Did the pandemic cause your TMS?

Hi everyone,

Did anyone have an excessive amount of anxiety during the pandemic that could possibly have caused PTSD? Do you think it has caused any lingering rage that could be contributing to your TMS symptoms?

The reason I ask is I’m starting to realize that might be the case for me. All during the pandemic I was in a heightened state of panic— much more than many of the people I know. I didn’t even know the term “health anxiety” at the time, but now I have learned about it, and I’m certain I have it. My panic was through the roof.

My imagination is so vivid. I pictured dying alone in a hospital bed with a tube down my throat. To make matters worse, I link doctors with sexual abuse in my psyche, so that was a real nightmare. (In psychotherapy for this now.) My current TMS attack (the worst I’ve had yet) was born during the pandemic.

Then, this past December, I actually got COVID for the first time. And surprise surprise, along with it, I got new TMS symptoms. I went from mildly disabled to much more disabled. I was sick for months. Normally, I don’t even catch colds. So I’m not the type to always get sick.

My husband has had a sniffle the past couple days. (He has health anxiety too. We are quite the neurotic pair.) So, he took a COVID test this morning for the heck of it and it came out positive. When he told me the results, I felt this severe wave of panic go through me. I haven’t felt that much panic for a long time. And then, my body did it’s TMS cramping thing. It tries to keep me from moving. Literally.

That’s when it hit me, I’m possibly in some kind of PTSD from the pandemic. My TMS brain doesn’t want me to leave the house. Still!

Dan Buglio (the TMS counselor) is big on TMS being caused mostly by perceived danger. To heal, you have to teach your mind that you are safe, he says. The pandemic was such a huge life threatening perceived danger for me—and I think for most of us. But health anxiety people suffered more, I think. Maybe I’m just not over it yet?!!!

Without a doubt, there was plenty of rage generated during the pandemic for me. I still have it. I missed my youngest son’s wedding and missed holding another son’s newborn baby. I missed holidays with my family, to name a few.

Meanwhile, I had other relatives, like my sister, who totally disregarded the pandemic and flew all over kingdom come and had her kids over constantly then called to tell me about it—knowing how heartbroken I was missing my kids. I had friends who bragged about how they went places, sort of taunting me, the health anxiety soul. (But I felt I was being responsible!)

I also had a doctor who wouldn’t renew a prescription unless I got blood work. So I went to get it, and it was one of my first times out of the house. I was stone cold terrified. I literally never left the house. After the blood work, some of my more recent symptoms began. Numb feet, tingling legs, stiff knees.

There is more. More rage and more symptoms linked to the pandemic era. (Don’t even get me started on politics and social media!) I have not nearly addressed this enough. One of my emotionally numb problems is if I get past a hard thing, I don’t look back. And most of my life has been really hard. It’s no wonder my well of rage hath overflowed.

Thanks for listening. I can’t believe the lightbulb is just now going off on this. If I had had a daily journaling ritual during all of this pandemic era, maybe I could have prevented some of this. All I can do now is make a list of everything I can think of that enraged me and get cracking on it with journalspeak. And also soothe my mind to the fact the danger has passed.

Have any of you experienced symptoms you can directly link to the pandemic? Have you been able to get past it?

 

Jan, thank you for the nice long reply! I loved hearing the little vignettes from your life. I really like the placebo idea. I have often “forbidden” myself to catch someone’s cold, and not gotten it. I’m doing that now! ☺️ So far, so good! I wrote today for an hour about everything that made me angry during the pandemic. While I did so, my legs started hurting worse and twitching (something they do when I’m extra upset). I figured I’m really onto something! I will continue to journal this all into the ground. There’s a LOT for anybody to be angry about from during that time. On so many levels. It sounds like you kept yourself in a fairly good lifestyle — not isolating. That’s great! Thanks, as always, for your encouragement! I’m not going to quit!

 

Yes! You are not alone. Ever since the pandemic started, I started having POTS like symptoms (never diagnosed but doctors assumed). I started college when the pandemic started so I will also add that into there which created my perfect storm. I would feel like fainting whenever I would get out of the house to buy things I very much needed. "What if I get sick, what if this and that?"

