by Thilo Behla
From death wish to life wish
Just so it is said: The back pain is still there, and it may last a lifetime. For many years they have decided my life and the lives of people I love. I even let them tell me that life had no meaning and I almost ended it all. The pain has been like a parasite that feeds on the host organism until it dies. Towards the end of 2011, I started with Franz Ruppert's trauma work, and my life changed direction. The shift was not smooth and straight, but went through deep valleys and up steep slopes. But the change never stopped. The death wish turned into a wish to live. Despair turned into strength and isolation into contact. The demand for instant results turned into patience, and the sprints turned into baby steps. Over the course of half a decade, the contact with my self gradually improved. At first it was frightening, then characterized by uncertainty before becoming increasingly compassionate. Now my self has a direct connection to my life and it looks like it will continue that way.
Disc herniation and first attempt at healing
In 1998 I loaded heavy granite blocks into my car to build a beautiful natural stone wall in the garden. It led to such a severe herniated disc that I had surgery in the L5/S1 area. But if there's one thing I can do, it's pushing my body to perform. Within a short time I was back in the gang again. That is, everything was not as before, because I continued to pay attention to whether signals should come from the lower back, and they did. Then I intensified my back training, and when the signals from within became too strong, I had diagnostic imaging done to make sure that everything physically was in order.
I went on like this for almost ten years until I suddenly felt a tension pain in my back in May 2007. It was as if I was stuck in a vise. I clearly felt that the pain was below the old surgical scar, and did not connect it to the spine. There was no triggering physical factor. A magnetic resonance imaging scan showed that there was no new prolapse. But the stiffness remained. In the beginning, I was able to dissolve the tensions by changing from walking to a sitting position or by lying down. But it eventually stopped helping. The feeling of powerlessness grew stronger. The thought that I couldn't help myself affected my life enormously. I hadn't used to be sick before, and could, for example, do seven peak trips during a week's holiday.
This was the beginning of a long search for external causes. I was in rehabilitation centers in the Weserbergland and Allgäu, was admitted for thermocoagulation in Munich and Potsdam and was in a clinic for biokinematics in the Black Forest. In addition, there were syringes, sling tables, acupuncture and osteopathy. There were no clear radiological findings, but I was still recommended to have surgery, because it was thought that it would most likely help. There had to be something behind the pain. Finally, I was offered that a new method called AxiaLIF could be tried out on me. It involves connecting the bones in the sacrum and the fifth lumbar vertebra with a screw. In the same place where I was offered this operation, I also heard the words that would become the solution to my problem. There was a carer who said: "There is nothing wrong with your back. Rather, check if there is something wrong with you psychologically."
I paid for many of the medical solutions out of pocket. The man of order in me kept accurate accounts of all expenses: Up until 2011, the sum was more than 15,000 euros. And nothing had helped. Neither the state healthcare system nor alternative medicine could have done anything for me. Neither I myself, nor those I loved, had found any solution. There are magicians who can throw shards of glass into the air and receive a vase. For me it was the other way around. The vase, my life, slipped from my hands and shattered. The broken glass was a picture of the misery of the situation. It wasn't how I wanted my life to be.
I quickly fell into a depression, cut off contact with friends, refused to accept visitors and was sick. My condition became the yardstick I applied to my surroundings, and it torpedoed the joy of life of my wife, who was not allowed to be better off than me. To protect herself, and not to go down with me, she threatened divorce. I no longer know if I was trying to get more care, or if I was just flirting with the idea, but in any case I talked about getting active euthanasia from the Swiss association DIGNITAS.
The search for an internal problem
Part two of the search for the cause of my ailments took place within. A prescription for physiotherapy led me to seek out an address in Hanover where systemic family constellations were carried out. I found this form of therapy wonderful, because it gave me new insight into my family background and how I myself was stuck in it. The cramps in the lower back quickly disappeared, just like when a thin string snaps. It convinced me that the back pain had no physiological basis. For a couple of weeks I felt completely fine, but then I had several relapses. The worst I got in contact with my mother. The subsequent works following the Hellinger method stopped helping. Instead, they seemed manipulative and condescending because they placed the blame for my condition on me. When I rattled off a speech to the resonators for my parents, thanking them for being there and being fed, it felt pretentious and dishonest. I eventually realized that I couldn't find any solutions this way.
When I spoke with a neighbor in Lenggries in Upper Bavaria, we found that we both had experience with constellations. She had attended a group seminar with Franz Ruppert in Munich. She met my skepticism with descriptions of how the trauma constellations took place and which methodology was used. Here it was that the person the constellation was about was constantly involved in what was happening. She said that you formulate an intention that resonates in the constellation. All participants in the constellation are allowed to communicate freely, both verbally and with body language, and they are not prompted in any way by the therapist. A few weeks later, in November 2011, I attended a seminar. At the end of the third day I was selected to work on a statement of intention. My statement of intention was: "I want to get rid of my back pain".
But the result of the constellation was different than I had planned. I got a snapshot of my psychological state and I saw that it was directly related to my back pain. The dialogue with my personified intention was matter-of-fact and about everything other than getting rid of the pain. When I asked for help with it, the intention was met with rejection and even ridicule. Franz Ruppert recommended that I take in a resonator for the back pain. This resonator immediately dropped to the floor and clung to my legs. The result was that I dragged her across the room like an anklet. I was recommended to bring Thilo as a child. He retreated anxiously to the nook at the back of the room. Then my mother came, who was also suffering from back pain, and she rolled around on the floor and said she was drunk. In the end it was my father, who at once went over to his little son. The son cowered even more and was terrified.
