TMS and pregnancy fears

hello all
I read the forum a lot but don't post very much but this is a big one which I need to address.
My TMS started in pregnancy, resulted in debilitating back pain and sciatica at the moment of giving birth, then surgery with a 5 month old baby - only discovering about TMS a year after the birth (7 months after an unsuccessful back surgery) thanks to the marvellous specialist Georgie Oldfield here in the UK.
I have explored a lot of sub conscious fears that were present about birth due to having an older Downs Syndrome brother and my Mum who unknowingly projected her understandable 'fears' of pregnancy.

The whole time my son (who is now 2.5 years) was a baby I was in a very dark place with the pain and looking back on it now I was depressed. My memory of him as a baby is hazy, dark and not a pleasant place. I had a lot of difficulty since with feeling angry at pregnant friends (and there are a lot!) and their births that were non-complicated and miles away from my experience. I have been seeing a therapist and talked through a lot of this anger and believe that anger/jealous feeling of other women who it all went ok for has diminished a bit.

My pain these days is sooooooo much better. I do get some bad days but on the whole I am a happier person who works part-time as a drama teacher and also enjoys and loves time with my son and husband!

However, days such as today I hit a wall. I sink into some pain I still get in my leg, I focus on the tight leg muscles and lack of flexibility and ultimately I fear that this means I will never have neither child as how can I when not 'pain free' (my negative mind prevails today!)
I recognise that this fear causes the pain, even though my brain is very good at tricking me it's the other way around.
I beat myself up that I am not a 'complete' mother like my friends as I only have one child. I almost apologise to friends saying that 'I only have one', as if my job as a mother us half of what theirs is.....(all stupid I know but this is my mind at the mo!). If it were simple I would love my son to have a sibling and we would love another child.but my mind turns to the length of pregnancy and the fear of birth each time I think about it all. I try to reason it is not structural just TMS but because the TMS is so connected to pregnancy and birth it stands to reason I would avoid the most massive reason for my TMS. I am stuck and although I've been speaking to a therapist we seemed to have moved on to talking about more 'present' worries of mine such as my controlling in-laws and unhappiness at not being able to move out of London, being a country girl who needs green space again (lack of move is due to no jobs available where we want to live!).
Is there anyone who has experience of TMS and pregnancy or who can help me on this path of my TMS healing which I know is holding me back but I can't see an easy way forward.
Many thanks to all you knowledgable people.
xx

 

Hi, PepperGirl. I'm an 84 year old bachelor in Chicago with no experience in pregnancy or child care,
but am sure others more qualified will reply to your post.

Maybe your remaining pain is from a perfectionist personality, wanting to be the perfect mother.
And fear that you won't be.

And it's natural for you to have been concerned about childbirth because of your brother and
your mother's fears.

Your son is healthy, and that's something to thank God for. Try to forget the pregnancy fears
and enjoy every moment with your son and husband. Replace fear with joy.

 

Hi Pepper - I have two children and we had a very difficult first one (high dependency unit for four weeks) and an amazingly easy second one. The difference I believe was down to what my wife did in between the two.

I think you may have unconscious fears. I also do and have found bringing the fears into consciousness and releasing them to have helped enormously on not being afraid of the future. My experience with unconscious fear is that becoming conscious of it and releasing it means ceasing to be controlled by it. I can recommend a very good Faster EFT therapist here in the UK to you if it would be useful. She has helped me become aware of fear I didn't know about and helped become free of it so it doesn't control my thoughts and behaviour so much and I am more aware of it when it does. She facilitated a process that has been a big release into freedom for me.

Peace,

Conor

 

Thank you Walt for your words of support and help. It means so much when people reply with a kind word, which you do so thoughtfully for many people on here.
Ozzy - yes please if you could message me the details, it surely is worth a look! Not ever looked into EFT before. Could this not be seen as a 'distraction' though? Bit confused about what it is! But the info would be good - thank you.
Are there any women who have had TMS links with childbirth and pregnancy - I would love to hear from anyone!
Thank you xx

 

Hi Pepper, the Faster EFT therapist I had a session with helped a lot of my unconscious emotions become conscious and then be 'rehomed' so I felt I could face feelings like that if I needed to. This felt liberating. I'll message you the details and you can decide. Not sure if it could be a distraction - it wasn't for me, it took back another layer of TMS for me, alleviated pain, and put me in touch with previously unconscious fear, anger and grief so I felt it rather than those emotions being somehow locked in my body. Good luck whatever you decide!

Oh, and be kind on yourself - you are your own best ally. (This is something I need to say to myself by the way!)

Conor

 

I don't consider EFT a distraction but another TMS healing technique.
I found a really helpful Tapping video on YouTube:
"Louise Hay Sits Down with Tapping Solutions' Nick Ortner."
I really like how she tapped herself free of childhood trauma.
If someone as respected as Hay believes Tapping helps her, that's good enough for me.

But for anyone who feels foolish tapping, as one person posted last week,
why not go through the words of tapping but without actually tapping.
That way it's like TMS in accepting a trauma and then saying positive affirmations
like "I let this pain go. I feel great."

 

Thanks for the link Ozzy I will have a good look - and Walt too for your help in pointing me in direction of Louise Hay YouTube clip. I will definitely do some research. I'm having a bad week with leg pain that has not been at this level for many months. I think I've been getting back to bad habits and dwelling on things/thinking negatively. It really is a life long process recovering from TMS and I need to remember that. Time to do some work/start meditating again etc. having a two year old doesn't always allow me to take time for myself but I can do if I build it into times of the day when my husband is home. I've realised life had taken hold and I'm in danger of going back to my old negative patterns of behaviour. Maybe looking into EFT will give me something to learn about to help me refocus.Thank you both

 

Hi PG,

There are a few older threads on the forum that focus on childbirth and motherhood. I'm away from home at the moment typing on an iPad otherwise I would search and include the links for you. Just put pregnancy, etc in the search box and I'm sure they'll appear.

I went through a difficult birth and aftermath the first time around. It really did put me off having another baby for some time. My second child was born over 5 years later. I hadn't come across Dr Sarno et al at that stage but I had been undergoing treatment from a homeopath throughout my second pregnancy. Many will shout 'placebo' but it doesn't really matter, placebo or not. Everything turned out just fine. The other decision I made was to have a home birth attended by a private midwife. Long story about why which I won't go into here. Decades after that first birth I am now able to recognise just what was going on with me then. You are fortunate that you don't have to wait that long.

Interesting that Ozzy has mentioned EFT. I went to a practitioner a couple of times. His wife also does EFT and specialises in pregnancy and childbirth. If you want her details send me a PM. She practises in the London/Herts area.

 

Hi YB44
I had forgotten my post as only come on the forum from time to time (I can get a bit too bogged down with it all otherwise) but you reply was helpful thank you (sorry for my massive delay in replying!)
I would love to hear your story if how you managed to have a better second birth and why you think that might have been so. I am struggling to understand what I need to do next. I am so fearful of both as the onset of back pain was triggered by birth and I do struggle, accepting it was full psychological although I feel I fully accept the TMS diagnosis, I can't separate the childbirth from the start of all the pain troubles. So going down that route again is very hard for me, but so is accepting I will just only ever have one child, doesn't feel right for me either.
Anyhow if you had the time or inclination to explain more to me in a PM I would be most grateful. But completely no worries if all too much and you might not have the time! I wondered though if you wouldn't mind messaging me the contact of the EfT therapist you saw, as I'm in west (greater) London so not a million miles away from where you said your eft therapist was based.
Thanks hugely
Best wishes
peppergirl