Relapsing Fever

The fever comes. It rises, tears you from everyday life, throws you into bed, makes your body burn and shiver. Then, after a few days, it is over. You breathe out. You believe it has passed. You begin to stand up again, to plan again, to live again. And then — a few fever-free days later — everything starts over. The same temperature, the same weakness, the same struggle. Medically, relapsing fever is an infection caused by Borrelia bacteria, transmitted by lice or ticks, that returns in episodes. The pathogen changes its surface, escapes the immune system, and strikes again. From a psychosomatic perspective, a different question arises: why does something return that seemed already to be over?