Time of waiting. (Article 11 of the history of my epilepsy.)

TIME OF WAITING.

The Cathedral School, Lund, Sweden. 1955.

Lyrics, poems and even psalm verses have in my life played an important role and provided me with various forms of satisfaction and benefits. E.g., my ability quickly to learn hymn verses by heart made such an impression on my female school teacher, Karin Nilsson, that she recommended me to the Cathedral School (Katte) of Lund. In Katte, when I was in the third grade, after two school years with an older bully, who mourned the outcome of the second world war, I got a new Swedish teacher, Karin Borgstrom. Her view of me changed radically when I used the opportunity to read out from memory all the verses of "Frithiof playing chess" from Frithiof's Saga.

After that I could not get rejected in Swedish. She had succumbed to my weakness for poetry. It has since followed me through life and when Tegretol or Primal Therapy didn’t succeed, then the “poetic therapists” Esaias Tegner, Gustaf Fröding, Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Karin Boye, Nils Ferlin and Evert Taube, etc. have helped out. Several of them suffered from severe neuroses, but their ability to sublimate and channel their passion into beautiful poems gave me both comfort and memory training. 

The Karlfeldt poem "Time of waiting" from which the title is taken has come to the surface multiple times during the months of April and May throughout more than 50 years. It has made me feel and experience spring in many places in several countries. In 2009 when my experiments with medication and feelings in a therapy over long distance with Art Janov in LA were at a peak frequency, the Karlfeldt poem gave an important aid to get through an emotional roller-coaster journey to relive old pain. 

A number of letters to DR Janov in April and May may illustrate my experiences. The Janov responses to my letters were often very brief, but in that they came ‘by return mail’ they gave me an important confirmation and adequate support to create strength to continue. 

April 9, 2009

"I must tell you about an amazing experience that I had half an hour ago. I was lying on my back with a feeling of being paralyzed and dazed. My fingers just like my feet were in a cramp, a feeling that only turned worse, and they were twisted with an overpowering force. This went on for a long while, but then I suddenly began to tremble and shake, and while this was going on the stunning and the cramps began slowly to ease and something I never experienced before occurred: During what I assume were a few minutes I grew from a small baby in a dazed state to my full size, yes, it felt like even more. A wonderful feeling. Perhaps the best feeling that I experienced during a primal. It felt like I finally filled out my own body! I have during a few weeks cut my Lamictal from 250 mg to 100 mg and I plan to go 250-0 mg in 10 weeks. It was probably my big mistake in the 90's when I abruptly cut off all medication. Given enough lead time I have learned... "

April 14, 2009

"A few days ago I wrote about a marvelous sense of how my body underwent a change, and grew into full-size after a feeling of cramp, stun and confusion. It was such a complete and true feeling that I could not stop myself from jumping out of bed and rush to the desk to send you an email to share my joy. Yes, I can! I could feel OK and it felt OK to share the joy with you, who know the long wait it has been. 

Two days later I had an equally incredible but more absurd feeling of a different uncomfortable and insane nature. It scared me at all levels and during the feeling I felt that I was crazy, mentally ill, had a sensation of dying, disappearing and being humiliated. Right now when I am writing about it so it strikes me, and I do not know why, maybe I am afraid to exaggerate, that it perhaps could have been worse to be burned alive. 

The torture went on for a couple of hours, and I had a deep sense of that I cannot take this, and I won’t make it. The feelings of mental and physical ill-treatment had the same rhythm and repetition as my birth primal, which are built up with pain, pressure and anesthesia, but this time instead of hyperventilation, production of mucus, strangulation and being pulled out, followed by the baby cries, I had feelings of being mentally tortured. All feelings became distorted and twisted and turned against me in the most humiliating way that I felt to the marrow the significance of being mentally ill. E.g., I had several religious thoughts about how I felt compelled in a subtle way to accept what I did not believe. 

It is difficult to judge how long the feelings lasted (I estimate two hours), but it resembled a grand mall seizure or a birth primal of the similar length. Although I did not have the same drive as the other day to go and write to you about this horrendous experience (I'm still struck by it) it is probably just as important when it comes to describing the composition and effects of my epilepsy and birth pain. It was an unpleasant experience, but I'm glad I managed to go through it. 

It's amazing the mental support I had from Dostoevsky Prince Myshkin, and how he describes the moments before his fits, how ‘this seconds of boundless joy perhaps is worth all my life, despite the lethargy. Mental darkness and mental illness stood in front of me as a clear consequence of these sublime moments’. 

