Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome - 16 Years of Relief, Routes into the Subconscious.

TL;DR

I had Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome starting at age 17 that lasted for about 4 years. I read Dr. John Sarno’s book The Mindbody Prescription, and had a functional cure within a few months time. Due to one lingering symptom which always kind of irked me, and the fact that I’m also an opioid addict, I decided to investigate the subconscious mind further. My research led me to a self-therapy method as well as concepts in Primal Therapy. I fused the two theories together to establish a road map for opening the subconscious mind and delving into old memories. Over the course of a few years, I was able to contact not only early childhood and infancy memories, but eventually the memory of my own birth. These experiences offered a great deal of insight into the Mind-Body Syndrome that I had developed all those years ago. I draw the connection between the symptoms I experienced and the repressed traumatic memories from early life in the following testimonial.

Testimonial

When I was 17 years old, I went from being a relatively normal teenager to a young adult stricken with chronic pain. The initial outbreak occurred after a surgery in the pelvic region. During the recovery period, while on prescription opioids for the pain, I seemed to need to go to the bathroom more frequently. When the prescription ran out, the symptoms became severe. I had pain throughout pelvic area as well as frequent and urgent urination. Initially I met with emergency room doctors that prescribed antibiotics to rule out an infection, but there were no changes. I met with a urologist and was prescribed some other treatments that also failed to treat the symptoms.

The pain was severe and occupied my waking hours with near-dominion. After a number of months, I became disillusioned with the medical establishment that seemed to have no cure for me. I was given a wastebasket diagnosis—Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome. I wasn’t even a legal adult yet, and I felt like my life was over.

Not only were the symptoms distressing, but they seemed to take on an unusual quality. The anxiety associated with the condition was near constant, and the obsession over the symptoms consumed my life. I began to read furiously about the disorder and was often devastated by what I found on the Internet. I wasn’t alone, that was for sure. There were other men and women that were in an equal amount of agony, and no one seemed to have an explanation or an effective treatment protocol. During that time I often turned to drugs just to make the time go by, or to have a way to evade the discomfort.

Soon the problem began to spread, however, and I found myself collecting new disorders. When I first checked into physical therapy some years later, my list of symptoms filled the entire check-in sheet. I had tinnitus, migraine headaches, sciatica, jaw pain, IBS, frequent and urgent urination, pelvic pain, as well as dissociation and depersonalization symptoms.

Establishing the Mind-Body Connection: Dr. David Wise

I never really gave up looking for an answer to the conditions and would often spend hours at a time researching possible treatment routes. The first relief I found was the work of Dr. David Wise. I read his book, A Headache in the Pelvis, and saw a bit of my story in the pages. The man had the same syndrome that I had, but had found substantial relief through a protocol of his own invention. During his own research, Wise had identified that there were nodules called “trigger points” in the muscle tissue of the pelvic floor, which when palpated would cause a reduction in his symptoms. He devised a regiment of physical therapy and progressive relaxation, which brought about the abatement of his symptoms(A Headache in the Pelvis..., XVIII). The Wise-Anderson approach was the first time I had seen the condition described as psychophysical(2).

I attended his retreat where I met many men that suffered from the same condition. I was the youngest in attendance. I learned how to do the progressive relaxation technique and practiced for about an hour a day. I attended physical therapy where they did trigger point release on the pelvic floor, and was able to see symptom improvement for a few days afterward. The trouble was that the symptoms always seemed to come back, and by the looks of things I would have to follow this protocol for the rest of my life.

I would like to note that during this time in my life, I still felt completely dominated by the symptoms I had. I was always looking out for things that I wasn’t supposed to do and limiting physical activity. I would control my diet to prevent the symptoms from flaring up. I wasn’t really living at all during this time. I was just surviving.

Getting My Life Back: Enter Dr. John Sarno

I stumbled upon the work of Dr. John Sarno about a year and a half into Wise’s protocol. I read The Mindbody Prescription cover to cover. I rather abruptly decided that Sarno’s theory made complete sense and decided to dive in head-first, canceling my physical therapy appointments and abandoning the progressive relaxation exercises. The first few weeks were rocky and terrifying, if I’m being completely honest, but I slowly began to see the reality of my situation.

Within a month or two I was back to normal activity levels, and almost all of my pain had vanished. All of the accessory disorders I had accumulated were gone, and the pain in the pelvic floor was about 90% better. Over the next year I applied Dr. Sarno’s principles and saw nothing but gains. Before long I was skateboarding again, visiting with friends, dating and attending university without much trouble.

