HilaryK

Hi! I'm Hilary and though I'm not new to TMS, I am brand new to this wiki, and am already so thankful for it. I would like to briefly introduce myself and my journey so far with this. It is reassuring and touching to find others who are going through the same things and who don't think I'm crazy for believing these physical issues are originating in my mind.
I have had some back pain throughout my life. I was a talented sprinter on my high school track team and remember having back pain during the season, though now that I look back on it, it was likely due to putting pressure on myself to be the best. I also slipped on some ice during college and fell on my back, resulting in pain that wasn't too terrible but disabled me from throwing pottery (I'm an artist) for a couple weeks.
The first time my back spasmed I was moving in with some friends out of an apartment I had loved. We had just finished moving a heavy couch up a flight of stairs. I reached out to pull back a much smaller chair and felt a terrible sudden pain. But even that didn't phase me too much. I had just run a half marathon and continued to run long distances.
Fast forward a couple years. I was 25, newly married, and working at a new and surprisingly stressful job at a florist. I was out back bent over spray painting a shelf and noticed a sudden limitation in my movements. I tried to stretch immediately, as I recognized the feeling from when I'd moved the couch, and couldn't get up off the ground. I stayed at work the rest of the day even though the pain and stiffness was unbearable. I could hardly drive myself home. When I got home I tried to sit on the couch, but even moving from my standing position seemed impossible. I could hardly walk or do anything for that matter, and when I did stand up my spine was at an angle. I grew up in a family that relied more on holistic wellness, so I saw a chiropractor. He took and x-ray (my spine had popped out around L4, hence the crooked standing) and adjusted me and gave me some stretches to do. I could never tell if all this really helped. Fortunately for me, my older sister who had also suffered from back episodes at the same age gave me Dr. Sarno's The Divided Mind. I read it and it helped a lot, though I still had some pain most days. I was still visiting the chiro, taking epsom salt baths, and getting massages regularly…so treating it physically and reinforcing it, I now see. That summer we were able to travel. We lived in NYC and I would walk around the city in flat shoes all day and didn't have issues. I could hike and run. Then we came home.
My dad got pneumonia pretty soon after we were back home. We didn't worry. Then suddenly he couldn't breathe. We took him to the hospital where they held him and put him on oxygen. He went in for a doctors appt. and they said he had lung cancer. He died 6 days later. It is the most devastating thing that has happened in my short life.
Not surprisingly, my back pain increased during this time. 2 weeks after his death I was bending over to get a hair tie out of my bag and I felt it. My back "went out" again. I was scared and devastated. There was a lot more fear surrounding the whole thing this time. For awhile I was taking 3 baths a day and had to lay in the back seat of the car whenever we went anywhere. I got out my old Dr. Sarno book, but it was just so hard trying to sort through everything. I was in so much pain and so tired and so miserable. Focusing on the emotions surrounding my dad's death seemed dark and impossible. So I committed to doing Dr. Sarno's program religiously for a month last January. It helped some but not enough. I started going to psychotherapy. My husband finally convinced me to see a Doctor this past May. The day I went to see her my back kept getting tighter and tighter. She couldn't find anything wrong with me but ordered PT for me. By this point I was obsessing over the pain, convinced it was something structural now. By the time I went to PT 2 days later, I could hardly walk again! I got better, since I was already at my worst, and my physical therapist said she expected I had a disc bulge down near L4/L5. I did my little exercises, stretched, the whole thing. Still I couldn't sit up in the car. Still I couldn't walk or be on my feet long. My husband and I moved to a new town and I started a new very physical job doing retail display design. I was able to perform at work but would lie in bed the whole rest of the time after I got home. Then I remembered Dr. Sarno. I listened to a couple of his interviews one day and noticed a marked improvement after that. I remembered that it wasn't physical! But I didn't journal. I didn't read. I didn't keep up on it. Then yesterday I felt the stiffness coming back up. "I CANNOT DO THIS AGAIN!" I thought. And I got online looking for more Sarno resources and found this. I read the recovery program, listened to the clips, ate up all I could and recognized myself in the stories on here. I needed someone to spell out how to practice getting rid of TMS and found that here. I have been in a lot of pain all day, but I am not letting it scare me. I am saying no to the fear. Before, this undoubtably would have turned into an episode that would have confined me to bed. But I went to work today. I did dishes. I put away laundry. I sat on the couch instead of laying in bed, even though it hurt. I can do my life in spite of the pain because I'm not letting it scare me. It's hard, and my brain feels tired, but I'm on the road. I want to beat this. I want mine to be a great success story. I don't want to be restricted physically at 27 years old.
Thanks for letting me share. It felt good to get my story out.
Hilary