Rage, Fear, and TMS in the Time of COVID-19

Please, hijack away! I'm glad to have any discussion on this subject. I can't believe more people aren't finding their TMS/MBS issues compounded by this COVID misery.

 

Hello again,
My husband and I have been talking about my pain and separately, the world situation this morning. When we were talking, I said I was so sad to have the whole world going through this. He said, yes, it is, but you can't carry the suffering of the whole world on your shoulders. Wow, did that resonate with me. I do feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. The sickness, deaths, mourning, job losses, businesses having to close because they can't make it, schools, parents... the list is endless. And it is true, I literally can't carry this load and I have to set it down and still remain caring. But not responsible. I've always been overreaching in my feelings of responsibility. Another piece of the puzzle....

 

That is helpful... somewhat.

But this isn't like when we were kids and watched war and unspeakable horrors on TV and then went to school the next day, played with our friends, etc., unaffected in our daily lives. THIS is in our daily lives. We are in the middle of this disaster-- some, like Shanshu Vampyr, right at ground zero. And if you're not at ground zero today, you likely will be soon. This not Belfast, Beirut, Baghdad, or Beijing-- it's in our neighborhoods and schools. In our grocery stores, churches and synagogues.

I've always been prone to panic attacks, but about things that either weren't happening or weren't likely to happen. This is different. I am afraid of catching this. I know people who have it. One has died. One is on death's doorstep. I feel bad that the whole world is suffering, but I feel bad because my city and my neighborhood are suffering. And I'm afraid for myself.

Am I being Chicken Little here? Is the sky not falling and I just think it is?

Should I be able to take fishy's advice and just chill out: "You just do the best you can and try not to worry about the stuff you can't predict or control. Embrace life."

Just embrace life. Right.

 

Aww Bonnie, that's the thing, it is so close. I'm so sorry you have lost someone you know and might lose another.

I live north of Seattle, and when the cases in the care home in Kirkland were in the news it felt like a dreadful black cloud was creeping across the globe and north towards us. Then the first person to die in our city was a friend of a friend's dad. He was two years younger than my husband. Then our neighbor had three cousins die. Yes, it feels too close and too much. Our county is doing pretty well, considering the circumstances, but I think I was sensitised to the danger signals early on and can't get my mind to accept that we are staying home and are really quite safe.

But, there are no guarantees and that can be overwhelming and the brain just doesn't want to relax about it. Listening to Claire Weekes and Alan Gordon's new podcasts are hopefully helping behind the iron curtain of my brain.

 

It has been a little while since anyone has posted here.

So I'm going to give an update on me, and also ask, how are you all doing?

Frankly, I was trying to feel my feelings, and maybe I made some progress, but in the end I just ended up scaring myself big time. I once read someone who said tms was like a physical nervous breakdown. Well a week ago I had a pretty bad physical nervous breakdown. I was driving from our home in a city to our house in a rural area and I fell apart. My sciatica was pretty bad, but what did me in was being so overwhelmed by fear. Not panic, but so afraid I was hyperventilating. Saved by the paper bag that I had my mask in. I called my husband and he was waiting for me when I arrived. By the time I got to the house I was shaking so much I couldn't walk or talk.

Getting somewhat calmed down I was able to talk to him and go for a walk. We decided that I would contact the pain psychology center and get help. I will be "seeing " a therapist by phone.

When I was in the car all the things I normally enjoy were too stimulating. Usually I listen to audio books, music or curable podcasts. I found it to be too much to try and listen to anything.

My daughter asked if I had a panic attack, but I didn't think so. I've had one panic attack 20 years ago and I would say this was broader and shallower than that. The panic attack paralyzed me and this didn't quite do that. I have been very "fragile " this week, but I have listened to music the last couple days and short videos about overcoming tms, so I'm improving.

The tension of writing this has given me a headache.

I told the therapist that my brain is saying, see, I've been telling you your whole life there are tigers everywhere and now that Covid is here you finally believe me!

So, while I have overcome tms in the past, this has become too much to do on my own.

