Power of Symtom Imperative

Hi everyone,

in the last days/weeks my recovery reached the next level. I am now able to open the door to my subconscious and explore situations of the last 10 years. The emotions and feeling are sometimes overwhelming me.

Today I had a hard knock-out. I was in a therm yesterday and had a dreamful but relaxed night. But during the day I got many symptoms: Backpain, legpain, dizziness, fatigue, head-ache, panic attacks. I am not worrying about these symptoms. I think it is the symptom imperative because I explore my subconscious and feel so much things from present and past events.

Do you have similar experiences? My last thread concerning dreaming (http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/relationship-between-tms-recovery-and-dreaming.15172/#post-80013 (Relationship between TMS-recovery and dreaming)) shows that there is something changing in my mind and my self treatment.

I am a bit surprised at the power and the huge amount of symptoms. Would be great to hear your experiences .

Greetings
Sebastian

 

I had dreams that showed me some of my repressions. When I woke up, I journaled about it and A,ha - felt pain leave.
I've had symptom imperatives all over my body, but I never correlated it to dreams.
If what your doing is working, then keep it up.
If not to the degree you like most, then if you wish, tweak it.
I used to meditate 3 hrs a day. I only do it once daily now for about 30 minutes, lots of times I skip it all together if I'm feeling ok.
I have always been able to do visualizations or imaging rather easy, I've changed a lot of past events that way, to my liking. And the future fear, I'd just take the image of the fear and change it to what I wanted, no more fear.
Anyhow, your question on dreams. Is it what helps you make change?

 

The "Symptom Imperative" is just a sign that you are on the right track towards recovery. It is an indication that you've uncovered the brain's 'secret' strategy for distraction & have it on the run. Remember that scene in "Casino" where Joe Pesci has to switch cars like 10 times to shake all of the people following him so he could have a private meeting with Deniro? It's a perfect analogy. When I read Dr. Sarno's book 20 years ago & my back pain began to disappear, I began having severe panic attacks. Because I didn't understand what they were at the time, it served as a very effective way for the TMS to continue.

 

Symptom imperative is what TMS has been like this years. In my case, this is what makes me easier to work toward full acceptance of TMS/PPD diagnosis.

 

Hi,

thank you guys .

I am also a big fan of meditation, especially when pain and stress is there.

Yes, I agree with you. When I opened this thread it felt like i am getting ill because I was extremely fatigued and everything was aching. BUT, instead of worrying about it, I went to a party. I was looking forward to this party during the whole last week but I also had little fear that my symptoms preclude me from enjoying the party. The opposite happened: I had a great evening/night. I was full of happiness and enjoyed every moment. It felt like I was drunk but I did not drink anything. There was so much joy, easiness, love and peace inside of me. That's amazing .
This situatuon showed me that acceptance of symptoms and not paying attention to them is the key to enjoy life and move on .

I thank TMS for showing me my real personality. I am at the beginning of my long journey and I begin to enjoy every new day.

And I thank you and this forum for your support!

Greetings

Sebastian

 

Sounds like the symptom imperative. I think the more symptoms you have at once, and the more acute and short-living the symptoms are, the farther along you are in recovery. If you had just stayed up for 48 hours straight and gotten off a roller coaster, fatigue and dizziness would make sense, but otherwise where else would they come from?

 

Hi Eric,

thanks for your perception.

This seems totally logical. Since

my symptoms are very short living but if they appear they have a higher intensity.

At the moment I am able to overcome or to stand every symptom by meditation and self reflection.

When I read your answer yesterday, I again had such a symptom raise. Do you know what I did? I smiled and felt comfortable and convinced. Your answer supported my confidence in my body, my mind and TMS.

I am very grateful .

Greetings
Sebastian