TMS returns, what to do?

Hello everyone,
I am new to this forum, thanks for reading.

I am a 39 year old female, married with two young sons. I started having lower back pain and tingling in my neck last January 2013 and had CAT scans and MRI done- I have a small herniated disc in my lower back but doctors were perplexed why the pain was so stubborn.I tried chiropractic, PT, but to no avail. The pain continued whenever I sat down- so I carried one of those "herniated discs pads" around everywhere with me and iced my back whenever I could. I felt terrible all the time. Then, in early August I picked up Healing Back Pain and read it in one day. I noticed so much of myself in the pages. Within one week, I felt a change in my symptoms and by the end of August, I felt little or no pain/discomfort!

I felt wonderful all autumn-- until Christmas break. Then in early January, a dear friend lost his spouse to cancer, leaving behind two young children. This was a very emotional experience for me because it put my life in perspective and caused me to fear dying and having to say goodbye to my own children. Then I caught a terrible cold, bronchitis, etc- and amidst a crazy coughing fit one night, felt the tingling return with a vengeance- all the way into my scalp. The feeling scared me and I thought, "Oh no, I feel the same pains coming back again." I kept rereading Sarno's book and I'd be ok for a few days, then something crazy like wearing new shoes (for example) caused my back to cramp up. Now in late February, I feel the tingling in my neck/scalp almost constantly (esp when I sit), and the lower back pain creeps up when I wear different shoes other than my comfortable sneakers.

Bottom line, I am trying so hard to talk to my brain again and move past this "episode" - but I am also worried that it won't. Has this happened to anyone? You feel like you're cured, but then something emotional brings the TMS back again, and you doubt your success?
Thanks for reading,
K

 

I would think more about that success and not doubt something that is true just cause you're having a relapse ok. You had success with Sarnos protocol so you know you can come back out of this mess you feel and get right back well again - right. Now you have had a traumatic event happen that I would highly recommend you to journal about and face those emotions that you might have repressed.

The TMS Recovery Program we have for free here as you might know will really help you a lot to further your knowledge in what is happening to you at this time in your life ok. http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Structured_Educational_Program

Remember the harder you try to get rid of something the more it will stay so you would do good to read Claire Weekes Floating style and listen to some of her audios too. I have posted a great post that should be of help to you -- You will be doing your work you need to do but you wont be swimming against the current ok.
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/lessons-from-claire-weekes.3873/

Method
Dr Claire Weekes technique consists of four steps of leading toward the understanding and acceptance of one's fears. She observed that is the second fear--the fear of fear--that can trigger anxiety and panic.

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Face; Don't run away. See what is going on, and do not give in to the impulse toward flight.

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Accept; Do not fight. Allow yourself to be in the moment with whatever you are feeling.

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Float past; Loosen the strings, trust your entire organism. Do not look in, look outward.

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Let time pass.... Do not be impatient with time.








Welcome aboard. Bless You

 

You're an inspiration Herbie. This is wonderful. Colly

 

kateshanny, setbacks are expected in TMS healing. It probably means that you need to discover more
repressed emotions, perhaps triggered by something recent that reminds you of the past.

Herbie's suggestions to study Claire Weekes and her videos are great. She really knows how to get over
anxiety and fear.

 

Awww, thank you so much Colly. You're my inspiration. I really love all of your advice and your success story. Your so cool. Bless You

 

Love ya Walt.

 

Thank you so much, Herbie and Walt. I have been journaling a lot the past few days and trying to dig deeply. ALthough I know that there is nothing structurally wrong with my back, and that I have a healthy body, TMS is still annoying and frustrating. I don't walk around fearing that i have a structural problem, but rather I walk around annoyed and sad (sometimes a pity party) wishing I didn't feel the aches and pains that I do. I guess I keep journaling, then? and keep trying to talk to myself? I wish I could just "be" and not have the discomfort.

