Returning after 7 years

Hey @samantha - I'm sorry I have to welcome you (and @Rotanzania) back - along with a bunch of others. Relapse seems to be the biggest theme of 2023 so far - although in my estimation it's been a growing trend since 2020 - you know, that year when a bunch of s*** went down?

Don't discount the stress of current affairs. In a way, the sudden onset of the pandemic itself was a huge distraction, causing massive symptoms in people with extreme health anxiety and obsessive behaviors, but I think for many others (probably like yourself) it allowed them to focus on something concrete (work and school logistics, caring for others, pulling together...) depending on what was going on in their personal lives. In others words, each reaction to the pandemic was unique.

But now we don't have that one threat to focus on, and we no longer have concrete actions we can take. What we have now is equally horrifying, but less obvious, which is a slow and incremental buildup of world dysfunction. If you sit down and start listing all the things that are just plain wrong right now, it's a long list. And there is very little that the average person can do - masking and washing your hands will not stop the drought in East Africa or the invasion of Ukraine. So even as the pandemic eases up, we've got all this other stuff hanging over us, creating uncertainty, unease, and an existential sense of dread that, unlike the pandemic, is not being discussed as often as it was in terms of mental health.

(Edit: my therapist confirms my thoughts in the above two paragraphs - this is a significant factor being seen by her and her colleagues)

I think it's a big factor for all of us. I struggle all the time. In my case, age doesn't help. And you said you're two years from retirement? My big TMS crisis ("before Sarno") was in 2011 when I turned 60, and it was the rage of aging that was one of my biggest issues. I finally fully retired last year (at 71) which I was very happy to do, but now I'm facing the existential crisis of "now what?" And sure, I keep very busy and active, but really, am I just biding time trying to stay physically and mentally healthy until I kick the bucket? Talk about a TMS trigger! Eesh.

Fortunately, thanks to my mindfulness (ie: TMS) techniques, at least I can acknowledge this openly to myself and keep the TMS mechanism on a low simmer instead of a full boil And the bottom line when it comes to the TMS mechanism is to get those things into your consciousness, because it's not just childhood issues that are being repressed - it's ALL the negative thoughts that your brain represses because it thinks they are fatal to your ability to notice the sabre-tooth tiger hiding behind the next tree.

So yep - revisit the SEP, reacquaint yourself with the writing exercises, and check out some of my favorite TMS resources on my profile - I've got info about Nicole Sachs' podcast, a great audio program called "Meditations to Change Your Brain" (about how we are wired to be fearful all the time - and what to do about it) and others. For writing topics, check out my discussion about Existential Psychotherapy - something I have found incredibly useful and easy to incorporate without a psychotherapist. For me, the key to writing is to think of it as a brain dump. Don't edit what you write, don't worry about legibility, and throw it away when you're done. You're more likely to be honest (at least I am). Dr Hanscom calls it "expressive writing" rather than journaling, and both he and Nicole Sachs advise not keeping it.

Good luck to us all!

~Jan