then there would be something tangible to blame for the 'imagined' misery.

And our bodies do react to mental stimuli- like lack of hunger when depressed. Or puking when you hear something disgusting. It definitely would make sense that stress made Jodha have such symptoms.

I wish I could like this reply a thousand times because it is so true. it is fascinating how powerful the mind can be - even more powerful than we think it is, even John Milton can be quoted saying "The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven".

I can understand why a lot of older posts think the fake pregnancy track does not make any sense being that a subplot like that would fit better into a 21st-century story than one set in the 1500s. however, when you consider it, women were taken into mental institutions for "hysteria" and some were even subjected to harmful medical procedures (like lobotomies) back then.

and coming back to my "Jodha could have had pseudocyesis" theory, stress can heavily impact the mind and the body. while stress can pose short-term benefits, if allowed to go on for longer, it can lead to long-term consequences. one of them being that a woman would believe that she is pregnant when she is not. I think the CVs knew what they were doing with this track and I will give credit where it is due here. however, being that a trusted doctor was able to "confirm" the pregnancy, my theory got thrown out of the window 😂😩.

for links to somatoform disorders and other related disorders (can't post hyperlinks right now, so, please add the "www." in front of the links 🥲🙏🏾):
my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24255-pseudocyesis
webmd.com/mental-health/somatoform-disorders-symptoms-types-treatment
verywellhealth.com/somatoform-disorders-6748181