Day 1: The journey begins

I am in my mid-40s. I have already read my first book by Dr. Sarno and I can say that I fit his personality descriptions. Not 1, but unfortunately 2. I am both a perfectionist and a goodist.
I had a great childhood, but I can remember that from my studies I had the idea that I was always in a hurry. And too little time. The stress started.

At the age of 27 I got a job in politics that demanded a lot from me. I worked a lot and there was a lot of pressure on me and my colleagues. There was also a culture of fear because our work was rarely judged as good. People were also addressed in a very nasty tone for this, in the presence of other colleagues.

After a few years I started to have complaints. Regular tension headaches and a kind of dizziness and a feeling of dullness. It soon became clear that this was due to enormous tension in my trapezius and neck muscles. This tension has developed slowly and varies greatly in strength, which is why the complaints also vary in severity. Unfortunately, I still have these complaints to a greater or lesser extent, so for about 15 years. I have tried countless treatments and alternative medicine for this. From physiotherapists to osteopaths, from haptonomists to psychologists. They all indicated that stress was the main cause, but apart from some relief of complaints, almost nothing has helped.

When I was 31, my daughter was born. During my wife's delivery, something went wrong with the epidural, which caused the delivery to take a very long time and cause her a lot of pain. My daughter was born at 2 p.m. and from 8 p.m. onwards I had terrible pain in my prostate. I had problems urinating and it hurt. The GP diagnosed prostatitis and prescribed antibiotics. The severe pain disappeared, but I appeared to have problems urinating and continued to have pain in my pelvic floor. Through a urologist in the hospital who determined that there was nothing wrong with my prostate but that there was too much tension in my pelvic floor muscles, I ended up with a pelvic floor physiotherapist. She determined that I knew very well where my pelvic floor muscles were and that I could contract them perfectly, but could see from measurements that I just couldn't relax them. She didn't understand that, couldn't help me any further and sent me away. I have had these complaints for 11 years now and they also go up and down. Piriformis complaints have also been added to this. I must say that I have much fewer complaints thanks to treatment by an osteopath who determined that my pelvis was misaligned and with the help of a Cesar therapist. But they are not completely gone.

Apart from the pain that I experience, I have also adjusted my life a lot. I go to social activities less than before, work less to have less stress and do different sports than I used to do.
Completely by chance I came across a website two weeks ago that talked about TMS and Dr. Sarno. I had never heard of it before and was immediately interested. When I read his book it was as if this book was about me.

I recognized many of the complaints described (in addition to the above I also regularly suffer from tinnitus, shin splints and I have hay fever). I also recognized many of the personality traits. And I am also naturally very irritable, a characteristic that I actually always keep in mind because this is of course not very socially accepted.

I also recognize a lot in the fear of the physical complaints. And of course also in the conditioning (pavlov). I link the complaints to my work, computer, sports, yoga, working in the garden, a long car ride and unfortunately (!) also to fun things like going to parties, visiting a concert, etc..

After reading the book and watching Dr. Sarno's lecture on YouTube I am convinced that I have TMS and that I can get better. Two days later I noticed an improvement in my pelvic floor and managed to avert an emerging tension headache that I always combat with paracetamol by talking to my brain.

I am still in doubt whether I will follow the step-by-step plan on this website or whether I will join a TMS practitioner in my own country who also offers an online program with personal consultations if necessary.
For now I will start here first!

I will keep you informed of my progress.

(This message was written in another language and translated with Google Translate. Apologies for any errors)