TMS flares as a call to action?

So I suffered most of my life with varying symptoms at different intensities, originating from my childhood trauma and resulting perfectionism, people pleasing, self-neglect. This culminated with me finding TMS after 2 years very sick and months bedridden with what I thought was long covid, constant crippling fatigue, all kinds of infections.

I made an 80% recovery but was still often plagued by symptoms most days, and couldn’t quite kick them - until I finally got the guts to leave my abusive, manipulative partner, who had bullied me and helped intensify my self-doubt that had led to the two years illness. Then I was 100% recovered.

for 4 months, until I started dating a new girl. I felt quite uneasy with her sometimes, but chalked this up to trauma from the last relationship that I needed to work through. After a month of uncomfortable dating and coming down with a very bad flu for weeks, I struggled to cut it off, but succeeded, and immediately felt better, within 24 hrs. In hindsight, she was a pretty poor match for me, and represented many negative character traits that I should be avoiding in a partner, we had a friendly chat a while later and agreed it was all good, she understood this.

various other things have cropped up, where I have had to distance myself from toxic family members at times, or friends, to avoid symptoms that I just can’t seem to get rid of by positive thinking and self love.

today, 18 months after recovering properly, I have now had a terrible cold/flu and have been easily fatigued for 2 months. I look in my diary, and days before this started, I wrote that i finally felt truly ready to settle down, meet a new partner. I saw her, this girl that liked me, that I liked back the day before this current illness began, despite
Knowing I had planned 3 weeks later to go to the other side of the world for 6 months. I am thousands of miles away now, still sick, miserable, and I can’t stop thinking about abandoning my trip to return home to her. She misses me too. I came here to chase some goals that I think really may have been very ego/appearance driven, and I’m realising what I’ve given up to chase that. I can go home when I choose with fairly little consequence, other than the loss of pride that I “didn’t stick it out” and came home to live with my parents again so soon (just graduated college last year, haven’t started career yet)

All the meditation and affirmations and self love doesn’t seem to be working, my thoughts keep returning to home, yet I had thought that maybe would be happier away. Can symptoms simply be a message that we’re on the wrong path, need to make an actual practical change in our lives?

 

Hi, and welcome!
Yes, 100%. TMS is telling you that something is wrong. If you look back at your own history, you get TMS symptoms when you are in wrong relationships. Relationships are loaded issues for you. You could try journaling to see how you really feel. I have a suspicion there are some issues for you that you haven’t figured out yet. For some reason, your TMS brain thinks you’re not safe. For me—even things I’m only contemplating doing—I haven’t done them yet—can cause symptom flares. You need more self discovery to find out what’s really going on. It could even be more than one issue. Fear of failure. Fear of intimacy. Fear of losing your freedom. I’m just guessing.

 

Thank you. It’s strange, this time it feels almost more like I’m truly ready to settle down, and it’s the not being able to, as I’m only here for another 4 months or so max, that is causing me pain. I feel like I’m wasting time. I’ve been on two dates here in this month past, even a one night stand, and I didn’t enjoy them much compared to being with her, and she’s just waiting for me.

There has been a lot of emotional attachment to the goal I came here for, making it into an elite sports team. Now I’m realising that may have been just a way of impressing others, gaining respect. I don’t know if I’d even enjoy it, and it’s so much hard training full time, so much sacrifice, being away from family and friends, and this girl, that even though I’m in a very nice place now, I feel completely unable to enjoy the present.

My emotional sensitivities and stress reactions aside, is action the answer? Should I go home, or just try and practice more meditation, re-read all my journals, say I love you to the mirror some more? I feel like sometimes this just gets me nowhere, and I need to change something real.

 

I don’t think it’s that simple— just picking the right location for you. To fix TMS takes an overhaul of the way you think and feel. It takes a lot of painful introspection. The answers take time. You have to be dedicated. You could do the Structured Educational Program. It’s free here on the wiki. While you are doing that, you might get inspiration on what to do about moving.

