Conversion Disorder by the Mayo Clinic on CNN Health

I saw this posted on CNN.com about conversion disorders with the source of the information being the Mayo Clinic. The link to the article is CNN-Conversion Disorders.

Since I know first hand what a conversion disorder is, I wanted to spread some information along. All too often, no one really understands what this is, let alone that it can be treated successfully. Complete loss of your physical body in a conversion disorder is a rare condition but I believe there are people out there that are living with this condition rather than truly healing from it. So many times the medical doctors do not understand this and so a patient is left to struggle through this situation which is itself a traumatic experience.

A conversion disorder is when psychological stress or trauma becomes manifested physically in the body. Movement or senses are often affected with sometimes paralysis, blindness or difficultly swallowing being the results. While symptoms of conversion disorders can be severe, people often recover within a few weeks.

Conversion disorders are usually caused by some underlying stress or traumatic incident. Trauma can exist within the body for years and when the right switch is flipped in the person's life (like another experience connecting back to the original trauma), then the body begins to shut down. The current experience may have absolutely no resemblance to what happened in the original trauma but just one part of it that connects the subconscious mind with the trauma can lead to a conversion disorder.

There is much more to a conversion disorder that you can read about on the CNN page link above.

For me, I went through a conversion disorder in 1991. It took several doctors, test and more tests and trips to the hospital, an MRI, more doctors, an ambulance ride and many unnerving moments of despair to figure out what was wrong with me. I was misdiagnosed at first with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and while the xrays and initial testing showed that this was what I had, the doctors were too narrow in viewing their diagnosis. It was several weeks before I finally got referred to a neurologist.

When the neurologist first examined me, she had the curious look on her face wondering what was going on with me. She decided to admit me to the hospital and run further tests. Up until that point, each doctor was sending me home because there was nothing they could do for me. Yet, I could not take care of myself because I could not walk and I could barely move, eat or function. I never did understand why the doctors kept sending me home instead of admitting me to the hospital because if someone is not able to physically take care of themselves and function, is that not what a hospital is for?

After all the tests were completed and I had a near death experience (or however one would state this), the neurologist came into the room and asked me one simple question that forever changed my life. She asked me if I had anything bad happen to me and if I needed to talk about it. Of course, I don't exactly remember the words she used to ask the question but I replied in my slow and difficult speech, that yes, I needed to talk to someone.

She set me up with a psychiatrist and that first day I talked to him was the first day I was able to take a step. To me, it was no coincidence, that these two things happened together. As I began to talk a little more, I soon found myself able to walk to the bathroom, than out the door of my hospital room than down the hall several feet.

I did spend several weeks going through intense counseling in a psychiatric hospital which greatly helped me and gave me the time to rest and relax. While that was not easy to do, I had really not recalled all the trauma and abuse I had went through in my life. These things would come at a much later time where I would spend considerable time healing through these experiences in counseling.

However, I did not fully begin to heal my body from the trauma and even the experience of the conversion disorder until I met Dr. Paul Canali in 2003. When I first heard him talk about the impact trauma has on a body, I knew first hand he was talking a language my mind and my body understood. He was the first person that helped me understand what had happened to me in the conversion disorder. Up until that point, I had truly been in the dark about this condition. Since that first introduction, I have healed in ways I never thought were possible. I no longer fear a conversion disorder and I no longer live in daily fear of my body shutting down on me. However, to say that I never think about my body shutting down would be a lie because once your body has failed you in a conversion disorder, there is an altered sense of awareness and fear that you hold. The thing is, I don't live in daily fear of that because I know there is a way through it, if my body tries to shut down. Through the healing I've gone through, I don't experience the shut down symptoms like were once normal for me.

If you saw me today, you would not have any idea that I went through the conversion disorder and almost breathed my last breath. You would not realize that I had been paralyzed with almost no feeling in my body and that my memory had went away. There would be no way for you tell that my speech was almost non existent and that I suffered through convulsions, depression, anxiety and suicide. Life is completely different for me and each day I'm learning how to recover more and more of my body and my memory.

