Joima

First off, like so many others out there, I've had TMS symptoms my entire life. I remember the chronic ear infections and allergies so bad I would have to come home from school, along with a general feeling of insecurity and unease.

When I was in my twenties, the digestive/IBS stuff began. I tried to "fix" it obsessively, which ended up in a new symptom called CFS. The CFS eventually caused me to become bedridden at 29 years old. It got so bad I couldn't converse or understand what people were saying. I got to the point I could only eat two foods: carrot juice and baked potato. I began to hallucinate. I thought I was dying.

I tried the medical route, but this was the mid-80s, and even the diagnosis of CFS was unheard of in the medical community. I became emotionally traumatized by the way doctors and specialists treated me. They didn't know what was happening, leading them to behave less-than-admirable. I finally found one doctor who named my diagnosis as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Epstein Barr Virus.

I intuited that it was emotionally caused, and I began to get into touch with some deep-seated grief. My mom had passed away at a young age just a few years before, and in the shock of that loss, I had felt numb. It took about a month of feeling the grief of that loss, and I started to feel better. But then I would go out and try and do stuff, and it would return. This cycle lasted several years, but slowly, I felt the effects of those symptoms fading away. But the IBS stuff stuck around.

The insomnia and low-level anxiety began in the early 90's. I didn't know what to do about it. I was a meditator and a spiritual seeker, and I found solace in my practices. The insomnia became severe at times. I think I went about 20 years, never getting a good night's sleep and sometimes going for days without sleep. The IBS also turned into severe constipation at times. This lasted for many years.

During this next twenty-year period, I experienced multiple episodes of intense back
pain, sometimes lower back, occasionally mid-back. Sometimes, it would put me down for days, and always, it was "caused" by a simple movement. Sometimes, the neck pain would occur because I "slept wrong."

The hip pain began in the summer of 2019 when I was experiencing some stress. I still did not know about TMS at the time. It was just a little pinch in the groin. I went to get some physical therapy, but it didn't help. I ignored it and continued my life, which included hiking, backpacking, and skiing.

When Covid hit in 2020, I lost my housing and my job. I tried to sweep all the worry aside and keep going. I was homeless for about six months, staying at friends' houses and housesitting. The pain got much worse about four months into this situation. So, I got an MRI.

The report showed a torn labrum, FAI (impingement), cysts, and edema. The technician who read my report told me my hip was "a mess." I remember feeling a bit traumatized by this diagnosis because I had had a total hip replacement about four years prior. It's interesting to note that the pinching pain in the groin was the same initial pain that I had in the replacement hip.

I went to three Orthopedic surgeons for advice. Two of them advised labral orthoscopic surgery, and the last one said I had years left on that hip and to have fun. I like him the best, so I opted not to have surgery. Instead, I chose to strengthen my hip through a program I found online. I threw myself into this program, spending hours every day trying to get that hip strong! Shortly after this time, I found some housing for myself, and the pain subsided a bit. So, I decided to hike a big trail through the Sierra.

The hip did okay through the hike, but by the end of it (three weeks), it was a bit traumatized again. I limped back home to Colorado only to discover I had to move into a new house again. The pain got worse. It started spreading down the inside of my thigh.

In the next apartment, I felt unsettled and shaky, a low-level anxiety. The pain continued to worsen even though I was still doing my exercises. The pain was now in my groin, inner thigh, quadriceps, knee, shin, and foot. My foot turned purple and turned inwards, and I developed drop-foot. I went to chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapy and spent thousands on electric current therapy. But it got to the point where if anyone touched my leg, foot, or hip, I would get shooting electrical shocks of pain down my leg. The pain continued to worsen until it started to spasm unexpectedly. It was during this short period that I had to use a cane, and even then, I could barely take a step. Putting on clothes or doing any chore took an incredible amount of energy. The shakey feelings got terrible. I found myself avoiding everything and everyone.

I grew very dizzy. Looking at the ground, I would see the sidewalk moving in wave-like motions. Sometimes, the tinnitus grew so loud that I couldn't hear.

I hit the bottom. It got dark and horrifying. My emotions hit a downward spiral that would take over. I would cry and cry. I couldn't go on like this. I became suicidal. So, I prayed desperately for help.

