Day 11: Exercised today and need encouragement

Hi all,

Today was an interesting day. I woke up in the midst of a rage dream, and was surprised at the contents of it, so I added it to my list. I went exercising today and the knee pain that I would get when my foot thumped the ground didn't come, and when it 'tried to' it didn't stay long. Even so, the pain sometimes depresses me. I mentioned earlier how my big toe was injured due to something the doctors said would never recover, and I believed in healing for it, got it and feel much better. Even so, I sometimes have flare ups in the toe and start worrying- what if the doctors were right? What if there is something wrong with it? What if it never healed? And the face of some respected surgeon telling me that he has 'never seen someone with my toe recover' comes flashing through my face. I know that people say, 'check with a doctor to see if there is something actually serious going on' but after reading certain stories, I can see that many TMS survivors have checked with doctors who have told them serious things are going on. So in general, I'm not sure trusting a doctor makes sense.

Anyway, today I'm feeling a little depressed about the pain in my toe (arch pain gone), knee and other heel. I keep trying to tell myself to think psychologically but I think the little voice that is doubting my healing has been stressing me out, especially in regards to the toe. The knee is just frustrating in a 'when will this end'?!? kind of way.

Any words of encouragement, please send them my way.

 

That IS the core of TMS.
In '99 I was told I would never return to my job...by the team doctor for the Knicks..I've been there ever since working HARDER because I don't fear injury. I was told I would be in pain the rest of my life. I have not. My thumb was severed in 2013 and I played guitar all day yesterday. I broke a vertebrae in my spine and worked in construction through it because I was unaware it was broken. The human body is the most durable highly evolved organism on the freaking planet. It fixes everything, 99.9% of the time with no intervention.

Yeah, no shit huh? I have to be careful myself. I have disproven so many of them that I almost have developed contempt for their opinions.

Here's how I view them; I fix stuff for a living. I also do maintenance. If you ask me about something I am always going to give you the most conservative (as in protecting your home) answer on it..."Fix that roof" "Reframe that wall" "waterproof that concrete". Well all of that stuff costs money and takes time...and a lot of homes are fine even with a small leak, a skewed wall or rotting concrete. I could inspect a new home and probably find 20 things that were done poorly and OUGHT to be fixed, but might never turn into any trouble at all.

Doctors see themselves as maintenance workers of the body. (Sarno's "Medieval structural mythology") so they are always going to give you the worst possible outcome so they can give you an "I told you so" in case anything does happen. They paid a lot of money to learn how to fix the roof and if they don't fix X amount of roofs a year, they can't raise the money to pay for their privileged lifestyle and to pay for the loan they got for that expensive training on how to fix roofs.

That 'what if' thought is there to keep you from looking at what REALLY might be a problem which is the stuff in our lives we don't want to or can't look at.... bad jobs, poor relationships, family responsibility and general outrage at the world. When we can stomach to look at that stuff , you might look down one day and think "wow... and I used to worry about my toe"

 

Baseball 65, thank you so much for sharing. You know, I hear what you are saying, and I understand it. I also believe in the healing power of God, because of the works of Christ and His promises, so I know that even my faith agrees that I am healed and my brain is lying to me. But I just can't get rid of the stupid what if thoughts? I have this intense fear response to pain in my toe, and it's a battle. I'm trying to tell myself and remind myself about the time that I hallucinated for 8 months in some kind of phobic triggered anxiety event, after my back pain subsided, and my mind was literally lying to me, but I believed it. I thought i was seeing things that when I verified with my own eyes I was not seeing, but the thoughts still made me afraid.

Eventually it went away, thank GOD. I think getting a sprained ankle was enough of a shocker to distract me. But I hate, hate, hate, hate those what ifs thoughts. I wish I could just kill them. The pain is just so frightening. Standing on my toe and feeling like there's a little pebble under it? Doctors say blah blah blah, Jesus says, you are healed, your body is lying to you. TMS says you are healed, your body is lying to you, and even if there was something structurally wrong, your body is still healed, because of Jesus or because of your body, like you said.

But still the stupid what if what if, and then pain, and then fear, and then I;m all tensed up, and just annoyed not only at the pain, but also annoyed at the fear. And then I realize that I am afraid of many things in my life. The fearful personality is me. Now, i have to face my fears in processing. Which in itself is frightening. I don't know how to describe what I'm talking about. I wish there was a way to squash the repeating thought that 'what if the pain means you're not healed' and the fear response of 'we're not yet healed, we have to take care'. I feel like my brain's danger signal is on and I don't know how to switch it off.

