Standing up to my fear

We are told not to fear our symptoms but to be curious about them and to focus on our emotions. I have a really stubborn symptom that comes and goes frequently and it really is the only one left that I struggle with and the fear can creep up. The rest come and go and they don't even phase me too much so they never last or are not a strong sensation.

With that being said, I'm working on my fear with this symptom and focus on my emotions when/if the symptoms ramp up. My fear would normally tell me to avoid a certain action or else the symptom will get triggered. I'm not avoiding it anymore. It was a little scary to make this decision-not going to lie.

I know I'm walking a fine line by not stressing out my amygdala too much and also trying to show it that I'm actually ok. To help with that, tonight I plan on going back to journaling to deal with emotions that I've had throughout the day, going for a run even if the symptom is present (because I am FINE!), and reading a book that I just started.

Obviously, I've taken some ideas from Alan Gordon and Nicole Sachs and meshed them together. But I did this experiment before where I addressed my fear on other things and it worked and no longer fear them at all anymore. This is also the same principle of ERP therapy for OCD which I have been slowly incorporating. I hated this in the past and even quit therapy because it scared me so much. However, I am so tired of fear (in general) holding me back from the life I envision myself having. Wish me luck as I do some more work!

 

Hi @Joulegirl, I'm just curious if we can dig a bit deeper into the origin of the fear as it relates to this symptom? It's clear that you don't have a fear of TMS in general (as you have overcome the fear with the other symptoms), is there a lingering doubt related to this specific symptom around it being structural due to its nature? Or is this symptom even just radically different to your others so that is throwing you a bit? Does this symptom impact your life more than the others/is it more intense?

Just some ideas but I'm interested in what you think is fuelling the fear here

 

Hi @Joulegirl. I also have a question. Have you tried more of a (not necessarily 'baby steps' but along those lines) gradual approach to your running (which I infer during which you sometimes experience the particular symptom you fear) but that hasn't worked? Also, what popped into my head was to suggest to perhaps to do some visualising just before you run of you doing so with ease, symptom free, and perhaps do it on days too when you're not going to run to make the prospect of running less fearful, pairing it with a few slow breaths to confirm to the brain it's all safe.

 

@Adam Coloretti (coach) You asked some great questions so I needed some time to ponder it. I've been fearful as long as I can remember. It channeled itself into OCD when I was a young kid and has been there my whole life. I've have multiple symptoms from there but the main ones are on my profile page. I've overcome everything but IBS, particularly severe abdominal pain. All the other things I had were painful, interrupted my life slightly, and got more intense as I got older. For example, before the IBS came, I had nerve pain which doctors gave me prescriptions for. The prescriptions did help (which was probably a placebo, because I've been lowering my doses on it for the last couple of months with no return of symptoms!) Then came the severe abdominal pain that has no explanation by doctors. That's what I'm dealing with now as it comes and goes still. I also have prescription medicine for it so I can take it if needed and I take it a lot.

When this abdominal pain showed up two years ago, it was so severe that I would have taken child birth over it! I couldn't do anything but lay on the couch. My poor kids and husband were left to fend for themselves when this first developed. I couldn't sleep at night-I would get three to four hours of sleep and then have to go to work. My job suffered because I was dealing with doctors appointments related to this and I really couldn't concentrate. It took everything in me to barely function. Once all the tests and scans came back normal, my gastro gave me the prescription medicine and it helped about 50% of the time. The pain was so random and sporadic. Of course, I thought it was tied to food or medications that I was taking and also went that route too to see if anything would help. I went to a functional medicine doctor and they did absolutely nothing but throw supplements my way and restrict my diet further. Even writing this out to recap the last two years with this pain, brings up a lot of unwanted feelings of fear because this was a very hard time in my life. I felt I was completely helpless and alone. I was very fortunate to find this website last year and start working on the TMS work. Everything started to make sense why my pain would change and jump around throughout my life. I'm so much better now-mentally and physically but I still have work to do. This abdominal pain that pops up-sometimes it can be severe even with the medication! Sometimes before I eat a food or take a medicine (like for allergies) I'll get a thought this food/medication will cause me pain. And then it does. I've overcome a lot of foods and added them back into my diet. But each time I do, I get a flare of pain again and it subsides. I was kind of doing this in baby steps-eating one food at a time. But yesterday, I just decided it was time to say nothing was off limits. I'm tired of being scared.