But there was a single symptom that hung around, no matter what I did. I could get rid of any and all physical pain and discomfort, and made quick work of any equivalent disorders that crossed my path, but the urinary urgency never completely went away. Also, the holding volume of my bladder appeared to be cut in half from what I remembered before the initial outbreak of symptoms. Periodically, the volume would jump back to normal without explanation. These symptoms weren’t controlling my life in any way, but I admit they did bother me from time to time. I had the sense that my mind, or my body, was not letting me off the hook completely, and eventually I resolved to determine why.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Redirecting Self-Therapy

I should also mention, before we proceed, that I am a medically-diagnosed drug addict, opioids specifically. I didn’t really see the opioid addiction take off until after I had gotten relief from the chronic pain disorders, however. I enjoyed several years of pain-free existence before the mayhem started. Since drug addiction isn’t really the focus of this story, I’ll not delve too deep into the topic. I never tried to apply Sarno’s theory to my addictions, as I figured they dealt with exogenous compounds coming into the system, which was not the same as the Mind-Body Syndromes. Even if the driving force was the same, the action was different, and the treatment professionals that I met cautioned addicts away from experimental protocols. Oddly enough, I never pursued a prescription for any narcotics during my chronic pain journey, and I never took them to relieve pain. I took them recreationally, and eventually they turned into a daily habit.

I first encountered Elnora Van Winkle’s Redirecting Self-Therapy website years before I ever put her work into practice. The first time I ever tried to apply Redirecting was around a year after I started Sarno’s method. I was still researching the subconscious back then, and looking for clues as to how the structures therein may have formed or how one could open the door to them. I had no issues with Van Winkle’s theories, but couldn’t seem to put her ideas to work in my life. Years later, that would change.

A multi-year drug binge ended with me in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous, stuck in a protracted withdrawal syndrome from a drug called Suboxone, with a half-finished college degree in a subject that sounded great while I was high, but wasn’t working out while I was clean. Needless to say, I was a little frustrated with my life. One night, I remember collapsing to the carpet and growling with rage at how things were going, and afterward I felt a burst of relief. The catharsis reminded me of Ellie’s Redirecting therapy, and I quickly downloaded the content of her legacy website and began reviewing.

I should give a quick primer on how Redirecting works and the theory behind the practice before we continue. Ellie’s hypothesis was that the continual suppression, and eventually the repression of the fight-or-flight response in children causes damage to the neurons in the brain. A child is not able to fight or flee from their parents, and has to take the impact of any pain they experience without resolution. Those damaged bundles of neurons, Van Winkle theorized, are responsible for the vast majority of mental ailments people experience. In order to fix this problem, anger—the brain’s fight response—is reactivated and redirected back to the relevant parties, not in person, but in the person’s head. The brain periodically entered into what Ellie referred to as “excitatory detoxification crises,” where the opportunity to redirect was available(“The Toxic Mind…”, 147).

I get that some people may find the idea of getting angry at their parents to be offensive, but the theory made a lot of sense to me. The idea of stored trauma didn’t seem so ridiculous given my history, especially in light of the success I had with Dr. Sarno’s protocol. Something psychological was clearly going on here, and this obscure neuroscientist may had found the key.

I decided to put Redirecting Self-Therapy into action. One evening I went off into the woods alone with a baseball bat, found a stump and began striking, directing the anger as per Ellie’s instructions. As I walked home that night, I saw a giant crescent in my vision, similar to a migraine aura. I did not know at the time, but I had taken the first step into what Janov refers to as “The Second Line,” the part of the brain that holds the memories of childhood.

Into the Second Line: Childhood

The next three years of my life were tumultuous to say the least. I would apply the Redirecting work periodically and hammer away at the inside of my brain. Sometimes I would redirect at a parent, sometimes people I knew from the past like school bullies, and other times I just seemed to be smashing away indiscriminately. The benefit of Redirecting is that you don’t have to feel a ton of misery during the process—you skip right to the unmistakable, eliminative function of anger to detonate whatever lingers in those neurons. I was usually greeted afterward by a strange sense of calm, or a feeling of being high. I found myself feeling somewhat isolated from the world around me as I tumbled down the memory structures of my childhood. I was facing this foe alone.

I hesitate to offer too much in terms of what the experience was like, because from what I understand, regressive therapies are highly personal. But I did see recovered memories, shifts to my perception, changing life circumstances, and long plateaus where nothing seemed to be happening. During those long stretches I would become bored or agitated, and my addiction would get the better of me. I would often shift my focus and act impulsively.

The only information I had to go on during this time period was what Ellie had written before her death, and whatever I could glean from the archive of her Yahoo group. My experience differed from her descriptions, however, and I eventually realized I had to figure this thing out on my own. I began researching again for any topics tangential to Redirecting, where I found Arthur Janov’s body of work.

