Saturday, January 1, 2011

This is your life. (Article 14 of the history of my epilepsy.)



Lasse Strömstedt
This is your life.

Lasse Strömstedt was a known jailbird who became a writer and journalist and often appeared on television. At the end of April 1984 Lasse Strömstedt was the main character in the television program "This Is Your Life" and as usual during these programs the television personality Lasse Holmqvist was the presenter. During the program Lasse Holmqvist made fun of Lasse Strömstedts story of a birth trauma that he had experienced, and it prompted me to send the following letter to Mr Holmqvist:
“Thanks for a wide range of "This Is Your Life", which is a program with high involvement and unusual approaches. Since it is live broadcast everything that is said can be less accurate and thought through. The positive points outweigh the negatives, and sometimes it feels human with a natural mistake.
During the program about Lasse Strömstedts life, such an ignorance and humiliation were presented, that I suspect if from your side is a naivety which, however, unfortunately, can have severe consequences due to your popularity and the impact you have on the television screen. I am referring to the sequence in the program when you ask Strömstedt if he has any idea what might be the reason for his criminal orientation. Strömstedt then in a fascinating and insightful way tells us about his childhood. The home had been simple and very normal, however, what appeared to have been less normal were his birth records, in which it was documented that he had been born blue in the face with the umbilical cord wrapped several times around his neck. You turned this fact into an amusing point. You made fun of this serious birth trauma not only once, but allowed yourself at the end of the program to laugh it off again together with the exposed Mr. Strömstedt, who had had his life spoiled during many years as a jailbird based on neurotic complications probably due to this particular birth trauma.
The undersigned is no psychologist who feels stepped on sore toes. I can indeed be very skeptical about the flummery which many psychologist can accomplish by putting labels. However, I believe in a trustworthy USA research showing that a criminal coercive behavior often can be linked to a dramatic birth. A difficult, life-threatening birth, being restrained in the birth canal, where pain caused by, for example,  suffocation and strangulation can create lifelong imprints, which later are compulsively repeated symbolically as a neurotic act out. This continues until the pain either leaves the system or the person dies by a heart attack or cancer, which occurs prematurely because the body and heart are worn out by the trapped tension due to the overwhelming painful trauma that was imprinted into the brain's memory.
Like Strömstedt I was born first (a fact that may cause a difficult birth) and suffered throughout my childhood (which took place in a seemingly good environment) of hyperactivity and could not concentrate and use my talent. At the age of 19 I suffered from epilepsy and was subsequently treated with anti-epileptic medication, which pulled down my tempo and put a filter over my anxiety so that I could live a “normal” life and pursue a career in business both in and outside Sweden. I married and had children and divorced and married and divorced, so I lived seemingly normal...
My old pain which lay latent in my body and mind and fueled my neuroses, and I knew that  I could not keep myself together much longer. 1978 I went to the United States and sought treatment at a different therapist, DR Arthur Janov, who some years previously achieved considerable success with his book ‘The Primal Scream’, in which he describes how he almost by chance found a key to relieve repressed pain which the brain, when the pain was intolerable, had closed off to create the conditions for immediate survival. At first the book was interpreted speculatively by psychologists and followers. Primal therapy needed time to evolve and as the Janov way has been tested and verified by research institutes worldwide, it has gradually been defused although the final breakthrough is still delayed.
After that I have felt how my seizures have turned into my traumatic birth process, which had many similarities to the Strömstedt story, they have changed in character. It is nowadays possible for me, if I have the right environment and correct conditions, to re-experience a birth primal, rather than an epileptic seizure. The normalization over a 4-5 year period, has meant that my fingers have grown about 10-15 mm. The size of my gloves has gone from S to M. As my neuroses dissolved and my insights into my traumas have increased so has my need for painkillers, for example, coffee, cigarettes and liquor as compulsive painkillers completely disappeared, and I can now at times celebrate and use them as a mere stimulant.
In the meantime, I have undergone Primal Therapy in Los Angeles as well as Paris. I have seen a large number of patients undergo miraculous normalizations due to the Janov ingenious techniques by which they have made connections to and re-experienced past life-threatening painful traumas. Patients have included alcoholics, drug addicts, victims of rape, rapists, etc., and patients with a multitude of psychological and somatic sufferings. It is not a quick fix, but it can take a long time to fully re-experience the entire painful process that the brain in a very earlier stage has not endured but turned off.
A program on brain development was produced by a French television crew, and I participated in a dramatic episode, filmed at a treatment 1982. Firm documentation is available from all over the world to suggest that birth traumas often cause wrecked lives. This is something you can have had without ever having been a jailbird. I have been lucky myself and managed to keep me on the right side of the law. My anxiety, however, I haven’t been able to cheat, but it drove me to seek proper treatment. That was why it hurt so badly when you sneered at Strömstedts explanation, and you assumed that he was not entirely serious with what he meant was the cause of a degrading life as habitual criminal.
Everybody is not fortunate enough of being born according to Frederick Leboyer's advice, on a natural and harmonious birth, that gives physically and mentally healthy people. Many of the inevitable traumas that has occurred and always will occur can be resolved by therapies (in a state when body and brain have become more robust) for example, Primal Therapy, which can access and relieve the pain that was turned off when the brain was too sensitive to cope with it.”
Hoping to have planted a seed.

No comments:

Post a Comment