Breathing problems...

Avishai Margalit.

I read about Irritable Bowel Syndrome in a text, and wondered if Anna-Luise Kirkengen hasn't written about this in her books. However, I didn't find this...But a lot of other things in her books.

In the chapter "Unfolding the Impact of Sexual Violations" in her book "Inscribed Bodies" she writes about Judith. At page 126 for instance:

"For Judith it is sufficient to see what would feel like something flowing over 'my mouth if I were this person' [if she sees someone in he shower for instance, with water running over her/his face; eyes, nose, mouth]. The sight evokes the sensation of semen running over her mouth. Still. She is rendered breathless instantly by anxiety and by the sensory perception of being strangled and feeling fear of suffocating because of something in her mouth, the literal and concrete plugging of it.

Simultaneously, her wording mirrors how she adapted to this concrete threat implicit in the actual abuse situations: 'Not like somebody breathing quickly... I stop, very silently....' which might imply 'leaving.' Undoubtedly, this description reflects a situation of complete powerlessness, in which the very survival of the individual is close to being at risk.

When the mouth, the passageway for the breath, is not only alienated by means of an act of abuse but literally obstructed in the course of that act, the result is the terror of being suffocated or strangled. The means by which her breath was stopped establishes a 'perceptive synonymy' wherein suffocation equals panic equals nausea [sick feelings]. In Judith's corporeality these states of being have the character of different modalities of the same associative field.

They merge as a consequence of bodily logic, since the mouth is the passageway for the breath and the passageway for food, representing the most central of means for physical nourishment and biological survival. Based on the intrinsic logic of Judith's idiosyncratic embodiment, a narrative about eating and food ought to be expected. It does come, and is comprised of various modalities in the relationship between food, taste, and consistency. Initially, Judith characterizes her way of eating as, 'binge eating.'

When using a medical term with an implicit judgment of a deviance from a suggested norm she is applying to herself an outer gaze informed by medicine's focus on pathology. Then, in the next sentence she talks again from inside herself, where eating means comfort and pleasure, forgetting and help against... what is not immediately easy to spot or easy to say but looks like this: 'That's perhaps to get rid ... not taste... but perhaps ... when I eat, I comfort myself ... (etc., see quotation above).'

The narrative is a reflection about what is good, and tastes good, and what tastes distinct and strong enough. Tasty is what tastes different from the taste in her mouth. Then the nausea disappears. Therefore she has to eat continually in order to keep away the taste in her mouth which equals nausea - yet another 'perceptive synonymy.'"

The consequences are long-lasting and can cause serious problems... This is so awful, and definitely nothing to diminish or belittle... She also writes about power abuse (early abused are abused again, both here and there; in private life, in society, in medicine, psychiatry etc. And some, many or all, abused are abusing those that are weaker than themselves in a lot of ways, to get the feeling of being "the upper", strong, not help/powerless!!? And never the two meet??) at page 13 in this book, where the Hebrew philosopher Avishai Margalit is mentioned...

The weak, insecure ones are shown contempt by the "strong" ones!!? The strong ones who manages things, have worked their things through...

The "weak, insecure" ones aren't worth understand, compassion, empathy, a listening ear, but contempt and disregard, disrespect... That about sitting on high horses...

See the posting on "Made sick by silence..."

See all postings under the label the hebrew philosopher Avishai Margalit.