Why is this diagnosis so difficult to accept?

In one of his books, Sarno states that only about 10 to 15% of people with a mind-body related disorder can actually accept this as the diagnosis. On the face of it, the diagnosis seems so simple and people should be glad to know there is a 'cure'. But there is a strong, deeply embedded need to believe that external factors cause pain or SD. External factors are out of our control...in other words, it's not my fault.

If we are to accept the mind-body diagnosis, then we have, in a sense, 'done it to ourselves'. But that conclusion would be a misperception of how the mind-body syndrome works. We don't make ourselves sick or disabled. Everything is happening in the unconscious and the symptoms are induced by the autonomic system...it's automatic and not under our conscious control. Yet, paradoxically, just having this knowledge and understanding of the mind-body process is enough to stop the symptoms!

Let me tell you a story about the difficulty of accepting this diagnosis. A few years back I went to an NSDA conference to hear Diane Rehm speak. While there, I connected with another woman who told me how SD had totally changed her life. She told me that she used to be a sales person under a lot of stress having to make sales calls and meet her quota. After she developed SD, she could no longer present herself in a confident enough manner to make sales calls. So she became a librarian.

As I listened to her story, I could hear that she hated her sales job and was really happy now as a librarian. At the same time, however, she felt guilty because you don't make as much money as a librarian. In a flash of insight, I saw that she 'needed' SD in order to make a life choice that otherwise she would not have been able to justify. It was more acceptable and less threatening to blame SD for having to make this choice.

I don't intend to be harsh and judgmental here...I'll be the first to acknowledge that I let SD be my excuse for doing or not doing a lot of things. But my point here is that 'blaming the symptoms' is no longer viable if one accepts that SD is a mind-body condition and that we can overcome it. If I overcome SD, what is my excuse for choosing not to speak up? For withdrawing from dialogue and interactions with others? Maybe the answers to those questions are harder to face than an injection of Botox.

Let me assure you...the answers to those questions are hard. I had and continue to come face to face with deep feelings of inferiority which result in a compulsive need to be competent (perfect) and 'right' all the time. I had and continue to manage the anger, rage, and defensiveness that threaten to boil over when I am challenged. But this is the path of adulthood, enlightenment and wisdom. And as the commercial for Strivectin states, it's 'Better than Botox'!