From a nervous wreck to about 50% healed

As far as I can recall, my early TMS symptoms began in late 2017. To my ignorance at the time, my perfectionistic, self-critical, and people pleasing personality pushed my stress levels to the extreme. Juggling a busy corporate job and working on my side-business until late at night, I started to have trouble falling asleep, laying awake for hours with a racing mind thinking about all the problems in my life, past, present and future. I started developing chronic tension headaches and experienced my first panic attack, and my reaction to this was anger & frustration - "What's wrong with me and my body? Why am I suffering these symptoms?".

Eventually I reached a breaking point sometime in 2018, after I fell victim to a financial scam that robbed me of my years of hard-earned money. I was clearly in despair and needed a long rest both mentally and physically, yet I kept thinking to myself "Why can't I get over this already?", "I must be weak if I can't move on from this", "Something must be wrong with me". I remember watching a lot of inspirational videos about people who overcame hard times and thinking "Why can't I be strong like them?". After an intense and embarassing panic attack at work, I left my job.

Desperate to "fix myself", I began seeing doctors, getting MRIs, etc. My pattern was to google my symptoms, convincing myself I had X rare disease only to be later told "I was perfectly fine" by a doctor post examination. By the end of 2019, I was a nervous wreck. Not only did my chronic headaches and panic attacks get worse, I developed dozens of other mysterious symptoms such as dry eyes, face pain, neck pain, blurry vision, caffeine and alcohol sensitivity, insomnia, light sensitivity, freezing cold hands and feet, and more. I floated through each day, disassociated and unable to enjoy anything, reluctant to go outside at all because the wind and sun hurt my eyes and I would suffer a crippling panic attack walking into a cafe or train station.

Clearly, traditional doctors couldn't help me and naturally this led me to explore the realm of alternative medicine, namely Chiropractors. During my visits to these Chiros, they had me take some X rays and affirmed my suspicion that all of my problems were due to a misaligment in my spine, and were confident they can fix me through their adjustments. But I needed to visit every week, for many months and possibly years to make my adjustment "hold". Over the next 3 years I was stuck in this world of Chiropractors, trying one after another, yet my symptoms continued to persist/get worse. One particular Chiro treatment used a machine to tap my neck so lightly I can barely feel it, and this made me question everything and I was finally able to escape the world of Chiropractors. But I was still suffering from dozens of symptoms, unable to work, and desperate to heal.

One day in late 2023 I stumbled across this site after my google search miraculously matched with words from someone's forum post (I forgot which one). Dr Sarno's and Dr. Claire weeks books, success stories on this forum, and trying out alan gordon's healing program has given me a new perspective on life, my body, and hope for recovery. I no longer let my symptoms dictate what I do and when they do appear I can meet my symptoms with ease and gentleness instead of frustration and anger. When I do so, the symptoms usually subside a bit or at least doesn't get worse. I believe this new attitude towards my symptoms is gradually breaking the patterns of chronic tension and fear.

Also I don't know why this is but I feel like discovering TMS is extremely hard. If you search for symptoms etc on google, TMS is never at the top of the results or listed on any medical websites as a treatment option, despite it having helped me (and so many others).

After about 1 year of applying the lessons of TMS, here is my list of symptoms and a rough % of healing progress taking into account both the frequency and intensity of the symptom.

• Panic Attacks - Gone!
• Anxiety - 60% healed
• Tension headaches - 60% healed
• Dry eyes - 70% healed
• Face numbness - 60% healed
• Light sensitivity - 80% healed
• Blurry vision - 30% healed
• Insomnia - 80% healed
• Caffeine sensitivity - not healed
• Alchohol sensitivity - 50% healed
• Cold hands and feet - 80% healed
• Neck pain - 70% healed
• Bloating/Gas - 90% healed
• Jaw Clenching/Teeth Grinding/TMJ - 80% healed

And some good lifestyle habits I developed this year:
- No screens 2 hours before bed - this has really helped me sleep better
- Exercise - weight lifting 5x a week - gave me confidence back in my body
- 20 minute walk after dinner - improved my digestion and bloating
- Meditation (bodyscan and sitting meditation) has helped calm my racing mind so I can tune into my body/emotions better.
- Stopped obsessively googling every little symptom I had trying to find the cause/cure and focused on principles of TMS.

To people starting their healing journey, I understand what it's like to feel like you want to get better FAST, but I emphasize the value of patience. Don't expect day to day progress, or even week to week progress. It took months of consistent application of TMS principles and healthy life habits for me to feel noticable symptom improvement. So don't give up and always remember to be gentle to yourself.

I consider myself about 50% healed as I feel I am living life to about 50% of my full capacity. I can drive around, do grocery shopping, go to the gym, travel with my wife, socialize with friends, although I am not comfortable all the time. I have made considerable progress but there is still work to do.

I feel my nerves are still on high alert and sensitive to stress. For instance when I go to a unfamiliar, crowded place something is triggered in my nervous system and I can feel my neck/jaw/face getting tight, headache coming back, vision blurring and I also start sweating quite a bit. I can't seem to pinpoint exactly what is triggering because there are times where I feel fine, but because of this problem I don't feel like I am ready to go back to work. I'm convinced this is a form of anxiety/TMS that I still need to work through. If someone has any tips, I'd appreciate it.

I'm now going to try out the structured educational program (SEP) and will report the results here.

 

Thanks for the warm welcome @JanAtheCPA !

I didn't know that Alan had another program, but I did read his book The Way Out earlier this year. I found it very helpful in developing a healthier relationship with my self & symptoms and breaking the pain -> fear -> pain cycle.

I'll definitely check out Nicole's work as well as I do feel that my plateau is related to my emotions, as I have felt quite emotionally numb for a couple of years now. I had a habit of suppressing all negative emotions (anger, sadness, fear, jealousy) due to perfectionism, since I believed that perfect people should not have negative emotions and should be happy all the time. My mom would call me "perfect" all the time when I was a child and although I'm sure it was not her intention, I internalized the praise as I needed to be "perfect" in order to be loved.

I don't know what my emotions are supposed to feel like, and I also struggle to understsand the difference between emotions and symptoms. For example my main symptoms now are that I would start to feel overwhelmed during a situation such as driving or socializing, my neck would get tight, followed by tension headaches, sweating, facial numbness and blurry vision. It almost feels like a mild panic attack, but my heart beat is fine and I can continue to somewhat function. Are these symptoms of TMS? If so, what is the underlying emotion that my body is distracting me from? Or is this simply the emotion of anxiety? Some programs such as Alan's pain program and Claire weekes teaches somatic tracking and focusing my awareness on the symptoms without judgement. Others including Dr. Sarno seem to suggest dismissing the symptoms as psychological/TMS and moving on with the task at hand. These are just some of the questions lingering in my head now, maybe I will find the answer as I work through the structured educational program.

 

Why differentiate your symptom from emotion right now?
The “supposed to” is a should, and it’s self pressure. So why not simply notice your body’s response to stress with curiosity. As the symptoms fade, maybe you’ll notice the other very subtle emotional sensations it masks.

My own TMS journey has been quite similar to yours and I’m at about the same place.
I find my bodies reactions to stress fascinating now, but don’t spend much time focusing on them, it’s a small but necessary part of the day to just pause and notice a few times a day.