by T-Can
republished from T-Can’s Planet Thrive blog with permission
I remember when I was in the thick of hypersensitivity with MCS, almost everything man-made set me off with some level of reaction. Heavy perfumes and cleaning chemicals are one thing–even when I didn’t have MCS I found some of those products unpleasant, sometimes leaving me with common-cold-like symptoms or itching. With MCS, however, even my office colleague chomping on an innocent stick of gum would spark a splitting headache and brain fog.
One day last spring (before I realized that chewing gum had become off-limits for me) I purchased a pack of orange-flavoured gum. I had put it in my jacket pocket and forgotten about it while working at my desk. All day long I was battling headaches. My face and lips were burning to the point of numbness, my eyesight was blurred, and I kept smelling a strong, most horrible chemical scent. Later that day when I picked up my jacket, I realized the source of my body’s overreaction was the pack of gum! I gave it away. It’s really crazy how sensitive I was.
I threw out virtually all of the cleaning products I had used in the past in favour of bland, sometimes ineffective natural-based products. In the trash went my toilet cleaner, laundry detergent, lotions, shower gels, hair gel, toothpaste, even essential oils. I couldn’t tolerate anything with a scent at all, even if it were of a natural source. Even some clothing and a pair of comfortable, brand new running shoes were tossed. Now that I am better, the only regret I have with this purge is throwing out those shoes. If I had known about brain retraining at the time I would have asked someone to store them for me until I got better. A lesson learned perhaps for someone reading this: Take note!
Now that I am better, I have to admit (with a big grin on my face, by the way), that I find it thrilling to be able to use Palmolive dish detergent again! No headaches, no burning face, no brain fog… effective cleaning and a lovely smell (anything smelling lovely was a distant memory when I had MCS).
I mentioned a while ago in the FasterEFT group on Planet Thrive that I can now comfortably stroll through the fragrance department of retail stores, unaffected. I shared how one day I even sprayed myself with Hugo Boss Sport because it smelled so good–and because I could. Isn’t that incredible?! If anyone saw me that day, grinning from ear to ear while sniffing various fragrances, they must have wondered if I wasn’t a few bricks short of a load, or at the very least suspected I had previously smoked something green. I didn’t care; the experience for me was probably close to what it feels like for a climber to finally reach the top of a mountain.
I can’t say that I will ever buy a bottle of cologne or make a habit of wearing it anymore, but it sure is terrific to have the freedom to do so now if I want! And it’s even more wonderful not to be restricted by what other people around me choose to use.
Finding FasterEFT in May was the key to finishing off my healing from MCS. Annie Hopper’s Dynamic Neural Retraining System™ (DNRS™) provided the foundation for me to believe I could change the way my brain and body were automatically overreacting to everyday chemicals in the environment. I had rapid changes in the first few weeks that I was practising the DNRS exercise; one only needs to look back on the beginning of this blog to find more details of my progress. It was pretty remarkable.
But I did reach an impasse in my healing by January of this year. I was about 65-70% better by this point after only two months of practising the DNRS brain retraining program. I could ride city transit again without a scarf wrapped crazily around my face, go out for dinner with friends, generally be more comfortable, but most things still smelled a little “off” even if they didn’t seem to hurt me otherwise, and certain things (like geranium essential oil, which I will talk about later) still invoked a reaction.
I wanted more; I wanted faster healing. Every person, every brain, is unique. I believe some people get better with DNRS alone; others with the Gupta Amygdala Retraining™ Program alone; still others with a variety of different brain-calming techniques and therapies. And though they may exist, I have not known or heard of a single person who has been healed of MCS by avoidance, taking supplements, sauna therapy, or other similar treatments–not without some additional form of brain-calming therapy.
When I found out I had MCS, a friend of mine from the States shared with me that she had suffered from chemical sensitivity in the 1970s. It took her two years, but she managed to recover. She told me she believed part of her recovery was due to isolating herself on a countryside property, in a chemical-free home. She had a partner who was 100% supportive in not using chemicals of any kind. She also changed her diet to include only organic foods. She cut out all grains. One of the most important things she said she did was to practise yoga every day. I know my friend; she is a deeply reflective, peaceful person. I am without a doubt that all of these things worked together to provide a means for her brain and body to relax and feel safe in the world again.
