Every few days a change

Hi everyone,

So it seems like every few days I make a change related to my eyes and experience improvement. Then a few days later things are bad again until I make another change.

Most recently my contacts were bothering me a lot. I read about the Bates Method and took them out. Fantastic! Felt wonderful! Blurry, but wonderful! (I have astigmatism in one eye so even near is a little blurry).

A few hours later, desperate anxiety about whether I'm crazy. Put on glasses. After awhile, felt good -- I can put on or take off glasses throughout the day, unlike with contacts!

Two days later, are the glasses causing strain? Facial pain? Headaches? What do I do? Am I the unique person in the world who cannot wear contacts without strain, cannot wear glasses without strain, cannot wear no correction without strain?

Obviously, that's ridiculous.

At my last appointment the optometrist said I did not need reading glasses yet, but I do get strain/blurriness with extended reading.

Funnily enough, though, sometimes it feels just fine on the computer or even with a book...if I am relaxed.

I am SO SENSITIZED. How do I tell if I need to change glasses/get reading glasses/get different frames/make another change once again?

Surely it must be that I need to stick with what I have, right? But then what about the headaches and neckaches and nose pressure (glasses have been adjusted for fit approx. 1 million times) and blurriness when switching distances and fatigue after hours of computer?

It's hard for me because much of this began when an optometrist put me in a pair of truly incorrect glasses. I spend months "trusting" and "practicing' in intense pain until I finally trusted myself and got a second opinion on the prescription.

My TMS brain is giving me an extended string of "can't" and no "can's."

AUGH.

- Dixie

 

Dixie,

I know it is so hard! One minute you’re brave, the next minute you’re terrified. This has been my exact experience. Over the last year, I have gotten stronger and quicker at controlling my terror. You don’t have to let your brain drive you; you can drive your brain. As Claire Weekes says —thoughts are just thoughts.

Here’s what Sarno said on page 141 of The MindBody Prescription. (I highly recommend getting this book and putting it by your bed or somewhere where you will read it every single day.)

“We must somehow thwart the brain’s strategy. To accomplish that I encourage patients to:
• Repudiate the structural diagnosis, the “physical” reason for the pain (TMS is a different kind of physical process)
• Acknowledge the psychological basis for the pain
• Accept the psychological explanation and all of its ramifications as normal for healthy people in our society.”

He also says in all of his books— The minute you get symptoms, Think psychologically. Think “what is bugging me?” (Don’t think about the physical symptoms.)

One of the reasons why Sarno says to immediately think of the psychological is you are teaching your brain that you don’t believe it. You are reinforcing to it that you are onto it. You are telling it that its strategy is not working.

Sarno says on page 143: “The brain tries desperately to divert our attention from rage in the unconscious. This is an automatic reaction of the mind, not based on logic or reason. So we must bring reason to the process. This is the heart of the very important concept—that we can influence unconscious, automatic reactions by the application of conscious thought processes. It is no longer a theory, for we have seen it work in thousands of patients.”

For people who have more unusual TMS symptoms, like mine and yours— every single thing in Sarno’s books still applies. It’s all the same. You’re just going have to train your brain like a wild pony. Put a bit in its mouth! Don’t let it run rampant with fear when symptoms bother you or scare you.

Keep doing the SEP! Just stick with it.

I look at it as kind of like trying to bring the matrix down. (From that old movie.) It’s not going to come down immediately. You have to keep fighting and sticking with the plan. Every time you second-guess you’re going to go backwards. Trust me I know this!

Be brave you’ve got this! Cling to the good moments you have! Replay them in your head. And just tell yourself that’s reality. Because it is!

(This is just a little thing about reading glasses. I started using them when I was in my early 40s— And for about 15 years I just bought them at the grocery store. Would that work for you?)

Hugs!

 

(I have astigmatism so I would need prescription ones. But the doctor said I don't need them quite yet. And I don't want to keep changing and chasing.)

 

(Also this will blow your mind but I do not have eye strain while reading after I cry. Also, I never had blurriness switching from far to near until somebody told me about presbyopia a few weeks ago. And now I have that blurriness sometimes.)

 

Thank you so much for all this wonderful encouragement, @Diana-M !