Tales of My Cubawan, VII: Biodynamic Osteopathy vs Trauma
Hi there! For those who don’t know, this is the continuing story of how I met and lost my adoptive son a few years ago.
Some of these stories involve discussion of drug use and addiction, depression and mental health issues caused by abuse, and death by overdose.
Consider thyselves warned and thanks for hearing his story 💞🐻
Coming in late? Here are the previous installments of the story:
Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V - Part VI
Welcome back or welcome if this is your first time reading! This is the story of me and my late adoptive son, if you’re late to the party. Today, I wanted to focus in on his strong reaction to my biodynamic osteopath, which came as a wee surprise to both of us.
So, I admit, I didn’t know jack shit about biodynamic osteopathy when I started in 2021, let alone when I brought Otso in 2022. In fact, I didn’t even know what it was called, officially. All I knew was that I had two osteopaths to pick from, who had extraordinarily different techniques. The first one, Sari, is a “normal” osteopath, so when I go to see her, I strip down to my skimpies and she throws a blanket on me, puts me in a bunch of positions, and moves me all around and over the place, until finally, my body’s in better alignment.
But eventually, someone—probably a workmate—was telling my partner about this osteopath he was seeing out in Klaukkala, Kari, and how he worked some sort of magic. “He puts three fingers on your temple/knee and then you stand up and your head feels loose on your body.”
Now, as we all know, I’m not very integrated into my own body, and she and I have a bit of a contentious relationship. As in, my body hates me, and I deserve that. But even then, occasionally I feel better when I get up, but the real benefit often comes into play about 3 days later.
I’ve also brought friends to see this guy, and the more aware they are of the natural state of things (not just in themselves, but in the world), or the more neurodivergent they are, the more effect this type of “biodynamic” (as I eventually learned it was called) osteopathy seems to have. For example, one of my spiritual/witch friends said that he told her that her body melted during her session, and she came out weeping. We were going to stop by the grocery store afterwards, but we had to give her a 5 minute break to cry it out before going inside.
I’ve definitely left a few sessions myself randomly crying, with no idea what he unlocked or how.
I have another friend who has at least one disability and several neurodivergencies, and Kari put three fingers on his knee and asked him if he felt like he didn’t belong in this world. Arrow → bullseye.
He’s told me, in more recent days, that he “deals in trauma,” not physiotherapy, so to speak. Whether it’s acute, chronic, generational… he seems to be able to feel all of those things our bodies hold onto and helps us release them. He’s also told me that what he does relates to embryology, and that these spots that he works on develop in the womb at the same time, and stay interconnected, which is how he can touch your head and fix your feet, or vice versa.
Either way, we mostly just refer to him as a voodoo wizard because none of us really understand what it is exactly that he does, but according to him, a standard osteopath like Sari puts your body back where it’s supposed to be manually, whereas he convinces your body to heal itself.
But… I didn’t learn this business about his relationship with our inner traumas until after I brought Otso to see him. You see, I was just thinking about that awful squashy pitbull-chewed bed he’d been (not) sleeping on, and the way his back seemed to be super tight and tense all the time. He used to grab himself by the belt loops and rather violently tug himself to the side, which would crack his lower back in about five different places. Or do these violent side-to-side movements… again, he was just one big knot of a person, internally and externally.
He seemed like he could use a little physical relief, so I offered to bring him to Kari. “Will this mess up my head?” he asked. “I don’t think so,” I replied. “At least not that I know of. I think he’ll just make your back feel better.”
HÄÄÄH what did I know…
Kari put three fingers on my cub’s knee and said, “Who beat you, your parents or the kids at school?”
… O_O
He got more than a little embarrassed by this and closed up a bit. “I used to BMX without a helmet a lot when I was young,” he replied, avoidantly.
Kari gave him the “oh honey” face.
“I know what different kinds of trauma look like, and that’s not what this is,” he said, taking no lies. “This might bring up some wild dreams, but it’s okay. You’ve already survived, so this is just your body processing it out now.”
Sure enough, after that session, he said that he had crazy dreams for about 6 weeks straight. Some of them were weird and disturbing, but the vast majority seemed to be about him beating the shit out of his family—something he could not do IRL, but it was like he was able to process out his rage in his dreams somehow, after what Kari did. All via gently touching him on the temples or ankles or wherever.
I often make a joke with one of the above-mentioned friends about Kari: what he does is so uninvasive that it comes back around to being extremely invasive, simply because it’s so uninvasive.
I’m sorry I was only able to take him twice, but both times seemed quite profound, though the second one is a notably shorter story. He was simply in a foul humor when I brought him the second time, and afterwards, he had a little light back in his dark eyes and he looked at me and told me he felt like he could see color and feel hope again.
Honestly, after our estrangement, I went to see Kari again and he put those three fingers on my forehead and went, “Yikes.”
“Yeah,” I told him, “Otso broke contact with me and I’m pretty upset.” He nodded sagely and probably told me something encouraging, but hell, even I could feel my brain vibrating at that point. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t even need the physical contact to feel it, considering he seems to be able to read my body better than I can.
I like him though. He’s a weird, naturalistic, hippy sort of fellow, and I’m not sure if his English is just really poor or if he enjoys being a bit mystical and cryptic, but either way, when I eventually let him know that Otso had passed away, but that I could still feel him around, he just smiled at me and said, “Tell him I said hello.” I promised I would. And I’m sure he said hello back, and would have thanked him for opening him up a bit, if he could have.
Thanks again for hearing his story. Stay balanced, my friends 💞🐻
READ MORE: I also wrote a fair bit of fiction inspired by my cub. The Bear Forge was written about our meeting, its sequel, The Broken Anvil, is about our estrangement, and the finale, Everstrong, is a poshumous letter written from him to his mamabear.
Note: the latter two are only available to paid Substack subscribers.
I See You was inspired by a F(r)iction prompt, “unseen.” Elegy for a Lost Soul was written after he doubled-down on the path of destruction for the final time.
