Am I Crazy?
A lot of the people who end up in my office have an unspoken question that comes with them. "Am I crazy?" Why would they think this? (Granted, once in a great while, it's because they actually are...) But really... it's usually because the thing that is happening with their body is not responding to standard medical care. The bloodwork seems to be in order, the numbers look good, the imaging is clean, therefore the conclusion becomes "It must be in your head." When the symptoms appear worse with stress, the patient is often told, "It sounds like you're stressed." (No kidding!) The "solution" is often a drug to suppress the symptoms - the anxiety, the depression, the insomnia - but anyone who's ever been on these drugs know that they come with unpleasant side-effects, suppressing the symptoms, perhaps, but often suppressing other things, too (access to positive emotions, focus, energy, etc.) that put a high quality of life out of reach! Who wants to live a muted life?
So if they're not crazy, then what is the problem, and why isn't there a good solution available in mainstream medicine?! While it's true that the basic problem is "stress," the problem is that each person's body has unique definitions of what and why certain conditions constitute "stress," and also very unique physiological responses to that stress! This is because each person's stress response and physiology is the result of countless individual factors ranging from individual genetics to environmental factors (current and also from childhood years), nutrition and injury history. Do you freak out inside of elevators? Most people don't, but what if you had been trapped in one as a child? Your nervous system might have been calibrated to associate elevators with danger. It's simple conditioning - just like Pavlov's dogs. How many stressful events do we accumulate over time that condition our nervous systems to stress? It doesn't matter whether or nor they're logical - especially the key conditioning stress events from childhood. When you were small, you didn't have much in the way of logic and reasoning, but you had a highly developed and advanced nervous system that tracked more than you can ever imagine in its task of keeping you alive and safe! So what are some of the key stress events that may have marked your nervous system? Were you bullied for stuttering? Were you made to feel like a disappointment for not succeeding in the areas that were important to your parents? Were you given up for adoption? Did you lose a parent, a friend or a sibling at a young age? Were your hospitalized as a child? Did you have a traumatic birth? Was your parent an addict? Were you sexually abused? Were you always the last kid to get picked for the team? Were you considered the fat kid? The poor kid? The geeky kid? All of the above?! Nobody's life path is the same, but one thing is for sure: every single one of us has been uniquely conditioned to respond physiologically to stress. Because of the uniqueness of the factors that go into this conditioning, there will never be a solution so standardized as a drug - or even 4 or 5 drugs to choose from - that can help people with physical manifestations (pain, allergy, anxiety, insomnia, etc.) of stress conditioning. And because these are unconscious physical responses, they also don't tend to respond to traditional talk therapy.
So to that I say, thank gawd for NET!!! NET (Neuro Emotional Technique) is a tool for finding and recalibrating physiological stress responses so that the body can keep in balance in spite of external stressors. It utilizes a form of biofeedback to discover the specific stress triggers which are affecting a person's body, and then incorporates cutting edge mindbody technology for changing the body's response to that same trigger. NET is easily the most profound and life-changing modality that I use in the office.
I'm not sure how to end this blog post... It's true that if the above resonates with you, then you would likely benefit from NET, and should find a good NET practitioner nearby asap. But I want you to know that I'm not just speaking from theoretical knowledge or something that I have only seen working in others. I myself used to have very extreme physical reactions to certain types of stress. I used to get migraines and vomit if I had to go to crowded events - even seminars of friendly like-minded professionals! I used to get the same throw-up/headache combo if I had to see a lot of people in my office on a single day. (Unfortunately, "a lot" apparently meant "more than 5.") I would "coincidentally" fall ill - stomach virus, common cold, etc. - if I was expected to attend a party - even among friends! I thought that I was damaged goods - maybe just crazy - and doomed to a lifetime of either isolation or great physical discomfort among people. It was only thanks to NET that I was able to update my body's stress responses! While I'm still an introvert - a person who recharges their energy alone - I no longer get those debilitating headaches, etc. Regular medicine - which is awesome for crisis and emergency care - had no answers or solutions for me. NET did!
And that is all I have to say about that!
-DK