Rant, plus need support

Everyones different. For me there was always doubt in my mind that I could try that "one other thing." I needed to exhaust all options so my belief that I had TMS would be higher.

 

I can see that.

 

Dear @Diana-M. I understand your anger & sadness.

Regarding your husband's meltdown, as others have pointed out, it's very difficult for a spouse to stand by watch us suffer & not be able to do anything. Maybe he feels helpless, frustrated & suggesting to go see another doctor or specialist feels like he has some control or input in helping you move forward.

You said he had a TMS cure himself & has been successful using the ideas of TMS to heal & perhaps that's why he doesn't understand why you are not better yourself given that it's been so long.

'I know it won’t help me to get the incurable diagnosis. I believe I have TMS without it.'

Forgive me when I say this but if you truly believe that you have TMS then you must also believe that there is nothing wrong with you physically. That is the first & most important premise of TMS. It’s paramount to believe utterly that your pain is not being caused by any physical abnormality & that you are not damaged. If you can't accept that, then you are in conflict. If you are in conflict then your brain will not believe you & keep you locked in pain.

I understand that baby steps are important, I also understand that you need to feel safe. I also think that that the forum has become a source of comfort for you where you share so much of yourself & help others with many wonderful insights. You seem to have the knowledge, understand the Mind Body connection, you are soothing yourself, you are doing a lot of digging into your past.

But......... do you truly trust & believe in your body to recover? To me its seems you are very fearful of your pain, of movement & its that fear that is holding you back from in engaging normal activity.


All the best

 

Mala,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and kind response. You are right that my husband suffers so much watching me go through this—rather experiencing it with me. And yes, he feels helpless that he can’t do anything. Just like a lot of people I see on the forum, he wants to find a quicker way or another way. Luckily he rarely feels this way. But it’s hard when he does.

Funny, you should say this—my husband also says this. My fear has to do with balance. I don’t have balance. So I’m extra careful in all my movements. My body clamps down tight. All my muscles go tight if I try to do something. So it’s not a matter of just fighting through pain. I have a really high pain threshold. It’s fear of falling at the bottom of it. And my left hand doesn’t work very well. So it’s frustrating to tie my shoes, for example. Over the past year, I’ve learned a lot about accepting my body the way it is, and that makes things easier to do. Because instead of feeling sorry for myself, I just accept my hand and I do whatever I can.

I wish somebody who totally embraces Sarno— I know you’re one of them and also @Baseball65 — would give me advice for a situation that is not at all a typical Sarno pain situation. He says resume normal activity. I would love to make cookies, in a normal way, for example—but I can’t stand up, balance, hold the bowl with my left hand while I stir with my right. I have to take it to the table and sit down. And then when I do things the next day, it’s possible that my body will cramp up so badly that I can’t even walk.

I mean it seriously when I say— what does fighting through the pain look like for someone like me, who can’t walk without assistance? It’s so much more than pain—-for lack of a better word, it’s just plain weird. It’s weird and hard. My legs are spasmodic. My foot is tilted. I don’t really have good control of my body.

I would love suggestions from anybody and would love even some success stories—if anybody has any—of ways they resumed “normal activities” with weird symptoms. These are symptoms that are hard to describe. Most people have never felt them, so they don’t relate to them. I genuinely want advice. What is facing the fear for me? Doing the dishes is really hard, and I do that. And chair yoga. Lately, I’ve started doing squats. I try to cook little things. I could do more of that. I noticed I’m getting stronger at standing longer, little by little.

 

I have written this before but I'll pull out this little Important piece.

I had been conditioned by the pain and the pain industry to do THEIR workouts. It occurred to me while I was still in pain WALKING around the track that I never did that until The pain came....I RAN around that track and I RODE my bike around the track, but I had never walked.
When that insight came to me I SPRINTED across the grass... I needed back braces and canes and a whole lot of other shit just to walk, so I definitely wasn't 'functional'. I wobbled all over the place. Barely kept my balance....but I was NOT in worse pain like I was told I'd be.
I didn't keep running once I knew I could...I got out my BIKE and started riding, like I used to do by choice, It was the SHOCK of running that started my whole recovery. I knew the book backwards and forwards having read it continuously for days, but it was the ACTION and a DRASTIC one that sent the message to my unconscious that I wasn't gonna play with it anymore.

