Spotlight on Chiropractic Care
My Experiences With EMDR, Chiropractic, Sex Therapy, Group Therapy & Meditation
To undo the ruin within that resulted from my childhood sexual abuse, I tried many different types of therapy including EMDR, a chiropractor to release trapped “fight or flight” responses, sex therapy, group therapy and meditation. This blog post is the second in a series detailing them and focused on chiropractic care. (Read about my experiences with EMDR.)
After several years of working with Rachel, my therapist, I was still unable to make any traction on my goal of meeting a man and finding love. Rachel and I thought I was stuck but what I was stuck around was not evident. We both felt I needed to try something drastic to get me out of my stasis and she mentioned a therapy under the umbrella of chiropractic care.
Network Spinal Analysis or Network Chiropractic is a method of chiropractic care that focuses on connecting with the nervous system. The nervous system turns mental and physical stress into tension, which is usually stored in the spine. Network Spinal Analysis involves light touches on the body, allowing your brain to make a connection with that spot, enabling it to better communicate with the body and overcome the tension.
I was intrigued, even though it is based on touch, something I struggled with. But I thought I should explore it as I was having headaches, mouth pain and knee pain when running. Everything felt too tight, too tense, as if I was holding myself together through sheer force of will.
After an initial phone call, I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Keith. All I knew about chiropractic care is that it is commonly used to treat back pain. I had never been to a chiropractor and was surprised by Dr. Keith’s set-up which included four black padded tables and two chairs, which we sat in. He gave me an overview of his practice and asked about me. I told him I wasn’t very open, but I was trying, and my therapist and I thought I was stuck.
After our conversation I laid face down on a table and he asked permission to touch my sacrum. He started at my neck, went down my back and to the middle of my ass, feet and over and back touching different points that I believe he said had trapped energy. After about 10 minutes, he said I was rigid, my posture one of protection and I was completely flexed and braced for danger. From the beginning to the end, he experienced a loosening in my neck and sacrum that he thought was significant.
Dr. Keith’s program is three parts. The first works on the structure of the spine and he all but assured me that whatever was currently stuck would be unstuck by the end of it. He also thought it would help with my therapy and based on the physical aspects of it, I thought it would help with my running. He observed that my right leg was shorter based on how I hold my body and that the lower back pain I felt was a result of twisting my sacrum because of where I store stress. I committed to part 1 and was cautiously optimistic.
Once you signed on, Dr. Keith had open office hours and you could do three sessions a week which lasted roughly 10 minutes each. At my first session I walked in to find multiple people on tables. Since I had my initial consultation with Dr. Keith, I had been sad and out of sorts. I was already nervous walking into the appointment and the sight of all these people threw me for a loop. When I didn’t immediately leave the waiting room and enter the main room, he came to get me and asked how I was. When I told him I hadn’t been very happy, he said it was normal and that as I opened up, things and feelings from the past would come up.
As with the initial consultation, I laid facedown, and he lightly tapped on different parts of my spine which didn’t feel like much. While that was true physically, mentally was extremely challenging. To say I wasn’t relaxed was an understatement. My eyes were open, and I was acutely aware of everything that was happening. At one point I felt like I could cry but didn’t know why. After he was finished, he said my right leg was no longer shorter than my left, so I was already starting to have more alignment and balance. I had to take his word for it since I felt the same.
Each session repeated a similar drill with the light tapping although I might be face down or face up, sitting or some combination. Over time, he added different exercises to the mix. One was about getting unstuck, which seemed tailor made to my issues.
For the exercise, Dr. Keith sat on the table next to me, asked me to think of the word “stuck” and find the place in my body – heart, ribs or stomach – that felt stuck. My immediate thought was that it was my stomach, as I would often feel a whirlpool in my stomach during EMDR. He instructed me to think about the word “stuck,” say it and feel the vibrations in my throat, which he demonstrated. I asked if I was saying it to myself or out loud and he responded out loud and pointed out that we were the only people in the room.
