Day 10 My Progress Thus Far

My oh my.

My progress went from a trickle to busting down dam in the last 3 days.

Let me start by saying I am working with a counselor because I am dealing with very traumatic and complicated issues. I had a traumatic experience in January and I had not really dealt with it or the resulting PTSD. I am a very fit, strong, healthy 36 year old woman. I am a powerlifter and olympic lifter. I live in New York City so I walk an easy 4-5 miles a day on top of training. I have a 7 year old who can't keep up with me. So when I had a sciatic flare up after years of living pain free, I did some research and learned about Sarno, TMS, MBS. And it seemed to me this was what was going on with me.

I finally began to open up about my trauma in therapy, as well as explore why I had refused to open up before and the muscle spasms subsided. However I was still having some persistent nerve pain. But I kept journaling and talking to loved ones as well as professionals who deal with mind body (open minded acupuncturist, PT, reiki master) and the momentum continued to swell.

During a reiki session I had a series of repressed memories come up. Three memories. All traumatic and in similar ways to my most recent trauma. I never told anyone. But here is the kicker, just this morning I realized that my first time my back went out (in 1999) was just after I had started doing similar energy work and I had uncovered these memories. I didn't want to face them - I felt powerless to do so. And it was around that time my back went out, and you know what, I re-suppressed these memories. My brain and TMS worked. A doctor found a herniated disk and at the time I was very out of shape and inactive. I was told to get in shape. I didn't actually get in shape or get rid of the pain for years. The pain subsided as I got into shape, but as I got into shape, my life got better and I was doing a lot of soul searching. I would have occasional flare ups. A hip. A knee. A shoulder. And I always knew it was mental - stress and tension. But I did not understand it in the way I do now.

To further support the TMS diagnosis, when I made the connection this moring I began to get pain in my neck and tingling down my arm - I HAVE SCIATICA!!! NOT ARM PAIN!!! I said to my husband, "My brain is trying to distract me!!! I am getting arm pain!!!" "Not going to work," I then said to my brain.

Sorry brain - I won't settle for your TMS trickery anymore. I am finding my voice and I am no longer staying quiet about my traumas. I will deal with them no matter how emotionally challenging they are.

The nerve pain is subsiding but still present. But that makes sense because I have a lot of very complicated and frankly disturbing things to process. But I am going to do the work and then I am going to get better and be an even more awesome lifter, mother, wife, and friend!

 

Hi, Quadzilla. You have the right attitude about TMS healing, so you ARE GOING TO HEAL!
I agree with you that your subconscious is trying to trick you, distracting you from the sciatica by giving you arm pain.
It's all part of the subconscious giving you pain that may move around, the reason being it wants you to discover
the repressed emotions and/or personality traits that make you have hidden anger. The anger may well go back to
your childhood. You say that you know you have had some repressed emotions. Journal about them and it will help lead
you to uncovering the emotions so you can move into understanding and, hopefully, forgiving. That ends the pain.