You don't need to ease into making cookies...ya need to go and do something way way 'harder' than that...then making cookies will seem ridiculously easy. All of these Non Sarno people have snuck all of these Non-Sarno 'take it easy' crap into recovery. Sarno was crystal clear...if you are not free from pain and fear of activity, you're not recovered. Be recovered. Stop making cookies...deep down you probably might not even want to..it's for other people...that sort of crap is what Causes TMS.

 

This made me laugh.

Hmmm. Ok. I get the picture! Thank you!

 

Something to remember is that even for most of us, practicing and believing TMS is HARD. Most of us forget what we learned, have inner doubt, subconscious doubt, CONSCIOUS doubt - all of these things that make us susceptible for flare ups, relapses, or being "tricked" by new symptoms our TMS brains attempt to catch us off guard. I know we have some real masters on this forum, but I am not there yet and I bet most of you aren't either.

Now, having said all of that, think about all of the people we interact with - our spouses, family, acquaintences etc. Do you really think any of them get it? They may have nodded their head when you shared your ideas before, they may have been sympathetic or even empathetic - or maybe even lied to your face that they believed what you were saying. But in no way are they even close to the limited TMS knowledge you yourself have.

So cut them some slack. Take their comments for what they are worth.

 

Some people are creative and they like making cookies, experimenting etc. OK? Ha ha.

Yes, listen to this guy Baseball, he's right!

 

Here's one of mine:

I had a TMS relapse a couple of years ago where when I bent over, I would collapse in pain. (My neighbor found me laying in my yard one day and had to help me up.) I told myself this was "my back going out"--it is a phrase that permeates our culture. I walked around with a cane and fear of collapsing. Then I remembered Sarno and Schubiner saying that backs don't go out unless you've been damaged by a serious injury. So I knew that I had a false belief and I kept telling myself the truth--that there is nothing wrong with my back. I then challenged it over and over. I bent over as many times as I could fit in practically in a day. At first there was pain, but I didn't collapse, because collapsing was a belief that the pain was a real signal of something wrong with my back. Eventually there was no pain and all symptoms disappeared.

 

Great story, @Ellen! This could relate to me believing I can’t walk. Maybe if I believe I can, my legs will loosen up and I can!

 

Another one here:

When I immigrated here to the US, 21 years ago, I got up one morning with TMS. I could not walk, I mean...I could but with great effort and slowly. Very slowly. I was in so much pain...it was difficult to take a step from the crosswalk/street to the pavement/sidewalk. It took me some time for that step each time when I had to cross a street.

What did I do? I enrolled the following day in college. There was one 20 minutes away, walking. We only had one car at the time and my husband drove it to/from work daily. It took me much longer than 20 minutes to walk to my classes every day. And back. I was angry that I was so in pain and I pushed it. I enrolled in morning classes AND afternoon classes two days out of five so I would be forced to walk four times/day those two days a week. Plus the morning classes the other three days.

Masochism? No. I was just desperate. I didn't know about TMS and Dr. Sarno at that time. But I'm a very ambitious person and I could not, I was not going to be handicapped and trapped inside at home as a new immigrant, in a new country, new language (I spoke the language but was not good at writing in it yet) and in this pain. I could not take it.

Desperate times need desperate measures.

 

Wow, @Sita! What a story! That’s awesome. Did you need a walker?

 

No walker no. It took me about two months to recover. And let go of the fear. But it turned out I had more layers of fear.

It's like an onion, there is always another layer. And another one, and another one.

 

I wish somebody who totally embraces Sarno— I know you’re one of them and also @Baseball65 — would give me advice for a situation that is not at all a typical Sarno pain situation.