This pain was the worst thing I went through so far in my life. That might be why I'm having a hard time being indifferent to it. It might be hard to believe that I can get rid of it. Even the medication sometimes doesn't calm it down! I have addressed some emotional things that were going on in 2024 that probably did contribute to it showing up when I did the SEP and other journaling programs. When I started playing with this to see if I could overcome other fears due to symptoms by confronting the fear-it worked. I figured I had nothing to lose by trying it on my scariest and last symptom to conquer. I hope that gives some you some insight to where I am at. I don't know where the origin of fear came on in my life-I've just always had it. And the way I was raised didn't really bring comfort to any fears I had-my mom was an authoritarian parent who always jumped to worse case scenarios if she was dealing with stress. It's what I learned growing up.

 

@BloodMoon I purposely didn't explain my first symptom in my post as I try to not give it power. But I did flesh it out in my second post since I am so fearful of it and I was trying to answer Adam's questions to dig a little deeper. But I see how you would think the running might be connected to the symptom. It actually isn't. A lot of the times when I run, the symptom I have (abdominal pain) goes away. I tend to think that I'm focusing on breathing and distance when I run so the symptom temporarily stops. It's the weirdest thing.

A lot of times working on my other things, I do baby steps! You inspired me to do that! I did that working off of my nerve medications and when trying new foods. But after listening to a really good Curable App class and then just reading through posts this past week, I just keep seeing how my fear is holding me back. I got fed and thought what is the worse that can happen if I just say forget it and do all the things! I don't think I would recommend everyone to do this-it is a scary step! And I'm beefing it up with journaling so I'm not neglecting self care during this time too!

 

Wise! But good that you've explained it in answer to Adam and me, so that we can understand what you're fearing so we can hopefully make some helpful suggestions (albeit I appreciate you weren't actually asking for that! lol ).

Imo this is potentially a great insight! What I think you are doing is calming down your brain and nervous system when you are focussing on your breathing. (Does the focussing on "the distance" involve something like concentrating on counting or something?... As you can tell, I'm not a runner! Only I think that would be likely to be calming too... I walk indoors and count my laps and that definitely soothes my nervous system.) Anyway, back to the breathing, have you tried any breathing practices at all? If not, then seriously I think that could be well worth a try. Not necessarily sitting down for 20 minutes or more meditating on your breath, but using simple short techniques throughout the day or at certain times of the day (tagging them on to other things you do, e.g. I always stop to do some breathing techniques when I go to the bathroom)... which you could make into a habit if you were to do it consistently often enough... like simply lengthening the out breath for a couple of breaths, techniques like 'box breathing' etc. Anyhow, just a thought. (And apologies if you've already written on the forums about having tried breathing techniques.)

 

@Joulegirl
I have a symptom that sticks (sensation can move a bit, but the symptom is static) and I have decided to just work out through it. I think constantly thinking psychologically when I can sense the symptom backfires into it always being unsafe since my mind thinks some emotions are unsafe. So occasionally I will dig a little deeper psychologically to sense the fear and be comfortable with the fear but thinking in terms of behavior science, I need to weigh the positive more so it becomes more powerful than the negative -THEN I can pair the positive and negative.
So baby steps are helping me get more positives around the sensation: for me it's working out and broadening my scope of what I can do. Right now it's adding three more reps per week of light weights, going up in weight once a month but very incrementally, adding one new movement per month and on top of that rotating what I do daily - meaning that repetition works really well but sometimes we also need to break the specific doing (black and white again!) so we don't get stuck in the habit of "fixing".
I don't want to "fix" my fear, or obsessions or anything at all. I want to sit with them and allow them. Allow the sensations and the feelings and the thoughts without fighting anything. Can you sense when a thought pattern is about finished? I find they kind of run out of gas. The fear begins and we either run with it to far flung dark corners or we stop it cold. What about a middle ground where there is less judgement? This has worked for me to just let the fear thought kind of dwindle in a minute and then I can turn back something else (usually a lot more enjoyable) to focus on in the moment.
There seems to be a balance between doing the "work" and as we progress it can need to be combined with breaking old habits. That can take some time and it doesn't have to be perfect at all. A few times a day re-directing thoughts can help make healthier habits over time.

 

I think this for sure! I have a goal in mind that I focus on too. I want to run a certain distance while pacing myself. I'm so focused on that, that the pain just melts away. It can happen if I'm working and gardening in the yard. This is why being fearful of what I am eating just doesn't make sense and its time for me to stop avoiding it. This may backfire on me and I will need to take some baby steps instead again. But it might also work too! I'm leaning much more into uncertainty lately. A month ago, I could not have tried to address this fear of foods/medications.

The way you worded this was much more concise and clear than what I was trying to say! I don't want to avoid fear anymore.

 

Looking back over my TMS 'journey' to where I am now, I realise that what worked for me was when I followed my intuition. You're doing the same, and I'm rooting for you!