About The Picture:
The above picture was taking of me in the early stages of the paralysis. I could still sit up from time to time but I grew exhausted easily and spent considerable time sleeping. If I wasn't awake and sitting up, I was dealing with convulsions and trembling and shaking. In that picture, just holding up the balloon was a difficult thing for me.


Further Reading:
1) Conversion (Somatoform) Disorder (Blog Post 11/09/10)
2) When Life Fell Apart (Blog Post 7/31/09)
3) Hope And Possibility Through Trauma - Book By Don Shetterly
4) Recovery From A Conversion Disorder (Blog Post 7/11/11)



Blog Post & Images (c) 2/3/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Reflections On My Life

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and realizing just how far I've come. Maybe that's the message I was looking for recently when I felt like I was up against the same proverbial brick wall. It was a familiar brick wall and one that seems to be there no matter what.

You see, my life has been deluged with many storms. I've been battered in just about any way one can think of that a person can be. There hasn't been too many things that I've not encountered in my life in one way or another. Some people have told me that I chose this life, which at first was hard to reconcile but the more I challenge and look at what these people have told me, the more it makes sense. I was never one to believe in past lives but too many things have surfaced to give evidence that there is more out there than what I was taught in some narrow minded churches.

When I was a kid, I never really thought I would make it through high school. I always just knew "somehow" that I was going to get very sick and the entire family would be around me wondering what to do. No one would have answers and it was a life threatening situation. As a kid, I thought this would happen before I graduated from high school but instead, it was a few years after I was out of college. And while I couldn't see the entire manner in which this would play out, it did involve my family wondering how to get me the help I needed and the doctors being unsure of what to do. Fortunately I did recover but it was a very difficult moment in my life and I did come very close to death.

All the while growing up though, I was an extremely sensitive kid. I'd cry at anything and everything. If I was separated from my mom, I'd cry. If I saw something little creature on the ground tortured or mistreated or even stepped on, I would cry. I had a pet rock and if someone would hit it, I would cry. There were people around me that could not accept that and being a boy, I was taught to be a "man" and not cry. Of course, that just made me go and hide my head under a pillow and cry myself to sleep.

The point is I was very sensitive and I picked up so much that was around me from what people were thinking and not saying to how they felt, how they responded to me or to so many things. It was like I was acquainted with a language that was not spoken or shared. Of course, the home life was not a stable, grounded life and so these things became misdirected as self sabotage for me. That led to stomach and digestive problems, self confidence issues and so many other things because I internalized everything.

By the time I reached high school, I knew I was just different than others or they were just different than me. I didn't feel like I fit in nor did I really want to. Many things I knew seemed to evade others and I was often confused that concepts which I understood were so far removed from most of the population. I still struggle with that to this day because somehow I just understand things that I have no idea where they came from.

Today, I still struggle with the self confidence and feeling like I fit into life. There are concepts which just seem normal to me but 99.9% of the population just doesn't get it! And they don't seem that concerned either.

I'm still very sensitive and really learning that this is a good thing in my life but sometimes it is overwhelming to say the least. Sometimes walking in store with a lot of people, is a major challenge for me. It is like everyone has their own life's movie playing around them as they walk by. Sometimes, I pick up the pains that these people have and then struggle to figure out if they are my pains or another person's pain.

So some days I still feel really out of place in this life and sometimes I have no way to reconcile that with anything. It is hard to find well rounded, grounded people to talk to because so many go out into all forms of la la land and they can't even see that they are in la la land. I'm learning though that all of these things are helping me grow into the person that I am. While I want everything to come together in life and know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing what it is I feel I'm being groomed for, I know that until the moment is right, there will be the feeling of a void. My sense and message is that all of this is taking place quicker than I realize but it is not time yet.

Why did I write this? I'm not sure. It may just be my way of trying to connect the dots. It may be my way of showing myself that this is going along as planned or it may be a whole host of other reasons. Whatever it is, my hands felt the need to write my thoughts down and I'll let the words go where ever they may travel.

It is my quest to understand more about my life, to heal from the storms of life and to follow that inner guidance within myself that shows me the path ahead.