A recent experience at the ophthalmologist spurred me to examine the idea of the label and our society’s seeming obsession with labels. Since the time I was little, nothing makes me more squeamish than eyeballs. Every trip to the eye dr. would begin with my nervous laughter and ensuing vasovagal reaction, instructions to put my head between my legs, and the phrase “don’t faint”. The mere recollection of these routine office visits inspires nausea as I type. My latest incident involved an enraged, flaming red eyeball. Although unsightly, I was cheerfully informed that it was “nothing”…just a subconjunctival hemorrhage (if you decide to google this, don’t say you haven’t been warned!). In layman’s terms, a bruise. Before I could enjoy a sigh of relief, however, the dr. was compelled to mention my “drusen”. “Umm, what’s that?”, as visions of gnomes and druids danced in my head. “Oh it’s just a sign of macular degeneration and cataracts!” As she unveiled a high tech image of what appeared to be the topography of the moon, she indicated “See…that’s the surface of your eye and those spots are drusen !” “So what should I do then?” I asked feebly, my voice several octaves higher, as waves of nausea mounted. “Oh nothing…” she trailed off. I wondered then, why had she told me? Did I really need to know that other than to feel worse as I stumbled out of her office (into the blinding sunlight with dilated pupils), than when I had entered?
How do these labels and terminology help, and why do we worship our own inventions?….Images and scans that rarely
correlate to our symptoms? If the medical system were a church or religion, its sacred cows would be diagnostic labels, imaging scans, surgery, injections, and pills. This begs the question: Why do we have a devotional trust in a system that has never demonstrated recovery from “crps” or even defined health in the same was as we would? In other words…coping vs. curing, not dying vs. vitality and well being. These labels for seemingly chronic scenarios that are actually mind body experiences, only serve to instill the nocebo effect in the patient. They may be useful for the purpose of billing insurance companies, but they are nominations that have nothing to do with who you are, your “prognosis”, or your life. They are as useful as a brand label on a soup can, like the pop art created by Andy Warhol, to denote the surface and the banal. While some interpreted his static images as subversive art, his message was intended to reflect an emotional and social void….a commentary on modern civilization that could just as easily be applied to our healthcare system.
Nothingness under the guise of art …a mind body experience under the guise of a medical diagnostic label. A system in which human beings have been reduced to one dimensional constellations of symptoms…disconnected from the psychosocial-environmental factors of the human condition. My parting advice would be to knock that meaningless label off the table! No matter the label bestowed upon you by a practitioner, the methodology to reverse mindbody symptoms is exactly the same. Reclaim your power from the tyranny of the label, or as Dr. Seuss put it best, “Today you are you. That is truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you.”
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