When my friend shared with me her MCS recovery, she said to me, “I don’t believe it is a coincidence that you have gotten MCS while you are still grieving.” I was grieving over my mother’s recent death, but I didn’t want to hear what she said at the time. It didn’t make sense to me then how such an obvious cause-and-effect, such real and sometimes debilitating physical symptoms, could possibly be the result of emotional trauma. But now I believe she was correct. My MCS was a Post Traumatic Stress response.
The trauma of my mom’s horrific illness and death stayed with me after she was gone. I truly believe that my brain–the amygdala, or fight-or-flight centre to be more precise–was set on high alert because of this trauma. I had become more susceptible to sensitization than if I had not witnessed such trauma. Here I was, emotionally traumatized and grieving and at the same time being bombarded with chemical exposures. These chemical exposures probably would have annoyed anyone else but perhaps wouldn’t have affected them otherwise; but my amygdala was already set in emergency mode by the trauma of my mother’s illness. So my amygdala responded violently to protect me from what it perceived to be life-threatening. And so it did, to my detriment. It cross-wired emotional trauma with external stimuli (i.e. scents, everyday chemicals, etc.) and left me battling the intense, inflammatory after-effect.
One of the most blatant examples of how my brain cross-wired emotional trauma with external stimuli was when my mother was alive and I was washing her feet (she had severe edema and could barely move; washing her feet was one of the few things that could make her smile). I had read that lavender and geranium essential oils were not only relaxing, they were also suggested for cancer patients. So I had put a few drops of each in the water one day as I washed her feet. Unfortunately, the drops incited a reaction in my mom so that she couldn’t breathe and almost had to be taken to the hospital. I banished the oils.
When I was doing my brain retraining with DNRS, I decided to fish out the old essential oils to see if I had a reaction. The geranium was INTENSE!! Just taking it out of the box with the lid still on made my face burn, body itch, and head ache. And then it hit me–the geranium oil from the incident with my mom had become cross-wired in my brain with that trauma–my brain had stored that scent as something dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. I used brain retraining to mostly desensitize myself to geranium oil. Yet it was by using EFT, WHEE, and FasterEFT to release the stored emotional trauma of that traumatic experience with my mom that has allowed me to now use geranium essential oil as a household air freshener! With no reaction.
My experience with MCS and the recovery out of it has left me believing that MCS is at its root a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I am, of course, of no professional authority to posit that. It just makes sense to me, with my personal experience especially. Once I was able to identify the emotional trauma that was cross-wired with the MCS reactions, I could use the various techniques to release and resolve the trauma and train my brain to calm down and turn the emergency response to the off position. Took a heck of a lot of persistence, hard work, and time, but absolutely worth it. Without a doubt.
photos: Chewing Gum © Nyul | On Top of a Mountain © Rozum | Geranium © Artefficient
T-Can (short for Toronto Canary) lives in Toronto, Canada with his two cheeky budgies.
Hi, not sure where my comment went, lol. Thanks for your story. I am currently doing the DNRS, and have had some improvement. I went to my new Naturapath and gave him a list of my symptons and he said “I believe you have 30% MCS and the other 70% is PTSD” My own doctor is not open minded at all and it is not very helpful. Cheers Bonnie
Thank you for sharing your story and your recovery. I couldn’t agree more about the link between PTSD and MCS. My story was similar, (a severe, near-death car accident and head injury then a parasite then full-blown MCS for 4 years) except the route to recovery for me included Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution and Nervous System Energy Work work as my main “brain changers.” The nervous system is such an essential aspect of our human experience and when it is in a state of chronic fight, flight, hypervigalence, freeze, and shut down, nothing else works.
I now practice as a somatic psychotherapist and healer using these tools every day in my practice. I also go out to dinner, fly on planes, rent cars, stay in hotels, wear new clothing without washing it first, go to parties, and play…without a thought to chemicals. I wish everyone the same freedom!
Good stuff Bands. I did post a response but like you, it vanished! Must be a technical glitch. Maybe it will show up some other day! :)
Sweigh, congrats on your healing. I haven’t heard of your healing modalities before, but it sounds like it offers good results.
Very interesting.
I too had severe MCS and used Inner Spirit Therapy to do the same brain rewiring and healing.
Check it out — http://www.innerspirit-therapy.com/
:)
The illness serves as a distraction to keep us from uncovering the negative emotions surrounding the time we became ill. Once you figure out what it is about and really feel the related emotions, the symptoms start to go away because there is nothing for your unconscious to distract you from anymore. That is why fastereft works for so many physical conditions. Also for some people simply knowing the symptoms are caused by this unconscious will release the cat out of the bag and completely stop the illness as has happened for a small amount of people with immediate cures thanks to DNRS. These mindbody illness also hijack previous injuries such as chemical injury from overexposure and recreate them in new triggers that are too low to warrant a reaction as it works as a better distraction to connect it to previous illness and/or injury. The book the divided mind by john sarno is what I’ve just been reading to help me figure out what I need to release.
