Anal Fissures, Terrible Pain + The TMS Connection

You have a combination of TMS and Health Anxiety. Some people have one or the other and other people (like you and me) have both.
Here's the good news: TMS and Health Anxiety won't cause cancer and they won't kill you. The only way they will kill you if they take hold of your mind to such a degree that you take dumb actions. For example if your throat hurts so bad that you want to kill whatever bugs are in there and you decide it might be a good idea to gargle bleach. Fear itself won't damage you. It will just make your life miserable.
Which, getting back to TMS, is kind of it's purpose. To make you miserable enough about something harmless so that it distracts you from seeing what your brain is trying to stop you from seeing. That is, the hidden anger and rage.

TMS + Health Anxiety is a tough combo....but the good news is that when you start to resolve the TMS, you get rid of or diminish the symptoms that cause the health anxiety.

You've been to medical doctors. And they have told you you are not dying.
Your worry about dying is not going to kill you. (I'd be dead years ago if that were the case.)

Now it's time to stop making excuses why you can't work on the TMS and JUST DO IT.
Go to those places inside your mind and find your hidden anger.
It's so much better a prescription than taking this pill, that cream, etc!
Just do it.
Stop wondering about.
Get a piece of paper and a pen and write down:
"What am I angry about?"
And then start answering it.
Write and write and write and go deep.

Whenever you start Health Anxiety over focusing on symptom A or symptom B get your paper and pen and write it out.

Go. Do it now.

 

Rule #1 when you have health anxiety is no symptom searching. It's hard to do but important. If you are worried about a new symptoms being "real," have a friend gather information on the Internet for you or better go to a doctor and ask him or her the questions.

When I was little my mother had a verrry old medical dictionary. It had all these diseases and conditions and nearly every one ended with "fatal."
I'm guessing it must have been her mother's or grandmother's. That stupid book scarred me for life. Well, not for life because now I'm better at understanding my fear mechanism and the lower part of my brain, etc. Point is, don't symptom search. The Internet is like my mother's old medical dictionary!

 

You seem to be suffering, and believe me, I understand that you are SUFFERING - from an abnormal amount of fear, AND you keep going back to horrible internet information in order to feed your fear! This is a choice you are making and you have to STOP. For crying out loud, please just STOP. This is mental illness, my dear, and you have got to be strong and make a really difficult choice to do something else.




thank you for your reply. I am trying to understand things happening to me and regarding new REAL INJURIES happening due to my fear and TMS. Anoscopy examination injury is REAL - I had post anoscopy pains that are Anal Fissure injury! I asked doctors to rule out anal HPV cancer, he could have done anal HPV PAP smear but he decided to undergo anoscopy procedure which cause me injury. I am having another proctologist visit on 30th August to perform MRI (which one will be without any physical harm risk) to confirm how many anal fissures were caused during 10th April anoscopy examination. After that I will contact Geneva patients rights Institution to denounce this medical injury.

Again all my injuries that I was listing were confirmed with the doctor and they gave me recovery time for them - which were right on spot and once one physical injury was about to heal - my FEAR made me make choices that further harmed me - like using bandage to heal ulnar nerve - provoked elbow tendinitis, then arm sling caused me shoulder and elbow tendinitis , then anal itching and wet sensation (that was confirmed anal puritus and fungus) which I checked and wanted doctors to rule out anal cancer - anoscopy examination caused me injury with anal fissures !!!! those are real injuries that need time to heal !!! everything was happening since last June ... I healed all my injuries related to my arms and now I am having anal fissures injury due to anoscopy ! I know that I have to give a time to heal it , but I am scared that this last injury wont heal !and since it was UNEXPLAINED PATTERN OF INJURY EVENTS - I wanted to have an insight !


I ve been raised by my narcissistic Monster Mother who groomed me during my childhood to be narcissists pleaser and people pleaser and shut my mouth. She was teaching me how to abuse myself when she was not there! how to do not care about my body and destroy it with physical hard cleaning to pay taxes and how when it was not enough to pay taxes - to use my body in other ways.


Regarding mental illness - this is spot on !
Yes all children of narcissistic parents are very anxious!
Who wouldnt - being raised in an environment of manipulation, psychological abuse, gas-lighting and so on.


I am psychiatric drugs withdrawal survivor 8 years and when I was given Xanax to /heal/ my anxiety - I got addicted immediately and when I stopped it after 1 month -
it was too late cause I was in benzodiazepine withdrawal already - facing debilitating mental and physical symptoms. By another Misfortune - I ended up at my mothers place to deal with this and she used this opportunity to hurt me more (If you are familiar with narcissistic dynamics - you will know that they would use your vulnerabilities to destroy you) - and she did - she placed me into psychward ! Multiple psych coctails were used to /heal /my xanax withdrawal ! I was dead inside and I was faced( once released from there) with kindling withdrawal from psychiatric medicines- meaning that I would go into protracted withdrawal beyond 18 months normal healing timeline frame . more info on benzobuddies.com - website that help during my brutal withdrawal.


