A Profound Loss of Faith

Chronic lyme disease affects us in a myriad of ways, not the least of which is our life philosophy. Some of us become more cynical; some more peaceful as we get better in touch with what is important; some find strength we didn't know we had and feel like we are better people for it; some get more spiritual, and some less.

These changes are likely to be ones that will be with us, to some degree, for the rest of our lives. Lyme is leaving indelible stamps on each one of us.

What we almost all end up confronting at some point are our ideas about healing. There are all sorts of spectrums we could lay out around healing: from "the body will heal itself" to "the body is a machine like a car and needs a mechanic"; from "only natural options" to "bring on the pharmaceuticals"; from "I'll do it myself" to "I want a professional to tell me what to do"; from despair inducing pessimism to sparking optimism.

The spectrums play out for each of us in very tangible decisions. Natural healing fans struggle with whether or not to take antibiotics. Unquestioned faith in pharmaceuticals bumps up against the reality of years of antibiotics not gettin' it done. Faith, hope and deep-seated beliefs are tested relentlessly with this disease.

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The series of survey questions that I was personally most interested in are the ones we start looking at today. I asked people to characterize their philosophy on medicine before they became ill and after, their levels of optimism for making a full recovery, and what they believe about herxing.

Most of you know I'm not a doctor, nor a sociologist. My background is very deep, however, in consciousness work and group dynamics, and those both end up looking an awful lot at people's beliefs. So this human mind stuff is completely up my alley, and I'm very interested in hearing people's responses to these next few blogs in particular.

On to the questions!

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Among the many layers of crisis that lyme has the potential to create at a cultural level, none may be more far reaching than the profound loss of faith it is causing in conventional medicine. Here's what our survey yielded on these questions.

That's 47.4 percentages point of difference in the "before" and "now" rating for the style of medicine that is the foundation of the US healthcare system. I've been thinking of this being a little analogous to those polls on the president's approval ratings. How would you interpret it if the prez dropped 50 points in approval ratings?

This looks to me like a profound loss of faith in our mainstream medical system. And we can't vote it out of office.


Where Do They Go?

I wondered where the people who once had a lot of confidence in the conventional medical system went, and so I ran these numbers separately:

Only 14.5% of those who originally reported a lot of faith in conventional medicine have stuck with it, and 24% now feel lost and confused. (That is probably the worst possible outcome. It's hard to get well with confusion as your emotional foundation.)

The big gains (in both charts, representing everyone surveyed and only those who reported faith in the conventional medical approach prior to getting sick) are in people's movement toward embracing integrative medicine.

Integrative medicine is the both/and position. It values allopathic medicine for the things it is good at, but also embraces what are referred to as "alternatives" (which means pretty much everything else.)

My sense is that if the medical profession really started taking chronic lyme seriously, it would force us to re-evaluate some foundational assumptions we make about how healing works. And I think THAT is one reason why it is being embraced so slowly.

Medical schools just aren't teaching the thinking and skills of integrative medicine, venturing outside of the allopathic box is firmly outside the comfort zone of many medical practitioners and it is such a foundational thing that I think a lot of people simply can't do it.

If you are wondering what I mean, let's take an example--with apologies to my readers outside the US-- that is easy for us to access in an election year: staunch republicans and democrats. Ever notice how hard it is to have a calm and reasonable conversation across those lines? That's because there are deep-seated, long-standing, foundational beliefs that cause everything to look a certain way: everything gets filtered through the lenses the person has in place, and there is very little real consideration of the content of what others are saying.

It's like if you bring up the economy, an automatic tape starts running, crowding out any real potential to actually examine the issues. We are on our "it's X's fault" or "I'm not a socialist" or "corporations are evil" soap boxes and we don't even hear what the other person is saying. Same for health care, or the environment. Don't even think about bringing up abortion... we all know where that goes.

Brains shut off, emotions ramp up and never the twain shall meet. That's how beliefs you are invested in work. It is part habit, part laziness and part entrenched thought patterns... with very little encouragement for not sliding right into the familiar grooves.

Medical philosophy is very much like that, especially for the people who have years of training, and sometimes even deeper ego needs, that are driving how they approach the topic. Imagine having been a doctor for 30 years and suddenly having your basic approach questioned. Your livelihood is tied up with it, and often your ego, too.

There has been very little motivation for getting out of those ruts. And now chronic illnesses (of all sorts) are bumping up against the limits and blind spots of allopathic medicine, and while some people (both medical professionals and laypeople) are getting out of those long-held beliefs about healing to get a wider perspective, most are still responding with the intelligence of a political ad in an election year.

I've come to see the IDSA (Infectious Disease Society of America) as the big dogs protecting the gates of allopathic medicine with regard to lyme. Admitting the existence of chronic lyme and the need for treatment beyond short runs of antibiotics opens some very large doors that end up questioning the current state of profession they are all deeply invested in.

It's hugely threatening. And they are responding as if threatened. (Go figure.) If it wasn't the IDSA, it would be someone else. They are just playing a role.

As we push for the system to start embracing our illness as real, complex and increasingly common, keep in mind the level of change we are asking for. Paradigms don't shift easily, the releasing of indoctrination can be very painful for a lot of people, and this one could be huge.

"Lyme Literacy" is really just the tip of the iceberg, and if you get curious about where that tip leads, it is a whole different way of doing healing. We are not talking minor shifts here.

I have a lot of compassion and respect for those traditionally trained doctors who are making this shift. I have even more compassion for those who haven't yet figured out they are going to have to, and are going to get pushed into it. It's not going to be fun for them. And still, we need to keep pushing because our lives (and the lives of a lot of others) literally depend on the system changing.

And hey, where I see it landing us after that transition is over is a pretty great place: more choices, more respect for a wider range of trainings, medical practitioners who just understand more about health and healing, and less competition between healing philosophies. And that adds up to more healing and less stress for the patients.

That, to me, is the inevitable future of medicine. Listen to me: inevitable. I'm such an optimist. But that really is where I think things are headed.

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I've gotten out of this habit, but for this blog, it seems more important to give you my own answers. I started out in the natural healing camp and have ended up seeing integrative medicine (even *gasp* pharmaceuticals like pain killers) as being necessary for a large chunk of people to get well.