TMS Theories vs Practical Applications - Kitchen Sink Edition (retitled 6.19.24)

Oh, so so true! And they also had a hard time growing up.

 

Haha! You sometimes have to upgrade! (I would offer that social media can make you really really sick! I think it had a lot to do with me getting TMS during the pandemic. I am plugging my ears and shutting my eyes at this point. Even though it feels like I’m being deliberately ignorant. You really can’t change people. But you can beat them with your new bat!)

 

This reminds me of these verses from the poem 'This Be The Verse' by the English poet Philip Larkin:

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats."

 

Yes, that's so right! I'm already finding that to be very true. Mine is all to do with my parents and upbringing too - mainly that they considered me to be a bloody nuisance (in my mother's case a lot of the time, and in my father's case all of the time).

 

Isn't it weird that this "obvious" thing IS an epiphany for most of us? And that we have to keep reminding ourselves of it? I think that's practically universal — along with feeling like a "child" in relation to our parents, no matter how old we get.

 

I’m so sorry to hear that. :-(

 

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Thanks for sharing!

 

It's fascinating how our little selves really felt bad about these things.
And how they stick with us - -sometimes without us knowing it.

Here's an interesting tidbit.
When my mother was toward the end of her life, she became obsessed with how "rotten" her mother was to her.
She was particularly hyper focused on her mother once saying to her, "I wish you were never born." In the context of things would have been easier for her.

And my grandmother, the mother of my mother that I'm speaking of, when she was in her late 90s or 100 -- she lived til 103 -- when her mind started to go, she had one story that she would repeat over and over and over again like an old record with a skip.
The story went something like this:
"When I was a little girl, a man came into my father's store. He got his things to buy and then he said, "Little girl, little girl, can I buy a box of chocolates?" and she climbed up to where the box of chocolates were high on a shelf and gave them to the man. The man paid for his things and then he said, "Little girl, the box of chocolates is for you," and he handed them back. The man left the store. And her father took the box of chocolates and put them back on the shelf to sell again."

Over and over and over she repeated this story. She would finish telling it and 30 second later would say, "You know, when I was a little girl...." and go into it again.
I always wondered, in 100 years of life, what was it about this particular incident that it became THE story that would be so deeply in the grooves of her brain.

Of course now I have outed myself to ALL of my family members that might come to this forum because they all heard the story a thousand times!

 

Right?!

My moment of no longer feeling like a "child" was when I finally had the courage to speak to my mother and tell her her behavior was not acceptable.
If you may indulge me to let me tell ANOTHER story.
My mother had a tough exterior and could be quite mean -- mostly toward picking on my Dad. It was one of the things that was very hard to watch while we kids were growing up. A not so great role model in terms of what should be a loving relationship.
Fast forward to me being an adult. My husband and I had my niece staying with us for the summer. My niece can be a little bit like my mother and her household could sometimes be chaotic. During the summer she was there with us without her sister and brother so it was a good chance for us to show her a nice quiet peaceful environment.
One day during this summer, I had just finished in the last couple days telling my niece that in our house we don't talk to each other rudely or meanly. That's not allowed. House rule. And then..... my mother and father came over to visit.
In short order my mother started being rude and mean to my father.
I bucked up the courage and I told my mother that we don't talk to each other like that in my house and if you do so you are going to have to leave.
SHE WAS STUNNED.
She went by herself to the backyard and I think sat down and put her feet in the pool.
I found her there.
I can't remember but I don't think we talked about it further. Or maybe I said something. I don't remember.
I made sure that I didn't apologize. I was an adult. It was my house. I set the rules.

 

Awesome story!

 

Out of all the thousands of experiences, both very good and very bad and somewhere in between, that she would have had during her long life, it certainly is quite astonishing that that incident was the one that her brain wanted to keep on visiting.