Yesterday night I lived through the same process of absurd emotions, hallucinations and birth primal. This time I had Hungarian Gipsy music in the background and the rhythm of my birth experience and the length of the music pieces was woven together and the crescendo of every episode ended in an explosion of sound hallucinatory experiences, which previously had been equal to an attack. I agree with Prince Myshkin, for these moments one might be willing to sacrifice once’s life. I felt no darkness of the soul afterwards. Mental health stood in front of me."

April 20, 2009

"I am stuck in a feeling of general anesthesia and a feeling that my brain is a fragile bulb which might break if I move my head the slightest. My mind starts spinning and I fantasize that the bulb is being crushed, and I can feel and get insights on a variety of strange situations in my life. Much of the world I've built up around me has been as fragile bulbs or “brainchilds” which could have been easily crushed, but they did not mostly because I was skillful in maintaining and protecting them in a smart and carefully thought out manner. 

Such a ‘light bulb’ I had built around the Danish design and to always have the right furniture, lamps, etc. of the best and most famous Danish designers. To improve this image, what could look better than knowing a few of them, yes, being part of their inner circle? Grethe Kemp was the stepdaughter to PH (Poul Henningsen) who is one of the symbols that is the incarnation of Danish design. His lamp PH 25 designed in 1925 is one of the star products of Danish design. When Grethe died in 1982 her mother, Inger Henningsen, gave me the original artistic collage from 1925 of this lamp. What more could I need to prove that my insights in Danish design were of the highest magnitude. It strengthened my fragile "brainchild", but my true feelings continued to be fragile, and therefore, it became an important part of the subtle game to "play down" the impact of the fact that I had proof of my contacts with Danish design. Inside the “bulb”, I knew all too well that I was cheating myself, but I was good at making it difficult to reveal my tricks. 

Grethe Kemp (in Louis Armstrong’s hat)

The fact that Grethe probably was already moribund when I met her and separated my second wife, stayed with Grethe until her death, became friends with her old mother, and in these circles was considered as a selfless hero built further on my false image and made it even more difficult to crush the brain child. I am proud of what I did for Grethe but it was not only for love and selflessness. It was a painful trip of my ongoing effort to build up my ego to be someone. 

My relationship with Grethe is an evidence of how subtle my image building could be.  Passively, I used the image of Grethe (who was a jazz singer and author of children’s literature) who had been married to Ben Webster (the famous jazz saxophonist) and other friends in her artistic surroundings. The fact that both Grethe and Ben Webster lived very unhappy lives and killed themselves with alcohol, that I kept quiet about. I can now at last feel and understand that my defenses and my epileptic medicine must have been awful powerful to get me through this type of neurotic dramas. People around me were impressed by how strong I seemed to be. If they only had known. 

Now I need to unscrew these "bulbs" and get out of these straitjackets. I thought I needed them to keep myself together and to compensate for lack of love, life and closeness that I missed, and above all to satisfy neurotic behaviors and to prevent epileptic seizures. The Danish case is one of a number of "bulbs". My life has been full of false emotions and behaviors. The situations in which they were held were real enough, which I myself didn’t dare to be. The conditions were not based on a genuine need. Many of them I achieved for my mother, who early taught me to look for the right kids and participate in the side of life who looked right. I did seldom agree with her, and objected to her views, but on the inside, I could not resist, and I was mentally raped and did as she said. I embellished my image, which certainly looked good at times, but it did not match how I felt. However, being full of energy, I tried repeatedly to find another train stop. Each time it was the wrong station, which I can understand now that I know that I stepped on the wrong train from the beginning." 

April 23, 2009

"Yesterday, I believe I paid a visit to Hell. I have been through painful grand mall seizures with their overwhelming impression, but despite their unpleasant, difficult to describe, physical sensations and mental tsunamis, they are simple to operate in comparison with this new experience even though it does not leave a heavy tongue bite or piss in the bed. I went through 24 hours of torture when all emotions I have experienced passed revue. I lived through painful feelings when my "lightbulb / brainchild” was crushed, my mental health was painfully dissolved, and I went into a delirium. I got several kinds of hallucinations in which every aspect of what is real and normal distorted to terror and mental illness. My dog reacted to my madness and shook his head and wept, which further reinforced my feelings of insanity.  

I had terrifying hallucinations when my mind repeatedly was twisted, which was followed by a violent pain, which not only meant that I would be revealed to the outside world but, what was worse, that I would have to accept the insanity myself. I experienced how I inside my head screamed: “There you have the result of the Janov therapy, you should never have lifted the lid but stayed with your strong medicine.” Behind this scenery of horror, was however a sense that there is no alternative to going through this terror. I would prefer to be killed and in my feelings, I went through a surreal experience to have a knife stuck into my body. That eerie feeling was a fine experience compared to the horror. 

