Practicing psychology in central Vermont, where lots of people have organic gardens and hike in the wilderness, I hear a wide variety of differing opinions about what constitutes “good health” in terms of nutrition, supplements, exercise, and remaining “safe.” In this time of COVID 19, I also hear about disputes in families, between partners, and among friends as to what this virus demands to preserve our safety and sanity. Should we stay in or go outdoors? Should we wear a cloth or disposable mask? Do we have to stand more than six feet apart even when wearing masks? Should parks and walkways re-open? What about Vitamin C? What about 5G? Should there be a national lock-down until a safe vaccination exists?
You can imagine that people everywhere, cooped up at home with family members (perhaps with parents, though the “children” are adults) or living in isolation in residential care without any companions, are rapidly approaching strong disagreements on the “how-to” issues of public health and personal welfare. I have been writing my Psychology Today Blog and teaching free classes on Zoom and making them available on YouTube because I want to help us retain some equanimity and open-mindedness in relating to our differences and being able to mine the richness of our varying points of view. Safety, wellness, and what we should do now, as the curve flattens, are topics that require us to recognize that One Size Does Not Fit All when it comes to individual health and personal wellness.
On my podcast “ENEMIES: From War to Wisdom” I have recently posted two episodes (#29 and #30) that have to do with the topic of “difficult conversations,” as they are dubbed. A central conundrum for human beings is that our perceptions – seeing, hearing and feeling (body sensations) – are highly individual or idiosyncratic. Some cognitive scientists estimate that the ways we see, hear, and feel things (ourselves and the “world”) are up to 85% individual or different from each other. In my own words, we are “stuck in Snow Globes” – we are each inside our subjective bubble of experiences that are hard to agree upon in any objective way. When we get into “objective” conversations about science and data, we can all find evidence to promote our own points of view because scientists and data analysts are also human and some of them will support our own views! When our Snow Globes are shaken (in times of fear and anxiety), we are more likely to defend those perspectives and find even more evidence to support them. No wonder we have a hard time agreeing! We are NOT in the same worlds. To make matters worse, not only do we have our “own” lenses on everything from our emotional to our physical experiences, but also we are 95% unconscious: most of our mental and perceptual activity is outside our awareness.
No wonder we want to turn to experts who tell us what to do for our health and safety. It’s confusing to feel confident that we know “the truth” of how to protect our physical and emotional health. My own life experiences set me up for a story of change and transition in the ways I have regarded medical authorities, beginning with a life-threatening crisis. In my young 20s, my life was saved through an emergency surgery; I had an ectopic pregnancy at 23 years old and I could have easily died from it. Although I was married and trying to get pregnant, I had never heard of “ectopic pregnancy” back then. I had had a lot of menstrual pain over the years and I saw my doctor, at the time, for what I thought was severe menstrual pain (my periods were irregular and I did not know I was pregnant, only that I had a lot of pain). When we discovered that I had a pregnancy in my fallopian tube, my situation was already critical. Emergency surgery to remove that tube was life-saving. At that moment, I got on the bandwagon of idealizing doctors for being experts on my health and physical welfare. I began to see doctors frequently, for all kinds of assessments and advice, in a way that I had not done in my childhood.
As my adult years rolled on, I discovered that I had endometriosis among other reproductive difficulties, even though I had had two normal pregnancies and childbirths that followed the ectopic pregnancy. After that initial life-saving surgery, I had three more major surgeries for conditions that may or may not have needed surgeries, but they were recommended by the doctors I was seeing for a variety of complaints (endocrine and reproductive, primarily). By this time, I also had a Ph.D. in psychology, was teaching in a college, and was reading about what was then called post-modern medicine: doctors were becoming specialists who could no longer reasonably oversee anyone’s individual health and concerns. The doctor was not in the driver’s seat for my choices any longer. I was meant to take responsibility for how to maintain wellness, exercise, diet, health and the like, in addition to knowing where/how I should seek help. I remember feeling shocked to recognize that “my doctors” were no longer going to be mine. By this time, in my mid-40s, I had had quite a few major medical interventions and had handed myself over to experts because I didn’t really understand much about my own physical vulnerabilities.
And so, I changed the channel. I began to do research on the health conditions I suffered from. I also started reading about them and taking supplements, as well as using acupuncture, chiropractic services, and naturopathy. I learned a LOT about my own body, my immune system and my responses to standard medicines and hospital procedures. Over the years, I had become allergic to a couple of antibiotics and had been dangerously reactive to anesthesia. I found I did not tolerate a number of standard medicines at all. Although I was grateful that my life had been saved through surgery in my youth, I also became very skeptical about the marketing of medicines by my doctors who seemed to be promoting drugs like Hormone Replacement Therapy, psychiatric medications, and many other pharmaceuticals that were also advertised on TV and the internet. It seemed as though “medicine” was increasingly about marketing, not service.
As I have journeyed through my own hall of mirrors on these issues, and as my children have grown into adulthood (both of them being very careful about their health and relatively skeptical of most products of Big Pharma), and as I have grandchildren growing up now, I have changed my mind on how to stay well, fit and confident about my health. I make my own decisions and do my own research. I do not outsource my health to experts who tell me what to do although I turn to experts when I need to.
In these recent years, I needed a full hip replacement. I had not had major surgery for almost 30 years. I prepared carefully for a surgery that was elective, but also seemed necessary for me to continue my yoga and exercise routines. I chose my hospital and my doctor carefully. I read everything I could about the procedure and I tried to work closely with both the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. I knew from previous surgeries that I have a lot of reactivity to anesthesia and other painkillers. Although the surgery “went well,” my blood pressure dropped to a dangerous level and did not rebound for four days. I had to stay in the hospital, feeling like I was drowning at the bottom of a swimming pool. Even though I have recovered from the surgery and now function very well with my artificial hip, I am apprehensive about ever having major surgery again. As my partner remarked, “You’re OK with the pain, but not with the pain killers.” I no longer match well with the “standard” approaches to anesthesia and pain killers. I am afraid of hospitals because the “size” of medicine that matches my needs seems to be smaller than one can get.
And so, it has been my life lesson in regard to health, medicine, and immunity: ONE Size does not fit all. I believe that is true for me, as well as others, and I think it’s a central problem we must face as we talk about “requirements” for “immunity” from the COVID 19 virus. I do not want to outsource my decision-making to authorities who are not responsible for my health. Thoughtful adults in a free society, adults who can investigate health and wellness for themselves, should not be forced by any medical or health expert into any particular box for health and wellness. Though I live in a small town in Vermont, I would not assume that my neighbors’ homes should look like mine, even if their appearances affect my property values, nor would I assume that I should best know how to educate their children or make other decisions for their personal welfare. We have to agree on certain things – how we support public education, transportation, maintaining public grounds – but we also have individual rights to make decisions about our bodies and families. Personally, I strongly support using taxes and other public monies to guarantee health care for all. I would like to see us develop a health care system like Canada’s and I think this pandemic illustrates why that is an important change we need to make. I recognize that others disagree with me and I hope we can have useful conversations about those decisions. On the other hand, my own health, medicine, and immunity decisions are my responsibility. They are deeply and inherently personal. I would not want any medical or government authority to force a particular immunity program on me. There is not One Size for our personal health and wellness now or in the future.