Do I have masochistic tendencies? (Article 2 of The history of my epilepsy.)

A combination of a painful and traumatic childbirth and an upbringing with a father who could not manage and / or did not know how to give me love and emotional support created a difficult point of departure. It is certainly hard, if not impossible, for a person who is not versed in such matters to understand the tremendous physical pain and anxiety that many hours of struggle between life and death means to an unborn child when it is denied an opportunity to be squeezed out of the womb. Each resource in the fetus's own production of analgesic neuro chemical substances is made active and set for survival reasons. Medical interventions that were made with nitrous oxide, caffein, etc. by the doctor and the midwife increased the complexity during the birth process.


This inferno laid the foundation for a personality who later had difficulties to adapt its ‘ADD/ADHD- (Attention Deficit Disorder / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) tendencies’ to a world where new trials awaited because my father  was missing the ability to show love and like me, to help me to understand right and wrong, good and bad, or to learn to show or to be shown respect. The pain which was imprinted into my brain at birth was amplified by the countless small pangs with pain instead of love, which was what the constant humiliation of my father meant. 


When Franz Kafka had tuberculosis diagnosed in his lungs, he wrote to his friend: "I am sick in the soul, the lung disease is just a soul sickness that bleeds"! To Franz Kafka’s despotic father, who constantly was oppressing his son, it was, however, no doubt that it was the damp and chilly writer's apartment that had caused his son's disorder. In a similar way, I can sum up my feelings when I developed my epilepsy: ‘Epilepsy is just an intolerable physical and mental pain from my birth and upbringing, which is ascending and being thrown up.’ 


Epilepsy became the nail that I could hang my life on. It required medication in order for me to function which in turn gave me the opportunity to use the fortune that I had been provided with sufficient potential talent giving me the chance to meet a wide range of inspiring people and to confront me with new knowledge and to give me courage to be egoistical enough to move forward in my mental development adventure. 


My dream from the time when I developed epilepsy, was to find a "key / code" into my brain so that the pain and stigma disappeared. After 50 years, I’m still technically / medically epileptic, but I have become emotionally experienced and know the background. I define epilepsy as a practical way for the brain, the organism and the memory, under time pressure, to make a fast version of the birth process. I can actually, nowadays, make the choice and relive the birth instead of having a fit.


The vast and overwhelming joy with having been lucky to have had access to my feelings during the birth process has been, that due to the sum of pain being resolved, no matter which of the brain's three levels it has been the question of, so has the neurotic patterns, which I developed to survive, also dissolved. My behavior has increasingly been adjusted to my true needs. Much, too much of my past actions was governed by the neurotic behavior to keep the wordless and painful memories at bay, whether they were rooted in my birth, lack of Love or other humiliations during my sensitive and formative years. Neuroses which were about to act, perform, charm, impress and in a non need-based manner get attention, praise and “Love” to keep away from feeling my anguish and repressed bottomless pain.

My guide to understand and later put into words feelings and experiences during my trials has been Dr. Art Janov in Los Angeles, who wrote  “The Primal Scream” which was sold in million copies in the 1970s all over the world and marked the beginning of a revolution within the psycho dynamic therapy. The neurological part of my problem of epilepsy has Dr. Janov never claimed that he had the insight in. His dynamic therapy philosophy has continuously for nearly 40 years attracted me, and he taught me and given me the courage to dare to feel repressed pain, which always at the embryonic stage is a wordless and dramatic experience of terror. As this often frightening relief gradually made my life easier, so I built up more courage and curiosity to go into my epilepsy, both figuratively and literally. Dr. Janov could not do much more than listen and be surprised at what I told him. However, his great interest and his attention had a decisive impact, without which I had not managed to neither go through my experiences nor to gain new knowledge.


This adventure was paid off with the success that the grand mal seizures turned into the relief of the repressed birth asphyxia, mucus, pain, anguish and horror. As this happened most of my needs of neurotic compensations in my mental system gradually disappeared. This can easily arrange to be said on a few pages but the battery of neurosis and compensations which a desperate, talented brain can accumulate in 40 years I could not easily shake off. It has taken decades. And neuroses are no accidental occurrences. They are tools within our wonderful human mechanism developed during the evolution, and they have the task through endless lines of communication in the brain constantly to produce neuro chemical painkilling substances. As long as the pain remains, the neuroses remain active and wear out and put a strain on our bodies and our organs. In so far as I have been able to feel repressed pain, I could make connections and eliminate old neuroses. 


"Do you not need to be a masochist to go through what you have done?", a friend who I respect very much asked quite recently. My answer is an indisputable no. I love the life and I do not want to live with repressed pain. If I would have preferred to do that, then had I been a masochist and had had to live with the effects of the painkilling, often degrading neuroses!  


As soon as you’re born, they make you feel small
by giving you no time instead of it all.
The pain is so big you feel nothing at all...  
John Lennon (Oct 9, 1940)