A few days ago, I read a news article about literacy tests given to teachers in New York. Since many of the teachers were failing the exam, the decision was made to eliminate the exam. The decision makers decided that the exam was the problem, rather than the limited grasp of literacy shown by teacher candidates.
Removing the exam was a way of taking away the symptom of a bigger problem. In their mind, the problem was the test itself. Removing the test didn’t suddenly make their teacher more literate or smarter. What was removed was the messenger bringing the bad news.
It amounts to a type of window dressing that looks like it fixes the problem when in reality, the root problem of limited literacy remains unaddressed. Symptom fixing is one way people address the issues in front of them. I say address the issue, since it doesn’t solve the problem.
It took me a while to learn the importance of problem solving at the root level rather than ‘symptom fixing’. Symptoms alert you that something is needing your attention.
Those emotional and physical symptoms, you’ve had since the affair are telling you something. When they flare up, will you solve the problem or merely medicate the symptom away?
The symptoms that show up related to an affair are often mistaken for other problems. You may even want them to be due to something else other than an affair.
The only benefit of fixing the wrong problem is that it eases your conscience. It gives you something you can ‘fix’ rather than dealing with the real problem.
It makes you feel like you’ve done something, even though the triggering root problem remains untreated.
Your symptoms are not ‘just your imagination‘. Those headaches, muscle aches, stomach aches, joint pain, backaches, and heart palpitations are very real.
Your body is telling you something. It keeps the real score.
The extra weight you’ve put on is telling you that you are carrying a burden needing attention.
Even though your body is telling you things, the important question is whether or not you’re listening. It’s easy to medicate them away, yet when the real problem hasn’t been dealt with, it’ll only be a matter of time before they return.
Remember that medications can’t cure relationship problems. Even in the case of infections, immune systems have been known to weaken as part of your body’s reaction to an affair.
The affair may have made you sick in such cases, along with opening the door for other health problems.
There are also the psychological symptoms. There is the insomnia, low mood, low energy, obsessive thoughts, difficulty concentrating, and being easily distracted. Your mind is also telling you something, in the same manner that your body was.
Are you listening to what your mind is telling you?
In making sense of your symptoms, you have to consider the context and timing behind them. It could be that they actually started in response to the affair, yet you either ignored or put off dealing with them.
You may have told yourself that you’re strong and that listening to symptoms is a sign of weakness. You may have busied yourself to the point where you didn’t make time to consider your symptoms.
Make no mistake, the deep nature of betrayal with an affair changes your body. Those changes include glandular, muscular, cardiovascular and brain chemical reactions.
You may tell yourself “I can handle this”, yet your body is telling you something very different. Those symptoms may have been triggered by the affair and you never made the connection.
Your symptoms may be due to Affair Trauma. You may be masking the symptoms and avoiding the root problem. If the trigger was Affair, you’ll need to deal with the affair and your reactions to it.
At the membership site, Restored Lifestyle membership includes access to the videos on dealing with Affair Trauma. Within minutes of joining, you can be working on the root of your problems rather than just medicating the symptoms.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
