Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

There has been a bit more controversy lately over a disease that does not fit neatly into the measurements of the physical plane (i.e, 1st level, see my Levels of Healing on the right). Chronic fatigue syndrome is perhaps best understood as “profound exhaustion” that interferes with living. Strangely, sometimes it can interfere with sleeping as well, yet often people with this disease sleep their life away.

Of course, any deep chronic disease can cause fatigue. Cancer for example, could cause fatigue, as could any auto-immune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. Chronic fatigue syndrome, on the other hand, does not have the markers of other physical ailments. For the most part, it is simply fatigue. Often there is a history of mononucleosis in these people; thus the association of chronic fatigue with the Epstein Barr virus of mono.

In June the CDC did a randomized telephone survey using a “less restrictive methodology” (see the New York Times article NYT July 17th article on Chronic Fatigue) and found that about 1 in 40 adults ages 18 to 59 met the diagnostic criteria — an estimate 6 to 10 times higher than previously reported rates.

Here’s the rub, though, quoting from the same New York Times article,

Many patients and researchers fear that the expanded prevalence rate could complicate the search for consistent findings across patient cohorts. These critics say the new figures are greatly inflated and include many people who are likely to be suffering not from chronic fatigue syndrome but from psychiatric illnesses.

Within this paragraph we can find two glaring assumptions:

1) That the physical fatigue these people feel is distinct from what they feel on the mental level, i.e. that it is possible to make sharp distinctions between physical disease and mental disease.

2) That medicine can best serve people who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome by trying to hunt down an objective marker on the physical plane.

I see no evidence for #1, and consider #2 to serve the medical system itself rather than the patients it serves.

A medical illustrator with chronic fatigue syndrome quoted in the Times article says this:

There are many, many conditions that are psychological in nature that share symptoms with this illness but do not share much of the underlying biology.

This man is determined to believe that he has a physical illness, and that what is going on in his psyche is a separate matter altogether. We do not have to believe him.

My latest chronic fatigue case in my practice took me five hours to take. As always, it was a hunt for the deep confluence point where the physical symptoms intersect the underlying consciousness of the patient, knocking through that door to the 4th level prescription.

Here are my general observations about what is termed “chronic fatigue syndrome”:

1) First and foremost, I find it is almost invariably what the ancients would call “a disease of Mars.” (Note that “venereal disease,” comes from the ancients as well, specifically meaning a “disease of Venus.”) Mars for the ancients ruled over aggression, anger, and battle. Mars, coming from the Greek Aries, was a warrior. Without restraints, Mars is a belligerent tyrant that wants what he wants and walks over anybody to get it. On the other hand, if this part of ourselves does not function, we cannot assert ourselves well, and other people tend to walk over us.

The classic situation for problems is if the Mars instinct in us is strong but repressed. Anger is present—often it is outright rage—but not usually expressed. In some real sense, this aggression, this desire to engage life, which requires, at least to some degree, conflict and battle, turns inward in self-destruction. "Chronic fatigue" becomes a code phrase for deeper conflicts of the will.

2) Closely allied with this are the patient’s level 2 words to describe the feelings surrounding the physical symptoms. There often will initially be two separate lines of feelings words: those coming from the physical and those the patient uses in conjunction with his psyche. Examples of the latter might be “indifference,” “numb” “hopeless,” “helpless” and such. This simply means that a practitioner needs to press in deeper in the casetaking to find where the two begin come together. Not always is the case, though. Sometimes patients will immediately tell you “I cannot separate out my feelings of fatigue from my feelings of depression.”

3) As always, at the 4th level the 1st level diagnosis “chronic fatigue” sorts itself out into one of hundreds of different core conflicts at the level of consciousness.

4) It might be thought that having the patient work on expression of underlying repressed rage would help the fatigue. It might, but this would in effect be seeking a 2nd-3rd level solution of the problem, and will likely only partially help if it helps at all. What we have to understand is that 4th level issues are "in our cells." Healing the 4th level requires an energetic approach that addresses the 4th level.

5) It is interesting to note that Mars is also associated with the sex drive. Usually in chronic fatigue syndrome there are sexual issues, generally the loss of the sex drive--just another expression of a loss of the Mars life force.