When I first got sick with what they eventually diagnosed as ulcerative colitis, they didn’t abbreviate all illnesses as they do now (e.g. UC) and there were no medications for treatment. It was 1963, I was in college, and began suffering all the classic symptoms that we now recognize as indicative of this disease. The doctors that I visited, however, didn’t seem to know what to make of it. A couple times I was told that it was all in my head. “It’s psychosomatic,” they said. “But my belly really hurts,” I would protest. “This is just stress related,” they replied. As far as I could tell, the only stress I was experiencing was a result of my pain, not a cause. It was not only painful, it was frustrating under the circumstances. My reality was pain, yet a doctor, a person in authority, was feeding me fantasy. That illusion DID cause me stress. Unsurprisingly, failure to rely upon and live one’s life according to FACTS led to profound misinterpretation, a continuation of my pain, and a worsening of my condition. Ultimately, because the disease progressed beyond any prospect of curing it, it had to be excised. So I said goodbye to my colon, my rectum, and that little opening at the very end of my gastrointestinal system that has since become a favorite name for people who are jerks on steroids.
[ENDNOTE: Even today, the Mayo Clinic website states: “The exact cause of ulcerative colitis remains unknown.” They mention two possibilities: 1) immune system malfunction, or 2) heredity. “However,” they say, “most people with ulcerative colitis don’t have this family history.” Golly, I wonder if it was psychosomatic…]
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