I listened to a documentary about several different controversial alternative healing therapies. I really didn’t know if I would consider any of them, but there was a running theme that really bothered me about the therapies. The participants had lost faith in traditional medicine and were willing to undergo therapies that in many cases harmed them in some way.
I can understand the place that they’re coming from, but at the same time, I also know that it’s a very dangerous place. I can’t tell their story, but I can tell my own. First, I have been going to doctors for over twenty years seeking help for a chronic pain condition. No one has been able to understand it. There isn’t a test or X-ray that a doctor can do that would explain what’s wrong with me. I finally read enough books on chronic pain to understand my condition. I have PTSD. My nervous system is overtaxed. It is misfiring and giving my brain signals for pain. There’s no way for a doctor to test my nervous system to be able to definitively proof that this is the case, but there’s no better explanation. I can live with it. My condition hasn’t become worse and it hasn’t worsened. I can understand how someone could get desperate wanting a doctor to believe them or a diagnosis, but sometimes that’s not what’s the most important. Knowing myself and my body has become more important than having approval from some doctor. I don’t care anymore if there’s a name for my condition. I don’t care anymore if the doctor believes me.
Second, I understand the idea that self-harm can feel like it is helping and I know that it can be addicting. When I was in my twenties, I had panic attacks at least four to five times a week. They could last several hours at a time. However, I figured out that pain would make them go away. I foolishly turned to self-harm as a means to stop my panic attacks. I found out many things can make that hurt can make the body feel good. When my body was hurt, it would release chemicals in reaction. Those chemicals helped stop the panic feeling, but it costs me dearly. There shouldn’t ever be a time when intentionally hurting myself is the best alternative because it hurts me, it hurts the people who love me, and it hurts God.
I think the most important part about any treatment or therapy that I take (and I can’t advocate or dismiss anything for anyone) is that I have to remember one of God’s greatest commandments: to hold Him above all others. There’s no medicine, substance, or therapy that has the power of faith. I still take medications, I believe in doctors and medical treatments, but when it comes down to it, nothing can truly save me except for God. After all, nothing would exist without Him. Believing in Him makes all else possible. I would never pray for a treatment to heal me. I would always ask God to help the treatment to work.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