I was ok for about 2 and a half years until this past January where a lot of COVID related traumatic started hitting me. It reminded me of that helpless place I was in during the beginning of the pandemic. So yes and yes to the internal rage that manifests itself time and time again into TMS.

 

No. I was only worried for a couple of hours, that was it. Since I could not live in fear I decided then to just continue having a normal life and if I die, that's OK. It was a very liberating thought. Plus I believe in reincarnation so in my mind there is no death. That's a joke. Sort of...

2020 was a great year for me and for my husband, we were not expecting this of course but it's true. I lost weight, I continued to exercise daily (walking in the forest very early in the morning) concentrating on having a very healthy diet. Also using supplements. We improved our immunity starting with the year 2017-2018 when we started to take NMN (improves mitochondrial metabolism) and other things. It was perfect timing for Corona, I didn't even know that a pandemic would come in 2020.

I got the virus twice - in April 2020 the first time and then again in 2022. And my husband got it twice as well. For him it was like a mild flue both times. For me it was not bad one time but quite bad the next time. I was sick for about a week, I also had a fever.

I was never afraid when I was sick. I'm into daily meditation, I'm a Yogi. I've been one since 1993. I use mantras and positive affirmations all the time. Not only during meditation but during the day, I repeat them mentally often. It's very helpful for the mind to feel secure.

 

Yes, things got severe for me in June 2020.

Congratulations to those who found themselves, or worked to be, relatively unaffected by that time (the hangover after-effects of which are still, in many areas, among us).

I could write a book, however, on how that time forward not only hit but overloaded to breaking points all the major theories of how TMS works.

• Precarity of jobs, relationships, plans? General anxiety (see Buglio on safety)?Check.
• Isolation/digitalization of relationships (See Steve O on “trachordification”)? Check.
• An enormous machinery of novel and bureaucratized rules, re-programming a world populace who both do and do not comply (recipe for rage, Sarno’s big discovery)? Check.
• An enormous glut of media coverage—a blanket of white noise that alarms and exaggerates as much as it informs (see Alan Gordon on fear)? Check.

I could go on but I won’t. This entire era is a perfect storm for TMS. Note that I am not including fear of the virus itself, though nothing’s stopping you from doing that, too.

Anyhow—if anything about the BS of that time pissed you off—rest assured you’re not alone. The wisdom lies in processing it…

 

@waruwarui,
That’s terrible! I’m sorry this is happening to you. This proves my point that some of us really need to be healed of this pandemic trauma. And we need to get this COVID rage out.

 

@Sita
What a wonderful way you handled all of it and what a great way you live your spiritual life. It kept you at peace! I too have a spiritual life based on Christianity, but it didn’t keep me from being afraid. I have since increased my faith. If my faith were stronger, I would have had less fear. But I have a lot of underlying anxiety issues to overcome, so it’s challenging. In the end, I love your attitude and your soothing lifestyle!

 

@anacoluthon33 -
A very wise post, indeed! Yes, we are still in the aftermath. I somehow pictured we were through it, but we aren’t at all. And the task does fall on us to process it!

 

I was also essentially born with TMS (tummy issues as an infant). However, my big pain that brought me to this “world” happened in 2022. As things began to calm down, my employer wanted us to come back to the office. I asked for an exception and was denied. So I applied for an internal transfer to a division that was more remote-friendly. The day I turned in my notice was the day it began.

I was never scared of Covid, learning early that was in a low risk group. I was, however, deeply enraged by the politics and social consequences. I had a lifetime of very repressed anger and shame. The frustration of the pandemic caused the overflow.

So, yes and no.

 

@CaptivaLady,
I’m hear your about the overflow! It’s hard to predict when it will all be too much. But it seems a lot of people were tipped over the edge because of the pandemic or circumstances surrounding it (aka the social issues). I hope you are able to heal or have healed already from your most recent attack.

 

Good morning! Yes, I am now free from chronic pain. I began my journey out in late August of 2022 via Dr. Charlie Johnson, this site and the Curable app.

I do think the circumstances surrounding the pandemic were novel and extreme; certainly enough to tip people over into chronic TMS.