I can’t describe how difficult such a seemingly meaningless and inconsequential thing can be. To make myself say the word out loud in front of him was a monumental effort. He asked me to repeat it and elongate the word to draw it out. Again, he demonstrated for me. I don’t know how long I was silent, probably seconds but it felt much longer. I felt as if I could cry and when I finally said it, it wasn’t how he wanted. It was clear it wasn’t happening, and he said we’d try again another time.
I am all about forward momentum and pushing myself at every turn, but this was a real struggle. I explained how hard every session was for me and how far they took me outside of my comfort zone. He reassured me that even though much of what we did made me uncomfortable, he would always create a space of safety so even if was hard or I didn’t like it, it would be doable.
After several weeks we tried the stuck exercise again. Dr. Keith put his hands on his chest, started moving them around and told me to do the same and feel any place that might be stuck. He then positioned my hands on my heart and kept his on mine. He said he was going to give me some time to feel around and come back.
As soon as he released my hands, I knew they would stay where they were. But I went through the exercise and moved them from my chest to stomach. Each time I positioned my hands to the left of my trunk in any of these places I felt as if I could cry. When he returned, I told him I would start with my hands on my heart. He instructed me to say the word “stuck” out loud so that I could feel the vibrations in my throat, and I could whisper it or say it to him.
You wouldn’t think such a simple thing would be so hard. Dr. Keith went to work on other people while I stayed frozen in place. As soon as he left my hands immediately went to my throat. I wrestled with myself to do this simple action. It took me a long time, but I very quickly and quietly whispered the word “stuck” four times. When he returned and I told him, he was pleased.
That night when I went to bed, I decided to try it for myself and see what, if anything, it brought up. I positioned my hands at my heart, closed my eyes and said “stuck” softly four times. I moved my hands down to my breastbone and did it again. Each time I would move my hands further down my body and repeat “stuck” four times. As they neared closer to my stomach, I began to feel more trembly, more upset. Last I went to my throat, where my hands instinctively flew at his office. Here, I sobbed. It’s where it was all at, but I knew that. It was everything I couldn’t give voice to, all my secrets I wouldn’t tell.
And not telling was a big part of my problem. I revealed nothing, big or small. But I feared Dr. Keith wouldn’t be able to help me unless I was more open. I began trying to explain how I was feeling in his office or after I left his sessions. Outside of Rachel, he was the only person that I expressed my feelings to. And it was murder. My fear was that I would cry which I desperately didn’t want to do because it would make me too vulnerable. I agonized over these conversations and tried to give him a sense of just how closed I was, how difficult it was. He pointed out that these conversations were evidence of what I could do. Perhaps what I perceived to be unnatural wasn’t my real state but just the way in which I protected myself.
After completing 25 sessions Dr. Keith would send an email about my progress, including the changes my body was making. They were all but incomprehensible to me. As he explained it, his analysis of the progress I was making in my body was not so I would literally feel it, but so that I had a sense of changes taking place on a structural level. In his view, the most significant changes I was making were emotionally, and therapeutically he was most excited about them. He believed that all my reactions stemmed from fear and for so long everything had been locked in my body to avoid feeling anything. Now that I was feeling, it was scary. He likened the process to an eggshell cracking and knew it was frightening for me. But my ability to have these conversations with him and show emotion demonstrated how far I’d come.
There was no denying that I was making massive changes emotionally, and I continued my sessions with Dr. Keith for a year-and-a-half. While I never fully understood how or why it worked, it did, of that I have no doubt. It was work though, and especially challenging for me. Yet the best and most unexpected benefit was how much better able I was to express my feelings. As trying as those conversations with Dr. Keith were, it was great practice that I applied to other areas of my life and with my close friends.
To learn more, you can search for Network Spinal Analysis or Network Chiropractic. You can also visit chiropractorspinalanalysisnetwork.com (please note that this site is neither approved nor endorsed by any chiropractic association or organization).