Arthur Janov, the inventor of Primal Therapy, is likely most famous for being the therapist of John Lennon in the 1970s. What I discovered while reading his books was that he had apparently mapped the subconscious mind, separating the sections of the brain by their developmental order. The “Third Line,” represented by the neocortex, was the person’s present life, the “Second Line,” the mammalian brain associated with childhood, and the “First Line,” the brainstem, which was associated with memories before the age of about 6 months(Primal Healing..., 59-74). Janov’s practice, which had been around since the late 1960s, regularly saw people remembering their birth and even their gestation(58,63,65).

Reading Janov’s blog and his books clarified for me exactly where I was in Ellie’s self-therapy. I was somewhere in the Second Line, observing memories that were associated with childhood. I spent around 3 years mucking about in there, periodically applying some pressure with Redirecting, then letting off the gas and dealing with the fallout. Somewhere in the second year, I contacted the Primal Center directly, spoke with a therapist named Frank and gave an intake interview, as I had seemingly hit a wall with the Redirecting. Due to the expense of the therapy and an addiction relapse, however, I never traveled to California to see them. One thing I did glean from the interview with Frank was an insight into one of my other addictions—tobacco.

Frank had told me during the Zoom call that if I was to receive therapy at the Center, I would need to give up tobacco for the duration. I asked why this was, and he replied, “because cigarettes are a First-Line-blocker.” Apparently the therapists there had observed that smoking tobacco prevents First Line memories from reaching the surface. I tucked that piece of information away for later.

The last half year of my journey through the Second Line was total chaos. I had one of my worst addiction relapses on record that winter, and was having a difficult time getting through even a few days of rehabilitation. I would flee, panicking, within hours of checking in sometimes, and I had no idea why. Looking back now, I realize that all those rehabs were non-smoking, which if you ask me is not only cruel but therapeutically inefficient. They removed the First-Line-blocker, and the First Line started to come up as the effect of the cigarettes waned during my stay. I didn’t realize this the time, but the doors to my brainstem were practically ready to come off their hinges, and that was the reason for the panic. All I could surmise at the time was that something had changed in the way my brain was functioning, and I could only watch as failure after failure stacked up.

I finally managed to clean myself up in a tent in my parent’s backyard in the middle of December with some black market Buprenorphine and several cartons of cigarettes. The detox that I was unable to tolerate without tobacco was suddenly doable when I was able to smoke, in spite of the cold. I had worn out my welcome at home with my antics, however, and needed to find somewhere to go. During that month, while I was looking for accommodations, I started to become aware of something massive coming up from the depths. I could perceive an incredible amount of energy coming from somewhere, and my perception began shifting once again.

Into the First Line: Infancy, Birth and Gestation

If the Second Line is a gun shot, the First is a nuclear blast. The difference in impact, qualitative change in perception, and power is by several orders of magnitude larger down there. I could scarcely believe what I was a witness to. I had seen hints during the prior 3 years that something was taking place behind the scenes, but now I could see how the whole show was being put on. I spent the first 14 months or so at a live-in faith-based recovery community called Union Gospel Mission. The experience was almost beyond words, but I will attempt to convey what happened during those tender first steps.

“The sense of possibility was remarkable, as though my mind had regressed backward to that of a child or infant. I was not sure of anything, and felt that I had to relearn basic natural laws. I felt as though the people around me were playing a game of some kind, and I yearned to understand my purpose among them. I saw myself as a part of a larger organism, like a body. The metaphor was brilliant. Every day was filled with stimulating activities that danced across my mind—a mind that had been expanded in scope and capacity to degrees I did not know were possible. Things that were previously difficult, like learning languages or understanding hard concepts became effortless and fun. There seemed to be an endless amount of mental work and sorting to be done. Memories came up in a variety of ways. I found friendships to be easy and more enjoyable than ever. My needs were tended to. Comfort and challenge came willingly forward when they were needed, and my endurance through pain was rewarded with great meaning.”​

Of course, all of this was happening in a place that no one else could see. To everyone at UGM, I was just a janitor, or the guy that fed the homeless guests in the afternoon. I remember the first six months were tenuous, as I had to relearn how to speak and balance the activity that was taking place in my brain. I would often pause before speaking to give my mind some time to produce the sentence. I sounded strange, especially in the beginning, as I suspect that the right brain was firing off like a rocket. I was overjoyed, and I couldn’t believe the darn therapy had actually worked.

