Day 38 Journal

Briefly write about how your personality affects your symptoms. How does your personality lead you to repress emotions moment-by-moment?

What I hate most about myself is my cynicism, I hate hating myself, I am not disciplined, like today I forgot about a quiz in school today and I still did pretty well but really all I need is like an hour heads up and I can pretty much get it all right for small quizzes. But I didn't know because I don't check things, I don't plan anything, I don't make planners or anything like that. I have a running to-do-list that has no organization and I will forget it exists for a week. I don't have a procrastination problem for homework, but for things that take longer and have far away do dates I procrastinate really bad. This has led to many problems in my life. A big one is I can't figure out what I want to do with my life. This kills me because I end up doing nothing (that I care about), which is the worst possible option.

This got a little off-topic. Kind of a ramble let me try to tie it to the prompt. Well right now I have back pain, not hand pain which is new for me. I am kind of lazy and sit in a chair a lot which seems to make my back hurt more sometimes. I think fear of not being able to do weightlifting (which is the main thing I am avoiding) is what is holding me back. I was finally on track, weightlifting consistently for months, and seeing improvement, and exercise is also a natural anti-depressant and I do think I have been more depressed and just angry and clouded and mad since I stopped exercising. I was also proving to myself that I could be disciplined. Now I have started to let other things in my life slip a bit. Pretty lame

I don't really know what repressing emotions moment-by-moment means, I'm not sure that I do that.

 

Howdy...day 38, nice work! Dr. Schubiner says in his books that when it comes to the stress and emotions that cause TMS, we should deal with the stress "as best you can." As in, if there are things you don't like about yourself, do what you can to change them. Take some concrete steps. That said, you do not have to get rid of these things (difficult emotions/stress) in order to physically feel better. So, don't worry if you still feel these things down the road.

Also, being afraid of resuming activities, such as weightlifting, will definitely prolong symptoms. If your back started aching during treatment without any significant trauma, I would say you can be pretty confident it is fine. Do what you can to try and start exercising again. Baby steps if needed! You can do it!