I know its very tempting to just label someone as mentally ill ...
But this hurt me !




Carl Jung told that its easier to judge than to understand ...

Boobie gave me very good insight about TMS and health Anxiety which are very difficult to deal with . I started last night journaling and I know that I have huge anger towards my mother what she did to me psychologically during my childhood and then at 35 years old placing me into institution that do not recognise anti anxiety medications withdrawal and only one solution for everyone - is a pill !


so all this being said, thank you for your insight.

 

@Vasilisa
Shame is a difficultly when people mention mental health. It is discussed openly here, and part of dealing with TMS is to recognize parts of mental health that effect us, our personality traits, vulnerabilities and the power we have to make our own choices on how we think about these things and what we can do about them.
You are suffering.
The first thing to understand is that you had this mental suffering before all your physical injuries (which you probably know, given your mother’s personality). You were taught to be a victim and to think of yourself as a victim but that isn’t working for you anymore.
This can change.
It is hard inner work but you must let go of thinking that you are at the mercy of these injuries (we call them symptoms here), the drugs, other people. That doesn’t deny how others have treated you. It means making the decision to let it continue, or to make up your mind to take control even if you have pain, symptoms, and mental suffering.
Did you ever see a psychiatrist or mental heath person without medication, and work through the difficulties of having a narcissist parent, high anxiety and feeling desperate? To deal with the heavy shame and anger that must accompany these feelings? It is a lot! There are people out there that you can trust to help you with that, but it is more than this group deals with. I saw two therapists who were not good, and a few more that were OK until I found the right fit for me. It was amazingly helpful!

Most physical injuries heal within a few months, and when they do not it is often that our fear and anxiety create stress — which is mental and physical and can slow the healing. Sometimes the injuries seem only physical, but when we can step back, we see that they often happened at times of high stress, when we felt very badly about ourselves and felt powerless, sometimes very angry. That is the essence of TMS.

The first part to feeling better : You must choose to begin thinking a different way. Choose to learn not to be a victim.
“What if there is more to this than just physical injury”. Also recognize that our compulsions and obsessions hurt us mentally. You must stop looking at groups for medical stuff. Many of the people there are trapped in such negativity it is frightening. You must begin to think “what if this could heal? What if my thoughts and emotions could influence my healing and my healing”.
What if you could change your fear? The first step is being open to recognizing that maybe there is more than one way to see things, more than one perspective and choosing to do this for yourself. It is the first step to feel a little more power.

 

@Vasilisa Hi again. Keep in mind that TMS doesn't preclude REAL issues. It seems like you want to differentiate between the two.
What is attractive to me about Sarno is that he explains that the emotional issues (the things our brain is trying to distract us from) create various "real" things. Inflammation, etc.
I think you'll do best if you stop worrying about trying to determine if something is "real" or TMS.
Clearly with Monster Mother you have a lot to chew on.

 

Oh! I also forgot to mention my dear friend Jackie lives in Bern and has a movie about dealing with the outcome of her mother's mental illness. Jackie is a punk musician, playwright, visual artist and social activist. Her movie is called Las Toreras. She has overcome so much to become the amazingly independent woman she is today. She refuses to live by societies norms and to be herself. Here is her a page about her work, and a link to the website for her film which won many many awards in Switzerland this last year. https://www.jackiebrutsche.ch/en/work (work) You may find the story very helpful.

 

Dear Andres, I started journaling my pain from narcissistic mother, and listening to Pete Walker , and Gabor Mate podcasts and reading their PDF books! when painful flaches from the past appear - I imagining my grown up self taking defence - its very traumatising cause even when I take in my mind defence against my mother she is very abusive and violent - I almost have to physically kill her to stop memory backflash abuse!

I retore a couple of times my anal fissure since June , but its been a week there is an itching, burning and wedgie feeling- this is so far my best plateau of pains that I reached so far !
I was wondering Andres if you can tell me how bad was your skin tag due to anal fissure- my one is skin flap bumpy and fluffy !!! Its bothering me and gives more fear that it can grow bigger and cause more heamorroids !

hope you are doing good, thank you so much for your replies and for giving hope ! and thank you so much to all members of this forum! I did not realise how horrible my mothers abuse was and how damaging to my soul its continuing to be!
but I will be proactive and continuer to learn how to love myself!!!