One woman was suffering from generalized pain and the inability to control her diet, which was causing her to gain weight more and more. When she went to the doctor, he pointed out that she had weak willpower and could not control her diet, which put a strain on her joints and caused pain all over her body. Then she said, “Doctors don’t know anything about me!” she got angry. Her pain then became worse and worse, causing her to have a hard time moving.
When she goes home, she sees her partner playing games all the time and gets mad, “Why don’t you listen to me properly! She becomes increasingly angry at her partner’s indifferent attitude and starts to cry because she has nowhere to take her anger.
At work, her co-workers point out her mistakes in the way she does her job. She becomes frustrated and nauseated, thinking, “They are only doing that to me, while they don’t do that to anyone else.” Furthermore, customers at work become monsters and make complaints about her that they would never say to anyone else. She says, “Why should I be treated like this when I work so hard!” and gets so pissed off at the customer’s lack of understanding that she can’t stop being angry.
When such a woman would be told, “Your body’s autoimmune system, which protects your body, has gone haywire and is attacking normal cells as if they were the enemy. This autoimmune movement affects your mind and even the harmless people around you are considered as “enemies” and you attack them,” she would say, “You don’t know how I feel, and you’re talking nonsense! I’m pissed off at you for not understanding my feelings!”
What is important in this narrative is for her to understand the mechanism by which she thinks she is blaming the other person, but in fact she is blaming herself.
In dealing with the doctor, she has been blaming and attacking herself behind her anger at the doctor, thinking, “I’m sloppy and can’t control my eating, so they make fun of me.” In her relationship with her partner, she blames and attacks herself as well, “I’m not attractive, he doesn’t want me.”
Even at work, she would damage herself by attacking herself so badly that she thought she was angry at her coworkers, saying, “Everyone makes fun of me and looks down on me because I have cognitive impairment due to inflammation.
Even in her interactions with customers, she attacked herself insanely, saying, “They make fun of me because of my ugly appearance.
Yes, we attacked not the other person but our normal self as an “enemy.” Then, the body also attacks the normal cells, causing inflammation and various symptoms (of course, this is a narrative).
You say, “Oh! I’m blaming myself and attacking myself!” Narrative is mysterious because just by realizing that “I’m attacking myself,” the autoimmunity stops running wild and the symptoms disappear.