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Andy Bayliss said: ↑

Hi G.J.

For most "TMSer's" the personality pressures are a larger factor than one's history, or current life stressors. So, knowing that, I suggest you look at the more subtle ways that you pressure yourself. This includes the "goodist" and "perfectionist" traits associated with TMS propensity, as well as being detail oriented, responsible, etc.

Another aspect of personality that you may find with some observation is the way you are "hard on yourself." In order to see this, look for ---and perhaps feel in your body--- Inner Critic attacks. Everyone has them, but they are sneaky, and they are particularly believable for TMS types. That is, we believe them, and feel wrong or bad. This background "badness" is probably something that you take for granted. With time, you can discern this inner flavor, connect it to events, attacks, etc, and importantly, connect this activity to symptoms. By connect to symptoms I don't mean that you have to necessarily connect self-attack to a particular moment of symptoms. For most of us, we can connect on the general level of "oh, I have symptoms, and I wonder if I tend to beat myself up?"

The Inner Critic is the easiest thing to become aware of for most, as evidence of repression/suppression. It's activity is in response to "that which does not want to be known."

I think that the fact that you're not given obvious reasons for symptoms now is probably a call to look more deeply and with more subtlety. So this is where you might start.

And in any case, this process is asking you to go deeper, which is wonderful!

Andy
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Thanks Andy for your reply,

What I noticed is that I'm constantly scanning for danger. When I have a good day and my symptoms are more at the background, I notice that quite often I find something else to worry about. It feels like my mind is addicted to thinking about all possible threats and how to solve them so I can be 'safe'. It's almost like thinking about my symptoms or other problems in my life gives me (a false) sense of control and thus safety. It makes me wonder; could fear be the main emotion that's causing my TMS?

I've read that anger is often the main thing we suppress, but I can't really relate suppressing anger to my symptoms. I totally fit the TMS profile of being a 'goodist' and 'perfectionist' and I do feel that those traits creates inner tention due to holding in a lot of anger and frustration. But I can't find the connection to my pain to those emotions. I have had years with very little symptoms and these traits were still there. So why did the severe pain came back now? I'm more aware of these emotions than I ever was before and let myself feel them and try not to fight them, so if anger was at the root of my problems my symptoms should have been reduced and not increased?

Could it be since my life is going relatively well and I have less distractions in my outer world, that my unconscious mind maintains symptoms and pain because my mind doesn't have other issues to 'chew' on? So that the pain is not a distraction perse, but more something I maintain because my mind hyper focusses on possible threats in order to feel 'safe' and therefore I created the wrong 'neuro pathways' that keeps my pain and symptoms alive? This might relate to what @BloodMoon wrote about a 'habitual strain of tension'.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Best,
G.J.

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