Oh trust me I'm skeptical. My thoughts were that maybe people are more susceptible to believing in this stuff in a place life uganda enough so a placebo can affect more people. That sentence has started to sound really odd too me though. I had this neighbour who has all sorts of problems relating to his time in the military and good old agent orange. He does everything his doctors tell him but the reality is his good days are limited. I remember him telling me about this thing he tried out that had something to do with "energy". Immediately I thought it was silly and felt bad for him but I obviously let him finish. So as he was saying it did actually make him feel better for a few days he mentions that people explain it to him as some placebo effect ( took him a bit here to think of the word) and his response was just "cool".

So here I am thinking like oh that's silly with my good health and such while this guy's just trying to get by. He doesn't give a shit why something worked, all he wants is a few good days because the doctors can't help him anymore. I've been exposed to a lot of this stuff since it kind of just comes with being in Massage Therapy and at the start I always felt like it was silly so I would make a point to stay away from it. But after you meet all these people who have nothing else to give them relief but this weird treatment I don't believe in that starts to crumble. Hey maybe it is the placebo affect but who am I to say that's not good enough ? I've had a tricky time figuring out how to put this because in some cases it's really clear people are being played. Like when somebody could receive help and recover but gets sold on some bullshit instead. Then there's the people though who either don't have any answers for their problems, or solutions. Who are just stuck living with some BS. Yet I stick my nose up at the silly people who believe in this crap because I don't like how something helps. To me this treatment my neighbour recieved was BS and lasted a mere few days but to him a few good days are as good as it gets. I don't suppose many people in a place like Uganda can just go to a psychologist once a week.

The first MT I worked with when I was the receptionist was very into all sorts of different medicines. I thought it was silly then but when you see people with chronic pain leave an appointment with tears because they finally feel relief it starts to make you think. It's something I think about a lot but haven't actually been able really articulate. At the very least it's made me grateful for the health I have.