The Mindful Migraine

I had heard A LOT about the book “The Body Keeps the Score” (2014) by Bessel van der Kolk, long before I picked it up. Perhaps it was all the hype around its potential life-changing ability that made my expectations VERY high… but I’m going to be potentially controversial and say I was really disappointed, and more than a little concerned, by this very long book. 

I don’t like to think that what I write might be upsetting for people, but this is one instance where I do think it could be tough reading my review if you have lived a life filled with trauma, so feel free to come back another day, and know that I’m trying to be protective not dismissive in my suggestion that you look away… I’m sending a mountain of love your way now and always.

*

*

*

*

*

Disclaimer – I am not a therapist or medical doctor – please do NOT use the information on this blog for mental health guidance, but DO reach out and speak to a trained professional who is aware of your individual situation.

The book starts by stating clearly that you don’t have to go to war or be directly involved in a natural disaster to face trauma (which reiterates what I discovered in a previous post about “little-T trauma“).  Dr Kolk writes that all families have ‘dark secrets’ which “leave traces” on both our biology and our capacity for joy, and he goes so far as to suggest that depression is “contagious” within families. 

He worries that because there is still so much stigma around expressing when we feel weak or vulnerable, (we almost feel a “terror” of it) most of us will not accept that anything has ever happened to us, but that this denial has “consequences”.

Trauma activates the “alarm system” in our brain, and if not turned off, then the brain gets recalibrated to be hyper-vigilant to more risks. In the introduction he lists several methods to help including, talk therapy, meditation, yoga and neurofeedback (the links take you to prior blog posts on each subject).

Aside from the implication that being unwell probably means we were traumatized as youths without even knowing it, the introduction didn’t feel too triggering. But then, things took a turn which was dark and depressing, and… I’m going to say it: deeply off-putting.

He speaks of “Tom” a Vietnam Veteran who suffers flashbacks, for which I am deeply, whole-heartedly sorry. But Dr Kolk doesn’t seem to share my empathy and writes about how he was “trying to conceal my irritation” when Tom doesn’t take the medication he’s been prescribed. Then it gets even more uncomfortable.  Tom is suffering psychologically after his tour of duty, left feeling numb, unable to love his family or have a good time.  Dr Kolk says he ‘gets it’ when Tom talks about wanting to avenge his fallen friends with “brutal violations” as retaliation, and he completely understands why Tom did some REALLY bad things to people he crossed paths with in Vietnam (things which are described in the book, but I won’t be sharing here).

As I’m reading, I’m trying to ‘get it’ too… revenge for mates that were killed… makes sense… feeling bad about the revenge you acted out… I get that too. But Tom was introduced at the start of the chapter as a ‘chasing lots of Vietnamese girls in bars’ kind of dude… so the justifications Dr Kolk gives for what Tom did slip uncomfortably towards a ‘boys will be boys’ tone that I felt was cringey at first but actually became deeply disturbing the more I read.  Tom’s “brutal violations” were not just excused, but almost normalized with the flick of a pen and a casual reference to vengeance being as old as Homer…

When I re-read the introduction, the statistics about abuse on the opening pages suddenly seemed mechanistic not empathetic… life will be life… sh!t happens…

With this bad mood in my mind, everything that followed seemed to dehumanize patients, turning them into statistical numbers, guinea pigs… or worse…

Chapter two refers to the case of a “gorgeous 19 year old” with an eating disorder whose (mis)treatment by the medical profession is hard to read: “I was surprised and alarmed by the satisfaction I sometimes felt after I’d wrestled a patient to the floor so a nurse could give an injection”… surprised and alarmed, I stopped reading… then at the last minute, flipped to the last chapter wondering if the author had undergone some sort of redemptive character arc. 

Ahhh… no.

It was clear that Dr Kolk is a super-fan of repressed memories, supported yoga and somatic research for healing, but that he ended where he had begun, discussing the appalling statistics relating to violence enacted against vulnerable people.  It felt wrong for the victims of the violations, but also to the combat vets that he was pushing to the front of the abusers-line, painting them all with the same tainted-description-brush.

Perhaps it is an issue with “perception bias” – look for a red car and you’ll find them everywhere, look for medical-misogynistic red flags in someone’s writing style and yep, there they are… in abundance.

Worried that I might be reading the wrong things the wrong way, I jumped online to see what other people were saying.

The book was overwhelmingly “liked”, but several people expressed the same concerns that I did. Some went further, pointing to the fact that Dr Kolk was sacked from his workplace for bullying and harassing women, and that he breeched protocol when he married one of his patients.  A news article from late last year (here) said he was banned from returning as a guest speaker at a wellness center after he branched into personal ideology and offhandedly targeted and vilified members of the audience who had “trusted him with their nervous systems.”

Whilst you could adopt the ‘traditional’ self-help-book-reader’s approach of “take the best – ignore the rest” when it comes to this book, it doesn’t ring true for me.  Or for others.  Turns out there are plenty of online haters that call Dr Kolk and his ‘groupies’ “moody”, “glowering” “charlatans” who “gaslight” their patients and cause problems with “repressed” memories that were implanted by therapists and were never actually there in the first place…

I went back to do a word search for “migraine” on my digital copy of the book and only found a couple of casual references: he believes migraine is usually a response to trauma, and that is why the “reactions are irrational and largely outside people’s control” (57)… and yoga helps (82).

Hmmm…

Maybe it’s just me and I was being irrational, but I did not find this book as helpful as the title, which sounded so believable, and hyped me up.

Curious if anyone thinks I’m way off base because they loved this book and it saved their life… I’m happy as always to be proved wrong.

In my opinion, encouraging people to intentionally dredge up the problems of their childhood (with a book as your guide), does not seem like a universally helpful or safe healing approach.

If you’re struggling with your mental health – I’m sorry you’re doing it tough – please, don’t ignore it – reach out and ask for help from a trained professional.

You deserve happiness and healing.

Please take care taking care of yourself, Linda xx