 

Yes, really excellent! I'm wrapping up an intensive 3 months of therapy for my anxiety, and what you describe here is essentially a skill I learned from Dialectical Behavior Therapy called "Ride the Wave"! I applaud you for getting to that point where you can 'ride your own wave' of fear.

Bravo to you, Joulegirl, as well for addressing your fear(s) head-on. As you both know, it's not easy! I'm still working on several fears... Thanks for the great posts.

 

That's great! And maybe/maybe not - but you're definitely in a much better place and hopefully that gives you some solace as it relates to the symptoms.

I like it! And I would trust your intuition - if you had that much fear then you wouldn't even be open to doing this - I always think the willingness to dive in and rip the band-aid off so to speak is evidence of fear reducing - if you think about it I doubt you'd have done this a few months ago as an example, you'd have been too fearful.

It's completely fair and normal that your fear is driven by the intensity, not so concerned about that. You can definitely get rid of it though and the fact that the medication doesn't sometimes calm it down is even more TMS evidence

Given that it has already worked for your other symptoms, absolutely. I also don't want you to be too hard on yourself as it relates to your relationship with fear in general, I would say that would be more relevant if you hadn't have been able to overcome the fear of any of your symptoms (but it still helps to work on it of course). I was more asking symptom v symptom what is the difference, if the difference is mainly just because of intensity then like I said that's completely normal and natural. It will just take more reassurance that this is TMS and more bravery to be ok if it does flare. I like when you talked about "what is the worst thing that could happen" - the answer is symptoms now that you know it's TMS and you're ok structurally - as long as you can deal with them then that's the true extent. It can't really backfire on you unless you let a flare dampen your belief (having symptoms themselves isn't going backwards even though it might feel like it - that way of thinking is more aligned with a structural issue) - if you get back to eating everything but even with the same level of symptoms - then you've won (and conveniently not avoiding any food (eating everything) is likely going to contribute to your recovery in a big way in the long run)

 

Lll

this is the exact line that we have to walk! it retrains your brain as to what’s safe. I think it’s what’s behind baby steps as described here on this forum and also in the fantastic videos by Helmut Koeckritz (formerly the mindful gardener). https://youtube.com/@helmutkoeckritz?si=pCmYeuREX-HAD1e-

its worked for you before! I think you know what you’re doing. I would also suggest that you’re having a tough time right now with your kids getting ready to leave home. I think it’s a really loaded time for a mom. I had a lot of symptoms come up during that time. maybe you can get some of them out with journaling.

 

Gotcha. That's easy. Cause stomach issues can be caused by so many factors. What if the doctor missed something on the scans? What if a food is really causing a problem? What if I'm that weird exception that this is not TMS? (I know we all think we are the exception with our symptoms!)

I'm on Day 3 of kicking my fear to the curb! I am staying motivated and curious to keep on going with any and all foods! Thank y'all for your support!

This is the understatement of the year! The high school band had breakfast celebration this morning for the seniors and their families. They did a slide show of all the seniors from when they joined band in 6th grade until now. There wasn't a dry eye after watching that!! I'm all in my feels about him graduating and leaving for college. It's going to be Senior Sunday at church this weekend and they will be recognizing all their seniors in the congregation. This is all coming hard and fast!

 

Very good in that this is an extremely important realisation and reflection - it's then a case of evidence (that's the key to growing your belief), whether that be reflecting on what you have, reflecting on things that happened in the past that you can now look at as actually being evidence, or moving forward with courage (as you've stated) which will very likely show you new evidence. Some people take a long time to understand that their fear is coming from this place so that's huge

 

Not sure if you might find this helpful at all, but I recently read an article suggesting that when you're asking "What if..." you respond by changing it to "What now?" to stop the potential for endless looping.

So, for example...

What if the doctor missed something on the scans? -- What now?... Is it that I want a second opinion or new scan... or that I've had extensive evaluation?...so hush now brain!

What if a food is really causing a problem? -- What now?... Do I try an elimination or low FODMAP diet to pinpoint it... or I've already done that/don't want to?... so hush now brain!

What if I'm that weird exception that this is not TMS? -- What now?... I've had thorough medical checks ruling out serious issues and I've noticed that when I'm concentrating on my breathing whilst running the stomach pain goes away, so now I focus on uncovering and processing the emotions driving this—time to regularly practise breathing techniques, self-soothe, journal, read Sarno, or talk it out (or whatever)—not chase more tests... so hush now brain!

