Intro/My Story (New Guy)

Nothing physically wrong with you mate, you just have to recondition your mind and body.. you're on the road to recovery

 

So my dog died on Monday. Found out during a recording session. Had her since I was 8 years old and I can tell that I'm on/off repressing my feelings on it. Thought I was ok, but I full on flipped out at my mum today over something trivial - most angry and shouty I've been in years. After that I picked up my guitar to practice for my gig on friday (first in a while) and around 45 mins- an hour later I started getting nasty pain in my thumb again when doing certain chord shapes/bends. So it's probably logical to assume it's TMS, all the same I was too scared to play through it. It feels a little different to normal, which is what makes me paranoid. I'm also procrastinating a lot because I've got writers block on something that's due on Tuesday.

...and I've being going to bed between 1 and 3AM for the past few days or so... feel like it's a kind of "If I don't go to bed, time won't pass"-type deal (which is obviously ridiculous).

I swam through Alans program, but been pretty lazy with the Structured Educational Program. Only on Day 3... Think I just got put off with going over material I'd already been reading about. I will persevere though (I clearly need to).

 

Titus, I'm sorry about the loss of your dog. She must have lived a very long life, and was obviously loved and well-cared for, but even so, ANY loss due to death is an opportunity for our very deepest emotions and fears, the ones about mortality and isolation, to hit us hard. And, normally for all of us, to be immediately repressed by our brains as too scary to deal with.

Take the time to sit quietly, and feel these two emotions, and don't repress any of the associations that come up, not matter how strange, or or unconnected, or scary, that they might be. A death affects us in ways to go far beyond (or far deeper) than the immediate loss of the one person or animal.

Acknowledge ALL of the thoughts and emotions that come up, sit with them, and, finally, accept them.

 

Thanks, Jan. I journaled about it this evening and had a good cry. Feeling better for it, but I can feel myself resisting certain emotions. Hard to know how to let them come. I feel like there's something in me that draws a line and says "you can greive this much, anything beyond that is illegitimate".

 

Having possibly my first proper relapse after approx 2.5 years free.

My left hand started flaring up from guitar practice the other day, which was a scare. Managed to get past that by choosing not to pay the pain mind (for now). But before that I was having kidney pain (not currently) and yesterday I thought I'd dislocated my jaw. Massive cracking sound as I bit down on pasta... My jaw has always been a bit stiff and clicky, I'm used to it. But this was real painful. Last night I woke up in the night with incredible pain in my right hamstring - like MAJOR cramp. I cried out (and hopefully didn't wake anyone up).

I am ASSUMING this is all TMS. That all these parts of me are fine. But still. Yikes.

And yes, life is ripe for it. Dad is dying of cancer, 2 of my bandmates are leaving, masters deadlines are creeping up. Stuff is on the mind! Though I am suspiciously level-headed about it, more often than not.

 

There's a clue for ya.

 

My left wrist has become inflamed, tingly and tender off the back of playing piano. Relatively strenuous, but not excessive playing, but I haven't played the instrument in a while. I did then work a full shift at work which involved a lot of cleaning. I'm used to TMS coming and going at this point, and very often I ignore the symptoms, refuse to pay them attention, and they go. But for whatever reason this time I'm panicking. Maybe because it's usually pain, and inflammation hasn't been an issue for a while... I'm stuck in a state of "do I rest it? Do I massage it? Do I utterly ignore it and throw caution to the wind, knowing that there's nothing wrong with me?".

Irony is, if anything I feel more emotionally stable than I have been for a while.