>And though they may exist, I have not known or heard of a single person who has been healed of MCS by avoidance, taking supplements, sauna therapy, or other similar treatments–not without some additional form of brain-calming therapy.
My own MCS and the vast majority of my mold reactivity has gone away as a result of concerted avoidance, detox and system support. I did not engage in any brain-calming therapy of any sort, except what was naturally obtained from spending time in the wilderness.
Best,
Lisa Petrison
lisapetrison at yahoo
Thanks for sharing your experience Lisa. I would not discount the powerful effect that being in nature/wilderness has on the limbic system. It might even be more effective than these programs. I do believe that our brains are hard-wired to function in concert with the energies and sounds of nature. Those of us who live in the “civilized” world have been far removed from those essential energies and biorhythms. Lisa can you share how long you lived in wilderness for and describe what you mean by living in wilderness – were you tent camping in state parks? Thanks for sharing, Julie
I agree with Julie–living in nature would definitely be brain-calming for me… it is what I dreamed of when I was severely sensitized but was unable to make such a move from the city. I am very glad to know you have found healing through different methods, Lisa!
This is so wonderful to read. I really think we’ve made such progress in figuring this illness out in the past few years. I have come to think of MCS as an immune-system form of PTSD. I do hope that these findings can be translated into more acceptance of this condition by the mainstream medical community and the legal system. I don’t want to discount the role of toxicity in the illness, as it’s clear that the vast majority of people with this were poisoned initially. And that poisoning itself is what signaled the body to be hyper-protective in an effort to save the life. Of course not everyone who is poisoned has this reaction, and some people develop cancers or organ failure or die instead. I’m sure we’ll never know exactly what determines which path we take, but it does seem that a history of chronic emotional hypervigilance or acute stress at the time will predispose one to the MCS path. Realizing this has helped with my own brain retraining, turning some of the anger regarding the illness into gratitude for what my body has done in order to protect me.
As for people recovering without calming the sympathetic response (referred to here as “brain-calming”), I have not seen any convincing claims, either. I’ve met many people who recovered through detox, antigen shots, nutrition, etc., but they always offer me the side note that something else was key–some call it prayer, some qi gong, some meditation, some work through old traumas with psychotherapy–but all are methods of regulating the autonomic nervous system, and I believe, rewiring the brain. I do see people claiming to be recovered by only biomedical means, who have to remain on strict diets and still relapse during times of stress or a large exposure. I also see people who claim to be recovered via avoidance. What this often means to them is that as long as they are avoiding molds & chems, they feel well. When you are improving after years of 24/7 debilitation, yes this definitely the avoidance route does feel like a miraculous cure. But in my eyes, if you have reactions when you are exposed to these things, then you still house the pathology within your system. We can do better than this. I will be considered recovered when I can live a normal life, as described by the testimonies above, without ever having to plan my life around “exposures” and without ever suffering any ill effects when I’m around substances that cause no acute symptoms in other healthy people. I can tell that my nervous system hasn’t completely accepted that that is possible, and that I have a number of barriers to work through yet. Because of the clear PTSD connection in my mind, I’ve sought out an EMDR practitioner in addition the the Gupta Programme and EFT work that I’m doing. EMDR is a widely-accepted therapy for PTSD and has been anecdotally effective in treating MCS. I just feel so grateful that there are so many routes leading to the end result of eliminating this pathology. And I am so grateful to live in an age where we can share our experiences and knowledge so freely. :)
Radfaraf – thank you for the insight on the immediate healers… one of the mysteries that I think we are all amazed and puzzled by. I have also read a Sarno book (The Mindbody Prescription, which focuses mainly on pain disorders) which helped me to further understand the inner workings of what I’ve experienced. Your interpretation makes complete sense to me and fits in so well with the other hypotheses, I believe.
T-Can, Jeny and all,
Thanks for the article on the relationship between PTSD and MCS, T_Can. Your articles on this site have always been so incredibly insightful and helpful. And thanks also to the comments from those who are also re-discovering their good health.
