Hello again!

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to pop back in and re-introduce myself. I have been out of commission for a good while busy getting my life sorted and moving forward, but I have always kept this community close to my heart. I know some of you from way back a few years ago and I hope everyone is doing well!

To any of you who are new, please take my word for it that life after chronic pain is possible and YOU can achieve it! I know--I suffered terribly from about 2011 to 2013, although looking back I have come to appreciate that I was ALWAYS a TMSer at heart.

I'm not completely free of symptoms at the moment, but I've gone long spans of time (months to years) completely symptom-free. To that I credit Dr. David Schechter, who first diagnosed me--and Alan Gordon, who I credit with completely resolving me of symptoms.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to let me know!

Love to all,

Phil

 

Thank you for posting and congratulations! Can you in hindsight name what were the key things that really made the difference and helped you recover? Please!

 

Hi Elina!

Definitely. I would say the key issues were learning how to take a reflective stance on myself and understand on a gut, visceral level how much my personality embodies the classic personality of a TMSer--that is, primarily stoicism, extreme goodism and people-pleasing, extreme perfectionism, self-sacrifice, and nearly obsessive guilt and personal responsibility to others--always putting myself DEAD last.

Even as I composed this response, my perfectionism kicked in and I meditated over the "most perfect" way to respond.

Understanding that was key to understanding how much emotional energy I was raised to repress in the past, growing up, and in daily, present life.

Once I started seeing myself and my circumstances through a TMS lens, Alan really helped teach me "life lessons" in changing the way I viewed myself. It took a really, really long time for me to truly generate self-compassion--I was always used to putting my needs last, and I was always used to burying how I felt as a result.

I think TMS healing, at its core, is about changing the nature of the relationship with oneself. Moving from a harsh point of view to one where you actually value yourself. It wasn't easy to do, and I still revert to form at times, which may explain why certain symptoms are rearing their heads again.

But Alan really has helped me fundamentally change the internal "dialogue" I have with myself on a deep level--whether or not I actually consciously do it is a bit of a question.

It is, at its core, a journey of lovingkindness mindfulness.

Looking forward to seeing you heal,

Phil

 

Thank you for the response! Very insightful and definitely something I will try. I feel like perhaps this is the reason why I haven't recovered yet, I keep doing everything by the book, mediating, journaling, exploring my feelings, but I havent really changed the relationship with myself as you are writing... Thank you!

 

It takes time and patience. I remember always getting caught up in the "calendar phenomenon" which always added an extra layer of frantic panic to my recovery.

It's hard to change overnight.

 

Me too! I keep counting months and setting deadlines and then Im devastated that its been so long. You give me hope

 

I try to look at each day with a genuine spirit of newness and hope. True "beginner's mind", in meditation parlance. I'm not always successful, but I do try.

Sometimes the hardest part of TMS recovery is knowing when to try (to bring to the surface emotions you've buried? to process these emotions [much easier, of course, with a therapist]? to push yourself physically to challenge any preconceived physical notions), and when NOT to try (perhaps equally or more important).

 

Oh my, Phil, it's awesome to hear from you, as always! You've come such a long way, had such an amazing journey, and I love that you're back to inspire others.

 

It's good to be back!

 

Oh, the ironies of life!

I don't exactly know where this fits in everything, so I decided to stick it in this thread. Not really a question and not really a success story, just an observation I suppose.

Was just finding myself very amused about the turns my life has taken. At one point in my life, around 2011-2012, TMS very nearly destroyed my life at the same moment it saved it (it certainly cataclysmically changed my professional focus forever). The story begins with chronic R shoulder pain, which I was given various diagnoses for, starting me down the path of medicine, physical therapy and injections before going away via a diagnosis by Dr. Schechter and therapy by Alan Gordon. And for many years, I have been free of pain (although I have not been free of symptom equivalents necessarily). So great was my distress that it about nearly ended or derailed one career (mainstream medicine) and started me down the path of another (TMS therapist), which I am now close to having in hand with my graduation from my Master's program this coming May.

Life sometimes imitates art, I suppose, and hand in hand with being highly sensitive, vulnerable to criticism, and having had a long, LONG history of being bullied, I've drawn inspiration from plenty of fictional characters. You take a somewhat dorky guy, add TMS traits, and couple that with a streak of obsessionality a mile wide and you get the origin story of a comic book superhero, no? And what better figure to embody the concept of repressed RAGE than Wolverine from the X-Men?

I guess injuries are commonplace in the world of powerlifting and bodybuilding. I just find it quite ironic that I've probably sustained a *legitimate* R shoulder injury as I've been transforming my body at the site of my former TMS and I reached out to my primary doctor for an aggressive course of physical therapy to bring my R shoulder back so I can continue to lift as aggressively as I have been.

That'll really screw with your brain!!! "Is it TMS or not if you've had TMS in one spot before but then you push past it and stop babying that part of the body and aggressively challenge it physically to the point that you might have actually injured it?"

That one will mess with your head!!!