The Sneezy Theory

When I was a kid, I experienced the normal illnesses that children are bound to have:  the occasional bouts with the cold, cough, and flu.  In college I had pneumonia once, but that was as bad as it got.   It was a blessing to get through childhood unscathed by catastrophic illness.

However, my childhood was plagued by phantom ailments. When I was in the fifth grade, my parents thought I had a brain tumor.  I had a headache that never seemed to go away, was frequently dizzy, occasionally saw double, and was just generally fatigued.  I went to several doctors for tests but the results showed nothing wrong.  In junior high, my parents thought I had an ulcer.  I had severe stomachaches, and there were times when I was so sick to my stomach that I couldn't go to school.  Once I thought I even saw blood when I threw up.  Again, tests showed no indication of an illness.  There was also a time when my parents thought I was anemic.  I was listless and unenthusiastic about anything.  But my iron level was normal, and my pediatrician saw no physical explanation for my feelings of malaise.  My elementary and high school days passed similarly, random symptoms hinting at potentially frightening medical issues.  In every other respect I had a normal childhood -- lovely family and home, excellent grades, lots of friends, wholesome, if not geeky, activities. 

Later, when I was in graduate school at Cal State Northridge, these warts on my hands kept recurring even with prescription medication.  (I know, too much information.  Sorry, but I am making a point).  At the time I didn't have a physician.  This was before the advent of the internet, where I now "shop" for healthcare providers before calling to set up an appointment.  I found a doctor in the yellow pages, choosing her out of the dozens of other listings primarily because her clinic was close to where I lived, even though I knew nothing about her qualifications or experience. 

Based on the decor in this doctor's office and the clothes she was wearing, I guessed she was a new age-y sort.  She asked about my medical history, ignoring the medical history checklist I had just fillled out, wherein I indicated that I had never had a heart attack, cancer, diabetes, etc...  She asked if I got sick often, how many colds I had in a year, how I was sleeping, and other similar questions.  I explained that I was sort of a sickly person, and that it was probably because I tended to overload my schedule with a ton of commitments -- at that time I was writing my thesis, working full time at a publishing company, participating in a group project producing an anthology that would be on the reading list at the L.A. County Unified School District, discussing marriage with my long-term boyfriend, and looking for a new apartment.  I thought perhaps I needed to take vitamins. 

The doctor listened patiently, smiled kindly, and took both my hands in hers.  She looked closely at the persistent warts on my left hand, and told me to tell them to go away.  I started to think she was crazy.  She said that if I decided in my head that these warts should go away, they would go away.  They only needed me to tell them to go away.  I really thought I had picked a nut for a medical provider and was glad I was there for warts and not a cancerous tumor.   

"Do you know the story about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?" she asked me.

Of course I did. 

"All of those characters express themselves and their emotions.  Happy is an obvious one.  Dopey is lighthearted and simple; Sleepy is bored; Doc is bossy and a know-it-all; Grumpy is always mad; Bashful is shy.  But you ever notice that Sneezy isn't an emotional trait?  Sneezy doesn't express any emotion.  He just sneezes at the most inconvenient times." 

I studying literature and was used to analyzing James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald; I was unprepared for the pop quiz in the Brothers Grimm.  But I started to see the doctor's point.

"Sneezy repressed everything.  What else could the negative emotions do except turn on Sneezy's little dwarf body?"  she explained.  "That's what happens when you keep everything bottled up inside.  It's bad to hold things in.  I want you to tell these warts to go away, and then call me after a month and let me know if they listen."

There was something about this doctor -- maybe it was her gentle way of speaking, maybe it was the way she held my hand, maybe it was the kind expression on her face as she watched me explain why I thought I might need to take vitamins -- I don't know what it was, but I wanted to believe her.  I didn't want to just write her off as a nut.   

Shortly after that appointment, my boyfriend and I, instead of getting engaged, broke up after a six-year relationship. Let me qualify the rest of the breakup story by saying that we're friends now -- we exchange Christmas cards and occasional emails containing pictures of our respective children, and when my father died he sent a lovely plant and very touching note about his memories of my father.  But it was a nasty breakup, the reasons for which are irrelevant now.  The night of the break up involved the cutting of shirt sleeves and the ripping of important documents.  You get the picture. 

I imagine that something inside of me broke, like a dam, and every emotion that can be expected to be evoked by the kind of breakup that involved malicious destruction of property came pouring out of me.  I didn't know I had it in me.  I never realized how good it felt to get so mad that I needed to punch a wall, or to cry so hard and long that my eyes swelled shut.  Those emotions lasted a good two weeks, and then slowly they started to dissipate and began to be replaced with the emotions associated with sadness and loss.  And then those feelings began to be replaced by tiny buds of happiness.  Eventually, the beginning of happiness evolved into joy, the kind of joy that accompanies a new sense of freedom and of excitement about the possibilties around the corner.  Whatever mechanism I had employed to keep my feelings tightly wound up and contained internally was permanently damaged, and I had no desire to replace it.  It just felt good to show what I was feeling.

It was more than two months later when I went back to the doctor.  The warts had gone away and, though I didn't know it at the time, would never return.  My health dramatically improved (and to this day I rarely get sick or feel unwell).  My parents even joked that they could have saved a ton of money on medical bills if only I had learned to lose my temper when I was younger.   It appeared that the doctor's Sneezy Theory was correct, and all those years my bottled up emotions were manifesting themselves in physical ailments.  The "brain tumor" was really the effect of an overzealous teacher who had no children of her own and took an inappropriate amount of interest in me -- she even mentioned to my parents that she wanted me to live with her.  The "ulcer" was really the effect of moving to a new school in the middle of the year when cliques and best friends had long been established and there was no room for a newcomer.  And the "warts" were the manifestation of the grief over a relationship that I knew was taking its last breaths. 

I don't think anyone who knows me would say that my displays of emotion are disproportionate to the triggering event.  When I gave birth to my children, I was overwhelmed with gratefulness that they were healthy.  When my father died, I felt like I was dying too.  When I found out someone I cared very much about had developed a drug problem, I was gripped with fear.  Some feelings are too minor to warrant any outward expression, but other feelings if unexpressed morph into monsters with a life of their own. 

I want to teach my children not to be afraid of their emotion and to be expressive.  Fortunately, Skyler and Jagger have no problem with expressing their feelings.  There are times (like right now, actually) when Skyler gets mad or fustrated and throws a tantrum ( believe it or not, my darling little angel is capable of crying hysterically, stomping up the stairs, and slamming her bedroom door).  Sometimes I will just let her cry it out, but usually I encourage her to use words to tell me what is making her cry. "If I know what's wrong, maybe I can fixt it," I tell her, coaxing her to share her five-year old's woes.  Sometimes I can fix her problems, and other times I can't.  The tantrums are pretty irritating, but I want her to have them.  I figure, it's better than high medical bills.  Only the other six dwarfs are allowed in this house.