Keeping Things Bottled Up in the Soft Belly

If you sometimes do not understand your body, for example, abdominal pain after eating something ordinary, a headache suddenly appearing just before an important meeting, or back pain confining you to the sofa, you are probably witnessing a psychosomatic phenomenon. This is a physical expression of something mental or emotional, usually unconscious. In this post, I will explain the subject and offer a tip to help you cope better with such pain.

The following dialogue took place in a psychologist's office, Joyce's:

Chris: "Our vacation was not particularly successful because I could not get the new boat started. Then I had a terrible night: I slept for about an hour, then woke in awful pain. My entire abdomen was monstrously swollen. I had terrible diarrhea and bursts of gas in my abdomen lasting for hours. The pain was dreadful. Even after getting it under control with medication, I could not sleep all night, and the diarrhea continued."

Joyce: "Did anything else unusual happen on the day before that terrible night?"

Chris: "I struggled with the boat all day. My wife remarked that we needed a man to help us. I felt as though I had been castrated. In addition, she kept talking about wanting a third child. I still feel threatened by the idea and unable to cope with it."

Joyce: "It seems you did not properly digest your wife's remarks that night. Do you think your body, instead of your mind, reacted to everything that happened during the day?"

Chris: "Maybe I was trying to give her a child?... That monstrous swelling, like giving birth..."

This quotation is from Joyce McDougall's "Theaters of the Body," pp. 66-67 1. Joyce is a psychologist working in the psychoanalytic school, analyzing physical states as consequences of complex mental states. Freud and Jung, distinguished psychologists, also argued for a nonverbal connection between mind and body.

This phenomenon is called "psychosomatics", meaning the expression of emotional pain through the body (Wikipedia)

Which diseases fall under this heading?

Mainly chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure, asthma, skin diseases, migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, and inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's and ulcerative colitis), among others.

Does this mean the disease is not real, but imagined? Absolutely not! The disease is completely real, the tests that confirmed its presence in your body are real, and the medications you need to take do their job. The dietary and physical activity changes you have undertaken can also help greatly, without any doubt.

What does this mean for you? To me, it means one important thing: a person is a complex being, and treatment must take every aspect of physical and mental health into account. Let us examine this together:

Do you know people who developed an illness after a traumatic event? David from Jerusalem, for example, whose diabetes began a few months after his father died. Rachel from Tel Aviv, whose Crohn's was diagnosed at the height of university exam stress. Miriam from Rosh HaAyin, who has a colitis flare-up whenever her boss "drives her crazy." Or perhaps you grew up with a grandmother whose blood pressure rose whenever you did not eat what she cooked, making you feel responsible for her fragile health?

What are the ways to cope? How do I know coping is possible? Because I was there myself: I had a respiratory allergy for years, which stopped the day I resolved the problems of my failed marriage. In my work, I have the privilege of guiding wonderful people who transform their lives, take full responsibility for their health, and learn to neutralize stress's effect on their illness. For example, Inna from Ashdod had ulcerative colitis for many years until she went through a process of learning to release the points that were "painful" and stressful for her, thereby neutralizing stress's effect on health. She was so successful that she even went through Operation Pillar of Defense, the Israeli military operation, without a flare-up (remember, she lives in Ashdod!). She is now studying psychology and handling the workload without diarrhea or other symptoms!

How is this done? First, recognize the inseparable connection between body and mind. Simply acknowledging it allows a different view of situations that may previously have seemed inexplicable, irritating, distressing, and disruptive. Ask yourself how "Ugh, this disease is ruining my life" feels compared with "Let us see what my body or mind is trying to tell me." In my experience, the feeling is much calmer, an atmosphere of exploration and learning rather than war and exhausting struggle. Once I began asking myself these questions, I suddenly understood, among other things, that sometimes my body stops me, asks for rest and inward focus, or tells me "I am afraid." That allows me to examine my fears and work with them instead of trying to ignore them. I learned that if I do not allow myself to cry through my eyes, my body will cry in other ways. In the context of bowel disease, this can be summed up as: "If I do not cry through my eyes, I will cry through my bowels".

Sometimes, then, the mind speaks through the body, what Freud would call "preverbal expression"1, belonging to infancy, when we could not put what troubled us into words. Now, as adults, we know how to express our worries, fears, anger, and frustrations verbally. We know how to express our need for love or understanding...

Speaking our feelings (or letting go of "Polishness")

Do we really know how? All of us? The next stage is actually doing it! Not to someone else, but first to ourselves. Recognizing that sometimes abdominal pain or a worsening physical condition expresses our need for attention from our parents or children. We need the stomachache because we do not know how else to say it. We do not acknowledge it to ourselves. Thoughts such as "I am strong, I do not need anyone to pity me, I manage on my own" can express disregard for our own needs. This is the stance called "Polishness" in Israeli humor: difficulty recognizing that we have needs and real feelings, and are allowed to express them! As in the familiar joke, the Polish woman sits alone in the dark because she cannot ask for help... But everyone needs warmth and love, and sometimes we all need more from those closest to us. The challenge is recognizing this, admitting our need for attention and love without seeing it as weakness!

Everyone has needs and wishes, of both body and mind. Most of us ignore them much of the time or respond to them in different ways. We find ourselves drinking coffee instead of resting, eating sweets instead of calming down, suffering back pain instead of releasing some of the responsibility we have taken on, through to serious illnesses by which our mind cries out something our mouth cannot say. I know; I was there...

References:

1. J. McDougall. Theaters of the Body. Dvir Publishing, 1989.

This post was published on Foodictionary in March 2013

This is general news information and is not a substitute for personal advice from a doctor or dietitian.