Where Do I Go???

Almost as soon as I started to read about TMS and the causes of it, I knew that it was the cause of my chronic pain. That was nearly two years ago and, although I have had some temporary reductions in the pains, they keep coming back.

I seem to get a lot of reaction to talking about GUILT, rather than ANGER, as suggested by all the documentation I had read about the condition.

I almost straight away went into psychotherapy to try to figure out my life. Although my mind is becoming ever more clearer, my body has stopped reacting.

I haven't read a full book of Sarno's, but I believe that is probably going to be my next step. If that doesn't work, then what? Do I need to read it again and again and again and again?? After how many readings do you stop and move onto another treatment??

 

I would recommend going to see an MD or Therapis that specializes in TMS. I am actually doing this in January (just to give my mind the sense of peace). Here is a list of practitioners: http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Find_a_TMS_Doctor_or_Therapist

 

Hi NIClubber,
I am sorry you have been working on this for two years and not yet over the pain/symptoms. I will make a suggestion or two.

Yes, I think reading a little bit of a Dr. Sarno book every day is probably an important basic.

Have you ever gone through the Structured Education Program at the Wiki. I would recommend a daily structured program like this. Alan Gordon's recordings in his Recovery Program at the Wiki is really great too, to explore the Inner Bully and pscychodynamics related to TMS. You could do that whole guided program either before or after the SEP.

I read some entries at the Wiki about using a non-TMS therapist.
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Q&A_with_an_Expert

I wonder if after two years of therapy work near your home, that you might be ready to try a long distance relationship with a specialized TMS coach or therapist? A therapist not trained in TMS will probably not give you the same level of support specifically for TMS. Some coaches and therapists will work with your home person, so that you can have support from both ends.

One of the suggestions in the link was "have your therapist read Dr. Sarno's The Divided Mind." I guess you should read it too

I think I understand that you relate to ---and have some relief working with, guilt. If this is true, I might recommend my favorite book on the Inner Bully, which may be the root of your guilt. It is mine. This book is Byron Brown's Soul Without Shame.

I hope others will make some suggestions too. I am glad you are asking this question of yourself and others.

Andy B.

 

Hi, NIClubber. I am sorry you haven't had much luck with the TMS work so far, but urge you to continue. The Structured Educational Program is fantastic. It healed me of severe back pain and has helped countless others to heal. But it takes 100 percent belief in TMS. Here is a post by somone who healed 95 percent and then later 100 percent because of working in the SEProgram.

Kevin healed 95 % from SEP


Welcome to the SEP and to the path of recovery. I am on my final two days of the program and I can say with complete confidence that I am a changed man. I started after 6 months of nasty low-back/butt/leg pain, could hardly walk, stand, etc. was in physical therapy, chiropractor, acupuncture, pain medications, etc.. the usual. My MRI showed 3 disk bulges/herniations touching nerves, so that is what I believe it to be....that is until I read Dr. Sarno and found this site.

I encourage you to really get involved, follow the instructions, do the journaling, take time to read all the suggested readings, and watch the videos. I'd say I'm 95% cured. There is still some very light lingering "annoyance", but I still have some work to do. I've been walking miles with hardly any pain these last few weeks. But even more, if the pain comes on now, it just doesn't bother me like it used to, I sorta just see it, acknowledge it, and go about my business. It took working the program to get to that point, but 6 weeks compared to 6 months is nothing! I made more progress in the first week than I did from two months of PT!!! It's going to challenge you and your "beliefs" in medicine, but you have nothing to lose. We generally wind up here when all else fails.

So give it a shot, especially before considering anything invasive like surgery. If you put the work in, you will get better. Have you read Dr. Sarno yet? I assume you have since you're here, but in case you haven't, definitely readHealing Back Pain. Again, it will challenge everything you've believed about your pain, and backs in general. You'll be encouraged to resume life as normal, i.e. stop ALL "therapies" (PT, chiro, etc.), stop taking medications, and most importantly, stop thinking STRUCTURAL problems are the cause of your pain and shift to psychological as the reason.....again, this can be difficult and takes some time to sink in, so be patient and kind to yourself.

It was a process for me. A few of the bigger moves in my case were: I ripped up and threw out my MRI test results (I found myself obsessively reading over them and comparing them to other results I could find on the web and even here on the TMSwiki site...); I got back to the gym and stopped using a weight belt; and I even cancelled an appointment I had made with aTMS doctorbecause it was more than a month away and it was hindering my recovery (that is, my 100% belief in TMS was lagging because I had this pending appointment, but as soon as I cancelled it, my recovery sped up significantly). Everyone's journey is unique to their situation, but I've found that really committing to the program and brining what I learn from it into my daily life has had profound results. Also, sharing along the way here in these forums has been extremely helpful - there's something about knowing that you're not alone in your TMS recovery that really helps. I encourage you to look through my past posts for some insight into my experience with SEP. Like I said, I'm just now finishing, tomorrow is my final day, and I feel like a changed person. It's amazing. And I feel as though it is something that one carries on with, not just like a one time 6 week thing and that's that...it has helped me to get to know myself and taught me tools to "deal" with my emotions. Learning and accepting TMS is a life changer for sure.

