Richard Groenendijk

Is this the place for the auditions of Baywatch?

I think I have been a patient at Gezond Management for the past 18 years. Although patient, I don’t think that is what you call it. I believe they prefer client. That’s less bedridden. Well I have to say that when I knocked at the door nine years ago, I felt more a patient than a client. I remember like it was yesterday. I was getting dressed to go to a friends wedding. I took a cufflink from a drawer and ‘snap’. Something had shifted in my lower back. I don’t remember what it was called, but back in the day it used to be called lumbago. When you get something like this – because I think it is rather an old-fashioned condition – then preferably during a sports game or something with a campfire and a self- shot deer and not by picking up a cufflink. Anyway; I probably will never be a real man, so these things happen to me when picking up clothing accessories. Within half an hour I couldn’t stand or sit anymore. The only thing I could do was lie on my back wit my knees pulled up. A kind of prostitute without a client. I called the doctor and he said: ”Try Gezond Management at the Mathenesserlaan, that’s haptonomy”. But I wasn’t enthusiastic, because I had been to a haptonoma two years before and that was one of the vague kind. “Breath in. Breath out. Feel the skippy ball. Feel your grandfather standing behind you.” Well my grandfather used to stand behind me often, but as he had been dead for five years, I doubted this lady. In any case; I called good friend Olga: “I can’t walk anymore. You have to come and get me and bring me to the Mathenesserlaan”. I could move myself a little by placing one foot in front of the other, leaning forward with my hands on my knees. I am not a complainer, but the pain was killing me. Like a kind of hunchback from Notre Dame I entered Gezond Management for the first time. That heavy front door is just great for back patients. Like entering castle Loevesteijn. The ladies from the reception, Roos and Ellen, but I didn’t know them yet then, looked at me full of pity. And nine years ago I felt the need to let everyone know I was a comedian, so I asked: “Is this the place for the auditions of Baywatch?” Let’s just say I was in. After that with the help from Olga and Wiebe, who has been my true support ever since, I got to the treatment room. Because I was in a bad shape, Rob had to come in and help. A lot of emotions came out during this first visit. I never could have thought a treatment could do this. When I felt a large amount of tears coming out, I tried to keep them in with “I hadn’t planned for this!” But when Rob said: “we did”, there was no stopping it. And that was a good thing. Now I couldn’t go without it. The emotions are not that intense anymore and my body surrenders a lot quicker now. Wiebe is the only guy that can do whatever he wants. After my strange encounter with that Yomanda on the skippy ball, I would never have thought that haptonomy could do something for me. It gives me peace, trust, relaxation an insight. And if I push through for another nine years there will probably be a part for me in Baywatch…