This post is a real downer. I hope others are doing better. Lizzy

 

Hi Lizzy,
That sounds EXACTLY like the panic attacks I routinely have, which BTW, are not like the "textbook" panic attacks you read about. I wonder if the people who write up those descriptions really have panic attacks.

"I told the therapist that my brain is saying, see, I've been telling you your whole life there are tigers everywhere and now that Covid is here you finally believe me!"

This is a perfect description of what a panic attack is like for me: it's the sense that I am in life-threatening physical danger right now. It's not that I'm afraid of public speaking, or afraid that my heart is beating so fast that it will explode, or that my breathing is so erratic that I'm going crazy. It's none of those things. It's not a fear that the symptoms themselves are dangerous; it's the notion (I can't call it a belief, because it's in the gut, not the mind) that the symptoms are an indication that there is something life-threatening going on right this minute and that I am in danger from it (not from the pounding heart, shortness of breath per se).

Because this isn't in the mind, this experience is beyond the reach of reason and logic. In that, it resembles a phobia, i.e., you KNOW you're not in imminent danger in a glass-enclosed elevator, but you can't talk yourself out of the terror. The only thing that has ever worked for me (in 40+ years of panic attacks) is .25 mg of xanax. Sorry, but that's the long and short of it.

These times are incredibly stressful! I do not know how we're going to manage the next year or so.

I have pain in my leg every day and especially every night. I guess it's TMS. I'm so weary of dealing with it and especially dealing with it all alone. I'm 100% locked down and my only physical human contact since March has been getting my hair done twice. I only go out to walk and to the grocery store (and to the hairdresser every 5-6 weeks). I'm having panic attacks twice a week or so. I'm amazed at how well others are coping. Amazed and envious. I'm wearing out.

 

Bonnielass, I'm so glad you saw that I posted! I don't know how others are managing either. Maybe they are suppressing. I hope that isn't the case.

All my tools for tms work have not helped this time. I'm so sorry you're feeling so weary, I have only been having sciatica for 3 months and that has felt very hard. I was in therapy 20 years ago for depression and I'm not depressed, but I'm stuck, like I was then. I need someone who can walk alongside and calm me when I'm doing the work. I hope I haven't fallen too far down the rabbit hole.

I would like to give you an encouraging word, but I don't know what it would be. This is too weird.
Lizzy

 

Thanks for your kind words, Lizzy.

 

Bonnielass,
I read what you wrote about being in the hospital for measles and quarantined. Frankly, to a two year old, it doesn't matter why your parents weren't there, they were supposed to be and at two the rest doesn't matter. You felt abandoned. I'm so sorry for that little girl. The pandemic speaks right to your wounds, people are quarantined and afraid. Your two year old inner child is so scared. Maybe you can comfort her, talk to her, write her a letter. Even apologize to her from your parents. They might not have had a choice, but that little girl needed them.

My dad was hospitalized for pneumonia when he was 15 months and my grandmother couldn't see him for 5 days. She said it was torture for her. She had an earlier baby die at four days old and she had to stay 6 more days in the ward with 9 other women who got to see their babies every day. This was in 1943. Doctors and nurses had no idea about trauma in those days. She probably would have been better off moved to the cancer ward.

I've often wondered how my dad was affected by the hospital stay. As far as I'm concerned, something turned him into what I consider to be a psychopath. He enjoyed scaring people. I used to think I could see a smile on his face when he was scaring me. Then as an adult my mom's sister told stories of him scaring my mom's siblings when he was a teenager and they were younger. He is sick, irregardless if I know what is wrong with him.

Then there is my mom. She never stopped him, never defended my brother and me, always saying that he was right about whatever he was yelling about. He would ask her questions and she always said, yes, you're right. Lately I have been comparing her to people who kept quiet while the cattle cars rattled by in Germany during the war. We're estranged and she is still defending and supporting him.

Well, I did a little venting, maybe it will help me, and perhaps others will benefit too.

Lizzy

 

Lizzy, I'm so sorry. I'm guessing that early separation deeply affected your dad. And for you not to feel safe around him-- that certainly deeply affected you. Even if the world is dangerous, you should be able to feel safe around your parent. Not to be able to is to undermine your most fundamental relationship with reality.