Personal Psychosomatic Experiences

Time Magazine used to fill the last page of their publications with bite-size obituaries of famous - or infamous - people who had recently died. I would eagerly turn to that page before looking at the rest of the magazine, to see who had died of what and how it fitted into their life as I knew it.

 I used to do this before I was aware that psychosomatic causes of illness is a well known philosophy.

 Then along came HIV and Aids and Time Magazine, out of respect, stopped publicising the causes of death. That was a sad day for me. However, shortly after that I discovered Louise Hay and her publications on the causes of disease, so I wasn't a sad bunny for too long.
"Mood" by Lynda Cookson
representing psychosomatic unease

 Artists so often died of throat cancer; flamboyant folk like Imelda Marcos had problems with their noses or stomachs; and countless folk succumbed to cancer. I think I'm correct in saying that the throat represents expression, the nose represents ego, the stomach represents ability to handle situations and cancer is long-held resentment. I would like to know a bit more about the artist Matisse's early years. He had such extreme arthritis that he needed assistants to help him create art in his latter years. Arthritis represents a feeling of not being loved.
"Spiritual Journey" by Lynda Cookson
pointing out that these are my own views entirely

 Before you read on, this article is entirely my own opinion from my own experiences and should be read with that in mind.

 My belief is that many of the conditions which affect our health are brought into the world with us as part of our personal blue print. Perhaps from previous lives? Other conditions are affected by the lifestyle we are born into or create ourselves, and by our ability to cope with our reactions to the lives of those around us and the situations we find ourselves in.

 Accident prone people are often quite lost folk with strong emotional needs. When they find a way to fulfil those needs, and become a calmer and more balanced person, those accidents don't happen so often. My son was a prime example of this. I was always aware of his strong emotional needs and his high sensitivity levels. I dealt with them as best I could, but no mother is magic and he had to work a lot out for himself as he got older. While he was doing this, he was prone to many types of injuries and it was a huge worry for me.

 My elder sister used to be the same. She seemed to attract car accidents into her life, whether her own accident or someone else's car accident. A few years later, as her life became more stable, these incidences stopped.
"Impact" by Lynda Cookson

 For myself I experienced a severe case of Hashimoto's Disease which is an attack on your body's immune system and it left me with a hypoactive thyroid. Very basically a hypoactive thyroid slows your metabolism down to an unhealthy level, as against hyperactive thyroidism where your thyroid overworks to an unhealthy degree. My specialist at the time described the condition to me as my body rejecting my thyroid as if it was a transplanted organ.

 When I was eleven years old I began to experience symptoms of the disease and became quite ill at one stage with the equivalent of an extreme migraine with a swelling of the soft tissue of my head more than would happen with an extreme case of sinusitis. It was a very emotional time at home and had been for a few years. I often did feel like my heart and my head would burst with things in life that I couldn't control.

 Later in my teens I would experience episodes of trembling hands. It only happened a few times but I found them rather embarrassing. Again, there was a lot of emotion flowing around in my teens. It was a time that I longed to leave the environment I lived in and at the same time was a little afraid of what the future held. Would I be able to handle it?

 Whilst pregnant with my first child, I lost power in my limbs, mainly my arms, and would need to use two hands just to clean my teeth. I ignored it, putting it down to being pregnant. By the time I had had my second child, it became obvious my body was trying to tell me it was battling. I swelled up like a balloon, all over, and at the age of thirty-two was sent off to have a hysterectomy.

 During my first pregnancy I had become distantly aware that my marriage wasn't as rich a relationship as I would have liked it to be and by the time I had the hysterectomy it was glaringly obvious that it was an empty marriage. My life felt very empty and yet I had been working so hard at making it good. At making it loving and balanced. I consciously began to feel suffocated at that point.

 It had taken me a while to work out what my body already knew. Thyroid problems usually relate to a feeling of "It's my turn now."

 I had been brought up to be an obedient child, an obedient young woman, and an obedient wife. My life was swishing past me, leaving me behind, all because I was conforming to what I felt I should be. What my parents had wanted me to be and what my husband wanted me to be. At least three times in my early life my body was trying to talk to me but I couldn't hear it.

 It would appear that my personality, the blue print I was born with, needs extreme life and rebels against being held back. It took me a couple of decades but eventually I listened to what my body was trying to tell me.

 This remains a fascinating phenomenon which will enthrall me to the end of my days. I wonder if it will be clear to me, psychosomatically, as to why I left the world when and how I did.

"Big White Flowers" by Lynda Cookson