QA181 QUESTION: I want to ask a question about my former husband, the father of my child. A month ago he contracted vertigo, and has been going to the hospital for several tests. Some doctors think it may be connected with the meningitis he had when he was fifteen. Right now he’s struggling seriously to complete his doctoral dissertation, and I’m very concerned about his condition. Can you throw any light on this?

ANSWER: Well, I cannot say anything about him personally, since he is not here. I can only make a general statement about such cases, and that may very easily be applicable to him. You see, the meningitis is not a root; it is not a cause; it is also but an effect.

Whether or not it is true that this dizziness at this time, this vertigo, has something to do with this meningitis is not the point. The point is that both are symptoms and they may easily be symptoms of the same inner crisis, the same inner struggle.

The only thing I have to recommend is that he seek someone whom he trusts and with whom he can really empty out all his conflicting thoughts and feelings, his fears, and the contradictions within him, the opposite directions into which he is torn within himself. For this must obviously be the case.

Only when he faces these deep contradictions – the mutually exclusive directions that he wants to go inwardly – will he be able to make a real decision toward one aim, one direction, and that will eliminate the symptom. This is my advice.

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