@Diana-M It appears to me that you are not 100% convinced you have TMS. You do not truly believe hence the conflict. Many people believe that they are a special kind of broken, an exception to the TMS rule. They doubt. This doubt is what holds them back from recovery.

TMS can manifest in many ways. Pain , dizziness, nausea, IBS, CRPS. etc etc & the list goes on. Read posts by @Dorado, @balto, @TG957, @miffybunny & others who went through many many symptoms some of which were very weird. People have been bedridden by severe TMS symptoms.

Here is Angela's story of how she recovered from

POTS MCAS - Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Hypermobile - Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Periodic Paralysis, Compression disorders, Hip replacement at 26 yrs old, Stomach Pain, On Oxygen Feeding tube - MCAS caused her not to be able to eat anything, Burning / tingling / nerve pains, Myoclonic jerks - muscle contractions.

She was in palliative care. Ready to go into hospice.



Earlier I posted about a lady who was sick & bedridden for 6 months with long covid, struggled to make it down the stairs eventually in her home & was determined to go out to the local supermarket but fainted on 3 occasions necessitating the ambulance to rescue her each time. After 5 attempts she convinced her brain to finally give it up.

Fred Amir talks about conditioning & the importance of breaking it's hold. He also talks about visualising & rewarding yourself. Is there something that you want to do physically so much that you can make that your goal & work towards that?

For me its to learn the Argentinian Tango!

I'm not a doctor but I think that perhaps as your husband suggested you could see a specialist to rule out anything serious with your balance & your left hand. It could give your brain the evidence it needs to move on.

All the best.

 

From minute 45:00 - the time frame for the above video - is really important to listen to and to pay attention. I'm watching this too right now.

 

What she says 'We will always choose a familiar hell to an unfamiliar heaven' is so spot on for us humans.

Our nervous system is just wired that way. Change is very hard, very challenging & terrifying. Anything uncertain is a potential threat to the brain which is why we avoid it. But if you want to heal you must choose differently. And you can't heal by making passive choices, they have to be active & conscious choices.

 

Thus my post about Books and podcasts. I am a good reader and Sarno says "It's an educational program"...well, it is, but just like other knowledge, if you don't go out and apply it in the real world? It's just a bunch of words.

People say stuff like "well you're lucky you got it so fast"....Nope. I think anybody can 'get it' in a read through or two....I was fortunate enough to have a Month to myself to go out and re-condition myself. Challenge the notion of being injured. There was pain in virtually EVERY exercise, but it went away. Piece by piece, distraction by distraction, and I was better in a few weeks.
I had to challenge it and call it out, scream kick and fight. I cursed like a sailor....and talked to it. I needed to create drama and a turning point were none was coming.
I have had to re-do it a couple times during the odd relapse.... I've added a thought here or there, but I still go to Day one pg. One in "healing Back Pain." regardless of the symptom.

 

Thus my post about Books and podcasts. I am a good reader and Sarno says "It's an educational program"...well, it is, but just like other knowledge, if you don't go out and apply it in the real world? It's just a bunch of words.

Absolutely this!

We can talk about it, analyse it, dissect it, regurgitate it, even reframe it, but this knowledge is of no value unless you believe in it & act on it.

 

Thanks, @Mala, for the great video! I will watch it several times. Thanks for everyone’s help with this. It has made me more determined to continue to challenge my symptoms every day, and I’ll look for new ways to do that. The ones I’m using now are working. Little by little! Because it’s keeping me from physically locking up (literally) and it’s not scaring my nervous system. I’m winning the race, by not overdoing it. Just in case there are people like me out there— I want you to know that little by little you can also get there. When I look back over the past year, I’ve come a long way. There is progress!

Thanks again to everyone on the forum who has supported me. Even though each of us is different—our life circumstances, manifestations of TMS, histories, resources, obstacles and ways of healing, etc.—our combined knowledge of TMS is invaluable.

 

Good grief this is so true.