My learning experience with success and knowledge

This is something I wanted to talk about after going through a lot of personal hardship from about late 2021 to early 2023. Since the main focus of this post is about critical thinking, I thought it made sense to post it in community off-topic.

Discovering the TMS diagnosis in early 2020 is what lead me to take interest in psychology as a whole. This has been a wonderful educational experience for me. However due to the controversy surrounding the theories of TMS, I made several mistakes as a result. Much of this has to do with getting stuck in a mindset of confirmation bias.

Thankfully things never got as bad as they could've. I didn't go down anything like the conspiracy theory rabbit holes that I've heard many stories of. But that didn't mean it was an easy experience for me. In November 2021, I went about resolving a feeling of cognitive dissonance the wrong way. By blindly putting my faith into a book on addiction, even though I didn't think what it was saying was true. Over a period of about 1.5 years I experienced much hardship and had lost sight of who I was as a person. To put it simply, I was not myself. I had built up this false image of myself thinking it was actually me.

It was only in April of this year when I read a new book that things started getting back on track. My big takeaway from it was being able to differentiate between a source that aims to expand one's knowledge and a source that's written in a way that it deludes people.

The thing with chronic pain is that it's not well understood compared to other areas of medicine. If you're like me, then you would've tried a lot of different methods to resolve this pain. Many of these methods don't help much, but you'll see them repeatedly mentioned anyway.

My advice for those who experience cognitive dissonance when learning (including about chronic pain) is to use critical thinking skills. Analysing the sources, as well as understanding my own biases helped me to better form a judgement on the areas I was learning about. Doing some learning on philosophy has also helped, particularly regarding epistemology.

I have found that the TMS diagnosis has a lot of good information to help with chronic pain and other symptoms. I don't agree with all of its arguments and that's okay. Because I understand why it presents those arguments. I can say a similar thing for other authors' work in the medical field, even those that reject the mindbody theory. Yes I disagree with their opinions on the topic. But I respect their viewpoints and I know that like me, they are searching for the truth on these matters.

Learning why I was experiencing chronic pain was a big part of my journey of self-discovery. From my personal experience, I can say that a person undergoing their pain understands it in a way that is difficult to explain to other people. You have the ability to ask yourself questions and to analyse your thoughts/feelings. You have the ability to find answers. Not just because somebody said it was true, but because you managed to come to the conclusion yourself.