hi new here tapering benzos and jsut learning about TMS think this has been the problem all along

hi kerry 36 from the UK. Long standing history of anxiety, panic, depression, no physical illnesses other than a fibroid which causes heavy periods but no pain. I’ve suffered for years have had a lot of emotional trauma and both times my anxiety panic and insomnia started are due to stressful life events and i know i became afraid of the symptoms and life got so bad i felt suicidal and last year ended up in a psych ward for nearly 3 months as tried every medication, technique, and nothing worked. i ended up on benzos and sleeping tablets, am currently tapering off clonazepam. found gustav f and dan buglios youtube and everything is making sense. i also have severe health anxiety have been to so many doctors even sold my car for cardiology testing and everything comes back normal. i know some of my symptoms are obv withdrawal but all my symptoms my whole life can be related to stress and trauma, does this sound like TMS? i’ve always been shy and a people pleaser. I’ve never been able to set boundaries or express anger or my feelings if someone upsets me. I have been obsessively researching one illness to the next amplifying my fear. wonder if anyone can relate

 

Hi,

I can relate a little bit. Regarding shyness and helping people. Pleasing people...I would not say pleasing them, more like helping them, being of service to them. Maybe pleasing some a little too, actually. But in fact, it's hard to please many people, it's impossible. Not many are grateful for your effort anyway. What did I do to be more assertive? I read books about it and applied the advice from them. Basically, the idea is to speak your mind, tell your truth, and always say what you really feel.

Don't be a doormat but at the same time don't be aggressive. Just be firm and secure in your opinion ... in discussions with others. Just say your opinion/truth all the time. Say how you feel, say if it's not OK for others to abuse you. There are many unbalanced people around, in society. You meet them all the time and it's going to happen in the future too, you'll have to interact with them. Whether you like it or not. Keep it minimal. Do not interact with negative/unbalanced people more than it's necessary. You get away from the negative/aggressive people. Just get away from them.

I got rid of the victim mentality. So they can't abuse me anymore. Verbally I mean. Be careful with this mentality. There will always be bullies around that will want to abuse others. Just do not permit this in your case. You are not a victim here so act like a secure person. Do not let them make you angry. It's not your fault that they are mean. Why would you get angry anyway? Who gives a s.... about what they say?

Every time you hear a mean comment from others towards you, just pause a little and ask yourself: "Would I ever say something like this to another human being?"
If the answer is "No, never", then do not get upset. It's irrelevant what they say/think. I feel sorry for them to be honest. And I do my best to not encounter them again. I stay away from them, OK? I let them bee in their own misery. I don't want to interact with unbalanced people, it's not pleasant.

That's what I did. You can try and see the results. It's very liberating.

Take care.

 

wow this is so true my whole life i’ve never stood up for myself was bullied in secondary school for being shy and never expressed my anger for anything people did. with friends i would never tell them how i truly felt cos i feared abandonment so would allow them to treat me like crap. i’m working on setting healthy boundaries i don’t wanna be a doormat like you said but i think being a nice person is just in my nature but being too nice can kill ya as dr gabor mate says. thanks for your advice really appreciate it hope your well

 

Hi, Kerry,
Welcome to the forum! This place is great and you can learn a lot about how to get rid of TMS. It certainly does sound like you have it. You have many of the same symptoms most of us have and I have too. Sorry to hear that you went through a very bad time but hopefully you’re heading upward now. The hardest part about getting better is deciding what journey to take. There are so many paths and methods that people use to heal their TMS. One thing that’s really advisable is to just start with a free class that’s on this forum called the structured educational program. it walks you through things step-by-step. Another thing that is highly recommended is a book called Hope and Help for Your Nerves, by Claire Weekes. I have really bad anxiety and this book has helped me quite a bit. Also, just coming onto this forum and reading posts all the time is very inspiring. Even though other people might have something different going on with their body, everyone has the same thing going on with their internal world. I’ve learned so much from the things people have said here on the forum.

 

That is just another form of OCD. I never had THAT particular one, But What we do work on here, TMS? That is like OCD of the Body.

And OCD is just another distraction like pain.

welcome and just a quick friendly word... hope you are tapering off Benzo's with a DR? Not to freak you out more, but that has to be done thoughtfully...I used 'The Ashton Protocol' and I am sure you can still find it online..Just a safe way to get off of them.

I have had a lot of substance abuse detox's. Never had a problem, just needed to be mindful.

welcome

 

yeah def i kind of have an addiction to googling i can stop it for few days then il get another symptom and start researching again i wish i knew about this years ago and wouldnt of ended up on all these awful drugs yes im tapering with a doctor and we’ve paused it for a while as i’ve had a rough time recently. how are you?

 

Way better than I deserve! The work of Doctor Sarno has given me something to anchor to for lots and lots of 'problems' that were really just my anger masquerading as such.
In the course of working on that anger as it came out, I also met a Shrink who turned me onto STOP therapy which has substantially ameliorated the OCD.
I might go as far as saying OCD was worse than the pain. When I was in Pain I could do a few things, but the circular thinking and rituals associated with OCD kept me from doing ANYTHING.
I am very grateful and no longer have that feeling of being overwhelmed.
Thank You
and once again
welcome

 

hi diana thankyou for your warm welcome! i shall definitely start with the class! and i do have that book i read it a couple of years ago but i will definitely reread it as im sure it applies now with all the symptoms! how are you doing?

 

hi Jan nice to meet you! hope you are well I took the ACE quiz and scored 1. I had a lot of adult trauma but also some as a kid, to summarise I had a pretty good childhood, but my younger brother used to hit me and my parents never stopped him. I never felt emotionally supported or loved affectionately if you know what i mean. i had a passion for dancing and when i was 10 my dancing teaching suddenly died she was also my best friends mum. I tried to go back to dancing but it wasn’t the same, so i lost my one true passion and have always wondered what could have been. I had separation anxiety with my mother as she worked at my first school. then i went to secondary school and suddenly i was alone in this big scary world i didn’t talk and got bullied for being shy. My mum passed away in 2022 suddenly and i feel awful talking about these things but i felt like my brothers were allowed to get away with everything and i couldn’t. i remember at one point asking my mum for my birth certificate as i thought maybe i was adopted, i wasn’t. My mum lost her mum 2 weeks after i was born and i used to ask her i hope i wasn’t a nightmare baby for you during such a hard time. she said i wasn’t and my dad said she was fantastic with me. i love my parents and i miss my mum terribly it has nearly killed me but i do feel like ive never been loved by not just them but alot of other people too in life. how are you doing? i went to the educational section and they said their working on redoing it and there’s a recovery program there should i do that? thankyou

 

i forgot to mention she was very overprotective of all of us growing up not sure why but my dad said her mum was also emotionally unavailable too. I feel lucky to have such good parents and they’ve done so much for me have great memories many holidays and everything we needed.

 

Hi Kerry,
Here’s the Pain Recovery Program. https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/ (Pain Recovery Program) It’s on the top of the front page of the wiki.

Thanks for sharing your story and for being brave enough to come here and start your work. I’m doing OK I have pretty intense TMS symptoms right now and sometimes it overwhelms me emotionally but I have my sights set on healing and I just keep doing the work!