New Program Day 3: Identifying the Source

Welcome to the forum @Chris909, and thanks for the good review of where you are at with this process, it really helps!

OMG OMG OMG OMG WHAT IF WHAT IF WHAT IF WHAT IF WHAT IF?????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This, my friend, is your brain on TMS. It's the classic WHAT IF? dialogue. Also called Catastrophizing. Just search that word, and see what comes up. Catastrophizing goes hand-in-hand with Rumination, another mental activity that is fully recognized by mental health professionals as unhealthy. Both are obessive activites, and all obsessive activites (including full-on OCD) are, in varying degrees of severity, examples of the TMS repression mechanism at work.

In other words, when your brian engages in this kind of thing, it is a DISTRACTION against thoughts that your brain is repressing for your protection.

I looked up Dr. Fanestil who is clearly following the newer path of nervous system retraining (and reframing) (eg: PRT) without talking a whole lot about the emotional repression aspect. In the the opinion of many of us here, emotional distress and repression are still hugely important to unlocking the mystery of chronic pain as well as chronic mental health conditions for many people. Dr. F does briefly mention childhood trauma, which is crucial. It is my completely non-professional opinion, based only upon fairly close observation and participation on this forum over twelve years, that Adverse Childhood Experiences are very closely associated with lifelong depression and/or anxiety as well as chronic pain and other syndromes.

The acronym is ACEs. There's a list of ten Yes or NO questions that have been created, called variously the ACEs Quiz or Test. Taking this quick quiz for yourself (with 100% honesty!) might be an informative thing to bring to your sessions with Dr. Fanestil. All it takes is one or two adverse childhood experiences to affect mental (and physical) health for life. Here is a good place for it: Take The ACE Quiz — And Learn What It Does And Doesn't Mean : Shots - Health News : NPR - be sure to read the article before and after answering the questions - like most NPR articles, it's not long.

Even those of use with essentially zero Yes responses can have fairly typical "Sarno-type" TMS - I found a Yes response that covered a few years of my early childhood - which I think contributed to the lifelong anxiety that my first-time older mother "gave" me in utero, but that's another story.

I can offer one more response to your original question, which is that some people with trauma do find that although nervous system retraining can help, they will continue to struggle with "dis-ease" until they properly process the trauma - which is where psychotherapy comes in. So yes, there is another step - but, very importantly, there is absolutely NO benefit to be gained by allowing your TMS brain to obsess about it now.

Doing this work effectively really requires taking it one step at a time. Practice giving in, letting go, and creating mindful practices to calm yourself whenever you recognize that your fearful brain is trying to manipulate you into being fearful. That is, after all, its job. You can thank it kindly for trying to protect you, then proactively move toward a more constructive frame of mind where you can do the necessary work.

Good luck!