The Pain ends after the Bad thing happens.

Hi Everybody!

I’m wondering if I can get advise on dealing with pain created by an anticipated, unrealized, negative event.

I have 2 examples to explain what I mean in case I don’t make sense


1) My 30th birthday

I made plans months in advance with everyone. I had just begun my TMS journey, was getting better, but was still in a ton of pain. I just really needed to have my friends with me.

The day of the party. I woke up with awful pain in both knees. As the party start time approached, I started to get the calls. All my friends except one, would be hours late, maybe not even be able to come at all.

As soon as I got the calls, the pain started to subside.

Hours later, when people showed up, we had a wonderful night.




2) I’ve recently posted that I was having trouble with a co-worker. I got advice here and it’s been getting a little better.

Then my arm started killing me. It hurt terribly for 2 days. I really couldn’t figure it out since I thought I had been handling the new stressors well and had been 100% pain free in my arms.

Then I had a meeting with another co-worker, a man known for being verbally abusive to female employees.

I wasn’t even thinking that he was an issue since I only need to speak with him once or twice a year, and I know what’s coming.

However, as soon as the meeting was over, and the nasty things said, my arm stopped hurting. A few hours later, I was lifting weights and drawing again.



In both cases, I was in pain, trying to figure it out, and never once came up with the answer. Then, when the “bad thing” happened, and it was over with, the pain went away.

Does this happen to you? How do you handle it?


Thanks!

 

I've had those things happen and what I do is laugh it off.

I'm 85 and healed from severe back pain through TMS, discovering I had repressed emotions
going back to when I was 7 and my parents divorced. It left me with feelings of insecurity that
I repressed for years.

I expected my older brother and sister and their families to come to my house for a party
when I turned 50. My brother "bugged" out, so too did his grown kids, and then my sister
and her grown kids did, too. I felt unloved, but then a close friend and his wife and two little kids
came and we had a wonderful time together.

As for co-workers, I try to stay away from people who rain on my parade, or are just "downers."
I try to be around positive people, and if they aren't around, I can be perfectly happy with my darling dog Annie.

 

That's so interesting. It sounds like you have a very clear association sometimes with pain and particular emotional events that you are concerned about - maybe ones you're not always aware of (consistent with what Sarno says about the unconscious being involved). In the 20/20 segment on Sarno, I remember there was a woman who had some persistence of symptoms similar to this. She said to herself, when this happened "Ah, I must just be feeling tetchy; something's bothering me, even if I don't know what it is." And eventually it would be fine.

It's not fun to be in pain, but maybe you can try that technique.

 

It could be that I combat TMS but telling it what it is and the cause.

For example, if my legs hurt after a workout, my inner monologue is something like this, “You have just worked out. You did more <insert exercise here> than you have ever done before. You are afraid that the <new exercise> has hurt you. However, you are strong and you are not physically hurt. You had a great workout and will workout again in 2 days.”

or…

“You are feeling overwhelmed by <insert issues here>. You are stressed by them and this is why your arms are hurting. Your arms are not physically hurt, so you can do whatever you want with them today.”

9 times out to 10, I know what the deal is. I know why the pain is back and once I put it in its place, it goes away. Sometimes, I get a mysterious one though, like the examples above, which I would never suspect be a problem.

In the beginning, I think my pain was from old repressed stuff but I have a notebook filled with journal entries where I got it all out. I’ve never read it again, but I think I cussed out everyone from my childhood at some point in there.

Now the pain all seems be from fear and stress in day to day life (if I have any which is rare now).

 

Hi Waterbear!

Yep, I had a similar issue a few years ago when I agreed to participate in an event that was going to happen 5 month ahead. Until that day I experienced severe back pain and the it suddenly stopped but then I didn't know why. Of course, then I have found Dr. Sarno and Steve Ozanich and this forum and lived happily ever after.