Pelvic Pain Relapse

Hi everybody!
*Note: when the pain first started 10 years ago any structural abnormalities were cleared from countless medical tests/various docs.

The reason I joined this forum close to a month ago is because I've had a relapse of my TMS--pelvic pain. But while I have posted about TMS stuff, I haven't really been specific about my type of discomfort and I feel that's an important detail to come forward with.

After 4 1/2 years after my last relapse, I find myself in another one (I had a few small relapses in between, but I didn't let them get to me and they subsided in days). For some reason, with this relapse, it's got me in a complete panic. I have significantly more suppressed emotions than I have at the time of my other relapses. I'll give a slight overview of them: Right before this relapse, I was having massive amounts of rage from an unresolved emotionally abusive relationship I was in, I had the stress of graduating college and pursing grad school, I was looking into moving out of my parent's house, I needed to find a full-time job and I was also very stressed because the job I currently have (which I love) is only for student workers, so after I'm done with college, I can no longer work there. During this stressful period, I had been having growing fear thoughts of relapsing--how it would be such an inopportune time to have pain again. I would have semi-regular nightmares about having it. What's interesting is in these dreams, I would be in the same discomfort I'm in now, I actually had the physical sensation--upon waking, it would disappear completely. The day before I had my relapse I was in the midst of a nasty stomach bug. I clearly remember laying in bed, thinking "I feel like crap, but at least I don't have the pelvic pain--thank goodness for that." After I thought that, the whole rest of the day my fear was heightened about getting it. I went to bed that night, with no pelvic pain, and woke up with no pelvic pain. I remember laying in bed thinking "Good! I don't have the pain, phew." Guess what? One second later I had the pain, and that's how the relapse began! It went from 0-50 in seconds, literally.

However, one thing I should mention is that many times during this relapse, I've had hours, sometimes almost a full day or two, where my pain drops from an 8/10 to a 2 or 1/10. A few times it's even disappeared. Then, it crops back. Clearly, nothing structural works like this and I'm working on journaling to express my repressed feelings. Last week when I journaled on a particularly painful day, the pain dropped significantly for hours.

I know looking at this from an outside perspective, it seems SO obvious that I should just be able to get rid of the pain as quickly as it started. But for some reason, this time it has been very hard for me. I think I just got so used to feeling comfortable I forgot what it was like to have the pain, what it was like to be in a relapse. I also have the pressures of all these life things I have to get accomplished, which further makes me nervous. You combine that with the rage I had from being under emotional torment for 1 1/2 with someone and I feel like I was a relapse waiting to happen.


I would deeply appreciate any advice on how to get through relapses--this has been a rough patch but I refuse to give up. Thank you so much for reading!