When the Body Says No: the cost of hidden stress

by Gabor Maté

6. I’m not wanted—I’m not lovable Gilda Radner had a lifelong perception of not being wanted. An indication of the depth of Gilda’s psychic despair came in some notes her husband, Gene Wilder, found after her death. In one, titled “Right-Hand Questions—Left-Hand Answers,” the questions were written out in Gilda’s right hand, the answers with the left. The technique and the title are especially significant: it is the right side of our brain, the holistic and emotional side, that controls the left hand. One right-hand question asks: “Is cancer your mother inside you?” The left-hand answer: “She doesn’t want me to exist [her italics].”