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here's my problem with the idea of outcome independence....or just about any other positive idea in dealing with TMS...

I want to stop caring about the pain, the outcome, because caring about it and trying to "fix" it just seems to enhance the symptoms. But when I read Alan Gordon's posts, it gives me hope that not caring about the pain will lead to the pain going away (e.g. when I read chickenbone's comment in response to Alan: "Hi. I had tremendous success with getting rid of my pain this way, 1. knowing that my pain is TMS 2. Knowing that it is harmless and 3. Not caring if I have pain or not. So I don't have pain now")...

but that thought or hope equates to caring again

if you argue that you have to not care, then I'm left with a problem. I do care. after 23 years of this in various forms, I've been ready to kill myself, essentially, off and on at points over the last year. I am thinking about suicide with increasing frequency. because it's really a practical, logical response to whatever about my psyche insists on continually finding new torments for me. I've hit a point where even if I see a certain pain symptom diminish, l pretty much can expect something new to pop up.

case in point: I was doing better last winter, hit my head, got a concussion, and now, even though I recovered from the concussion, my TMS has figured out how to give me pseudo concussive symptoms on top of the urinary urgency that made me suicidal a year ago. It couldn't get me with 1 or the other, but the combo has upped the game.

I just don't want to deal with this anymore. I have got over TMJ, no symptoms in over 10 years, I got over arm/shoulder pain (almost no symptoms in 12 years) but I can logically expect more, and more sneaky, symptoms. or combos of symptoms. anything that happens to me, like my concussion, becomes a new TMS battlefront.

how do I really not care about decades more of this? the only way I could convince myself to not care would be in the spirit of a secret hope that that mindset would help me, and then I'm caring all over again.

it's the ultimate mind prison paradox.