 

Oh, you're describing it quite well. That is why I highlighted it in your, and other peoples posts because THAT is the crux of TMS. Go and look at any post I've commented on, and you'll find me quoting back the persons fearful, obsessive words at them...and that's because I HAD THE SAME DEAL!...and as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius said, it is our THOUGHTS about what happens that bothers us, not the actual things that happen. Jesus also taught an esoteric, more refined version of the same

Long before I became aware of TMS, I was suffering from OCD though I didn't know it...part of having OCD is repetitive intrusive thoughts and it is hellish. In fact, part of the very fast resolution of pain I had was due to Sarno comparing the two in "Healing Back Pain". I worked with a shrink who gave me strategies to banish the circular thinking that came from OCD and I just applied them to TMS...

But after 20something years of doing this I do have a few 'summa theologica's' on TMS and here's one of them; TMS IS OCD OF THE BODY.

So the same STOP therapy used in people with OCD also can banish obsessive thoughts about pain. It worked for me and I am certainly not special.

...and BTW, Since you mentioned my Rabbi.... Every single time Jesus Healed someone he reminded them two things... First "Your own faith has healed you"... Not "I healed you" or even "God healed you"... Your own faith.

He also told them "sin no more". We often attach really dramatic pictures to the word 'sin'...murder, theft, adultery etc. The word sin means 'without' or even better, it came from archery and just means to 'not have hit the gold' or the target. To not have executed life properly.

When I am sinning (and God knows I do) I am 'missing the point of life' and usually involved in some sort of selfish, self destructive types of behavior OR thinking. Anger...self righteousness, RAGE, greed, fear for MY well being, Ego driven enterprises. They never end well...and tend to provoke TMS symptoms.

But when I acknowledge these things in myself an 'repent' (literally re think) all of their attached misery and suffering goes away..and that includes obsessive thought. It's fairly simplistic... If I am worried about ME and what I am going to get out of stuff, how I feel, what my outcomes are, I tend to have a bad experience....and I also tend to get little 'tickles' of TMS

But when I turn my thoughts to God, about just doing my assigned tasks, not worrying about the outcome, not worrying about how I feel or what I get.... things tend to be just peachy. My life is charmed and I no longer have TMS because I don't really care about how I feel....and I feel just fine.

So, to finish my self righteous sermon here, I search out the ANGER and other selfish crap in me on paper. Anytime I catch myself paying attention to symptoms I consciously and forcefully shift my attention to the stuff I was writing about.... THAT is the stuff my brain doesn't want me to look at (and why it gives me distracting symptoms). This tells the deepest darkest crevices of my brain that I know what it is doing and am no longer 'playing'...and the whole thing gives up and goes away.

 

Thanks for this post Baseball65. You've inspired me to seek out a tms therapist

 

Baseball 65, when you talk about forcing your mind to think about the things on paper, how exactly do you do this?

I found that when I started thinking psychologically I would force myself to think about and ruminate on all the things that were making me angry. This would make me feel even more depressed. Not just thinking about it but really ruminating about it, gave me so much fear, because I was focusing my mind on depressing things.

Today I tried to notice how I was feeling; kind of like mindfulness. Not actually thinking about it or making sense of it but just noticing the anxiety (that has climbed up in the past week though the symptoms are the same the fear has gone up 1000%) and just notice the emotions and let them be.

I find myself sometimes dreading TMS work because I don’t want to feel all the negative feelings; obviously I don’t like physical pain but it sucks to suddenly go through everything. I like what SteveO said about it’s not so much making those feelings coming to the light of day but finding out why we repress those feelings in the first place. In my case I discovered that in certain stressful times including this year I was contemplating self harm and that my brain probably stepped in to stop me. And it isn’t letting go because it doesn’t trust that I’m in a safe place, or can handle it. I think I need to spend more time in prayer and in the presence of God. That usually is always so relaxing:

Anyway, would love your thoughts on what it means for you to think psychologically.

 

Ruminate. Meditate. Contemplate... they all mean different things to all of us.

When I was new I used one particular resentment as my 'therapy'. Any time I noticed the symptom getting my attention, I would consciously and forcefully shift my attention to that guy... I would run fantasies in my head of harming him. I would think of the injustice of the situation and flesh out ways I could destroy the man, his reputation, his vehicle.... anything to re-condition my brain and let it know that its strategy of avoidance was losing.

I too struggled with that "I don't want to be negative... I only want to do positive affirmations and have puppies and lilacs"

There are weeds in your garden. If you don't kill them, they are going to F-up your garden. This is Weed Killer. It IS poison... that's why we're using it sparingly and in the place it is needed. If just thinking about negative things gave us TMS I would have recovered long before I met Sarno and co..

