Day 1 2nd time around, but this time much harder.

I had lower back pain about 5 years ago, and went through all of the traditional medical and alternative approaches before being handed the Healing Back Pain book by a friend of a friend. It worked wonders. After almost a year with excruciating pain, I was able to heal completely very quickly (weeks). Since, I've recommended the book to a number of friends, and it has turned their lives around. One woman was convinced she would never type on a computer again or be able to hold a baby because her wrists were so bad. She's been pain free for 5 years and now has a beautiful baby, which she had previously accepted was not a possibility for her.

I believe that my pain was due to a divorce (or rather, a false-start marriage that ended badly in weeks), as well as a massive change in my work situation. I left a great job that didn't feel right, and my decade long 3-person creative partnership fractured.

I had therapy for a couple months to get over some negative feelings about my divorce and work split up, then things went gangbusters. The new company one of the work-partners and I founded immediately took off. After dating for a while, I met an amazing girl and we fell in love. And the pain never returned.

Now, 5 years later, I'm struggling with new pain while at another difficult life juncture. My new marriage is great, luckily, but the company I've built is struggling, and the weight of correcting the ship is squarely on my shoulders. I acknowledge that I'm enraged by my employees and my partner for their complacency. Yet this new pain – now thoracic spine pain – is still here! for a year now I've mustered up the energy multiple times to go full-on TMS-approach and beat this pain, like I did last time, but it just makes it worse. And it's particularly terrible when I lay down for more than 4 hours. Which means I'm sleeping terribly most nights, awakening from intense pain.

I can tell that deep down I'm simply not convinced that there's not a problem outside TMS. So I'm doing this program, and seeing a therapist who specializes in TMS. I'm also going to get an MRI and see a spine specialist because I'm convinced that I HAVE to see the proof that nothing is wrong to move on. I feel foolish that I can't beat it now, but for whatever reason it's just not working.

 

Hi Dewey,

I think most of us have been through what you're going through. I have a bad relapse once in awhile, and at first it always frustrates me, as I try to get it to go away. It's not until I say to myself, "Oh, it's TMS. I've beat it before, I can do it again.", and then let it be, that I actually start to come out of it. The hardest balance to find in recovery from TMS is not trying too hard to get rid of it, while also acknowledging the psychological issues and being willing to look at them honestly. It can be a hard needle to thread. It sounds like you are doing all the right things, so I'll just say be patient, persistent, and very, very kind to yourself.