The more I read about Primal Therapy, the more I observe some differences between my experience and those of the patients at the Center. Redirecting may have an accelerated timeline when compared to their therapy, and considerably less pain. I have not participated in a Primal Therapy session, however, so I cannot confirm this. But with Redirecting, if a memory is unpleasant, you immediately focus a strike on the relevant parties like a tiger taking a swipe at someone, rather than “staying with the feeling.” This reduces the need to revisit the same memories continually. If a memory is to surface, the brain would simply let the narrative through in the morning or when laying down to rest.

Around 8 months into my stay at UGM, I was laying in my bed when a memory started to form. I recognized immediately what was playing in front of my eyes. The memory was nonspecific and likely from the First Line. A feeling was presented, which I identified as being “unloved,” and then that feeling was connected to the feeling of an opioid drug. I saw and felt how the drug would “fill in,” the feeling, and like a flash, I understood why I had been using opioid drugs for so long. I didn’t realize at the time, but I had just been given a reprieve from opioid addiction that would last for about four years.

I should also note that during my stay at the mission, the lingering urinary symptoms improved dramatically. My body and mind were both incredibly pleased at where I was, even though I was single, broke, technically homeless, and working full-time for room and board at a mission.

The Birth Imprint

When I had been asked previously what my earliest memory was, I would often say “I remember a tree in the backyard,” or “I remember running through the blades of grass on the beach when I was two.” If someone asked me that today, I could tell them plainly, “I remember the night I was born.”

Fast forward a few years, and I had found myself alone once again, but this time in a city that I didn’t know, where I knew no one. My plans had fallen through, and I had not been smoking very much for the past few days. I had been seeing some frightening shifts to my perception, and found myself acting impulsively. Before I give the account, I want to note that a birth memory is not like remembering what you had for breakfast this morning. The force of the imprint came up at me that evening almost totally overtook my consciousness. The resulting 12 hours were unlike anything I had ever experienced.

“The feeling of panic was starting up again. I wanted to go grab a cigarette, but I held back. I started to feel very cold, and although this was winter in California, the weather wasn’t at all difficult and I had a jacket. The cold swept through my entire being, and I felt incredibly stupid. I mean, really, really stupid. I felt more stupid than I’ve ever felt in my life. Then I started to vanish. I felt panic as all of the aspects of my being disappeared, leaving behind only enough to verify that I was still alive. Feeling like a ghost, I walked into the chapel hall for the service before dinner.

As I sat down, the pain started. I felt like I was inside a jet engine that was spooling up. The pain seemed to be focused mostly on where my ribs met and my stomach. I felt as though a truck had been parked on my chest. The pain increased as the minutes wore on until the feeling of panic reached nearly unbearable heights. I was sure this was the type of pain that would kill a person, but I straightened my posture and bore the full force. There was a flash, and the lights in the room seemed to go out.

I have no idea how long I sat there, but eventually I saw everyone start to rise at the end of the service and file into the dining hall. I didn’t seem to know anything, so I guessed that I was supposed to follow the people to where they were walking. I felt light and unburdened. A woman handed me a tray with a smile, and sat down to eat. I ate a light dinner, and went into the shower room to prepare for bed. I greeted everyone that was dressing for the night with a “Hello,” something completely out of character for me, and parked myself in front of the attendant handing out sleepwear. A massive smile stretched across my face, and I asked for a pair of pajamas. All I saw behind the desk was a violent blur.

I took a shower, went up to bed and fell asleep. The night flew by in an instant and I awoke in the same state. I put my shoes on excitedly in the shower room, feeling lighter than I had ever felt in my entire life. As I was walking down the hallway to exit the mission, however, everything came crashing back on top of me. I found myself returned to my prior condition the moment I stepped into the courtyard.”​

The state-change I saw that night was beyond words. I had a sense that whoever I was had been covered by pain and distress my entire life, and for the first time all of that had been lifted off. The person underneath was light, moved effortlessly and could handle situations intuitively without fear or hesitation. To boot, the urinary urgency vanished that evening. In fact, any urgency or panic at all had been swept away. The fundamental distress of being a human had nearly evaporated for 12 hours.

The experience did leave me with lingering questions, some of which I have not been able to resolve to this day. For instance, why did I suddenly come hurtling back the next morning? I also had a general sense that the environment around me was either broken or hostile. I remember being baffled as to what order to put my folded clothes in, as though I was trying to eliminate them somehow but could not. I wallowed about in that town for another month before finally catching a bus back home.

Conclusion

Some readers may want an update as to my condition, or if any new insights have been gleaned. I would like to share the remainder of the journey some day, as the last few years have had great significance to me, but for the purposes of solving the mystery of Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome, the work has concluded. The urinary urgency was being caused by repressed feelings from being born. The painful disorders I had been stricken with for so many years had their roots in the brainstem, or what Janov referred to as the First Line. I had seen the memories myself, and was more surprised afterward that I managed to function at all considering what was down there.

