Today I listened to a woman describe in general and vague descriptions a set of symptoms for an inflammatory disease that has yet to be identified from which she suffers. Add to this her, retinue of vitamins, supplements,
fibromyalgia, and a car accident and you have a chronic sufferer. Next to her was a woman that suffers from
candida, a rib that is somehow always 'out' and a gluten intolerance, not to mention a seemingly endless amount of physical aches & pains that keep her in a state of what would appear to perpetual misery at the worst or constant discomfort at the best. To ice the cake would be to mention that both these women are students in health care and wellness.
It would be easy to say that I am just overly critical and/or judgmental. In fact this was my first line of thought in trying to regard something that I am certain I cannot be the only one to say is starting too look like a phenomenon. These victim syndromes which is what I will call them here are tearing at the wellness core of more than just a few people, in fact I would wager that we all know someone that is perpetually broken, diseased,
syndromed or suffering from some sort of allergy or intolerance. This is well beyond a judgement call or a harsh criticism. In fact it is almost impossible that the case would be otherwise, with the information systems that we have being at our fingertips in the way that they are. Anyone can experience anything from numbness in the extremities to simple fatigue and search through the annals of
wikipedia or WEB MD and begin their self-diagnosis. From here there are books that offer more miracle cures or so they say for these circumstances and suffering trends. And so they are bought and read, and followed to the letter or very nearly, or practically or hardly at all; but none of it matters because what is important is that sufferer has attempted to become well and there has alas been an obstacle placed before them and so they are unable to reach over the final threshold. For as it turns out after all it wasn't candida overgrowth but an intolerance to wheat and an allergy to dairy; or in fact some yet to be named inflammatory disease. These are two examples that I feel are easy to stick to for the sake of argument but this really goes on into so many territories that is somewhat shocking to think of; not to mention the steps and lengths taken to 'cure' these maladies. Starting with diets and supplements first but to be clear self-diagnosed a.k.a. subjective self-medicating.
Yes I am pointing a finger. I am pointing a finger at the individuals themselves that seem to be so insistent on their disease and pain that they refuse to let it go. There are no cures for self-abuse. No diet or supplement will teach you how to allow yourself to feel ease and comfort, to experience a life without chronic pain. Which is not to say that all of these diseases are not real but rather the question to me is not a new question nor is it one with a quantifiable answer: to what degree is the human being responsible for their own dis-ease? We can look to
Carolyn Myss' theories based on her years and experience as a medical intuitive & mystic, we can look to
shamanic practices throughout the world as they attempt to place at least a majority of the responsibilities on the individual or at least on the circumstances & environment around the individual in the form of wronged spirits or lost soul parts; the point being in these scenarios the from the shamanic or mystical point of view there are actions one must take to incur the healing process, journeying inward to retrieve a soul part, or appeasing a spirit could then be seen as a reflection of one's own responsibility in their healing.
A chiropractor and a neurosurgeon are having a conversation. The chiropractor says to the neurosurgeon "Don't you ever want to point to other modes of operation that might benefit the patient; like other things to consider before going under a knife and having something removed, cut or otherwise aggressively approached?" The Neurosurgeon replies: " I am a hammer, people come to me because the want hammering. By the time the arrive in my office they are not open to other modes, they are not looking to change anything about themselves, they are looking for a hammer.
The the primary problem then seems to lie in the approach to problem-solving that is the dominant perspective at least here in the west. Which goes like this: how do I treat the symptom? But the secondary problem compounds the primary by adding into the equation our infinitely developing information systems. Add to this the attention complexes that so many of us have developed due to a society that prizes income over intimacy and you land on a very large group of people that are in a perpetual swing of dis-ease, self- medication, in order that they might stand out in some way as individuals. Which is to say to some degree that we are learning to identify ourselves by what is wrong with us, because it somehow it appears that these dis-ease combinations are the only things that set us apart from one another.
So we clique into our victim niches and label ourselves and treat ourselves and
watch different way, if we do not begin to understand the role that we play in our own dis-ease then we will only learn to manage the darkness, to keep it at bay.
No comments:
Post a Comment