Franz Ruppert concluded the constellation and proposed an explanation: I could not use my intention to solve the problem. The back pain clung to me and was a part of me. My mother was busy with herself. She could not or did not want to see what was going on, namely that my father was abusing little Thilo.
The conclusion was that the desire to get rid of the pain at the moment could not be fulfilled. First I had to admit that I had been sexually traumatized and that I was completely helpless when it happened. The violence I experienced led to a psychological split, and the back pain became a survival strategy. I still held on to these pains, even though the danger was objectively over. When I asked what the next step was, Franz Ruppert recommended an address near my home in northern Germany, namely Birgit Assel's in Betheln.
The first time I had an individual session with her, a faint streak of light entered the dark tunnel that represents my past. My fear of death was expressed with a convulsive attack of heart rhythm disorder (tachycardia). The second time I was confronted with an attitude of victimhood that I had become a master at assuming. It had in turn led to me creating a worldview characterized by rejection, contempt and hostility. For the third time, I signed up for the next further education course in Betheln.
I spent five years on Advanced training courses and refresher courses, in working groups and day seminars with my own intentions, in resonant roles that gave new self-knowledge, as well as in the role of therapist. During these years the back pain was either a main theme or it intruded into the center of my intentions via a detour. Little by little, I created a new biography for myself, from conception to the teenage years. It showed me the twists, the insights and the emotional impulses I had experienced until today. Through the work, I gained a comprehensive, sustainable foundation that I needed both in my professional life and in my social life. It was a result of the trust in the therapy method, the experience of the therapist, the sincerity of the resonators and the correspondence with my inner experiences. Because there was no evidence. My father died in an accident twenty years ago, and my mother constantly painted a picture of a happy and protected dream childhood. Still, I gradually figured out my background. The process was characterized by denials, embellishments and partial confessions that were withdrawn, but eventually it became clear that
- i was conceived when my mother was 27 because her parents thought she needed a family
- the conception was a formal and impersonal affair
- the beginning of the pregnancy was characterized by both my parents wanting it to fail
- the further pregnancy was affected by an unhealthy attachment my mother felt to a child she aborted when she was 18
- complications meant that I almost did not survive the birth
- my unconditional love was attached to conditions; I had to satisfy the unattainable demands of my father and the deep needs of my mother
- attempts to set my own limits were perceived as resistance and met with violence
- I often had to be alone half the night when I was little, and witnessed violent arguments between my parents when they came home
- I almost died several times on extreme ski trips with my father during the winter holidays
The mirror showed me an adjusted, anger-inhibited athlete with top grades but no zest for life. I was constantly in conflict with authorities and on a narcissistic search for recognition. I had an insecure relationship with women and was afraid of close relationships.
The breakthrough
Eventually, the constellation work had a breakthrough. I became aware that trauma triggers such as the smell of sweat or the feeling of something large and black coming towards me were linked to flight impulses that led to heart rhythm disturbances (tachycardia) and arterial fibrillation. These ailments almost completely disappeared. If I occasionally get extra heartbeats, I take a step back, stop and make sure there is no danger. The constellations placed the self, and the contact with the self from the intention statement, at the center of the identity-oriented psychotrauma therapy. There I found an increasingly honest and caring approach to myself.
But I still had back pain. Possible explanations such as that the critical birth caused great tension in my body, and that I had tightened the muscles in my back to withstand several years of adaptation pressure, made sense, but no complete answer. And the triggers were still there. In addition, I had severe sleep disturbances. I whimpered at night in a way that didn't suit the adult Thilo, and I often had shortness of breath as well as constant itching in the anus.
I was on sick leave for most of 2016. The intense back pain almost made me give up my job. I spent the time on extensive diagnostics. MRIs and X-rays showed the worn-out musculoskeletal system of a person in his early fifties with herniated disc surgery, but basically I was healthy. The sacroiliac joint was constantly blocked due to a persistent muscle tension that I could not release consciously, but this was the only finding. In October 2016, I joined the continuing education group again. I wanted to know what options I had, and formulated the intention "I want to live!" The picture was startling: I was facing me and friendly. The resonator for living was alive and limitless. Birgit Assel's conclusion was that I had never before been so close to myself.
On 5 February 2017, I formulated the following statement of intention: "I want to acknowledge what has happened to me." Again I meet a loving self that is turned towards me. I get brave and look closer, although I have no idea what I will find. I ask what to join. It constantly asks: “Yes, so what? What happened to you? You know that! Just say it!” What gets furious and runs back and forth. I say "I want to admit that I was raped." Hva stands still, closes his eyes and says: "Now you've put it into words. That's how it was." For a long, liberating moment I cried undisturbed. I didn't flinch for a moment. It supported me in a manly, grown-up way. All the symptoms matched, including the lower back pain near the butt. I breathe snapshots: gently, when I open a crack in the quilt to let fresh air in, and deeply, when I fold the quilt completely aside because it's all over.
After the last constellation, I needed a week to finish writing this contribution. My wife says that I sleep more peacefully, in a bed that invites peace and rest. My back still hurts, but I want to live.
Thilo Behla, born in 1965, works in Hanover and lives in Lenggries. He has followed Franz Ruppert's work since 2012 through continuing education and extension seminars with Birgit Assel in Betheln.
Excerpt from the book My Body, My Trauma, My Self