I have discovered the same holds true in my life, with a long history of PTSD which after many more trauma stresses added on over 30 years, kicked into aura migraine, then high pain reaction to degeneration of two discs in lower back, and then dust and mold reactions which were over-reactions (allergy tests showed no sign of being allergic to mold or dust), and then into MCS, slowly at first and moving on to a type of universal response to almost all stronger scents, mostly chemical but not always, from which would my limbic system would try to protect me.
And all of these overreactions were at times of more intense stress (often more instances of traumatic stress) in my life. Marital stress, family stress, 3 deaths in the family, and currently a highly stressful separation from my wife and two children. These are just some of the situations which fed the original PTSD and worked then into an MCS response.
I think the same may hold true for many with CFS, fibromyalgia, and other related illnesses. Though I am still in the middle of the journey to regain health (for me almost a case of regaining something that was lost 40 years ago) I now have so much more understanding and hope, and am seeing actual positive results through DNRS, Gupta, and now with FasterEFT. I don’t know how long it will take for me to regain that strength of spirit and healthy autonomic nervous system function that I had when I was quite young, but I know that I am well on my way. What a wonderful gift that in itself is. And I believe that over the next several months I am going to continue to see so much healing in my mind/body, and just continue on this positive path. Still lots of stress with the family and personal situation to get through, but reading all of these testimonies regarding each person’s healing, and seeing that in almost every case that healing has and is coming from discovery of how the limbic system has gotten cross-wired into maladapted stress response, often due to PTSD and moving through to MCS, well, all of this gives so much encouragement and hope to me at a time when I am in the rather elongated process of healing. And I know that this path of healing from PTSD and rewiring the limbic system gets results as I am starting to see many positive proofs of it in my own experience.
I have read Peter Levine’s books on PTSD and these too have served to help me understand what has taken place in my life and the difficulties encountered due to traumatic stress. It all ties in very reasonably and accurately and the old saying truly applies: “Knowledge is power.”
No matter what stage of illness a person might be in, this knowledge has the power to see us through the journey of healing, no matter where we might find ourselves at this point in time on that journey.
Awesome article, and great responses from others. Another big reason to smile today and to keep on the path of healing! :)
Thanks everyone, and thanks again,T-Can, for the article. All of this information and casework really needs to find it’s way into the medical practices of all health professionals who have anything at all to do with MCS patients, anxiety and stress disorder patients, PTSD patients, and the host of other brain-related illnesses. I wish sometimes that this knowledge had been around 40 years ago, but I’m also very happy and thankful that our time is now!
Wow, what great comments! I was thinking of something. I think for some people who have suffered really severe initiating chemical exposures, those exposures alone would be enough to create the emotional trauma that can keep our brains stuck in a trauma loop.
One of the things that helped me, along with tapping to release the trauma of my mother’s illness, was to tap on the trauma of the initiating exposure and surrounding details. It was a long, complicated process for me. I had to tap on the fear of dying, the fear of my pets dying, the anger and frustration of dealing with uncooperative and disbelieving people causing the problem, etc. Not to mention the intense sense of isolation. Being stuck in trauma mode after my mom died just accentuated all that. But I wouldn’t want to detract from the actual trauma that people go through with real life-threatening chemical exposures.
I am really happy to know that my writing encourages some people. I keep writing about my healing because this is something I really needed to hear almost two years ago, but couldn’t find. Hope. Not just false hope either, but real hope.
rad–your comments above are extremely insightful. I should read that book you’ve referenced, it sounds interesting. About what you said here,
“Also for some people simply knowing the symptoms are caused by this unconscious will release the cat out of the bag and completely stop the illness as has happened for a small amount of people with immediate cures thanks to DNRS.”
This is so true. I’ve wondered how some people can switch the trauma response off so quickly, and I think this is it. I wonder if these are the people who don’t have a lot of extra trauma to work through that is entangled with the trauma of the actual chemical injury. I can’t wait until real research is done on this.
