My Enemy, My Friend – Lauren Vaknine

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My Enemy, My Friend is an account of a life lived with juvenile arthritis, from the very young age of two.  Lauren Vaknine explains how this disease influenced her (mind, body, and spirit) and her family, right into her adult years.

When I started this autobiography I was moved to tears a few pages in. I must’ve sensed the pain and discouragement the author experienced because of chronic illness, and I fell into the story quite naturally. Despite being a true story, it flowed like a novel and kept my interest.

Lauren is an advocate for The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, homeopathy, natural medicine, and she mentions throughout the novel the different alternative therapies she used to heal. She explains how these therapies did not solve all of her problems, but how they helped set her ahead of others with juvenile arthritis who did not use healing modalities other than conventional, and how these therapies helped prevent her disease from worsening.

One of the most interesting of the therapies she mentioned is one offered in Israel and North America, IPEC Therapy, which aims to eliminate sensitivities (or overreaction) to everyday substances by the patient, like food.  I guess you could call these allergies or autoimmunity.

With this therapy, from what I understood, an underlying (or subconscious/unconscious) emotion, thought, or experience - the likely cause - is worked on to dissolve the weakness or block causing dysfunction and sensitivities in the body.  It also aims to balance Chi (energy) to various organs, tissues, and cells, and changes programming or function if it’s not healthy.

Regardless of the support offered to the body by various therapies, conventional and otherwise, an underlying destructive force, such as an emotional or psychological block, causes regression and disease if it’s not dealt with.  It makes sense, then, why healing is often a lifetime event for many, regardless of the external corrections. Working on these patterns is how many complementary, alternative, or natural therapies work, including homeopathy, but the novel piqued my interest to learn more about IPEC Therapy in particular, which I’d never heard of.

The novel is called My Enemy, My Friend because Lauren hated her disease growing up (naturally) but learned, later in life, to take on a positive attitude about the lessons arthritis could offer her.  It encouraged her to learn more about herself and reach for her dreams in a way she may not have done without the strong incentive of disease.

I have to mention now how I personally related to the author, especially her childhood. We both:  had eye surgery (and both received made cards from our classmates – I still have mine), had a German Sheppard puppy we had to give away (mine I found in an alley during snowfall, brought him home, but could not keep him forever. I too found a farm home for him), wanted to be a vet (but couldn’t dissect), swam in the ocean and natural sulphur springs, loved swimming, were terrible at math, and were rebellious teenagers! It was all very coincidental and strange.

I would recommend this novel regardless if you have an interest in natural medicine or juvenile arthritis, because it was interesting and heartfelt all the way through.

Below is a short video from YouTube of Lauren talking about homeopathy.