I had a feeling that a former spouse had once been a whore, and these feelings were followed by a new burst of mental insanity and guilt feelings that I was having insulting thoughts about her and her way to let out her uncontrolled anger. I went through those emotions several times, and afterwards I felt:  “Although she would have been a whore it does not change my positive values of her.” 

When I during this 24-hour period went up with my dog Puskas in the surrounding mountains I had feelings of being back in my childhood when I ran, jumped and sang in the countryside of the south of Sweden. During the continuation of the walk with Puskas my legs began to move on their own terms in the same manner that kicking takes place during my birth primal. This time it was, as if I could control the kicking leg movements, and it was a comfortable feeling because I could recognize them. Both the kicking movements and the crying sound that I relived during my hallucinations have diminished in volume and scope, and I feel for each time that they are disappearing. 

What happened during the walk with Puskas was a pleasant break in 24 hours of terror. The 24 hours of terror and feelings represent in an emotional and understandable way my lengthy birth, which ended in an accumulated pain which later developed into seizures / epilepsy. 

Yesterday, I told my daughter that I was exhausted in my head and totally done. That I think I never told anyone before. This morning I woke up and felt good and free from anesthesia and had no ‘light bulb’ to worry about. First, I had not planned to write about it, but I could not resist and the writing exercises as well as the emotional experience is pleasant. Still being mentally tired I have a good feeling of having less need to demonstrate that I am strong." 

May 1, 2009

"Major changes have occurred during the last week. An overwhelming sense of numbness and anesthesia have blocked me. My thinking has become less vivid, and I have a small number of hallucinations with involuntary leg movements (automatism) that come from me kicking during birth. However, I have not responded with an obsessive attempt to suppress the pain. I feel worn out and defeated by my epilepsy, and meanwhile my epilepsy has become a considerably fewer frightening demonic monsters than I have imagined for decades. When all my acting-out, clever tricks and medications have been revealed and flushed, then I can experience what it actually means to feel pain without words. I've never really had a chance to feel but with medication and neurotic defenses as a filter I have been driven by fear and terror without knowing it. 

I have often felt confused when you more than once over the years have asked me how my life in the womb has influenced my later life. I knew from the moment when the grand mall seizures were turned into birth primal that I was in the birth canal, but I was only able to feel / interpret the most dramatic section. However, having gone back and forth between my birth and subsequent feelings in a descending direction while having dropped Lamictal, the feeling of pain has become more real and less affected. Now after having understood and felt how all my life I have been protected by a thick layer of analgesic neurotic tricks, which gradually have been dissolved and after having dropped the medicine, I have no longer neither the energy nor the need to continue in this treadmill. I feel uneasy and secure at the same time. Concerned about the feelings that may come up (e.g., I have not been able to cry) and if the damages which the abnormal burden caused during birth will heal to 100%. Safe because I understand my life, and because I can satisfy my needs and live with my limitations. 

My reactions due to two events yesterday surprised me. First, I had a limited petit mal when I spoke with a neighbor (fear of being refused help and not being understood linguistically because of a local dialect) and asked for help with my car. I let the attack go by without trying to split myself in two (one me that had the attack and another me who was thinking frantically how to cover up the attack by pretending that it was a nonsense unrelated to epilepsy...) and I didn’t worry at all. Usually I had afterwards spent a long time to repress the shame and the feeling of being worthless. I told this to my daughter and felt great relief when she gave me a confirming smile. The second situation occurred when I would drive to town to do some shopping. The battery was dead, since I forgot to turn off the radio. The car did not start, and no help was available at this point. The anger that arose in me and the way that I screamed out my anger and slammed the car door was out of all proportion. The anger I felt went straight down into the fetal life when I could not get out." 

TIME OF WAITING (ERIK AXEL KARLFELDT)

Sweetest is the time of waiting,

Time of floods, of buds dilating.

May has naught so captivating

As a clearing April noon.

Let not miry paths befool you,

Then the dampened woods will cool you,

And you’ll hear the leaves’ low croon.

Not in summer joys I’d wallow, 

Give me but the blades that follow

Melting snows in pine-dark hollow,

And the earliest thrush’s tune.

Best the lover’s time of waiting,

Of betrothal ere the mating.

Spring has naught so captivating

As a secret sweetheart fair.

Seldom with her, soon asunder,

He will dream the strange wild wonder.

Life so soon for him may bear.

Golden fruit, let others shake it,

Mine be not the hand to take it,

For my garden I’d forsake it

When the trees are budding there.