What is even more interesting is most of what I said was just applying what dr sarno says in his books that he says applies to chronic pain, IBS, fibromylagia, and others to our conditions instead. He explains how he has about a 20% cure rate just by listening to his information or reading his books because that is enough to stop the brain from causing the symptoms in some cases. He claims the most difficult part is accepting that your emotions are the cause and that without acceptance of that you can’t get better. Most of the structural diagnosis’s for back pain he explains are wrong as they will just search for anything wrong in the back even if it can;t possibly cause the pain the person is having and blame that. Then if you compare people with no back pain most of them have structural issues too. That is why chronic pain treatments never seem to not work because the diagnosis is wrong. Apply that to MCS that is why avoidance rarely results in healing because once the initial exposure has ended the correct diagnosis is not chemical overload. He says allergies are in the same class as chronic pain meaning the same emotionally based treatment applies. All the the conditions he lists he says they are all caused by the brain causing actual physical changes in the body and because everyones body does this all the time he does not call them mental illnesses as this is just a normal function of the body. The people who get these illness generally are people who repress negative emotions so that they get body symptoms instead of being a emotional wreck in a difficult situation. Lots of people have mentioned getting new symptoms during brain retraining. He says when working on the emotions related to the symptoms if things change to different or more symptoms it means that the brain is simply trying to hold on to the strategy of distracting you with symptoms and is trying something else to do it with. Frequently people who medicate pain away or get surgery to fix something that really isn’t the cause end up with problems as the mind just changes strategies and adds new problems to distract you with. That has been my experience with taking things to stop IBS and acid reflux. You get control over one symptom only to get a new problem because you are not ‘listening’ to the other symptoms. It was interesting that I had made a comment to my FasterEFT practitioner one time that when I get a particular feeling in my stomach I am so consumed by it that I can’t think of anything else. The feeling isn’t even that bad though it does keep me from feeling whatever emotions are going on to cause it.
My experience with MCS dovetails absolutely with the idea of it as a form of PTSD, and due to a hyperalert, overactivated limbic system imprinting on foreign chemicals.
I was severely abused as a small child, and first developed MCS symptoms when I was recovering those dissociated memories and at the same time taking classes in one of those hermetically sealed energy-saving buildings, in which the third floor was being remodeled. So it was a perfect storm/combination of intense limbic system activation and a greater-than-usual exposure to all that stuff that offgasses from building materials and carpet glues, etc. Every time since then that I’ve developed a hypersensitivity to a new category of chemicals, there’s been some associated stress going on in my life.
I also note that Martin Pall says there’s an association between fibromyalgia, CFS, MCS, PTSD, and traumatic head injury–and he’s not talking about the limbic system, he’s talking about the biochemical mechanisms that his hypothesis puts forth, which I think probably are involved in the mechanics of how the symptoms manifest. But he’s seen that those conditions overlap and seem to be related.
And I’ve long noticed that in groups of abuse survivors there are a lot of folks with the conditions on that list. Children who are abused (who grow up into adult abuse survivors) are known to have perturbations in their limbic system and changes in their brains.
I’m not gullible; I have a strong science education and a personal interest and study in neuroscience. I’m very skeptical of many claims about health conditions (including, frankly, a lot of what Big Pharma is putting out there). But I have enough evidence to think the limbic reactivity basis for these challenging conditions is a plausible hypothesis. And when I think something’s plausible, there’s usually something to it, as is eventually borne out by other evidence.
I do think it’s important to be careful about saying these conditions are “caused” by our emotions and are somehow emotional–I think it’s important to make the distinction that they are caused by a limbic system response, which is both “emotional” and “physical.”
The split between “mind” and “body” is not something real, it’s just a Western philosophical concept and paradigm that we’ve been taught.
All the hormones, neurotransmitters, immune system signaling chemicals, and other biochemicals that cause physical conditions, also cause emotions and affect our thinking–and vice versa. There’s really no separation between “body” and “mind.” It’s a bodymind.
That’s part of what makes this all so tricky–people are used to trying to split these phenomena into categories that are actually bogus, but are so conventional people aren’t used to thinking without them.
And so many people who suffer from these conditions have been told it’s all in their minds, it’s their imagination, and they should just snap out of it.
So it’s a tightrope we need to walk carefully, methinks, to explain and develop this hypothesis while making it clear that we are not invalidating the powerlessness and suffering and pain and very real physical symptoms that these conditions induce.
Rhiannon, terrific comment and thank you for writing so well what I wish I had written. Bodymind. Absolutely.
By the way, Rhiannon, I think your comment could stand alone as an article on this website. Have you considered contributing something?
Rhiannon I agree you are just taking more principles learned and applying it even further.
Thank God I found this. Maybe I can survive (and thrive?) after all. I can’t thank you enough for posting this detailed and infinitely helpful story of your journey. Will follow your path and let it show me my way too.
Rhiannon, I can’t thank you enough either. *Awesome* post as well. I am almost in tears… can it be there is truly hope? Yes!
Red, I’ll be 51 in a month, so my timeframe is the same as yours… I guess it’s never too late! Blessings!