In fact, nowadays I am enjoying one of the happiest, peacefulest, most positive vibe times in my life, but not because of exteriors.. because I have the confidence I developed by first getting rid of the weeds, and second, getting really good at spotting NEW weeds before they sprout.

In fact, I just recently had one of the most tumultuous exterior months of my life... I lost my Job and my partner in one weekend. Both had psychotic episodes and are out of my life. I went inside, wrote a lot, killed the WEEDS and am just peachy happy dandy.

Sometimes i read about people recommending positive affirmations. When someone is new to this process or hasn't had success yet, that can be very sticky.... putting happy bricks over a F'd up foundation means your building might fall over.

I think the carpenter said something about that in the gospel. People have tried to sanitize his teachings, but in their authentic form they aren't warm and fuzzy.

kill the weeds. It doesn't even matter if they are the right ones. It sends a message to your unconscious that you know what is going on...and the noise will stop....and then you can be Pollyanna to your hearts content. I am.

 

Baseball65 I am so thankful for you!!!! Your words are like a wonderful elixir to my soul!

They have indeed sanitized His teachings to an unrecognizable point in the church. Yeah, you’re right about being positive and the lie of it.

Growing up, my father was an alcoholic and my mother was not as present as I would have liked, and as that happened, a I grew up feeling emotionally abandoned, only having grades as my saving grace (which when I picked an unstable career path, triggered and has been triggering me)

I used to cry about everything for the first 10 years of my life before my father died. Everything. You took my pencil? I cried. You didn’t like me? I cried. I got a 98% instead of an 100%? I cried. And the one message I got from everyone was ‘stop crying’. Everyone called me a baby cryer and they all wanted me to repress it.

Then when my father died, my mother banned us from remembering ‘the negative things’. She wanted us to focus on the positive. Lo and behold. My sister developed a food disorder, was diagnosed with some neurological disease, and a mental illness, me, I had tonsillitis (which I now say is because I could not express myself! In an epiphanic moment of ‘where did my constant tonsilitis go???) I had stomach issues- had irritable bowel syndrome.. later on in the U.S developed neck pain, back pain, foot pain. And my mother continues her ‘no negative thing parade’

Until a few years ago I realize that all my mother talks about are negative things. That’s it. I don’t know how she didn’t develop pain in her body, to be honest but I think it might be because she never repressed. She shouted at my father constantly while he was alive, she shouts at us when she is upset, she shouts at anyone who upsets her. But us? We had to be positive.

When a I tell her things that upset me she would send me ‘be happy articles’ and one time in the height of me realizing her codependency, she said ‘You need to be happy. Because when you are happy, i am happy.’

I was FURIOUS. I cannot be responsible for another person’s emotions?? And I’m not over the rage I have for being emotionally abandoned for her as a child and her current emotional demands on me as an adult. But that’s how she’s always been- we have to be positive. And as she takes her thyroid medication, depression medication, and blood pressure medication, we see where all her positivity has taken her, and taken all of us.

The other day, after journaling and doing a letter to her, I had SO much rage towards her. It was 6:30 am and it Felt uncontrollable. I remember the last time I did TMS work, before the back pain went away and I quit at Day 18, I would get so mad at her as I processed. So it’s been happening again. I was so angry I called her and yelled her. Told her I couldn’t listen to her constant complaining and negativity. Told her I could not be responsible for being her emotional punching bag. Told her she would need to find new ways of releasing pent up negativity. But it would not be me.

She got so angry with me, she called me sick. She said I was sick.

And I said no mum, you’re sick. We’re all sick. My sister has this disorder, you take this medication, I have had pain in my body- we are all sick! And she hung up the phone.

Then the guilt came in. What if she had a heart attack because of my honesty? I would blame myself! What if she represses her emotions and because I am no longer available for her she manifests some kind of sickness?

And I had to pray to God and say, God, I can’t be God over my mother. It’s too much responsibility. Please, be her God. Take care of her. I don’t want her to manifest sickness because of repressed rage, but I can’t be the person she releases her rage on. I’m going back home in a few weeks, and I have been afraid of living with her again for the next 8 months it might be.

And God told me to stay 1 month, 2 months tops, head to our family home that my late grandmother and father have in a different town, and spend time with my baby cousins, who in their own way, need to be groomed into the truth of God’s love to them, before they get destroyed by this world’s ways of thinking.

I also recognize I need to get back into adult children of alcoholics (ACA), so I’m starting that this Tuesday. I’ve signed up for the program. I thought my inner child work was done. I thought I was over the trauma. But I’m not. And the only thing they only ever told me was ‘stop crying.’ It was only at DBT therapy, a few years ago, that the instructor said that negative emotions were good- and okay, that made me feel okay for the first time since Inwas born to accept negative emotions.

