Early TMS Success with persistent symptom imperative?

Dear Forum, I would like to tell you about overcoming some aspects of TMS, and also ask for your help with what I have left. My spouse is loaci.

I'm a 40-year-old man, a physician. A pathologist. I lost my career. It's a long story about how I lost it and the details aren't important except that I didn't fight as hard as I could have fought to get it back because I didn't like it anyway. What I really wanted to do, about 22 years ago, is play the clarinet professionally. However, I was afraid. Afraid that I wouldn't be successful and afraid of being poor and all the difficulties in the world that can come with that. So I did what a bunch of other people told me to do and became a physician.

I have suffered from TMS or equivalents all my life in the form of allergies, asthma, headaches, nausea and vomiting - so called gastroenteritis, frequent colds, on and on. In recent years I had severe and at times disabling back and neck pain erroneously attributed to herniated discs. Last year I came across Dr. Sarno's books, referred to me by a friend of my wife. I read them over about a week and in several days, while alone in my house and admitting that I was not much of a family man, and had lived my life according to other people, the pain disappeared completely. I went from being in bed most of the day, disabled, back to doing all vigorous exercise I thought I would never do again. Prior to that my wife's parents had lived with us for several years, and around that time left us permanently. I became aware that they had been running our lives for years.

I still have a variety of minor and transient physical complaints of no significance. Now my problem is anxiety, mostly situational. I experience the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as pounding heart, sweating, shallow breathing, particularly strongly when I'm in the presence of a misbehaving child. It can be any child randomly in public, or our own 7-year-old. Less seriously, I notice some anxiety whenever I am in the presence of conflict involving other people. The other situation where I have anxiety is whenever I play the clarinet in a group of other people. Even low stress practice that never used to bother me before. When it was clear that I had lost my career in medicine and thought I may as well start a new one in music, every family member I talked to, especially my mother and my wife, told me how awful I was, how irresponsible, what a terrible man, father and husband I was. In a word, how selfish I was. It was the same thing I'd been hearing all my life (except from my grandparents, now dead), so I cut them all off, except for my wife. We've been reconciled in some ways but things aren't the same as before.

I have read Claire Weekes' books and watched Michael Norman's panic videos. They make a lot of sense to me, but when some situation is very intense, it all goes out the window. For example, when my wife occasionally screams and spanks our son and he cries out in horror, just as I used to at the hands of the discipline of my own parents, I feel fear that quickly boils to a rage and a sense of being trapped. I used to yell and pound on a couch like an animal, but now I simply leave the house immediately. I have essentially abrogated any role in the discipline of my son because I cannot stand it, especially in my wife's presence, without crippling anxiety that quickly moves to rage. In other major ways my wife is quite supportive at present, but basically I'm afraid of her at a visceral level. I was reluctant to have any children, but my wife really wanted one and I loved her at the time.

The situation has gotten to where I would like to abandon our dysfunctional family much of the time, yet I also have good memories of my wife, and I know that I would miss my son. I still feel a tender affection for him when his behavior is within my window of tolerance. But when it is hostile/provocative behavior, my reaction is that I would like to put him up for adoption and leave, never to return. The court would assign a dollar figure for x number of years to pay for my son and that figure would wash my hands of it all. Of some significance is that we did well financially. In reality, I was not irresponsible. I could do some completely different minimal-money-making work, like music, and not work for a number of years without financial difficulty. I've seen three different psychotherapists in the past 2 years, including CBT and psychodynamic with a certified provider of coherence therapy. None of it was any lasting help.

My questions are these:

1. What is my anxious and rageful reaction to a misbehaving child? Is it an equivalent of TMS? Or is it the normal reaction of any person to the circumstances I described? Is the reaction telling me to leave this situation, to leave my family?

2. Why do I have anxiety when I play the clarinet with other people, and how can I put a stop to it? Is that anxious reaction also an equivalent of TMS?

3. Has anyone besides me felt this way, at least in part? Especially a man?

Thank you for your advice. I've tried to meditate for 8 years, without success. I also know about Dr Hanscom and I am starting to do his expressive writing exercise daily.

