My Epilepsy A Blessing In Disguise.

Evolution makes us suffer in order not to feel the pain when for example mother misbehaves or disappears more than we can stand. “The pure pain areas are overlapped with the emotional suffering part.” The message of the pain is repressed and remains unconscious. The pain caused is held down by the gating system and, within certain limits, it is hidden. But it leaks its agony all over us, and we develop high blood pressure, ulcers, strokes and epilepsy. These “laws of nature” are mysteries to everyone and no one can understand where and when it all began.

Art’s latest reflection: “Suffering, Pain, What is the Difference? It All Hurts.”

could be a brilliant and telling summary of how my friend Eva and I have experienced pain and suffering for almost 74 years. My friend was during years emotionally mutilated and threatened by a bipolar mother, and she turned off the connections between the limbic lower level and the cortex. The lower level suffering was never made consciously/aware. An efficient gating system supported by workaholism, intellectualism and cigarettes kept the pain at bay, and my friend got her reward in a lustrous academic career. The deep and remote suffering took its toll and towards the end of her career, high blood pressure, diabetes were facts before a burn out / stroke put an end to her career after a lifetime of suffering.

My religiously confused, however loving; mother subjected me to a horrific birth trauma. Epilepsy became the symptom that represented my pain, and it was kept in check by chemical lobotomy / Tegretol (Carbamazepine). The hidden pain, though, continued to “spray its agony” and propelled a neurotic overactivity, which drove me out on a long, intense and restless career as a change consultant. Fortunately, 36 years ago, I met Art Janov and could slowly and determined embark on a new journey to resolve my pain and watch my suppressed suffering disappear.

For decades, I considered myself to have been unlucky in that I developed epilepsy as a consequence of my birth trauma. In retrospect, after a successful guidance, over 4 decades, by Art Janov, through the Primal Principle, I realize my blessing in disguise. The pain, which triggered my epilepsy, constantly leaked and it became the gateway to my suffering. The job of Primal Therapy is to make suffering into pain! When my seizures, eventually, turned into pain, which I could feel and re-live, I finally got the key to being cured and free. Meanwhile, I got a general understanding of the difference between pain and suffering.

No matter how intelligent, sympathetic and intellectually well-lit my friend is, it is impossible for her to understand the following statements in Art’s Reflections: “Pain is resolvable and suffering not.” “Suffering is diffuse, amorphous, without shape, time or place. It is an imprint often without words, but it endures for a lifetime.”

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that my friend, for years, has been a significant personality (pedagogical award winner) in the world of academic research and education that provide Big Pharma scientists.

Jan Johnsson