Ignoring the Pain

Day 3 of the SEP found me having anxiety attacks during the day and waking me up at night too. No nerve pain, but lower lumbar and sciatica still there. After the written exercises, I started to notice that my mind was slowing down, although I didn't realize it at the time. The anxiety attacks caught me off guard, I must admit, but they did seem to indicate that I was in the process of doing some radical re-engineering inside my mind. Today, looking back 5 months, it seems like I was starting to slow up the hyper part of me that needed to keep doing things compulsively. Was keeping me all keyed up and obsessed with filling up every spare moment with productive activity.

At this stage, I wouldn't really worry too much about heightening of symptoms. You're just beginning working on these issues. Of course, if they get way worse I have to tell you to have the medical doctors check them out. However, symptoms increasing happens all the time to me, sometimes for no logical reason and apparently out-of-the-blue. It often seems as though TMS has a mind of its own. When you start to threaten its existence, it'll try to find some new way to remind you that it really exists by initiating a bad bout of symptoms without any real cause. I've had my back and leg hurt when I was walking uphill on a trail one day. Then, another day on the same trail have no pain whatsoever with increased flexibility. But the time span we're talking about was only 3 or 4 days apart, so does not have much bearing on your long-time recovery over several months. IOWs: You're just at the beginning of the recovery process so you haven't really had time to gain a larger perspective on your improvement. You need to adopt what Alan Gordon calls, "outcome independence", and not expect big changes in a day or two. Healing has to do with going with the larger flow of overall improvement over longer periods of time, like a month or three months or even six months. That's when you begin to see it more clearly.

 

MorComm - thanks again for the note. It's reminding me to be patient and to retrain my mind.

 

Just found this old thread, and I thought I would revive it. Some interesting stuff here. I was struck by this:

I think this is the larger project for me, too. I have lived the last 6 years of my life in a "hyped-up" way, and really I have had hyper aspects to my personality since forever. I think discovering TMS and its treatment has helped me slow down that hyper part of myself.

The first thing I needed to do was recognize when I was keyed up, or "activated." It was more often than I realized! Now I have gotten more into the habit of checking my stomach muscles and loosening them if they are tight (they often are).

Being calmer, more accepting, and more in tune with my emotions and creativity rather than my analytical, intense side is the goal for me now. I hope to move toward leading a more balanced life.

 

Oh and also, I wonder how Explorer is doing these days!