 

I sent you a PM.
Your post literally scared the snot out of me!

 

For the therapies that deal with CFS and fatigue, yes, that is totally the understanding.

 

Your first stop is to read or re-read a book by Dr. Sarno and do the work he calls for.
This is to discovered your inner anger/rage and conflicts, and in your first message I see a lot of conflict wrapped up in a warm snuggly blanket.
Sarno was not solely about affirmations and lots of self-cuddles and happy thoughts. He asks us to balance the really heavy inner work with some of the self-soothing.
With journaling, most practitioners suggest you tear up each entry and toss it. Re-reading only takes you back and keeps you where you were. It’s simply purging and you don’t learn much by re-reading if you are journaling in the way Sarno and others suggest which is to examine and reflect on your inner conflicts and anger in the moment.
A lot of what you are dealing with is psychological mindset. You don’t need to change your life, but you can change how you think about yourself and your life. I don’t find affirmations work well for this if you aren’t telling yourself truths with naked vulnerability. I found that Claire Weekes helped me recognize the difference between phony affirmations full of anxious thinking and my perfectionistic-tendencies and the real truthful person I am in her unique way of teaching self-acceptance. Her books are so easy to read.

Both of those are a great place to start, wherever you are. Learning that you can do this work anywhere because home is within yourself, will serve you as you as you navigate through your life.

 

There’s this old saying that goes something like: “wherever you move, your unresolved issues will follow you.”

 

I know haha, the grass is always greener, I feel like the move out here was more likely the mistake. Escaping my problems and life rather than confronting them. Now I realise there was no point in coming here, and I’m miserable

 

Im not talking about getting more active, I’ve been pretty busy this whole time, work, hard physical training, holidays, not shying away from life.

I just worry that it’s this constant thing of is my attitude still wrong, despite being in a strong caring mindset that helped me recover before, and I can’t recover now. Some of these times before I have had to make real changes. Avoiding certain things like one night stands, dating, while I wasn’t ready.

 

The CFS therapies (more specifically Mickel therapy), the way I understand them, are not exactly about being more active in general, though it adds up to that. They are about having specific emotions you are repressing, and the way to 'switch off' the emotion/symptom is to act on it. I think you can also just write about things/acknowledge how you feel, but that is meant more for situations where there is nothing you can really do or act on. This is according to CFS therapies again, not Sarno.
I don't know what the right action is for you, it might be to stay away from the person.

You are the only one who can really decide what is best for you; people here might not like me saying this, but one thing I have seen in myself and others with CFS is there is a need to put your own needs and instincts ABOVE ALL expert advice, no matter how right it might sound. Which is really hard to do and is getting harder and harder IMO, there is more and more deference to experts.

this is probably part of the problem.

 

This. My point is I’ve adopted what I know to be the best possible attitude, of acceptance, surrender, self-love, and it’s not making any of my symptoms go away like it did before. I feel like that is just another way of further repressing/ignoring a strong emotion. I’ve felt it too, that I want to go home, I feel the loneliness, regret, homesickness, anger that I came out here and wasted time/money, sadness that I might have to abandon these plans, yet I’m still sick.

Is the answer to act on how I feel, and do what my heart seems to be telling me? How do I know it’s not just more fear/ego?

 

If that's how you feel about it then you're right. People talk about 'toxic positivity', for example.

Dealing with sadness, according to Mickel therapy, has 2 parts, one is feeling the loss and the other is reconnecting to whatever is missing, so that it's not missing anymore. Whether it's a person, a place, etc.

 

For me and a lot of people on this forum, TMS gets more stubborn with time and what used to work to make it go away doesn’t work anymore. The reason is— you got lucky before. To really make it go away takes time and a whole lot of work. Just plain having one realization or even making one move is unlikely to fix it, unless you get lucky again. Probably you’ll have to do a combination of: go to a therapist, journal, study, read, do a lot of talking to your brain, facing your emotions like never before and testing out different methods to see what works for you.