I brought this new knowledge to my sister and mother. Last summer when Inwas sad my mother would say, don’t be sad. You shouldn’t be sad and I would say ‘sadness is normal. It’s okay to be sad.’ And she was surprised. The knowledge also took root in my sister, who spends a lot of time nowadays crying, and it gives her a lot of joy, to cry. She keeps saying ‘you know you’re the one who told me it was okay to cry.’ She’s 30 and she told me that i was the first one in her life, who had told her, ‘its okay. Cry.’

As for me, I don’t always even notice when I am telling myself ‘stop crying’. I can tell that i’m Sad, or stressed, but it isn’t until it manifests in my body that I realize my mind is crying. But American culture is so repressive. I hate how repressive American culture is. But in all fairness, I had different symptoms in my home country since my family culture was repressive. So I’m not yet at a point when I can recognize triggers- since I had the phase 2 TMS- an injury that TMS decided to take advantage of. But even then, i would not have noticed that my mind was in as much grief and fear as I thought. But how was I manage that level of pain in my mind and somehow meet the demands of what was in front of me? I couldn’t. So I had to choose. And I wonder what life looks like where I can. Where the cup does not need to overflow for me to realize that I need support, and whereby I can actually be helped by the support I receive. I started seeing a therapist before the body was manifesting symptoms. That didn’t stop the symptoms from manifesting. But then again, she has not accepted the mind-body truth to have been able to help me realize that we were uncovering things and my brain wanted to put my mind into hiding and that’s the only thing that was happening.

 

Awesome, you got a lot of trauma out and it must have taken a lot of work to get there. Now treat yourself with a good book, a warm bath, some good music, and a hangout with friends(virtually)/pets, or anything else fun that's not a trigger.

 

Thank you for the reminder to treat myself!

 

I had the identical situation... and to make it worse my Father was a Heavy weight fighter, a soldier, A Stanford and Harvard Grad, Movie star good looks and worked in International Spook stuff. He was always gone on a trip until he had his 'accident'. My mother who was screaming at him the night he died kept little shrines to him all over the place and it was understood that he was God and we would never live up to him.

I now have sorted out the bullshit by reading through their personal papers after my Mom died. My dad was also only reacting to HIS upbringing (violent and alone) and had many flaws and shortcomings. I like him better now. I know he would be happy for me.... so we're really just 'victims of victims of victims' (Louise Hay). I have forgiven all of them. Whenever I feel the stray cat hair of an old resentment, I forgive that too.... Forgiveness' is the most powerful force we humans have access to. The carpenter said as much.

Just a word of caution regarding ACA. I have never met anyone in that group who has gotten 'free'. They usually construct a new identity out of "I am a victim of so and so".

I came to a point where I was no longer interested in anything I had to offer myself....and then I was truly free. That means 'the story about baseball65'. It isn't MY story. It is just 'a story'. My ego makes up stories all the time. When I can smile at them the way I would smile at the antics of a small child (and not take them very seriously) then I am OK. Pretending they are real is just another mountain to climb.

When my head is clear and my channel to God is open, I am victim of NO ONE. I am a gifted, fortunate , spoiled son of God. I had to swim through a lot of cold water and climb a lot of scary hills to get there, but the hills and the water were just part of the journey. I could have stopped and talked about how f-ing cold the water was or how impossible the mountain felt, and would have had a lot of company.... "Wide is the road , but narrow is the gate" "We enter the Bridal chamber ALONE".... The carpenter knew what he was talking about. He lives there.

You do NOT need to sort out your entire life to be pain free and conscious. Studying madness doesn't cause sanity (just stroll across any university and look) The anger therapy of which I speak here is just to send a message to our unconscious that we know what it is doing. It in itself is no end.

I sat outside under the full(ish) moon last night playing with two dogs in the dark. I became aware that I was totally, 1000% at peace with myself and the world. I didn't need to be anywhere else or have anything else to do.... no other thoughts dragging me out of that field. It felt like eternity. I have moments like that all the time. I didn't even know that existed when I was kicking against the pricks

Once again, regarding your question. I did Look very closely at all of my resentments. After looking at the part I played in them, I forgave the other person involved as I would forgive any sick person, and I owned my own portion of their causation. I was no innocent victim. I lit many of the fires myself. For those I made amends.

..and then I moved on. It was a boat to cross a river. I didn't carry the boat with me... its too f-ing heavy!

My story is the boat. I can share how I crossed the river, but I can't tell anyone what they will find on the other side... that's what makes it fun..

 

Wow. That's really beautiful. I just posted today about where I am today in my current day- would you mind responding to that? As always, I appreciate your wisdom!