I tried a course in Lightning Process in London in the spring of 2019. There was a lot of pressure from those around me that “people are getting well with this LP! You just HAVE to try!”. Doctors, family members, the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration – many wanted me to try this. I wanted to do this in English, go to the source, so that nothing was lost in translation.

Before you could sign up, you had to buy the book. And the instructor would call you and check whether you had actually read the entire book before you were allowed to join the course. The book was expensive with postage from the UK and Norwegian VAT and customs. And it contained mostly stories bragging about people who had become soooo much better from both this and that, but no real information on what LP actually is. A grumpy British lady told me on the phone that I wasn’t motivated enough, so she would give me second chance and call me back later. It was a very unpleasant conversation. But in the end I was allowed to join.

The course was held in a noisy, busy business district in London. To travel from the hotel to the place was more than enough! Sensory overload de luxe! Something everyone with ME knows will wear you out much faster.

Before we entered a conference room with hard wooden chairs, we had to sign a paper stating that we’d never tell anyone what the method was about. This made me so scared of being sued that I still don’t dare to write it here. But others have described what the method is about. I think this is strang Besides, it puzzled me that there were only teenagers and people in their early 20s there – no adults. Why not?

When we were going to learn the method itself, the instructor started by saying “ – You know when you wake up in the morning and feel completely “ugh” and think that “Oh no, this will be another bad day..” I interrupted her by putting up my hand up and asked “ – But what if you don’t think like that?” (In my mind it’s completely incomprehensible that anyone would think like that, because you learn fast that things fluctuate during a day) “- Yes, what WOULD you think, then?” the instructor asked me. I see! Here I had been “chosen” to join an expensive course instructing me to come up with some unfavourable thoughts I didn’t have in the first place, so that their method could have something to be used on. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There and then I realised that this is pure and sheer scam; the book you had to buy first, the strict tone on the phone in order to be allowed to join “ARE you motivated enough to improve?”, this nonsense that took place in this conference room – everything was just cynical play by cunning people to make money off other people in a desperate situation for which the health service had nothing to offer! First I got furious, thinking “well, that was 15 000,- in the bin”, but decided to go along, because I wanted that diploma to show the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration and everyone else that I HAD tried the Lightning Process.

On day 2 we got some homework before the last day of the course. We were to do an activity in the evening and tell about it the following day. I said I could use a pair of nice sandals, so was recommended a shopping center a tube ride away. I went there, mumbling the mantra we had learned on repeat while struggling to stay upright and visit the shops. I bought the first pair that fit, even though they weren’t quite my style – and was so shaky with exhaustion when I got back to the hotel, that I lost one of the sandals in the toilet. When I told how badly it had gone on the last day of the course, both the instructor and a couple of young girls who participated looked at me and said “But you used the method wrong”. Huh? Really? Well, in that case I didn’t get how I was supposed to use it. Because we had learned to ignore the body’s symptoms when it says enough is enough by doing these mantras and stuff. And then we were supposed to become healthy(er). I said nothing. To myself I also thought “What if a person comes in here who actually suffers from depression…? We were made to feel guilty for being sick from day 1, so I dare not think of how this could turn out..

I got my diploma, said thanks – but at the airport on my way home I told the young Norwegian guy who was on the same course that I wouldn’t be using this method. If I had learned anything from this, it was to become better at listening to my body’s signals, and not push myself too hard when I start getting worse. There is no shame in stopping in time. Good, old fashioned common sense has given me a better life than LP ever did!

I’ll summarize by saying: I don’t recommend LP to anyone with ME! This is pure scam. And I wish someone would report these cynical thugs who do this. Because that’s what they are. To profit on other people’s misfortune, to not care that you are making them even more sick, or how they’re doing afterwards – well, that’s downright vicious.