Day 1 Excited, unsure, petrified

Hi Guys,

So today is my first day on the education program and Im feeling everything I have mentioned in the title, I feel like it all makes so much sense having gone through a period of stress last year I had multiple episodes of lower back pain, was eventually diagnosed by MRI as disc degeneration at L4 / l5 which was also bulging out, degeneration at L5/S1 which also had a tear in the disc.

I am currently a serving police officer in the uk and have 4 children, I was concerned that this would end my career and started to develop further symptoms of TMS, neck pain, upper left shoulder pain, chronic hamstring tightness, wrist pain, knee pain, finger and thumb pain, ankle pain numbness and tingling in my arms and hands and fatigue all of which come and go move around and change in severity and last muscle twitches in arms legs and back

Prior to this I would say life was great it was me and my wife and we had two amazing children, I had no back issue and had just returned from an amazing family holiday to Florida, Prior to the holiday our landlord stated he was going to sell his property causing us to move in with the in laws, no problem we though will will sort something after we get back, On our return my wife who was on the pill took some medication from a local supermarket which cancelled out her pill and fell pregnant, although shocked and worried about our financial position and not really wanting another child, my wife said she was going to keep the baby which on the first scan turned out to be TWINS!!!

Now I was really worried, as a man I had no say and had no choice but to put on a brave face and tried and reassure my wife and be supportive and said we will manage. Deep down I didn't want this situation although children are a blessing and I love my twins im angry inside, I knew this was going to change everything for me, my wife and our children and all our future plans.

We were forced to move into social housing and although there are some lovely people on our street, I am also surrounded by the kind of people I police on a daily basis, there are domestics on the street, and on opening the windows in the house, we are usually met with a strong smell of cannabis coming from one of the other properties. This is not where I want my family to live but at the same time I am greatful to have a roof over our heads.

I was new to the police at the time and was forced to move police stations in order to save money, I left a great team to a new one which at first I was very unsure of and didnt seem to have the same work ethic as the team I had just left.

After starting to develop back pain at this point I started to become anxious and depressed and was having panic attacks, this is when my other symptoms developed, my sister has fibromyalgia so was concerned, I have developed health anxiety because of the other symptoms thinking I had MS or AS.

I found out about Sarno about a week ago and am excited and think what he says makes sense and the fact so many people have healed makes me feel excited, yet the pain has such a grip on me I find it hard to let go of it. I think the only reason I have managed to keep working is because I refuse to give in to the pain and loose my career. I still run after bad guys and if I have to physically restrain them however In my mind I am scared that its going to throw my back out, but I do it anyway and usually I will get some form of pain a few hours afterwards.

I want this to work so bad, this is my only hope, so I declare I am going to do the work, whatever it takes.

cheers

Jay

 

Hi Jay, that's a great first post. You are on the right track. I'm about three weeks ahead of you but have already seen some progress. Keep going. Your life changes make TMS make total sense. You are clearly a super responsible guy who wants to do the right thing by your family. I think the culture puts a lot of pressure on guys to do it all. There are more complex and nuanced expectations of us than our dads faced. The giveaway for me is that TMS is the only thing that really explains all of the weird moving and changing symptoms. Steve Ozanich (the Great Pain Deception) talks about waking up and realizing that your life does not look at all like you expected it to - that there is a lot of pent up frustration that comes from that. This will sound stupid but be kind to yourself and give yourself permission to just be average (an average dad, husband, etc.). Take the pressure off as much as you can.