 

That was one of the most Honest posts I have ever read. Thank You.

Bug the snot out of me as well, but not as bad as you are saying. I did notice that I was way more patient with my own sons than I was with other people's kids....maybe because I was the primary parent with my sons so I had shaped them to be ...like me? Neither of my sons was particularly 'bad' because I was hands on and really strict with them. I will say that when the younger one does crap that reminds me of Me? THAT is enraging to the eenth degree. They are adults now and we work together...the young one has basically become 'mini-me' and of course that brings up all sorts of rage/TMS symptoms.

Hmm...I can only tell you that while I was working out my TMS I thought it was 'family life'...truth be told..I LOVED my sons, I just didn't want to be HER husband...That took me a long time to figure out.

I have played Guitar since I was 19. I have played with Grammy winners, made a little cash and even been offered opportunities to play professionally , but I had all of the same feelings you listed...I would have been a 'bad father'...It would have been 'selfish'....but to your question about the anxiety ?
I still get that. I am not sure it ever goes away. One of the things I have struggled with recently is that I still play, study and practice hours and hours a day and I am never as good as I want to be. I am quite obsessional and passionate about sounds ....and I love just being a part of music, but since i showed a little bit of skill in songwriting I was always pressured to 'make it' and condemned when deals fell apart or I walked away from allegedly lucrative offers.

Yes.

 

“I still get that. I am not sure it ever goes away. One of the things I have struggled with recently is that I still play, study and practice hours and hours a day and I am never as good as I want to be. I am quite obsessional and passionate about sounds ....and I love just being a part of music, but since i showed a little bit of skill in songwriting I was always pressured to 'make it'”

THIS!

This is exactly what competitive athletes with TMS go through too!

@clarinetpath

I might suggest you try EMDR therapy to explore your reaction to children. I have two similar reactions but different triggers - my main being preyed on by men for their own pleasure without valuing me as a human being.
It has been constant in my life as has people telling me I am not appealing to look at.. so there became a weird inner struggle between being told I am beautiful and ugly - mind you none of these opinions were requested, and were often unspoken - men used physical action. EMDR did not take me back to when and how this started because I already knew it stemmed from self-worth. What it did was take to a time when I was abused by one person and surrounded by his peers (men who I had counted as friends) who did nothing to stop the abuse. I could feel the overwhelming rage, sense of helplessness and hopelessness amongst this group. I could not speak up in this situation because I had 10 men who would not support me, 10 times more unsafe. I did act. I broke up with the boyfriend who I realized would not support me in confronting this and broke off contact with my friends. The EMDR sort of refilled this and the many similar instances of abuse and rejection.
Yesterday it was tested and yes, I was triggered.. but I also realized reacting to the person would not change the feelings of being triggered, and that it was ok to feel inner rage at the person, but worthless confronting the situation. My power was in ignoring the person (not the emotion or the inner sensations of being triggered) and turn my back and continue about my business. The culprit followed me but I had tuned him out, recognizing I was absolutely safe (in public, cameras everywhere) and walked away.

key elements are recognizing triggers
Recognizing that somehow we don’t feel safe in whatever situation is happening
Realizing it triggers fight/flight/freeze (I used to freeze or fight) and that it is the sensations of fight/flight/freeze and emotions surrounding the trigger that we push away and dislike which further trigger us into overdrive and to react in a way that might not be socially appropriate
We need to learn that it is OK to be uncomfortable in these situations and that the sensations and emotions, if allowed to flow through us internally will dissipate in a few minutes. They are simply chemical reactions in the body and no big deal.
The big deal comes when we judge those physical sensations as unwanted or bad and ourselves as horrible for not wanting them.
Somehow all this stuff gets filed in our jumble of subconcious and that part of our brain doesn’t know time - so past trauma or trigger becomes present.
EMDR brings these things into a higher level of consciousness and helps the brain file them in the same way REM sleep does daily.
The trigger will still be there, it just won’t have as much power, and deciding how you choose to respond to it will be easier. Your therapist will help you with tactics to respond to you have choices. This helps you feel more in control of yourself.
This process takes just a few months but the results are cumulative over a longer time as you experience the triggers and your brain has opportunity to learn.

