Day 5 by way of an introduction..

Im 61 and I suspect I am a classic case of TMS. I've had a lifetime of weird illnesses. At present I have fibromyalgia, high blood pressure and am plagued daily by palpitations. Despite meditating and perhaps because of it I'm very aware of the chronic tension I'm in all the time. I cannot seem to break the cycle which creates a sense of pressure in my life all the time. It's as though I'm not meant to enjoy my life. Although my whole body hurts, what really gets to me is the chronic pain in my neck, resistance in my jaws and clenching my teeth. I think this is because I have a fear of talking and saying the wrong thing. This is compounded by folks around me who think I'm speaking a 'foreign tongue', though the language I speak is English.

I am very smart but I feel unfulfilled and frustrated. I haven't had a conventional job or career, though I have been a career mum. I write, paint, schooled by children at home on and off and was a tutor to primary aged children. Everything about my life has been within the context of home: since I seem to be my mother, enmeshed with her. To go into the world beyond my front door, to have a voice in the world would be a betrayal of my inner mother.

Having said all this, I am more alert, more aware than I have been in my whole life. There was a time I could scarcely walk and was quite dead, without any feelings at all. But the palpitations drive me potty and I am overweight ( not obese) and I used to be very thin. My inner mother at work again!

One of the first memories in my life is sitting in a pushchair and looking at my hands which have no nails. Then I was ill with a horrible rash on my legs and other parts of my body. This mysterious rash lasted well into my teens and also appeared from time to time in my twenties. Interestingly my parents sent me out of the house all the time to my aunt and other folks, separating me from my sisters. Apparently this was because I was "sensitive". I recall myself always asking a lot of questions as a little girl and being a kind of psychologist wandering what life was all about. I think I was a kind of barometer for the family, a dumping ground for waste feelings.

My identification was and still is with my mother who was a white woman and although I am white culturally I am not white. My father was a black man. The upshot of this is that my identifications are towards white folk, but they do not identify with me. I am nearly always the ubiquitous 'other'. But I was always my mother's 'other' as well, in the fractured society of my family..mind/body, black/white. Male/female. I think my illness was to a large extent learnt. Again,I learnt also to be " black" to her white innocence, so that racial identification was also a learnt behaviour.

In my teens it was malaria, in my twenties some weird malady I named as 'sleepyitis' for want of a better term. I rarely had any stamina. I've never had any positive response or help from a doctor except when I asked to see a counselor.They seem not to be able to hear me. There is a sense in which illness has been a lifelong 'friend' shielding me from living a full life, appearing as some faithful servant. Often as the symptoms of one illness retreated another illness would appear. During my mother's lifetime, I noticed that there were times when we seemed to take illness in turn. This relationship was very odd.

So this is how I come to this educational programme wanting to accept the paradox I live in...

 

Gosh, I have had tailbone pain, restless leg syndrome, scoliosis surgery, low back pain, neck pain, allergies, asthma, shin splints, depression, tingling in my hands and feet, pelvic pain, interstitial cystitis, leg cramps... I am sure I forgot something.

I know in time I am going to be pain free. Dr. Sarno was in my mind when he wrote his book. I have to journal more about the death of my baby brother. It was such a relief when he died... no more crying. We were all so relieved then such tremendous guilt. But I decided to be perfect and good so nobody would put me in a box in the ground. Nobody ever cried, he was never discussed, all the pictures were taken down... it was like he never existed.

My Mother put her arms around her 4 and 6 year old daughters and said "We have to be strong." Why did I have to be strong? I wanted my Mother to hold me and cry with me. She still can't do this even today after several discussions about my brother's death. That is what I want.

Nancy, you will get better. I can't imagine what you have experienced and I know you will continue to discover the pain source within you.

 

Nancy & SandyRae,

Welcome to the community, you will find great insight and solace here.

Can I suggest the incalculable value of role playing in private, the scenes from your past of great anguish, and letting the person who hurt you most know every last feeling from your hearts. HOLD NOTHING BACK.

I hope this brings you more peace on this journey. MR