Spondylolisthesis ?

OMG - if only I had a dollar for every time someone has said this.

Joking/not joking @mmunnelly! Clearly you are not alone in this belief. The thing is, while it's true that the blessing of our existence is that we are unique in this world, and while it is also true that this recovery process, which we call "doing the work" is also unique to each individual (sometimes frustratingly so) there are nonetheless a number of commonalities that bring us together, and this belief - that "my symptoms are different" is one of them.

This is DOUBT, and DOUBT is the primary roadblock to recovery. This is your brain on TMS.

The brain mechanism which causes symptoms for no explainable physiological reason has been a part of human brains since we lived in the primitive wildnerness. It kept us on the alert for danger, working together with the fight-or-flight response to help us survive just long enough to breed the next generation. It didn't cause long-term chronic health problems for people who only lived a few decades at most, especially when life was pretty simple to navigate, and the stressors were pretty few and easy to identify.

Unfortunately, we're living in the modern world. Most of us are lucky enough to live free of physical danger, but this mechanism is still working hard to keep us in a constant state of vigilance for danger, still working with the fight-or-flight response which has not evolved beyond the belief that every time you feel stress, that you must be facing down a sabre-tooth tiger that wants to eat you.

This works for shit in today's world, with so many intangible stresses that we worry about for so many decades of life. It's even worse in this century, as existential world dysfunction and technology/information overload continue to take their toll. The danger/alert mechanism has gone into overdrive, causing our brains to be in a constant low-level condition of fight/flight or freeze, which was designed to be a temporary condition that only activated during brief times of actual physical danger. Living like this inevitably causes physiological distress as a distraction against the psychological stresses that our brains think are more dangerous than pain.

The bottom line is that it's up to you whether you want to try a different way of living. Doing this work will improve your life even if it doesn't eliminate or perhaps even significantly improve every symptom that you have. I will, however, personally guarantee you that doing this work - with complete commitment and self-honesty - will help you cope with every symptom, and with injuries or illnesses you have not yet even encountered. I have used my belief in the power of my mind to improve my experience (and that of my dentist) as a formerly really-bad dental patient, for example, and to reject prescription pain drugs as totally unnecessary after two minor surgeries and even one major one following a hip fracture in 2008.

I also wouldn't mind having a dollar for every time someone said this. This is just more TMS-brain bullshit, which unfortunately is also promulgated by some who need black & white rules. You do not have to believe 100% in order to start doing the work. The whole point of doing the work is to learn, to try, to experience, and to find a way for this work to work for YOU, the unique individual. Doing the work costs almost nothing unless you need therapy (even Dr. Sarno said that some people have too much trauma in their history to recover without it).

Good recommendations from @Cactusflower. I personally recommend The Divided Mind by Dr. Sarno. And, absolutely Dr. Hanscom to shatter your belief that back surgery is any kind of answer. I believe he's available for consults. Take the plunge and check out our free (no registration required) Structured Educational Program on the main tsmwiki.org site. You probably have anxiety (I don't know a TMSer who doesn't) so read Hope & Help For Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. These two books saved my life twelve years ago, and doing the SEP turned it around.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.