I was a psychiatrist seeing a chiropractor with my psychosomatic pain. I had just told someone that I thought we don’t see catatonic or waxy catatonic schizophrenia or the hysterias much any more because they’ve become the pain and fatigue disorders. Here I was, believing like turn of the century, psychoanalyst Abraham that depression was anger turned inward and like Selye that cancer ‘was that which you could say in no other way.” I had personally cured with psychotherapy, hypnosis, psychiatric medication disabling skin and physical disorders sent to me after surgery and internal medicine had no more to often. Here I was thinking that if only I could find the right words, understand, accept , let go of fear, trust, something spiritual then this physical pain would alleviate. I knew acute pain was an alarm system and important but chronic pain continued long after the alarm had served its purpose. Phantom limb pain persisted despite the amputation. The superhighway pain model explained that these dramatic moments opened a high way that later could be used rather than trails. Emotional pain, emotions really could use the freeway that happened in these catastrophic injuries. I thought there was some mystery that was warded off in the site of pain like a secret , like a tubercular gumma , an abscess. We are as sick as our secrets. If only i could face my fear, forgive and love I’d not need the reminder of yesterday’s pain invading today.
Dr. Rowlinson’s assistant met with me and took a more detailed history. It was unsettling to give a history of trauma and injury. I’ve had a few years to accumulate a few.
‘How old are you, “ she asked with youth and clear skin
“71” I said, not admitting I was turning 72 in a matter of weeks. Remembering when I wanted to be older. Now not so.
“Have you had any injuries, sports or vehicular?” She asked
I was taken back to the first gymnastic injury. The spotter held my hand too long as I fell from the handstand on the parallel bars, the twist and subsequent landing jarring my back. For years since the Thoracic spine had cried under duress at times sadness and fear. I’d paid with the mistake of my spotter and yet I’d not followed the advice of the doctor and not competed the next day. Getting out of bed I showed up at the provincial championship and didn’t win though placed and helped the team. In all likelihood non compliance with medical regimen left the thoracic pain to persist and be a reminder. There was a lot to learn about control
Several back injuries in sports followed through the years and in martial arts and later working with the dangerously insane in jails and asylums when they got out and had to be wrestled down and returned to their rooms or cells. I don’t like to open doors on those confrontations and harrowing experiences which were occasioned mostly by administrative short cuts or down right graft. The money for staffing had been waylaid and we who worked on the front lines suffered. The common theme of self pity and betrayal sat within my pain like the Judas who betrayed Jesus. Pieces of silver jingled and jangled and we suffered
The bicycle crashes became motorcycle crashes and then car crashes. The out of control speeding driver hitting my car when he didn’t recognise black ice causing me to pitchpole over the road only to continue rolling down the hill. That was the first of a few whiplashes. But that was the week I stayed home from work. I’d not stayed home before or since. But then I was glad to be alive and followed the advise of doctors and physiotherapists and was thankful there after for the chiropractors who helped the mobility in my neck which continues to scream if I spend too much time leaning over a desk,
The plane crash in the sub arctic was caused by black ice too. The pilot land just fine but we simply slid sideways flopping on our side the wing crumpled under the mass. I didn’t believe I’d live looking out the window and seeing the tragedy unfold. I felt the inertial forces but thanks to a seat belt and seat I stood up with glee and happily followed the stewardess out of the side of the plane which face upward. I was the only passenger on this cargo flight. Another flight in a Cessna the landing gear crumpled at the end of the landing. I felt that one more that the DC3, possibly because gravity reigned as we collapsed.
There was the motorcycle accident too , my Norton Commando when I was later award d ‘most damage to machine least damage to man’ by my biker buddies when I walked back from the crash carrying the chain and my finger wrapped up . I’d been most afraid of losing the finger which was tongue and had a stone in the joint which to this day becomes annoyed easily. I took the stone out with tweezers, washed it with iodine and sutured it up myself. My back was hurt but by comparison that was not a concern compared to my anxiety about my finger.
I didn’t tell her about being held hostage or being mugged or a few other things that I’d left behind. I was happy to say I’d not had any major accidents or traumas since I slipped in the rain climbing Arthur’s seat in Edinburgh after Covid. Since then my back had been so noisy I’d had X-rays and spoken with my Sports Medicine and Family Medicine doctor colleagues as well as the Rehab medicine doctor. I’d been reassured and given exercises which I didn’t do enough, I knew I needed to lose weight but so much else takes presences over health to me even, at this age. I’m not a good patient.
Dr. Rowlinson identified the trigger points and made a few masterful adjustments. Knowing chiropractors over the years I appreciate the best in techniques and as well the healers. Dr. Rowlinson was both.
I resisted tears after he left the office I felt such sadness within. I was overwhelmed by the gratitude I had for life and saw alls those near death experiences I’d had as times when people helped me and saved my life. I’d focused on the aggressors and those that didn’t care but here were all these angels like Dr. Rowlinson who had just laid on hands and released the tension and let the pain slip away. I walked out of his office lighter paying a pittance for the service he’d done.
Driving home in the truck I was feeling this depth inside like an abscess had been knifed and the despair and fear let out. Some of the accumulated pus of life had left and another era of healing had begun. I was so thankful All the doctors and healers over the year have helped me. I felt inside this disappointment that I’d not been able to help the women in my life. They’d all been so depressed and I had thought I could be the one but their anger just grew and I was not enough. Thankfully I’d gone to Codependents Anonymous and Al Anon and learned “I didn’t cause it. I couldn’t control it. And I couldn’t cure it’. I now apply that to the relationships I’ve had and the angry women and the blaming and complaining and my carrying all their weight on my back. I think of drop the rock and how we can all get to heaven but we can’t take the baggage,. I let go of some pain today. Dr. Rowlinson opened the door. That’s the beautify of psychosomatic medicine, quantum physics and Heisenberg. It’s all God and spiritual healing takes so many forms. I just had to ask for help and received it God works through people. Thank you Jesus.
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