Will someone please comment on EHS (Electrohypersensitivity) and if they have had it or are experiencing it now. I am reactive to WiFi, flourescent lighting, loud noise, and Electromagnetic frequencies in general. I have done the Gupta program for MCS and did very well with it…now this! Annie Hopper addresses the EHS issues with her DNR program, and I have notes from the DVDs she has out, but can not seem to apply it in the same way to the EHS. When I am driving along and see rows of cell phone towers, I get the pressure in my head and chest…same thing if I am in a coffee shop or any store where there are WiFi routers in the ceiling or wherever they are placed. I don’t have to see them….my body reacts automatically, and I don’t even know they are there! Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Ruth/Wisconsin
You don’t have to see what you are reacting to. Clearly you know when you are reacting and you can do either what Gupta or the DNRS program recommend for MCS reactions, but instead apply it to those reactions by either doing it while you are having one or by thinking about having one and then doing it. I personally have greatly reduced my EMF reactions with FasterEFT and so far have gotten no results for my MCS. What worked was addressing the bad things that happened in my life during the time the reactions started and lowering the emotions around them. I view it sorta as a PTSD thing that my body thinks it is protecting me because it sensed these fields in the environment when I was in a very difficult and scary part of my life.
I highly encourage you to keep doing either Gupta or DNRS with your current symptoms. It will work as long as you keep with it. It just requires small changes in how you do it either program will work. I just mentioned the FasterEFT to relate how it possible for these things to decrease and go away. What you have already been doing has been working in a slightly different situation so just modify it a bit and stick with it.
You might enjoy reading the recently published book, The Last Best Cure. The author, Donna Jackson Nakazawa, shares her journey in researching for a cure. She was a young mom when she was felled by GBS and had a second episode. She explores the effects of stress, even in our childhood, as a component of illness.
For me it was the opposite cause & effect. MCS led to my having heightened anxiety and a kind of mild/moderate PTSD. When my MCS came upon me, nothing unusual or particularly trying was happening in my life. I was feeling normal happy to above average happy/optimistic. I have a fairly “difficult” personality type in that I am highly skeptical, driven, somewhat self-righteous (I feel like I worked my a** off to get where I was/am), yet extremely empathic. I am also extremely candid and not “filtered”. I definitely feel like I was living an authentic & fulfilled life-busy , yet not frenetic or out of control. And then-BAM!-MCS & pancreatitis attacks after the pesticide/rodenticide application at my office. Three years on, I’m still dealing with extreme MCS. *I should note that I have had 3 distinct periods in my life where I’ve had MCS relapses. ANd two complete “remissions”. The first two relapses lasted ~2.5 months (occurred after my condo was painted back when I was ~23; and the second lasted ~8 months (occurred inthe wake of 9/11 when I was 26, respectively. The 3rd/current time when I was 35 (this last relapse has lasted 3 yrs and counting-occurred after a pesticide/rodenticide application at work, i should probably say “series of applications” because I stuck it out-DUMBLY-at my office for 2 years after my first rxn). I think that last time really altered/damaged my brain-not just the limbic system-but other areas as well. I also KNOW that it damaged my pancreas. It’s that organ’s involvement, in particular, that makes me very leery of brain retrianing programs. I am not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, only to warn people that if you have MCS and are lucky enough for it to go away, it can & likely will come back if you are not very careful about your chemical exposures. I do not have all the answers-not by a long shot, but I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t share the relapse & remission lessons with you.
Thanks for all the input. I know that DNRS works but it doesn’t work unless I actually DO the techniques prescribed, and that is what I am missing…I don’t do them daily. I do use EFT a lot though, and I rely heavily on prayer. There is far too much in life that I can not control…none of us can…that is where the prayer comes in, and I am grateful for it. Everyone is different and will find things that work for them, some working well, others do essentially nothing to help.
I think I must practice using EFT for the resistance I have to doing the DNRS regularly.
Ruth–you’re quite right, these techniques work best if you use them every day. This is why I found it worked well to have a good variety of tools to make it less boring. Tapping is terrific because it deactivates the amygdala, distracts you from symptoms or symptom thoughts, and if you combine that with constant affirmations “I’m safe, its ok to let go of this overreaction” etc, it will retrain your brain, will change the negative associations that keep the brain in overreaction mode.
Great, thanks for sharing this article post.Thanks Again. Really Great. Sundin
Dear Sweigh, I am so happy for you that you recovered. Do you have any idea if there are NSEW practicioners in The Netherlands? Thank you for your reply!