“The crash happened so suddenly. I had no idea what was happening and I had no control.”
I knew the story of Laura’s car accident. She was driving a familiar road on a dark evening. Headlights from a parked car on the side of the road shone in her face. She was temporarily blinded and suddenly, out of nowhere, another car was stopped right in her lane on a small bridge. There was nowhere to go! The airbags exploded in the same instant she hit the brakes. The car careened wildly and came to gently rest on the side of the road.
“What just happened!?!” she thought, not knowing if she had killed someone or why a car was stopped in her lane.
In the hours that followed, Laura was taken to the hospital for assessment and released. She learned the driver of the other car was fine. Laura was sore and accepted that healing would take time and support, but she would recover. And yet a seemingly unrelated gastrointestinal symptom occurred in the days that followed – diarrhea.
“It’s so distressing. It happens at any time when I eat the smallest amounts of food. And it’s exactly like the diarrhea I experienced years ago when I had an ileostomy to allow my bowels to recover from rectal cancer in 2005. But I don’t understand what is happening.”
It is now 3 months post-accident and I have heard updates on the recovery throughout. Laura has been suffering from this “ileostomy diarrhea”, which she describes as watery and high volume, since the days immediately following the accident. She can only eat tiny amounts at once because the symptoms come without warning. She fears humiliation if she goes out in public and has experienced accidents, such as shopping for groceries. Laura no longer goes out to eat with friends and fears being confined to home. Medication hasn’t been effective. Although acupuncture offered initially promising results, it no longer has any impact on her symptoms. Based on my training as a dietitian and as a Practitioner in Logosynthesis®, I recognize that these gastrointestinal symptoms are beyond a dietary solution alone.
I asked her if she would like to explore the distress using Logosynthesis®. Having guided her with the Logosynthesis® Basic Procedure once before, I ask her to describe the thoughts, emotions and physical sensations.
“It reminds me exactly of what I experienced during my cancer treatments when I had an ileostomy to allow my bowels to heal after rectal cancer. I know they no longer work like normal but I don’t understand what happened during the accident to cause this to happen again. I don’t recall the airbags hitting me in the symptoms but for some reason, I’m having the same symptoms as all those years ago. It’s so humiliating. I’m ashamed. I just want to slither away like a snake. I want a big hole to take me away.”
She connects with this distress. The humiliation. At this point, she rates it as a 9 or 10. She gets in touch with the perception of wanting to disappear. I offer the first round of Logosynthesis sentences, allowing sufficient time to process between each sentence.
Laura is now talking about the suddenness of the accident and the fear in that moment of not knowing what happened and the state of the other person. She wants to rationalize that she is now ok because the cops told her that she did nothing wrong and there was nothing she could have done differently. The other person was fine. I guided her to stay with the moments of impact and immediately afterwards, before she knew this.
“Notice the space around you. What’s there?”, I ask.
“It’s all white around me.”
I offer another round of the Logosynthesis sentences using this perception. Again allowing sufficient time between the sentences to allow the energy to shift. Afterwards, Laura talks about this powder of the airbags. It is evident to me that she is calmer and yet she is not sure what has shifted for her. At this point,t I guide her to connect more fully with the current physical symptoms using an advanced Logosynthesis® protocol. Laura tells me about the struggles of the ileostomy, a time when her bowels had no control.
“I need to be in control.”, she says.
Again, I offer another cycle of the Logosynthesis sentences. As she takes a drink of water, she notices that she is scratching her lower abdomen.
“It’s itchy there. That’s weird. It’s the exact same spot where the ileostomy was.”
I guide her to pay attention to this itching and describe what is happening for her.
“It’s a burning sensation. Just like when I had the ileostomy and it was irritated.”
We don’t analyze it. I offer one more cycle of the Logosynthesis sentences on this kinesthetic sensory representation. The burning sensation eases.
“That is so weird. I haven’t felt that burning sensation since my ileostomy was removed. And I don’t want to go back there.”
She describes more about the struggles she experienced during the cancer treatments and the necessity for the ileostomy to allow her bowels to heal. However, she hated the ileostomy. It was very painful and humiliating, confining her to home.
I offer one final cycle of the Logosynthesis sentences, using the word “ileostomy” as the label. Laura seems calmer and I note that there has been a lot processed for one session. I highlight that there may be more layers to the issue that will require further work. For the time being, we will allow it to process and observe what symptoms persist.
I see Laura the next morning and she tells me about eating a full bag of spicy Korean Chicken Puffs after our work together. This was something she would never do since the accident three months ago. Although she noted a bit of cramping afterwards, there was no episode. We are both curious to see what unfolds.
I sent her a message two days later and got this reply: “I’m scared to say, but it seems to be better. I don’t want to jinx it. Thank you for a good day.”
After five days from our work together, I asked if she was ok to share her story: “I’m totally fine with it. I might be a bit constipated, but I think I can get things going. lol. I hope it could help someone. That would be great.”
Of course, my dietetics background kicks in automatically with some general advice, noting that she already knows what to do.
So what’s the trauma connection? Working with Logosynthesis®, we don’t spend time cognitively analyzing the situation. We know that energy freezes in mental imagery – memories, beliefs and fantasies. This mental imagery is “fused” with automatic reactions, in the form of thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. It appears in this situation that “sudden loss of control” at the moment the accident occurred reactivated the mental imagery related to the ileostomy from years ago, along with the automatic reactions. The thoughts of having no control. The emotions of humiliation and shame. The physical sensations are recognized as the gastrointestinal symptoms of “ileostomy diarrhea”. I could not lead Laura to this resolution but I could guide her using Logosynthesis® and a trusting relationship. Together, she was able to identify and resolve the gastrointestinal symptoms that had been controlling her life for the past 3 months in one session.