When my late mother's mind started to go, she too told a story 'on repeat'... It was about when she was evacuated during WW2 away from her home town (which was a coastal port that the Nazis were bombing) to live with relatives in a safer area of England. At her new school, although she was an "outsider" she was chosen to be 'head girl' of the school by the headmistress. One of her responsibilities as 'head girl' (at the age of around 12) was to ring the school bell for recess and change of lessons, which meant that she had to leave the classroom early to go to the central quadrangle in order to ring the bell, which disgruntled her teachers... She kept saying "it wasn't fair, it wasn't my fault that I was made head girl and I had to keep leaving class early... it wasn't fair, was it?!" She lived for 88 years and I also wondered why this one particular thing was the main event going on in her mind out of everything.

 

Maybe she just hated that it was unfair. I think that’s at the core of most of our heartbreaks.

 

All of the horrible things our parents and people did to us are actually MONEY when you are recovering from TMS... I have all of the little horrors scribbled in the margins of 'Healing Back Pain" and every time I review, I say "Oh yeah...now I know who I am again..and this explains it all!"

and it helps me get better faster. But Talking about it has never been of much use except when helping someone else so they know they are having a 'normal' life...and I have never been so glad to be 'normal' and 'average'. I don't mean discussing it on the forum...like people in 12 step programs and therapy who talk about it incessantly...to no end.

"If you think you have become enlightened, go and spend a week with your family" -Ram Dass

 

@Baseball65 - Do you happen to have a point by point list of exactly what you do to heal according to Sarno’s Healing Back Pain? I see a lot of times you mention that you just tore that book apart and found everything in there that you needed to do. Any secrets that aren’t obvious? I would love to hear what you do.

 

Nope. I read it like it's a text book..because it is one.
If you ever read the Jim Campobello story in the back of 'Mindbody prescription' I was doing what he wrote, before he wrote it...but I actually got better way faster than him because I did it more intensely and faster...and, I caught a 'nuance' that maybe even Jim didn't catch... He says His 'Girlfriend' gave him the book....later when he writes his letter, he says "So My Wife and I....."
I would bet big money that his anger about HER is huge... He was no spring chicken (40's) and most people I know who are 'stuck' are usually in Partner Hell or Mommy Hell.

Perhaps it is because I have zero patience, but when I get into something I take it dead serious and do everything it says... 'suggestions' don't exist. If it says you go back to normal activity, you do it...and fast. There should be urgency. No caution. Fuck Caution. I was cautious for 2 years under the care of the 'system'.
i have gone out and exercised 'too early' but I also get better 'too fast'. Yeah, I felt like I was gonna puke from the pain, but...it was only lone day in a long, long life of pain free 99.7% of the time. Everybody takes a beating sometimes. You can't hurt yourself...and if you think you can? Then you didn't believe Sarno when he told you it was TMS...you're still clinging to the physical

The thing that is making you need the symptom? Everybody sees it except you...so you need to stop what you are doing and figure out what that is..and it might be something scary (probably is) like your Partner, Family, Role...there is a big fat Lie sitting in your living room and you didn't 'choose' not to see it, but it's there, eating your lunch. Find it. Find THEM..there might be a few of them...keep looking. Take a flashlight. The flashlight is your notepad....every time you're not reading or exercising, you should be sitting still inventorying your life with lists of stuff you are angry about. CLOSE CLOSER...Everybody you regularly interact with better be on that list along with your parents and every person you ever had a beef with....disregard if you've 'made amends'...the child inside that the symptom has in a head lock doesn't make amends or forgive...ever. period.

What else is more important? Work? TV? Playing an internet game? Someone else's feelings or comfort?

How bad is the pain? You will know by how intensely you go working these things.

and when you get some malfunction you discover> You're gonna go and F-ing RAGE about it..break something. Scream... Let that child know you hear his voice even though he's getting choked...


that's just off the top of the head...every single word is a direction. Not a suggestion..not from Me, From Sarno. I am just good at following instructions...when it matters.

peace

 

Dang! This is AWESOME! I’m putting it on my fridge. And I’m going to make THE LIST. Some of it has been coming out recently in my journaling. Thank you for this!!!

 

Yes sir!

 

Right on with this part.
It's fascinating how everyone sees it except you.

 

Awww.... mahalo and aloha!