The need to be born is built-in, as well as so many other needs that people have. In almost all cases, something goes awry, and the pain is repressed. The influence of the pain never really goes away, nor can the influence be resolved easily. During the process of redirecting I had to upend my life on more than a few occasions due to the changes that I experienced. While those suffering from chronic pain may wish to resort to extreme measures to obtain relief, each person has to ask themselves—will the sacrifices be worth the cost? Most people will never venture anywhere near the memories that causes the bulk of their symptoms, but for those enterprising individuals who wish to take the plunge into the subconscious, they’ll be glad to hear that the pioneers in the field have already laid the ground work for them.

So what do you say, Alice? Do you want to follow the white rabbit?

Works Cited

Janov, Arthur. Primal Healing: Access to the Incredible Power of Feelings to Improve Your Health. Franklin Lakes, NJ, New Page Books, 2007.

Van Winkle, Elnora. “The Toxic Mind: The Biology of Mental Illness and Violence.” Medical Hypotheses, vol. 54, no. 1, Jan. 2000, pp. 146-156, https://doi.org/10.1054/mehy.1998.0834 (Redirecting).

Wise, David and Rodney Anderson. A Headache in the Pelvis: The Wise-Anderson Protocol for Healing Pelvic Pain. New York, NY, Harmony Books, 2018.

Further Reading:

Dr. John Sarno’s Mind-Body Disorders:

Sarno, John E. The Divided Mind. New York, NY, Harper Collins, 2006.

Arthur Janov’s Primal Therapy:

“Primal Therapy | the PRIMAL CENTER.” 8 June 2023, http://www.primaltherapy.net/ (Primal Therapy | THE PRIMAL CENTER). Accessed 4 Apr. 2025.

Janov, Arthur. “Janov’s Reflections on the Human Condition: The Simple Truth Is Revolutionary.” Blogspot.com, 2018, http://cigognenews.blogspot.com/ (Janov's Reflections on the Human Condition: The Simple Truth is Revolutionary). Accessed 4 Apr. 2025.

Elnora Van Winkle’s Redirecting Self-Therapy:

Van Winkle, Elnora. The Biology of Emotions Redirecting Self-Therapy (RST) for Anxiety and Depression, http://www.redirectingselftherapy.com/pamphlet.pdf. Accessed 4 Apr. 2025.

Van Winkle, Elnora. “This Website Is a Backup of Ellie van Winkle.” 2015, http://www.redirectingselftherapy.com/ (This website is a backup of Ellie Van Winkle). Accessed 4 Apr. 2025.

 

Scott,
I read every word, too, and it was fascinating. (No, I would not like to go down the rabbit hole lol), but I’m impressed that you were able to research it and do it.
I just came out of 3 1/2 years of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. It was pretty intense and I did get to act out a lot of the anger. For some reason, acting out anger does practically nothing for me. (I think my anger mechanism is broken. Maybe I’ll be able to fix it at some point— if not here, then maybe nowhere?) The IFS therapy wore me down to the ground— every week I was demolished. I finally had to give it up because it was literally bringing about such severe panic and night terrors that I couldn’t sustain it. The keeper from that experience is I now have the ability to soothe and comfort these very young parts of me, and I can do it almost instantaneously. This definitely brings relief. I tried EMDR twice— the first time it was amazing and sounded something like what you experienced of the lightness and the freedom. The second time something went wrong, and I was stuck in the memory, practically suicidal from it and unable to get out of it. I was in pretty bad shape for a year after that. Needless to say, I’m not very keen to mess with my brain too much anymore. I really appreciate all your research in the bibliography you attached. I will bookmark this for sure. I’m very intrigued with any possible way that any of us can get relief. And I’m especially happy that you got some. You were brave to go the distance! Thanks for sharing!

 

The first time that I tried Redirecting I had a similar experience. I really had to be in the right place in life to dedicate myself fully to the practice. The release of anger can result in a depressive lull, which is the brain adjusting to what you just cleared out. The important thing, according to Ellie, was to send the anger to the right place, otherwise you will experience a catharsis but no significant relief. One sign that you've hit the target is a strange feeling of calm, or feeling of being "high," followed by a grieving period.

I don't have much first-hand experience with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, but if the experience was negative you were probably right not to return. Janov's theory is that those consuming feelings of hopelessness originate from First Line experiences, which is why they can be so difficult to get over. They're embedded in the lower brain, and getting to them means you have to travel through the mid-brain first.

 

Thanks for all your insight. Really helpful!