New Program Day 18: Conditioned Responses

Buying toys unrelated to your present stressful problems, also does the trick. I think it must be a form of distraction

 

And fun too! Let's not forget fun!

 

Hi Bruce,

My independent, untrusting and frugal nature would compel me to disassemble the heater motor, spend at least four hours trying to fix it, without the use of bearing pullers or digital a volt meter. I would then throw it on the ground in disgust at my failure as a total human being. This would of course be done in the cold.

The other side of the coin is I have often succeeded in the simple action of replacing a loose wire to get soothed and satisfaction. It’s a balancing act.

Reference: “learning to be being fair to ourselves.”

Did you see my soothing trailer in the other thread?

Be warm

 

Well, the blower motor is frozen solid. In other words, catastrophic component failure as they say in the test world. Replace and renew at the component level, therefore. However, after mulling it over, I realize that the real nature of the problem is that the prior occupant of my new house sat inside smoking cigarettes for 10+ years. Case in point, the venetian blind over the kitchen sink was covered in brown smoke residue that took me hours to clean off. That being the case, I think I'm going to tell the heating and air conditioning company to replace the entire propane wall heater with a new environmental-friendly model. Money's cheaper in the long run than your lungs. Realize now that the reason I started suffering respiratory difficulties last October was because that was when the heater first turned on. The repairperson yesterday described how as the heat rises the tobacco smoke residue begins to cook off the parts of the old heater and distribute them throughout the ventilation system. Sounds like exactly what's been going on. Of course, I had the ventilation ducts professionally cleaned, but as long as the old heater is pumping out second-hand tobacco residue, cleaning the ducts is helpful but not the final solution. A brand new heater is however, plus it's probably just as quick to change out the whole unit as it is replacing a worn out blower motor.

I'm stubborn like you Andy, but sometimes you have to employ critical diagnostic thinking. Just replacing the blower is not going to get rid of the gunga on the heating elements deep inside the heater, is it? Yes, sometimes it isn't all in your head (but it really is, isn't it?)! Like Dr Sarno says, first look for a traditional medical cause for any symptom before running off to mind-body land.

 

I could write a book on smoking, I gave it up 49 years ago, never looked back. My Dad's pipe, Brother's Disque Bleu French cigarettes, Mothers Craven A. The disgusting nicotine stains all over the wall and doors, I was actually ridiculed for giving it up. Smoking is TMS masking don't you think?
Yuk Yuk

 

At 70 years of age my frugalism is being dispersed with gradually, as I am replacing just about every electronic device in our household. As a mechanical designer I have known about modular replacement for years, applying this to myself is the difficulty of buying new.

It’s partly because I am habit driven to dissemble. I have an inborn need to know how things are made inside, before I can blink my screw driver in hand takes over.

The other reason as we TMSers think “knowing” something is not the same as “applying it”. We know the best outcome is to buy new, but this isn’t good enough for us until we have filled our brains with bullshit failures.

My job as a draughtsman was to make mistakes (on paper) before cutting metal. I could have cynically said: “Why don’t you go and buy a new one instead of putting me to all this fucking trouble”. I'm not bitter and have just noticed the title of this thread is "Conditioning".

You are not alone about the realization of gunk in your heater causing respiratory troubles, you probably went weeks defaulting to TMS reasoning, we all do it, isn't it wonderful having this knowledge?

 

I also notice now that to replace the whole wall heater isn't that much more expensive than replacing the blower motor when you factor in labor costs. Replacing the wall heater also completely eliminates the possibility of residual smoke residue in any of the internal sections of the heater. Plus, you'd have to take the whole heater apart and clean it piece by piece. There is the possibility afterwards that the ducts need further cleaning but they look pretty shiny after the duct people blew and scrubbed them out. Why have doubts about second-hand tobacco smoke? In another life as a telephony test engineer I knew all about sectionalizing a link to isolate a fault to the last section of the "pipe" for instance.

And you're right! I spent tons of energy at first trying to blame it all on mind-body problems. But the closest distance between two points is usually a straight line. At least sometimes . . . .