 

Eric, With your suggestion, I been reading Claire Weekes books. Can you explain what floating is more and give some examples of it
relating to TMS? Thanks

 

Herbie knows floating well, so I'm sure he will explain how he uses it.

Kateshanny, we all wish what you do, that we could be totally free of pain, and always.
We can get almost there, then maybe something new comes up, maybe because of a new trigger,
something that troubles us today which is part of what we repressed in the past.

For me, it was a recent friends' divorce which reminded me that I had four fathers.
My mom divorced my birth father when I was about seven, then married another man
because he had a house we could live in, and a year later divorced him and remarried my birthfather.
Dad lived ten more years and when I was 21 and in college, he died and a month later she married
Dad's brother who was a very troubled man. So living with four fathers made divorce a bad repressed emotion for me.

 

Claire Weekes:
Float Through Anxiety
What did Claire Weekes mean by that? Here's how I understand it.
How Do You Swim?
It's complicated. You have to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and head to propel yourself through the water. You also have to breathe without taking in large quantities of water. And you have to keep going in the right direction, even when water gets in your eyes.
If you're like most people, it took a lot of practice to learn to swim, because there are so many things you have to make happen, and so many techniques to master.
How Do You Float?
You don't really have to learn to float. A block of wood can float, and so can a person. What you might have to learn is how to not get in your own way, how to simply let floating happen.
The block of wood doesn't have to make it happen, it just floats, as long as it's in water. People will float too, if they just lay down on the water.
But people, unlike blocks of wood, often find it hard to let go and trust in their body's natural ability to float. Their mistrust and apprehension will lead them to "do things" to try and stay afloat.
That's not floating, that's sinking! To teach someone to float, you might have to give them a few instructions - lay back, lay your head on the water, lay your arms and legs out, lie still - but the most important part of the "technique" of floating is...do nothing, let go, and let time pass.
Float versus Swim
When anxious clients come to me for help in dealing with anxiety, they usually expect that I will offer them the swimming kind of help: lots of specific ways for coping with anxiety, and many techniques to keep them "afloat".
But what they really need is more the floating kind of help. They need to learn to let go, rather than to make something happen, or prevent something from happening. That's the surest path to anxiety relief.
What did Claire Weekes Mean by "Floating"?
First and foremost, she meant to convey the opposite of fighting. The way to regain a sense of calm is to go along with the sensations of anxiety and panic, rather than oppose them.
She described floating as "masterly inactivity", and said this meant:
to stop holding tensely onto yourself, trying to control your fear, trying 'to do something about it' while subjecting yourself to constant self-analysis.
That's a tough sell! Claire Weekes knew that, of course, and wrote:
The average person, tense with battling, has an innate aversion to ...letting go. He vaguely thinks that were he to do this, he would lose control over the last vestige of his will power and his house of cards would tumble.
Claire Weekes Knew it was a Trick
The aversion Claire Weekes referred to is the result of the Panic Trick. It's the idea that a person is just barely holding himself together, and that if he relaxes his grip even a little, he will fall apart. In fact, it's his struggling to keep a grip that maintains the anxiety!
What I like best about the notion of floating is that it avoids two common misunderstandings about overcoming anxiety. The first one is the idea that you have to struggle against anxiety, fight it, and overcome it. And the second, related to the first, is that you have to arm yourself with all kinds of techniques and objects in order to enter the fray and confront anxiety.
In reality, you'll make much better progress when you let yourself float through the anxiety, not striving to overcome anything, not struggling to employ techniques, but simply allowing the sensations to pass over time.
The best kind of help, in my opinion, is the floating kind. It's help that assists you to rediscover your own natural abilities to cope with whatever comes, rather than arming you against potential adversity.

 

When your annoyed and sad then your angry and when your angry theirs fear so this works universally for any emotion ok. Check out the description of floating above. You need do this with the annoyed and sad emotions ok thanks

 

I like the idea of floating through anxiety.

I can get help floating through it when I laugh.