Day 10 Doubt

Hey all,

Yesterday I played the guitar and got quite perfectionistic. I tried to record a song I was working on but I wasn’t satisfied and got annoyed. after a while I got pain in my right arm but I kept going for a few more takes even though I knew I hit my limit and overstepped my boundaries. Afterwards I felt a lot of shame and guilt about my lack of self discipline. I feel like the reason my pain spiraled so much is because of my perfectionistic tendencies and lack of discipline that caused me to overstep my boundaries way too many times which made the original arm pain become so much worse and cause chronic widespread pain. I know the original injury has healed a long time ago but my nervous system has become so overly sensitive due to me pushing my boundaries too many times and teaching my nervous system that certain movements are dangerous. I feel like this pain is more due to physical over straining that makes my nervous system think something is wrong rather than any emotional stress, though I also have a lot of that too, which makes it hard for me to believe that journaling and feeling my emotions will make this pain and sensitivity go away.

 

Hey Rob,

I know your struggle -- or at least i think i do. This definitely hits home, although i havent been able to play the guitar in a while.

I always got mad at myself for everything, 'you need to do this' 'you need to do that'. That is no way to talk to yourself. Would you speak to your children like that? What has helped immensely, and i just had this revelation yesterday. I was starting to get mad at myself for responding to a trigger a certain way, and i stopped myself and said 'maybe i can do that a little better next time'. Try to coach yourself as if youre your own child. Be kind to yourself, stop kicking yourself while youre already down. Just try to take lessons and do stuff 'a little better each time'.

 

But you overdo because of emotional reasons. So… it is actually an emotional problem. My hands are curled closed because the muscles in my arms are so tense. I got this last symptom in a long line of current symptoms at a time I had just worked several ten-hour days to complete a freelance writing project. Since my hands curled, I haven’t been able to type for the past two years. Is this from working too much? Yes. But why did I do it? Low self esteem issues. Needing to do a “great” job every time. Not just good enough, but perfect. Fear. What if this client doesn’t like me? What if I can’t grow my business? Emotional escape. I used work to avoid my feelings. The more work, the better. After my hands curled, I had to retire. Now, it is so hard to avoid my feelings. These are just a few examples of how the physical has been linked to the emotional for me. And I agree with @Mani —learning to love yourself is critical to healing. And as to this, I’m still a work in progress.

It will definitely help!

 

Regardless of the pain origin, doing the SEP is going to help. You mentioned in your post that you are a perfectionist. And you guilted yourself after what you perceived to be overworking and overstepping your own boundaries. These are classic TMS personality traits that you may need to journal about.

Most times our brains are trying to convince ourselves that what we have is not TMS. I would bet this is what is happening to you. Keep on the SEP program with journaling and learning more about TMS.