Symptom Imperative and Grief

I’m having trouble overcoming the symptom imperative. I’m 25 years old, and medically/physically speaking my body and health are great. However, how I feel does not reflect the scans and tests I’ve had on my body. I’ve had TMS for 3 years, but I’ve only discovered it to be TMS last year. I’ve had a number of symptoms come and go. My main symptom has been abdominal pain but I have learned to ignore it very well. My goal with my TMS journey is to not let any symptom scare me out of physical activities. I have improved so much after discovering TMS, but I still have doubts and setbacks. I used to be heavily into physical fitness/sports. Ever since I developed my pains/symptoms however, that all changed. But I did slowly work my way back into physical activities. First, I swam then I walked for about 6 months, then I worked up the courage to finally go back into the gym and try cardio. I was doing quite well for about 3 weeks at the gym, but my mind kept trying to scare me into pain. I ignored it. Then I started to develop knee pain after my workouts. I’ve never had knee pain before so I was very confused! I ignored it again and that was that.

Now for the TMS of this all - A little over a month ago my close friend passed away. This was so sudden. I have made so much progress in my life in terms of letting go of past situations that hurt me deeply. Now, as I have been on a much more positive path, I got hit with something very difficult to face. Although it has been hard, I am still applying the TMS concepts to dealing with grief. It’s interesting because the knee pain started when I found out he go into a car accident. At that point there was still hope that he would make it and recover, however about a week and a half later of being in a medically induced coma, he passed away. So that whole week and a half was very up and down for me. After he passed away, I definitely noticed that my knee pain got much worse and it persists till this day. Somehow my mind still wants to tell me that it hurts because I hadn’t worked out on an elliptical machine in so long and so my muscle wasn’t used to the activity. It’s crazy because every time I get a new symptom, I want to believe it’s TMS but I still have my underlying doubts. What do you guys think this is? Any suggestions on how to deal with this? I was doing so well with progressing through physical activity. I don’t want another setback to keep me away from that progress. At the same time I do think I've been attempting to deal with this emotional pain as best I could. I cry when I need to cry and I talk about him when I need to. I'm not sure what else I can do.

 

Hi, Hopeful. A loved one passing away is one of life's toughest. The loss and sadness is bound to create TMS pain. I'm 85 and have lost family and very clsoe friends, and it has been rough for me. I focus on the good times we had together. Go ahead and cry. It can help in times like these. The thing is, time does heal wounds of losing loved ones. We don't forget them, we just go on with our lives. I like to give extra love and devotion to those remaining.

 

Thanks for your response Walt! I agree time will certainly help but it's just very fresh right now. Thankfully I have worked with a wonderful therapist I was introduced to through this forum and he was more than helpful when I reached out to him about this situation. I have been thinking about what we talked about and the TMS of it all as well as my personality traits that tend to keep me locked in this mindset. I just want to be able to keep progressing and sometimes I pressure myself in the process and I'm truly trying not to. Even with trying not to pressure myself, I'm pressuring myself...

I guess I would love to just hear others input on how to deal with grief and symptoms, because of all the issues I've had in my life, nothing compares to this loss. I think I'm doing alright but could just use an extra boost to see things more clearly.