I've Tried Everything, What Haven't I Tried Though?

Preface: I won't bore you, trust me. This isn't my sob story. I'm honestly tired of this taking over my life -- my 26th birthday was last week, when I blew out the candles I wished that this time next year, I'll have different challenges in life to face and overcome, but please God, just not TMS - its getting old, send me something new!

Another Day in My Life: I wake up and my eyes feel tight and dry...they do for the rest of the day. I eat breakfast and my jaw feels uncomfortable. These amorphous and uncomfortable sensations nag at me and grab my attention all day. Once in a while I get anxiety, like I used to a couple years ago, but it isn't as bad. Before the jaw and eye (which feels like its 24/7) I got headaches for 2 months until I quit my job. Anyhow, the medical history, as interesting as it really is, is unimportant.

What Have I Tried: Well, I've read almost everything there is on TMS... if you give me a pen and paper I could write every single thing someone with TMS should do: all the letting go, not caring, outcome independence, have confidence that it will go away, think psychological not physical, stop trying/wanting to heal so much, don't worry, develop self-efficacy, realize there are times where I'm better etc. etc. etc.

The Trouble: the trouble is accepting all this on a DEPER LEVEL - emotionally. How do I do that? How do I ACCEPT that there's nothing physically wrong with me? How do I not let it bother me EMOTIONALLY?

Techniques I've Tried: journaling, meditation, affirmations, talking to myself (when it comes up reviewing the above points in my head), breathing, visualization/imagery, reviewing the above info periodically, seeing a psychologist (just started), exercising, spirituality etc. but somehow my emotions seem so stubborn (yes, I know its bc its engrained in me and it takes time to undo etc.)

What do you think? How can I accept this emotionally? Any and all help is appreciate

with hope and appreciation,
Mike

 

Hi Mike, I would suggest Faster EFT. Just look for it in Google. Hope it helps!

 

Wow... I didn't have to read it but once to see the glaring omission you seek.

Screaming. Getting pissed, making lists of things that anger you, Breaking things.

Every single one of those things in your list is the 'nice guy' approach. I see people discuss them on this forum....mostly the people who are stuck and not getting results.. ....meditating? WTF ?? Sarno never talked about that. "Outcome independence"? Sarno specifically said, since we would care about the outcome, we'd have anxiety... people with TMS are almost excluded from outcome independence....because of the OCD nature of the malady.

This is about anger. Finding how we ignored stuff and talked ourselves into accepting a lot of it without giving it a thought...finding out we were afraid that people wouldn't like us, or we'd be outcast for having those thoughts..or God forbid, being a dick and acting on them.Only the mildest cases I have ever heard get better with the "I'll just ignore it and it will go away" and usually those people end up here stuck a few years later.

Your 26 huh? How do you feel about the people slightly older than you Fucking up the world for a virus scare that only affects them? Hows your dream job going? How are all those stable loving relationships in your life? What are you gonna do with that excess income you have because the world works just like your woke college professors told You?

Start looking there, giving it your mind via writing (screw 'journaling'...how lame) and maybe some good old fashioned RAGE, SCREAMING gestalt therapy, and then see where your at. You will have too look at a LOT of UNCOMFORTABLE truths.


"Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled he will become astonished and he will rule over the all." -Gospel of Thomas.

You need to go seek until your troubled.

 

Thanks for your reply. I've went through the state of feeling angry about this charade of TMS. It didn't help ... enough. You can't choose to get angry, though. Its an emotion that needs to be cultivated. How do you do that? The world will never know.

 

I think you can choose to get angry. Those of us with TMS are experts at stuffing down the natural anger and rage that the rest of the world feels. You have to consciously give yourself permission to feel and express "ugly" emotions again. It's a process. I have a very negative husband. We've been married a LONG time so I was adept at turning to stone whenever he said something that pissed me off. However, deep down inside there was a rage that eventually exploded into horrible pain. I had to learn to find my voice again. He doesn't like it, but I don't live with silent rage anymore.

 

So how do you choose to get angry? On another note, I was thinking ... a change of mindset comes with the hard work of persistently talking to yourself and being positive. There's a lot of pushback in my mind when I want to do that - I just get lazy. What do you think?

 

How to get angry:
Take a piece of paper and begin to write directly to whatever you're angry at. Sense into your body to notice energetic conditions, sensations, feelings, including that you may be "shutting yourself down." Write out all the stuff you hate and reject about __________. Some good sentence starts:
"I hate you for __________"
"I am pissed as hell at you ________, because _____________."
"F--k you __________."
Don't hold back for 5 minutes. Repeat every day for a week.
2nd week work with verbal only, 5min.
3rd week get a wiffle bat and a pillow, and while using your voice, do everything to that pillow that you feel ______did to you.
Cognitively, by thinking psychologically, begin to connect symptoms to the feelings of anger which you've uncovered.
Rx. See if this helps. Sometimes this does take some hand-holding with a coach or therapist to get started, so don't beat yourself up either!