What I did to overcome SD

While the Botox did help my voice, the process of getting the injections began to outweigh the benefits. First, each injection was a serious disruption in my life, starting with coordinating the appointment (the Dr. has to have a 'group' of people to make it economically worthwhile for a vial of botox), the pain of the actual injection, the aftermath of the injection (nausea immediately following and no voice leading to a breathy voice for 3 to 4 weeks after the injection) and finally, it was treating the symptom not the cause...so I had to do it over and over again.

So around 2006, I decided to just live with the SD and put it out of my mind. I reminded myself that Robert Kennedy Jr. has untreated SD and continues to inspire groups through his public speaking. I didn’t let the SD distract me in anything I did. I stopped anticipating a bad voice and just plowed into whatever I needed to do (facilitate training programs, speak up in meetings, etc.) If anyone asked, I told them, and then changed the subject. During this time I even on occasion noticed that my voice sounded fine and people would tell me it sounded fine, but in the spirit of not being distracted, I didn’t dwell on it.

However, it was during this time period that I developed increasingly debilitating back, neck, shoulder and wrist pain. If you are familiar with Sarno's approach, you know that this is a classic response of the mindbody syndrome. If a physical malady ceases to provide distraction, then the mind will induce another malady! And so it did!

The back, neck, shoulder pain was getting worse and worse. Earlier in 2007, I said to my husband, ‘if this pain continues, I am going to eventually be disabled!’ Now I had heard of Dr. John Sarno years ago and while I believed his approach to healing back pain, I never connected it to SD. And quite frankly, I had forgotten all about his approach. But we were in the car (in NYC) when I said this to my husband and at about the same time, we turned the corner and there was the The Rusk Institute for Rehabilitative Medicine. And it just suddenly clicked… Sarno’s approach came back to me and I realized in that moment that everything happening to me was all a trick of my mind to keep me focused on the physical, not the emotional and boy was it working!

So here is what I did and continue to do:
1. Read and re-read everything he has written and watched his video lecture twice. I continue to do this. Every day I take time to read a couple of chapters or more from one of his books. All of this serves to ‘reinforce’ this new way of thinking about the process. It helps it to really ‘sink in’ instead of being an intellectual exercise.
2. I started a daily journal to record my emotional issues. All I can say about journaling is that it is a ‘must do’. There is something about the act of writing things out that really allows the ideas to sink in and for true understanding to occur.
3. Whenever I feel any sort of pain or something happening with my voice, I focus on my emotions…not the pain or my voice. I ask myself, what emotions have been coming up for me in the last 24 hours. Why? Where does it come from? And then I tell myself it’s OK to feel those emotions…that they won’t hurt me. Other times I lecture my mind saying, ‘OK, cut it out! I know what you are up to and it is not going to work. Whatever emotions are bubbling at the surface, I can handle. There is no need to distract me…in fact you will not distract me’. And then I think about the emotions.

Here are the things I write about:
1. What personality traits are causing my emotions right now (e.g. inferiority complex, narcissism, dependency)?
2. What unconscious, painful, threatening feelings do I have? What contributes to these feelings? Then I write an essay about each.
3. What are the sources of my feelings from a) my childhood/past, b) my personality traits, and c) life pressures?
4. What are the sources of my anger?
5. What events/people cause me to have an emotional response? Why?
6. What is my self-image (who do I want to be, how do I want people to describe or perceive me)? What unacceptable emotions threaten my self-image?
7. Free form rambling about whatever comes up for me!

Initially I spent a lot more time on this than I do now. I spend about 10 minutes a day re-reading selected portions of his books and another 10 minutes or so journaling. I squeeze it in when I have some down time (e.g. waiting for a plane, before I go to bed, while waiting for the dishwasher repair guy to appear!)

Believe me...it is that simple and it is that hard. Because you really have to believe in this diagnosis for it to work. You have to believe that there is nothing organically or structurally wrong with your back and voice. After visiting numorus doctors for both conditions, I knew there was nothing really wrong with me (e.g. I didn't have esophogeal cancer). I hope this story helps someone. There is no need to center your life around SD. Center it around something meaningful and life affirming...something that you enjoy and gives back to others.