"TMS Expert" with Newish Shoulder Pain

Most of us do focus on the negative. Hell, everyone does, some are just better at hiding it. I do feel like my TMS is especially stubborn because unlike my back pain years ago that could actually come & go, when all of this garbage lights a fire under the Crohn's, almost nothing can stop it. The additional "no hope" part comes from waiting to be healthy to do X, until the waiting turns into years. The "just do it" eventually became no longer possible, in part at times due to to my TMS's favorite one, the "enteropathic arhritis" (really just means inflammatory arthritis from Crohn's). A large % of CD patients also have joint pain everywhere during flares, or anytime. Prednisone stops it cold (before it turns you into a monster & breaks your bones - always wonder what % of TMS patients see relief from corticosteroids), and certain TNF something or others from biologic meds. It's not a surprise that chronically ill may have a much larger % of depression than other folks (it does).

I only describe it here to go back to the chicken or egg..another mind-f**k of real pathology, tissue damage, lost bone density....Then the autoimmune process & especially the meds for it, whack out your hormones & all of the muck we're talking about floats into & takes up residence in the conscious mind, essentially paralyzing it, and that "all or nothing" mentality becomes a lot more of nothing. Over the years I've been much more harmed by the treatment than the disease. It was the Prednisone that stunted my growth & made me insecure which led to other failures.

Then gratitude is what we're supposed to practice. I should have a ton of it. I have 2 friends dying - one at stage 4 lung cancer, the other ALS. I talk to them & they both show empathy for ME, and I just feel like an ass for my lack of gratitude. When we ruminate on all of our failures & spend all of our time in the past - it's easy to see why, the past was so much better than the present - we can't stay present, which we must. Even look at the future once in a while... but like every time travel movie, if you stay in the past too long you get stuck there.

Another time I was in a bad rut, I felt hope about my ability to change a situation (hated my job), once I started working on my MS, I felt a lot better. Of course in hindsight it was a huge waste of time & had no effect except another $40k in debt). That's the way out of the hamster wheel though, starting to do the things we CAN control, while stopping the worrying or lamenting what we can. Oh, and accept that it can't all be fixed in a day, which gets A LOT harder to do the older we get. This was probably more for my therapist. I just can't afford one.

 

@eightball776
You really have a lot of bad stuff going on! I can’t imagine how hard it must be. I’m on the brink of getting stuck if I don’t force myself to get out of the house. And I can see what you’re talking about with the months turning into years. The one single biggest thing keeping me going is hearing all the stories and wisdom on this wiki. People very bad off. Bedridden for years. People with dozens of gripping symptoms getting better. And best of all, these people have hope, even when their TMS flares again. That’s what I’m looking to. It helps me hold on. Also God. But that’s a whole other conversation.

Sending you good vibes to feel better!

 

Thanks for the encouragement. I don't write like this often, but on some level it must help. I was never much of a journal-er, but I think I gravitate toward what feels necessary at the moment. I do wonder if I've just never crossed paths with a mental health professional that could really just "get it" and really be helpful... or if that truly doesn't exist (at least for those who can't spend $350/hr for one). I do feel like something is very, very wrong when I'm walking through a beautiful campground on a perfect summer day with over a month of pretty low stress work in front of me and I'm either flogging myself for something I should have done 20 years ago or revisiting some terrible memory from even further back. I know there is no benefit to this, I understand why I do it on some level, I can usually move on from it in a little while, but I can't seem to stop it from happening. This is without question from where the TMS originates, and almost certainly what keeps me from controlling the autoimmune symptoms more effectively.