You have options.

 

Thank you both very much for your kind replies. To know that another has felt this, is significant. There are so many objectionable things that everyone knows, but which hardly anyone wants to admit exist, even privately within their inner experience. Claire Weekes said something in her first book about a nurse who thought of throwing a baby out the window she passed, "an entirely natural thought any of us could have." Cactusflower, you also described my experience perfectly - when I run out of the house knowing that that is the best I can do for now and not judging myself for fleeing (and my wife is now good enough to let me go unobstructed) - I feel a wave of relief wash over me and settle down in only a few minutes.

How far to carry the non-violent parts into the real world vs keep them in my inner world, what actions to take in my own life if any, I'm still working out.

 

I wanted to update folks about my previous post. My rage outbursts are less and I haven't inflicted them on my family in a couple months. I tried to make an appointment with a psychologist who does EMDR but there was some problem with my insurance, they didn't want to pay. As a matter of principle I want them to pay, so the EMDR modality is on hold.

Recently I had an acute attack of back pain. I've had a few of these before although I haven't had one for about a year now. The symptoms are severe enough to send someone who didn't know to urgent care or a doctor, but I know as well as anyone that one of those quacks is just as likely to kill you through the nocebo effect and ignorance. In other words I'm not seeking any medical opinions. I'm doing my usual reviewing of Dr Sarno and Dr Gwozdz's materials. I also continue to run 5 to 8 miles per day through the pain and stiffness. This is somewhat down from my usual running regimen, but I cut it down lately anyway because running was becoming a distraction, another way of coping. Steve O's book talks about that as a form of symptom imperative.

I have some idea of why this acute attack is sticking around and this is why I would like to know if someone else thinks or feels like me. My wife was called for jury duty in court, which triggers great rage and a threat response within me.

I have a long history with courts in my work. It was nothing nefarious on my part, it was simply that the work that I did was heavily involved in expert testimony in courts of various kinds. Some people, usually arrogant kinds, even think of that sort of thing as prestigious. I was always afraid of it. I was afraid and I still am afraid because the courts and the government act like God. They're never wrong and you have to do what they say or they crush you. They're a lot like my parents and step parents were. In my own case for over 3 years they forced me to testify as an expert witness without any payment. That was long after I was no longer employed by those organizations. Basically I was held prisoner by the court system. I couldn't take a vacation the whole time. One of my cases was particularly contentious and it involved corruption on the part of somebody else. I was able to get out of testifying in that one because I would have ruined the Court's case, but personally I had a plan at the time to immolate myself if they forced me to testify in that odious affair. That was a few years ago and it's safely settled now.

So when these Court bastards harassed my wife, I was aware of being enraged. I hate the courts. She tried to excuse herself due to child care and work, but as usual these government agencies can be totally obstinate when they want to tell you what to do. They just figure, we'll force you to dump it on somebody else in your family so you can come down to the court. So just recently I took a vacation down to Florida which is where I am now. I'm running along in 80° sunny weather with TMS. I wanted to make a point, also to myself, that I'm no longer a slave and a prisoner of the courts. They sent this order to my wife, nothing even to me. But this is still how I feel about the court harassing my wife and by proxy me: I'd be happy to see them all annihilated and vaporized in nuclear fire. Let the first Salvo of World War III strike that Courthouse like the Terminator 2 movie. Disclaimer - I am a nonviolent person and I advocate no violence. Nevertheless, obviously I'm enraged by them. What more rage could I be unaware of? a few years ago like I mentioned, I literally wanted to kill myself in a spectacular fashion to defy them.

Anyway, this is all so absurd it would seem to defy belief of a "reasonable" person. Steve O would say that this is my ego talking, and I would agree. Still, these are the thoughts that run in my mind. And the events that I have told actually happened in real life. Does anybody else feel like this with their own problems? Was anybody else involved with the government?