 

Hi Bruce,
Here is my crooked line, your heater duct reminded me.

My wife finds it incredulous that I until recently I did not know there were two kinds of bronchitis, caused by bacteria or dust. Why would I know this for 50 years I demanded the magic medicine antibiotics that always provided a cure?

Last winter my activities when remodeling the kitchen resulted in having to sand drywall. The whole house filled with fine dust that spread upstairs through the ducts when the heater turned on. Eventually the whole house was covered in a fine white dust. I then had on a cheap face mask from Harbor freight (frugalism, yes, nothing but the lowest quality to match my low regard for my body).

Later that day I recognized the symptoms of bronchitis. I have memed myself to skip the cold and go directly pass “GO” to Bronchitis. Not paying attention to the attending ER doctors words I came away with my favorite Z-pack antibiotics. I recovered of course; I grant this could have been a TMS mental recovery.

Three weeks later a similar scenario arose when sanding the stone trim for the backsplash. Just to experiment I “test shaped” on a belt sander the crown edges. I was so happy my experiment had worked; it had a good chance of being perfect. Two or three pieces of trim later I noticed the cloud of dust airborne in the California sun. As I had been sucked into this sanding activity I had been sucking in dust with no facemask. Oops, you’ve guessed it “Bronchitis”. This time I listened to the attending physician. I learnt about the two kinds of Bronchitis, no Z-pack this time just steroids.

Take aways:

I upgraded my opinion for “self” and purchased a box of top quality 3M Facemasks, later used in Ca fire season.

Two kinds of Bronchitis.

My Frugal personality when buying facemasks.

My perfectionism sucked me in.

My perfectionism served to please.

I’m so pleased to have got this one off my chest. Haven't we done well today? Lets give ourselves a TMS pat on the back. Good night. Next time I will discuss how I repaired a PCB on my heater.

 

I think I started getting the kind of bronchitis that's caused by dust when I worked in a climbing gym where clouds of gymnastic dust floated in the air in a confined space with little ventilation. I quit the job and it went away. Of course, my incentive to quit was a lucrative contract with ISO writing test procedures for qualifying networking elements. Work till noon. Ride the road bike everyday and wait for auto-deposit to kick in. Moral: Sometimes it's a good idea to do what your body tells you to do. It isn't lying. I think the kind of bronchitis caused by dust or smoke you're referring too is sometimes known as asthmatic bronchitis. Yes, time for steroids not antibiotics. I think a lot of lathing material was left in my ducts from the remodeling people and that became a haven for the second-hand smoke byproducts too. Glad I had them cleaned out!

 

Hi,
I have problems with sitting walking and standing as well.
My question; when it is conditioned how is it then possible that the time to get the painfeeling is SO fluctuating.
Sometimes 1 can walk with less pain and sometimes the pain comes and go s and other times te pain is constant.
SO wat I mean is. When I stand still, a pressure builts up in my leg and grows to pain.
But the time when t starts is SO different, one time allready after 30 sec and sometimes it would not come.

 

If pain is conditioned, how do I deal with 24/7 headache? I wake up with it daily (for 4 years now). Do I fear my daytime everyday life? Do I fear what's and who's in my day (kids, job, husband)?

 

I've been dealing with neck/shoulder pain for almost 18 years and have been to every type of medical persons you can think of including injections and surgeries. Anyway, about 8 years ago, I did have a doctor say "nothing is wrong with you" and I thought he was crazy and he didn't offer anything else. A few years later, a doctor told me to see a psychologist.I thought he was saying I was crazy and it was all in my head (turns out it is!).

 

This is what I found out...it's important to continue the work every once in a while if you ever feel like symptoms are popping up. Something recently triggered some old-time symptoms and I am doing the work again and talking it over with that inner child. It's not as painful, but bothersome.

 

Grateful for this forum, myself, Jan. And for monitors like you have been. On days when the symptom imperative is very convincing, it's good to travel "home" to the TMSWiki page for a reminder that it's not a static process and that we need the support of others and to read success stories and have other people confirm for us that it is all TMS.