Within a day, a friend told me about this website in Australia about pain science and recovery. She didn't know anything about it, though. I was desperate for anything, so I looked it up. It was Lorimer Mosely's site, who is a pain scientist. It was brilliant. And something struck a chord in me. I took his concepts and started doing my research. Everything I found made sense, and the dots began to connect. I found the Curable app and couldn't stop listening to the research, education, and success stories. I learned about Dr. Sarno, somatic tracking, feeling my emotions, and many other new things!

After about two weeks, I joined Dan Buglio's coaching group. The support was great, but I remember feeling so shaky! What was wrong with me? I didn't realize it then, but it was anxiety, which is another mind-body symptom. In Dan's group, I learned more about how to deal with my symptoms and begin to make the moves towards living my life again. With the group's support, I gained the courage to go out and do things. I would go for very short walks with my cane (I was still in tremendous pain), and I even got the courage to go on a road trip down to Arizona. It felt good to get outside and do something that I loved. This was about four months after I found out about TMS. I was still super shaky, and I still had this downward spiral of debilitating emotions that bothered me. I couldn't stop this despair from taking over, and I knew it was keeping my brain in a scared place. After about six months with Dan's group and no reduction in my symptoms, I left the group. I felt confident enough in myself and my knowledge of TMS to move on when things weren't changing.

I started reading Dr. Joe Dispenza in June 2022. I read all the books and began doing the meditations twice a day, and the first thing that disappeared was the emotional downward spiral. This gave me great confidence. I started feeling better and better, and the shakiness began to subside. After six months of doing his work, I could hobble about without the cane. I still had intense sensations, but I knew I felt more and more confident in myself.

During this entire time, I would still remember that MRI in my mind. This would cause a slight doubt that my pain came from TMS. The practitioner's words, "your hip is a mess, " kept haunting me. And so, one day, I decided that my brain caused all my symptoms, and I threw the MRI in the trash. And every time my mind returned to those words, I had to keep re-making the decision.

By the following year, I could go on short hikes. I still looked terrible, and many people would ask me if I hurt myself, but I was determined to show my brain I was safe. The more I moved, the better I felt. The insomnia started to improve, and the constipation lessened. I developed new symptoms- red spots all around my eyes made me look like I had some disease.

But I just kept moving. I could take a little ibuprofen by mid-summer and go on longer hikes. I was aware that the ibuprofen might prolong my recovery, but I knew I needed to get my life back at all costs. I heard live music in the park, danced, and enjoyed myself. I started to feel genuinely happy.

I got a part-time job to be among people again. I was still limping around, and my body was still all crooked, but I stopped caring so much. But there was still an energy in me that wasn't entirely allowing my symptoms to be there. I had not gotten to the point where I did not care. I still wanted them to go away, and so they persisted.

By the fall, I felt moved to take Dr. Howard Schubiner's Freedom from Chronic Pain Practitioner course. And through Hal Greenham, I learned the basics of Internal Family Systems. This was when things began to shift for me. Learning the IFS work, I finally began to give my brain the message that emotions were safe. I started to sense when emotion was under the surface, and I would stop whatever I was doing and get in touch with that younger part that was feeling so unacknowledged. This was powerful.

The more I allowed my emotions, the more I became able to let my symptoms. I started to see the connection. And the deeper I went into myself, the better and more accessible I began to feel. I started to get that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me genuinely! God, but it took a long time!

At the time of writing this story, the sensations in my leg are gone. I can hike up to eight miles with no ibuprofen. I can still get a slight flare afterward, but somatic tracking makes it disappear, along with the knowledge that nothing is wrong with me. The insomnia is gone—I get a full eight hours of sleep every night! The eye spots are gone. I will get slightly dizzy for a moment or two when starting on a hike, but I laugh at it, and it goes away.
I still get a little IBS stuff. I think that because it's the longest-lasting symptom, it may take a while to get it entirely resolved. But I don't care- I eat whatever I want.
Stretching is still a bit of a challenge, especially splits and squats. But I am improving daily, and I enjoy using the PRT to watch the sensation just disappear when I track it. I know I've got this, and if another symptom comes, I've got that, too.