 

P.S. Further to my latest post today (above)... and you saying that with running your symptoms go away... it might not just be the focussing on the breathing and distance that's helping, it might be to do with the bilateral brain stimulation of the running that's calming down your brain and nervous system... the rhythmical alternating left-right leg and arm swings apparently engages both brain hemispheres, calms the amygdala's threat response, and shifts the nervous system into parasympathetic "rest and digest" mode. You might already know all about this anyway, but just to also say you can achieve a similar effect with simple exercises like in the following video. (In fact, this is right up my street, so I'm going to start doing them on a regular basis!)

 

I have the same reduction of symptoms when running. I recently have figured out that part of what's going on there is that in most situations I have all these conditioned ways of moving or sitting or standing in a careful way so as not to trigger symptoms, but with running, it's physically impossible to avoid committing to the full movement of each stride. Otherwise you'd fall over (or not be running). I also think with abdominal/pelvic symptoms you can do most other things while holding yourself in a way that's protective of that area, but with running you really can't—it just uses those muscles, and pretty vigorously (which is good, since it's proving to your brain that nothing's wrong there structurally).

Anyway it's only recently sunk in that I really should be taking this full physical commitment that comes naturally with running and applying it to anything else I'm doing, physically, or the way I'm sitting or standing in ALL situations, not just running, and to my surprise this is working more often than not—I'll often have a twinge and want to tense up or lean backwards in my seat or whatever but then instead of doing that, if I can catch myself and ask myself, how would I actually like to be sitting right now, then immediately shift into that position, the symptom seems to recede instead of getting louder. It's not like night and day, but it's a difference and it seems to be adding up over the longer term.

 

There's no better message of safety to the subconscious brain (in terms of I'm okay and there's nothing structurally wrong) than acting/moving naturally. It's the ultimate show of faith in terms of one's belief in TMS

 

Imo you have really hit on something here!

In another recent thread I posted up this article: https://learnsomatics.ie/how-your-brain-sees-your-body/ (How your Brain sees your Body - Learn Somatics). It's about how the brain maps the body and I believe it ties in with what you have discovered, in particular with regard to aiming for normal movement and range of movement and normal body positioning. In the article it says:

"One third of the sensory motor cortex dedicated to the hands and another one third of the sensory motor cortex dedicated to the face/mouth/lips/tongue/larynx, there is only one third left. Just one single third of your sensory motor cortex devoted to the largest parts of the body! Your trunk, spine, hips, shoulders and limbs.

That is comparatively a very small section of the sensory motor cortex that is responsible for sensing and moving a very large area of the body. Is it any wonder then, that the areas of our bodies that have the least cortical (brain) representation are the same areas that are most susceptible to movement deficits and muscular pain? Back pain, hip pain, shoulder pain anyone?

The trunk, hips, shoulders, and neck are supported by a very small section of the cortex. This means less processing power for a large area of the body. This being the case it would make sense that we might have to spend a little more time maintaining our brains control over these parts of our body, making sure the modest amount of the sensory motor cortex that is apportioned to these areas is stimulated regularly.

Movement of all and any kind provides massive amounts of stimulation and sensory informationto the brain. We traditionally think of information as purely intellectual, words, numbers, facts, data etc. But for your sensory motor cortex, MOVEMENT IS INFORMATION. And the more information your brain has about your body, the better you can sense and organise your movement.

So how can we help ourselves in this regard? A Somatic movement practice is a great place to start. Practicing somatic movements slowly and smoothly allows us to re-establish, maintain and refine our sensory awareness and our motor control. By relearning how to move our trunk and spine comfortably through their normal and natural ranges of motion. Then when basic control has been re-established, we can get on with enjoying our favourite acvtivities whatever they may be. (Running, walking, lifting, climbing, dancing, yoga, gardening, tennis, the options are endless)."

 

Thanks, this is interesting. I do think what I'm saying is basically just what Sarno says right at the top of his advice for getting back to normal activities around not being intimidated by the pain. But it's easy to miss (or it was for me) because by the time I was reading his books I was so used to being careful with my body it had become habit. It's still unnerving to me to lean forwards against a counter or against the bathroom sink like I used to do without thinking about it, but the more I do it the more I notice it doesn't actually cause symptoms, it just puts my brain on high alert.

I mean it's like when you hurt any part of your body, like getting a cut on your finger: after it's mostly healed and you start using it again, your brain sends danger signals that feel sort of like pain—that feeling where you're touching things very gingerly because you aren't sure if it's safe to use your finger again—but you push through that and start using it anyway because you know it's healed and soon everything's back to normal. Same deal here, it's just a much more prolonged version of that because there was that extended period where you were scared that it wasn't safe to use that part of your body.