Surprise victory today!

I have a conditioned response of extreme pain and anxiety when I am around other people. This began in the pandemic. I stopped leaving the house. I stopped attending social events. I got such pain around my extended family and friends that I began to avoid them.

But lately, I’ve been trying to spend more time with them. I’m so stressed by it. My pain kicks up the night before and I can’t sleep. I’m miserable. Right before they come to visit, I get such extreme anxiety that I don’t know how I’m going to get through it.

In between visits, I make up stories about how they don’t care about me and all sorts of convoluted thoughts come to my head. I’ve become confused about my relationships with them, and isolated. I’ve since learned this is a very standard symptom of a hypersensitive nervous system like the kind you have with TMS.

Today I invited over two of my grown sons, a daughter-in-law and a young (and cute!) grandson to watch a football game and eat some food. The same pre-visit jitters came over me, but I did a little better by breathing through the feelings and talking to myself a lot.

I told myself that my “fear” of them is not based on reality. It’s just a habit that my brain has created. I told my brain that I do feel a lot of strong emotions around my kids. I feel love, anger, fear, sorrow, regret, fear of aging—all sorts of things. And, my brain is afraid of how strong the feelings are. But, I told my brain that it’s OK to feel strong feelings, it will not kill us.

Talking to your brain sounds like a silly idea and I resisted it for a long time, but it actually works. It works if you stick with it, and I would say it takes at least two weeks or more to make any headway at all. And I’m talking you are babysitting your brain 24 seven.

Long story short: I had the most heartwarming, beautiful, wonderful, happy afternoon with my family that I have had in a long, long time. Normally, when they visit I avoid walking around them because I use a walker. I just park myself on the couch and I don’t move. But at one point, I had to go to the bathroom and I had to walk across the living room in front of all of them!

I walk very slowly. In the past, this has been a big source of embarrassment for me, and it has actually blocked me from doing things in public or with people. My perfectionism doesn’t want me to appear weak and old around people. But today, I laid all that aside. I cheerfully grabbed my walker and I walked very slowly to the bathroom and I just accepted my life. I accepted my symptoms. I accepted that my family is worried about me. I accepted that I can’t do anything about that for them. I accepted that life is a journey and this is where mine is right now. I have TMS, but I can get better one day. It won’t be like this forever, and today was one small step to getting there.

While I was coming out of the bathroom to return to the couch, my left leg completely shut down. I used what I learned a few weeks ago and “commanded” it to function. I dismissed the flood of fears that tried to come. (What if I fall in front of them?!) These thoughts are no different than “what if I pass out having a panic attack?”—which I used to have years ago, and overcame, by literally laughing at that thought.

These are the little victories that it takes to get better, in my opinion. I share everything with you because you make me feel better and because I truly hope it helps anybody else out there.

I’m hoping to build on this victory and soon go out into the world and walk very very slowly in front of people. Eat out in a restaurant, walk in my neighborhood, go to church, visit people and live life.

I would say today was a big deal for me—and a long time coming! I’m not sure why it took so long. I feel like it took a lot of inner growth. And a lot of determination. At first, I just didn’t have the inner strength.

Hope and Help for Your Nerves, by Claire Weekes, MD, has played a big part in teaching me about my condition and how to get free. I highly recommend it!

And, of course, the forum sustains me like nothing else. Sending out well wishes for everyone out there. Never give up.

If we don’t quit—we WILL get better!

 

We won’t quit!
I’m so happy that you had a breakthrough, that’s huge!

 

So happy for your success, @Diana-M! You've showed everyone how it's done.

 

Diana, you're doing so great! I think this calls for a nice reward of sorts.

 

Congratulations! Like Jan, I feel better after positive self talk. I have to be very conscious that it doesn’t turn negative, so talking out loud gives me more control of the direction those thoughts go.
And, Diana, I can certainly relate to what you mentioned about your family. I can experience very strong emotions about my adult child, both positive and negative. For me this relationship is one of the most difficult to manage, emotionally. It brings up regret, sadness, joy, and on and on…Definitely still working on that.

 

Tgirl,
Isn’t it crazy about our kids? I never would have guessed it would cause me all this pain. But it’s being caused by ME! And MY issues. And how I process it all. I noticed this last visit was so fun, and it was probably because I was more fun!