Day 1 Day 1

Hi all,

I am excited to join you on TMS Wiki and begin my TMS journey.

I have suffered from upper back pain and RSI/hand pain for about 6 years now. In the past year, the hand pain became significantly worse and I had to take disability leave from work. Dealing with pain and Drs appointments have consumed nearly all my time for the past 6 months. I came across Dr Sarno's theories last weekend and read his books, and I'm already feeling major improvements (back pain went away within a day, and I'm typing right now with now pain for the first time in months!!)

I have been feeling extra emotional/anxious, though, and weirdly, my stomach has started to bother me. Guess this is good evidence that I have TMS!

I'm also realizing that the pain provided a major distraction from things in my life that I didn't want to deal with, and now I guess I'll have to... this is discomforting, but much better than constant pain/disability. Guess I'll have to deal with the fact that I don't really like my job, my boss is a jerk, and I am constantly putting serious pressure on myself to be perfect.

How have others here dealt with perfectionism?? I have a rather extreme case, I think! I have known this about myself most of my life and realized that it was making me miserable, but didn't really know what to do about it.

Well, I'm glad to be here -- wish me luck on my journey. Thank you all so much for the work you are doing with this wiki - I truly believe that you are changing peoples' lives for the better.

 

Hi Hope, and welcome to the forum.

In the journaling I've done since starting my work on my TMS, I've come to realize that my perfectionism stems from a very deep belief that the only way I will ever be loved is if I'm perfect. And this comes from never getting unconditional love as a child. I was raised to believe I had to earn it, but because I wasn't perfect enough I was never able to be loved by my parents. These are very deep wounds, but realizing the 'why' of my perfectionism has helped me significantly with letting it go. Also, as a parent, I realize that my own child doesn't have to be perfect in order for me to love him. So I know it is possible to give and receive love between imperfect, flawed human beings.

I hope you are able to find a way to start letting perfectionism go, as it is exhausting and takes all the fun out of life.


Best wishes...

 

Thank you for your reply, Ellen!
I've been thinking about this, and I think that some of my problem comes from early experiences at school, where I was singled out for special treatment as a "gifted" student. Before that, I just did well in school because I enjoyed it, but that label came to define me and I felt the need to be "perfect" in order to please all the adults who were holding me up as an example.... otherwise I wouldn't have been special anymore.

I've been working through the materials on the Wiki and am already feeling major improvements in my pain in the past couple of days. Thanks for your support!

 

Hi, Hope and Ellen. It's so great to be able to exchange experiences with you both.

Hope, I'm so glad you discovered Dr. Sarno and TMS and you've read his books.
You would also gain more TMS healing knowledge from Steve Ozanich's book,
The Great Pain Deception.

The main thing is, believe 100 percent (not even just 99 percent) that your pain symptoms
are from TMS (after you get a doctor's checkup that it isn't structural). But as Dr. Sarno says,
even if X-rays and MRIs show a structural problem, the pain may well not be caused by it,
so go ahead with the TMS healing techniques. You'll find lots of them in the TMSWiki forums.

Trying to be perfect can give us (and others) a real pain.
I work for a boss who thinks he's perfect and acts like a perfectionist's perfectionist,
so he works everyone like Scarlett O'Hara beat her horse in "Gone with the Wind"
until it died in front of her.

Just work at your healthiest pace and I'm sure that will be more than most people.
Tell yourself (not your boss) that he should go to that underworld.
Try to find something in your work that you enjoy, or consider changing jobs.
I know it's not the best of times for that. If you can't change your job,
try to find some hobby you enjoy or do some volunteer work to give your
life extra meaning and enjoyment.

You're going to heal, but it takes delving into our past and present to find the
repressed emotions that are causing our TMS pain.

It's a very exciting journey you've begun. You're going to understand yourself better
and also those in your personal and work life. We're all actually lucky we got a pain
that led us to know about TMS and ourselves.

Happy journaling and happy journey.

 

Welcome Hope! I have given many surprises doing this program. One of them is finding out what a perfectionist I was. I had no idea. It was masked under other layers of control and pressure I kept putting on myself. This program is like peeling the onion. The layers keep revealing more and more emotions/pressures that feed the TMS pain. The more conscious i become, the more the pain dissipates.

 

You put it well: TMS is like peeling an onion. We learn so much about ourselves and that can be applied to learning
more about others including those who may have given us TMS.

One thing I began doing is to put myself in someone's else's shoes. I began to figure they probably had TMS repressed
emotions and they took them out on me.

I didn't think of myself as a perfectionist, but when I really began to think about it, I realized I was.
I thought I was just working efficiently as my father had always said, "Give a day's work for a day's pay."

But I was so concientious, I was was giving my employers more like two days' work for a day's pay.
I've been doing that for my present boss and all I get out of it is, he's glad I work so hard for him.
That has led to me realizing I'm knocking myself out for someone who says he appreciates it, and me,
but I doubt he really does. So I've learned to work not at his pace, but at mine. It's relieved a lot of pressure
I've put on myself.