Week 36 – Thursday: Rich Experiences Indeed
So living with this treatment is again proving to be a very rich experience. Lots of the time I feel like an eighty year old man – slowed down, breathless, needing a nap, preoccupied with my body and internal workings, foggy in the brain, small world, etc. And now there’s another dimension – behaving and emoting like an adolescent waiting to emerge from this life stage.
A lot of us spend a lot of time and focus on what is happening physically during this treatment. And there is a lot going on physiologically and medically in this process.
But I am becoming increasingly focused on what a strange place this treatment is for my head to have to be in for a 48 week treatment period. The psychological impact of treatment is probably as meaningful for me as the physiological.
I remember at the beginning of treatment Mynurse talking about the impact of the combo meds, particularly interferon, on the body. The interferon can sometimes help with previous injuries or weak spots in the body, or exacerbate those difficulties (these are my words but I think I have accurately recalled the meaning of what she was saying). So the meds could effect an improvement in previous joint pains/inflammation, for example, or re-focus on this weak spot provoking further difficulties. This, of course, is an implication for the physiological side of treatment.
What interests me is that there could be a parallel effect in the psychological side of the treatment also.
I have no doubts that the medications are promoting heightened emotional response – confirmed by others on treatment and to some extent indicated in the manufacturers list of side effects.
I am identifying my current psychological (emotional) experience as a re-capitulation of adolescent feelings. My adolescence was fraught – certainly full of ‘weak spots’ and injuries. So these ‘weak spots’ and old injuries are being inflamed at the moment.
It presents me with the opportunity to re-visit these old issues and to find a different perspective or way of handling these emotions. Letting go of old emotional and behavioural patterns. A new view. Healing.
It’s an interesting hypothesis that the treatment psychologically (emotionally) impacts on previous ‘weak spots’ or ‘old injuries’. A parallel process to the physiological. It’s an hypothesis which I will continue to observe and comment on as I continue in this journey.
And another thought floated through my head today. My un-characteristic behaviour and angry & ‘violent’ feelings on Monday could have been connected with recent bombings on the Tube. Yes, they were my feelings and actions. But they were focused on travelling arrangements (ie the Tube). I had ‘blocked out’ any thought of travel arrangements being curtailed or altered due to last week’s bombs on the Tube. Just as I had blocked out feelings generally about the bombing last week because I found them too painful to deal with (as I wrote last Tuesday).
Suddenly the reality of the bombs impacted on me (the station I needed was closed). Angry feelings erupted and I was ranting in the corridors and spaces of the Tube where no doubt the feelings of other passengers also reverberated and echoed. There have been news reports of Londoners feeling wary and unsettled as they continue to use the Tube for their usual journeys. I’m guessing passengers are also carrying alot of angry and sad feelings too as they travel on the Tube recently. Again the experience of inner feelings coinciding and connecting with other feelings external to me in the environment. And overpowering me – so I couldn’t control myself easily.
Again, my ‘weak spot’ (having blocked out painful feelings over recent events) was exacerbated and inflamed in a dramatic way.
Rich experiences indeed.