New to forum want some input and thoughts

I currently have diagnosed myself with tms about 2 months ago after reading dr. Sarno "healing back pain" book. I have made leaps and bounds in these last couple months and learned a lot about myself. I really didn't realize how hard I was on myself and how corrupt my mind was. I little bit about my story, I am a 30 year old that was very athletic before I got hurt. I am married with a 2.5 year old boy and another boy coming into this world next month. My tms pain is mainly in my upper back and neck area. My pain just slowly crept up on me until I finally went to the doctor because I was in so much pain and tension. Got MRI and X-rays with nothing that showed up. I couldn't figure out what was wrong me and then I feared I would never get better. Went to physical therapy for months and did get better but was not healed. I could no longer do anything enjoyed such as sports, working out, running, or hunting. I noticed my pain would lasts flare up and get worse when I was under a lot of stress. That's when I began to read Sarno books. They started helping a lot but I still have some bad days. I am beginning to accept that I have tms, but sometimes not totally positive. I am a goodist people pleaser, always want people to like me, perfectionist, worried what others think, pessimistic(always strive to do better. Never statsified), also have anxiety but that has gotten better, but still have times where I am anxious and worry a lot. I am currently having trouble with when I do make mistakes I begin to fear what's going to happen or begin to be very negative and hard on myself. Any advice or tips on how to help this? I have always struggled with not being good enough but on the outside I try to appear to be confident. My position at work is very stressful and demanding, which makes me be so hard on myself to not make any mistakes. I am also constantly comparing myself to others during these times, which I don't know why? Maybe to try and make myself feel better. I am constantly worried about people accepting me and feel like I am always trying to prove myself. I always feel like someone doesn't like me and I want everyone to like me. I would appreciate the help and input in what you all think. Once I get very anxious and worried I cannot stop it and it causes me to be anxious and worry for a couple days, but not have panic attacks. Then it gets better and the cycle starts again by some triggers later 0n. Want to know if you all think I have tms? I have learned a lot from this site and am thankful for all you do. I am also on day 17 of the SEP.

 

No one here can diagnose you, even if they were a physician. So if you decide to do TMS healing it’s your responsibility, and all advice given to you is assuming you have TMS. There’s the disclaimer.

Now IF you do have TMS you’ve come to the right place. You have many of the life-triggers and personality characteristics. The personality is often a tricky subject, because it has been stated that you don’t have to change your personality to heal, and yet, you have to change how you react. But many will claim that how we react, 'is our personality." You are also in the “years of responsibility” with young children and a stressful job. All signs point to TMS.

That being said, the most important part of healing is to stop focusing on your body, stop trying to heal, stop doing all healing modalities, stop worrying about what your body is doing. You must connect your emotions that are unfelt to your symptoms.

There are ancillary aspects to healing that expedite it, such as, finding more pleasure and joy, healing relationships, mindfulness, secondary transparent acts, physical movement, music, relaxation and breathing techniques. There are many roads home.

The process works, but you must be persistent AND you have to begin to believe deeply that your body is ok and is reacting to unconscious forces. “There’s no one foot in each ballpark!” JES

Good luck

Steve

 

Hi SteveO, great answer! You should write a book! One question: What is/are "SECONDARY TRANSPARENT ACTS"? Do I need to go to Safeway and buy some Saran Wrap for the upcoming big weekend?

Cheers,
tt

 

Hi Ryan,

For my healing, I found connecting the inner critic to the TMS symptoms extremely valuable. I can see how the Super Ego is denying and neglecting and attacking the inner child. This is part of Sarno's teaching: how this treatment is enraging, hurtful, and scary to the younger part of ourself. And how this rage, hurt, or fear is then defended against because the normal sense of self can't own these aspects. (You can with practice!) Then we develop symptoms as a distraction to awareness of these unconscious, "threatening" emotions.

Regardless about your TMS diagnosis, you suffer with self-rejection, like so many of us do. To me, something deep down in you (and me) is calling for healing. The suffering brings our attention there.

Here is a leader in the "self-compassion" field. I have not taken her course, but use similar techniques for myself and others. http://www.self-compassion.org/

There is something so intimate and precious when we can be there for ourselves. Good luck. To me it is a life-long journey, but one of the most important journeys regardless of pain relief. And for me, the pain relief was tremendous.

 

Ryan, I also have gone overboard being a people pleaser all of my life, and I'm 84.

I've decided that I could be half the people pleaser I am, or 1/100th, and still please people
more than I need to or that most of them deserve. I've been working on how I react to changing
my people pleasing personality, as Steve suggests.

Today I visited a neighbor for whom I have been doing favors for years. He's much younger.
I did another favor for him and as always, he was critical and unappreciative.
I finally told him I was not going to do that favor for him anyone (renting DVDs for him).
I thought it would make me feel guilty, but instead I felt a great sense of relief.
I don't have to try to please him anymore, since he never appreciated it anyway.

I put self-compassion first, way behind people-pleasing and "goodism."

Some people can eat us alive if we let them. Don't let them.

 

Tom it's always good to have some Saran wrap handy in case you begin to unravel. But you ask a good question, as always. So I will create a thread on what I mean by secondary mechanical transparency.

 

You have to believe its 100% TMS ok. You said you did the Tms program in the other thread, did it help you with all of this stress and worry? Do you know now how to control all of this stress and worry by sitting with the emotions and not listening to that voice in your head?

Do you need any specific tips now? You have every TMS symptom in full for sure. When you told me that you had already done the TMS recovery program It threw me off a little.
A good idea would be to start asking all kinds of questions in the SEP forum as you continue through your days ok. The best way to stop being so hard on yourself is
awareness. When you catch that your about to do it, then, right then send yourself compassionate affirmations like the thoughts peace, love and joy. If you could imagine those thoughts and what they feel like then you will begin to recondition from this fear ok.