 

My husband has been subpoened and had to testify for a client, in a court case. He did not get any renumeration and it took him away from his work. Since he is on salary, it didn't effect his payment, but it effected his work hours which are normally 70+ hrs a week as is - he was expected to do his client work and internal work on time and meet his very demanding deadlines and work with the team...even when in the court room. He tried to get out of that but was an "expert witness" even though he did not actually "witness" anything. It took many months and ended up being a total waste of time. This was Government involved but they were not the "problem" - it was a case that private citizens were making against them, without any real understanding of what they were trying to do. Not only could he not get his vacation (which he doesn't take much of anyway because in his line of work he is still expected to meet client deadlines and take internal calls during vacation, so what's the point?) but he didn't even get weekends, rarely even meal times. He had panic attacks from the stress. The next year he was subpeoned again by the same entity however he was not qualified to be the "expert" they wanted so thankfully that never came to fruition.
This was a very stressful and frustrating time, and totally left our lives in limbo.

 

How infuriating.

I am the lone artist/creative person ( I did a Studio Art degree , have published small amounts of poetry, etc) in a very rational, very professional family. Things are a bit better now, but for most of my adult life they have had some kind of visceral hatred of me, looking for any excuse to call me irresponsible, irrational, etc. The prejudice against artistic people is widespread, and so easily "justified".

One thing that helps a lot (which I don't have currently), is colleagues; do you feel you have a supportive community of musicians? The way of relating to people in the arts is VERY different than in the more 'rational' professions. The neighbours in my building are all like engineers, or bankers, and I can tell that they have absolutely no understanding of the person that I am when I'm around ( or was around) fellow artists, the kinds of things people in the arts get up to, how far people depart from convention in those circles.

Your family dynamic does seem very reactive overall, not sure what you need but I would think it would be some sort of stabilizing factor.

 

Thank you everyone for your support and understanding. After I wrote that post last night, even before I read anyone's reply, my pain left me overnight.

I do keep reminding myself that the current court problem is addressed to my wife, not actually to me. I've testified as an expert witness 21 times and the only recourse I could find was an extreme one, to stop participating in that field of work entirely. It wasn't the only reason, but being free to come and go as I please and not be pressed into service by the courts was an important factor in ending my career. All of my old cases have been adjudicated as far as I know.

What these organizations subjected your husband to Cactusflower, besides being enraging, is a great unacknowledged problem in society. That the model we live in is grinding down human beings before they have had what used to be called a normal length working career, whether they liked it or not. They are forced into Dr Sarno's army of the partially disabled, die, or are desperate to retire as soon as possible. I suppose I'm lucky because only a couple hundred years ago I probably would have been decapitated and thrown into a sewer for pissing off the government.

Ybird it's interesting that you mentioned artists, because I play in community ensembles that have quite a few professional musicians, none in major professional orchestras however. They seem to be human beings like all the rest of us. They're nice and pleasant for the most part. When I joined they all wanted to know what I do, or what I did, and it seems like they often talk about stuff like their wrist pain from holding an instrument, plantar fasciitis or hip pain from running, and there's a new one going around, the POT Syndrome. I tried to explain to them and even gave them copies of Dr Sarno's books to heal these things, but it all fell on deaf ears. I'm slow to give up. Earlier this evening I met a 77-year-old gentleman on the beach who was thrilled to tell me about all his money and multiple multi-million dollar vacation houses, even before he knew my name. Yet he was hobbled over with TMS and also related the details of his recent vertebral fusion surgery, spinal osteophytes, spinal stenosis, etc. So I still couldn't help myself, since he volunteered all this medical information, that he might possibly benefit from reading this book called Healing Back Pain.

Sometimes I go off on tangents but anyway Ybird I also don't have any good advice about how to respond to your family. I think I mentioned, I cut all my family members off. Only my wife and son are left. There are many ways of saying this, but I still get the sense that my wife is an unconscious source of perceived danger. I wish I knew how to completely let that go, because consciously I know she is no longer a threat. And a misbehaving child, yes that is annoying, but an innocent little child can't hurt anything.