The Errant Æsthete

Here is something that the beautifully complicated labyrinth of the internet pieced together for me through snippets of this and that. I was reading Judith Warner’s ‘Domestic Disturbances’ column in the NY Times, empathizing with her lifelong affliction of migraines and the various remedies she’s tried through the years, including her current diet of no chocolate just in time for trick or treating with her kids. Sad, I thought and was ready to move on when I caught another reader’s response.

“For goodness sake,” a reader named Frank admonished, “read the work of John Sarno, MD, the miracle-working NYC physician. He believes that chronic ailments like migraines are often caused by repressed emotional pain and that treatments like drugs and food diets can make matters worse. Especially helpful in his theories is the notion of the symptom imperative…the body wants a symptom, any may do the trick, to distract from the emotional pain. … The body demands a physical symptom rather than have you confront the emotional wound. His latest book is called “The Divided Mind” and is highly recommended…”

Interesting, I thought. I immediately researched the book, The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders by John E. Sarno (very good reviews on Amazon) and discovered another, what was to me, startling revelation from yet another reader. “In today’s society, a person simply cannot afford to exhibit raw emotions and, as a result, your brain does whatever is necessary to keep those emotions from surfacing.” Hence, the substitution of pain; in most cases, chronic pain.

Sometimes the simplest of things fall outside your grasp because you don’t have the time, the attention, or the wherewithal to see where the arrows are pointing. Make of it what you will. Dr. Sarno’s book will be gracing my shelves very soon.