Free When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté Page B

the past fourteen years meeting someone else’s deadlines…. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, I found myself pushing thirty and facing a deadline of my own … the ultimate deadline.”
    The same compulsive sense of duty to others is evident in Laura, an ALS patient I met recently. A sixty-five-year-old former teacher of dance, Laura greets me at the door of her magazine-classic wood and glass West Coast home. Even leaning on her walker for support, she displays the grace and elegance of the ballet dancer. She was diagnosed with ALS four years ago, while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. “I went to a concert,” she relates, “and I couldn’t clap all of a sudden. My fingers were cramping and they just weren’t as dexterous as they usually are. It seemed to get worse as I went through the chemo. I had several bad falls; one time I broke my cheekbone and my eye socket.” Laura’s speech is halting, but the cadences of lively humour and a love for life can still be heard in the near-monotonous flow of her delivery.
    Laura’s medical troubles came on after a tense year during which she worked hard at the new bed-and-breakfast business she established in the home she shares with Brent, her second husband. “I had always wanted to open a B and B,” she says. “I found this place, but there was stress because we had to come up with more money than we could really afford. I felt guilty that Brent had to subsidize my financial venture. That first year was difficult, decorating the rooms. We built the carriage house. I ran the business, made the house, as well as decorating. It was practically a year to the day we moved in that I discovered the lump.” The ALS diagnosis followed a few months later.
    Laura exemplifies just how impossible people with ALS find it to let go of self-imposed responsibilities long after their bodies have signalled rebellion. When we conducted our interview, the housekeeper for the bed and breakfast was away in Europe. “It turned out that 70 per cent of our clientele are repeats,” says Laura. “You get to know them as friends, you know. I’ve been feeling guilty because we said we are not going to take any guests for the month while Heidi was gone. But last weekend we had three rooms occupied because I couldn’t say no. They are repeats and I enjoy seeing them. And next week we have one repeat coming who’s been here a dozen times, a corporate guest.”
    “How about saying,” I suggest, “‘Dear corporate guest: I have this condition that makes life very difficult for me. I am not up to the work involved in looking after people.’”
    “I could say that. But the gal is coming, and I really enjoy her. She knows my condition, and she says, ‘I’ll clean up my own room, and I’ll get a bowl of cereal in the morning.’ That’s what they all say, but I can’t let them do that. Because I’ve never served a bowl of cereal for breakfast.”
    “You still wouldn’t be serving one. They’d be serving it themselves.”
    Hearty laughter. “You make it sound so simple. I’d have to take a course, or maybe get some counselling with you.”
    Laura’s guilt around saying no to other people’s perceived needs was inculcated at an early age. Her mother developed breast cancer when Laura was twelve and died four years later. * From adolescence Laura was responsible for the care of her sister and brother, respectively five and ten years younger than she is. Even before then she was habituated to anticipating her parents’ wishes.
    “My mother was a dance teacher, so I danced as a very young child and all through my life. I went into the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, but I ended up being too tall, so I opened a dance school with a friend and taught children.”
    “It’s a very demanding life, ballet. Did you enjoy it as a child?”
    “Sometimes. Sometimes I resented it. I resented not being able to go with my friends to a show on a Saturday afternoon, or it always seemed I was