On some level it's a form of problem solving, and is consistent with my analytical brain, and even related to my professional training. Have a problem? What caused it? How do I prevent it from happening again? If I'm unsatisfied with some aspect of my life - say I don't have enough money.. certainly a common problem in America today. Well it would make sense then that I'd think of a time when I did, and whatever path I took that led to where I am now. Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently? The trick then has to be making a clear distinction between learning from past mistakes and beating myself up over them. I try to stick with the thread that focuses on "what do I do about it NOW?". If there isn't a really clear path forward to rectify it, or when it feels like there are just too many gigantic hurdles to clear, that's when it's too easy to fall off the cliff. Then you have to go back to gratitude again. Yet when there's something good in my life, I worry about losing it instead of feeling grateful for it. When you're so used to the bad winning out over the good, you become convinced that the path always leads to the negative...that's when the self-fulfilling prophecy can come into it. I do believe we make our own luck at least in part...I also believe I have a ton of genuinely terrible luck. If I could just forgive myself for the mistakes and just position myself to not repeat them...

 

I get it! All of what you described. I do all of it. My mind just churns. And like you said, when you’ve lived through a lot of hard stuff, it’s hard to not “plan” constantly to prevent it from happening again. Learning to let go is a huge alien endeavor. So foreign to think that letting go is actually “doing something.”But I’m learning that it is.

About the therapy. I’ve heard it said in here that this forum is the best therapy. And I agree! You have some amazing wisdom in this post.

 

What do you do when you're wiser than all of the therapists? LOL If I could just stop looking backward .. stop the regrets & lamenting over the unfixable .. but I do need some kind of therapeutic fix, because there is definitely a screw loose. I have memories that appear randomly, for no particular reason .. and all bad ones. If I have a pet that I loved... when I'm reminded of that pet, I'll think about the tragic, horrible last few months instead of the 15 years of joy. That is how my brain works with everything. I'll be driving down the street, beautiful day, and I'll start thinking about something horrible that happened when I was 15. Why I do that I don't know. Oh yeah, my shoulder pain has been mostly absent the last few weeks... so clearly there is nothing that needs surgery, regardless of what the nerds in the white jackets say. Granted I'm sure once all of the steroids leave my body I will feel some pain, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. We'll see what happens when I start lifting weights or try to play some sports.

 

Glad to hear you’re feeling better! Maybe the memories are leaking out because you still need to feel the emotions connected to them? Journaling really helps for dumping things off. Or… maybe a screw is loose?! I’m a nut job, so im always filled with random tortuous thoughts that extreme efforts in therapy for years can’t seem to curtail. And I gave up alcohol. So no relief!

 

If I'm being honest, I'm probably using "TMS" and depression interchangeably. It all comes from the same place for sure, and it's not surprising after all of the rotten luck I've had that depression would be something that takes some effort to keep at bay. I've given up on conventional meds (though I'm trying ketamine at the moment & have had some good results so far), but the irony that is difficult to conquer is that a big part of what's irked me is all the time I've missed due to poor health. I'm a NY'er, so patience wasn't a virtue that was very big in my house. So whenever I feel better, I put the pedal to the floor & try to make up for lost time & fix everything I neglected while I was sick. Like catching up on sleep, this isn't possible, at least not without a special DeLorean. Now that I'm looking at so many huge obstacles all at the same time, and feel like the hourglass is really running low, it's easy to see why it's hard to relax & approach one problem at a time. This is how I developed ADD. All of the ping-ponging off of various meds designed for short-term symptom relief also mess with my hormones and lead to the kind of mindset where irritability & depression are just the default speed. In the past, when I've started progress toward change - like getting my MS when I was desperate to advance from a crappy job - made me feel better. Even though the degree turned out to be a waste of time (and a ton of $$), just starting down that path was enough. Being isolated too much from remote work has also been a net negative over the long term, even if it's been necessary to stay in the workforce. If I suddenly had a job that was consistent with a true passion, won the powerball, or found a soulmate - all of this would disappear in an instant. That tells me that it is within my power to change. I just have to make a plan & execute it. It sucks that I happen to be unemployed at the time so there's only so much time that can be spent NOT trying to change that, and having time sucked away by constant doctor's appointments, procedures, insurance battles, unemployment insurance / IRS battles, and general bad luck...but I could also look at how much television I've watched since COVID, and beat myself up for spending too much time on nothing, forgetting to allow myself some time to relax and rest. Then I remember Dr. Sarno's lecturing about people who think this way being prime candidates for TMS. Round and round we go.