 

NIClubber, I agree with Andy on both The Divided Mind and the Structured Educational Program. In TDM, Dr. Sarno reviews his theories very efficiently in four chapters, and turns the book over to five other MDs and a psychologist to continue the discussion. The SEP has helped a ton of people, myself included.

Here's the thing about rage. My understanding of Freud's theories, which is via Dr. Sarno and Steve Ozanich (The Great Pain Deception, some of us have called it the "bible" of TMS) is that as small children we absorb guilt and shame like sponges, even in functional families (if there is such a thing). I had a perfectly safe, secure, and loving childhood, but my journaling (doing the SEP) revealed multiple instances of shame and guilt. None of them were earth-shatteringly horrible, but clearly they are a major part of my psyche if I could still write about them at age 60! The deeper unconscious rage comes from the fact that our parents did not protect us from these experiences. We also have even deeper rage going back to infancy at having to give up being nursed and nurtured by our mothers.

Obviously, individuals who were abused or neglected in childhood have a lot more rage to draw from - but even those of us without abuse are still subject to the rage of our infant selves. And let's face it - there IS no such thing as a functional family - the ability, or not, of our imperfect parents to deal with the rage of the infant, then the child, never mind the interactions of multiple children in a family, has a lot to do with how our psyches develop from that point on.

 

I have had some temporary reductions in pain, but that just seems to get me more and more frustrated.

I believe I am getting closer and closer to what I am repressing, possibly within the next week or so. I am away from home so I can go to a football (soccer) match tomorrow (Wednesday). I have been journalling most days for much of the last 18 months.

The previous local therapist (who also happened to be a nurse at one of the local hospitals) totally believed in the theories around TMS. I stopped going to her for a number of reasons as I felt I had 'hit a brick wall'. I then took a break of two months for July and August. My current therapist also believes in the basic theory of TMS and even says I am lucky to have such an amazing barometer of what I am repressing.

I can recall very little from my childhood which was another reason I felt I had to go to psychotherapy. My brain seems to be becoming more active, however it seems my body doesn't want to follow.

I wrote and talked about a lot of anger that I had at my parents, and especially my mum, with the first therapist. The only reduction I got was when I talked about being angry with my mum continually bullying me, probably from day one. She seems to have a great desire to control my every move, even though I'm a little over a year from being 40 years old.

I am now getting some temporary reductions in the pain by talking about guilt in relation to my (now former) best friend.

Thanks again for all your support.

 

As I said, I have suffered from TMS or symptoms related to TMS for 35 years plus. That is why I believe I have to go through psychotherapy. I believe that if I can get rid of the pains and the dizziness (the two main symptoms for me at the moment), that I will have a very successful 2016.

I don't want to alarm anyone, but if I had not discovered TMS and Dr Sarno, I would have been long gone by now.

My pains have been more intense over the last year or so. My father died around this time last year, and I don't know if he had something to do with it, or if the pain is getting more intense because I feel I am generically getting closer to what I need to be talking/writing about.

All the things I have written about or talked about that have made a difference have had very little connection to each other, it is unbelievable.

FYI: I did probably the first 9-10 days of the SEP, but found that it was all about different ways of talking or writing about emotions. Good idea, but probably not for me.

I have had several bad things happen to me at the times when the pains have started or got worse, so it's a bit of a minefield.

Again, thanks for your continued help.

 

Hi NIClubber,
I am glad you are getting good therapeutic support. And have found some relief. I hope you can keep building on that in whatever way feels right!
Andy B.

 

I have had a bit of a brain wave earlier, so I will write about that. I'm more confident about this bit more than any other .....

 

No. Still no difference. I hate this pain.

 

I am sorry about the pain, NIClubber.
Andy B.

 

I think I will go to the end of January with the psychotherapy and then just go and read, read and read some more to see if I can beat it once and for all.

Most of the pain relief has come from talking or writing about my best friend, even though I thought the main cause of the repressed emotions was my mum.

 

i think its time to reach out to your dr and start u on some meds for some relief you should not be going threw this for such a long period your nervous system is on overload

 

I asked my doctor previously for muscle relaxants and he said he wouldn't prescribe them to me as they could become addictive.

My therapist says that everyone, especially my parents, have been backing me into corners that I can't possibly ever have any chance of getting out of. That's exactly the way I feel.

I have a massive amount of the symptoms that Sarno discusses as part of the back pain - the locations of pain are nearly exactly the same as he describes, an x-ray suggested the pain is being caused by 'muscle spasms'; and of the eight personality traits he mentions, I have either five or six (there's one I'm not 100% sure about).

The underlying cause of maybe 80-90% of my symptoms and illnesses over the last 30 years + has been TMS or TMS related.

I believed that my repressed anger at my mum for never making me feel loved was central to the TMS, but I have talked or written about all of that for the first 6-8 months of my therapy. I had been getting temporary reductions in pain from writing about guilt relating to my friendship with my most recent best friend.

I'm still flummoxed as to what I am repressing about.

 

Get a new Dr if he want help you threw this rough patch

 

The TMS work isn't about finding the one emotion about a certain event that you're repressing. It's about learning to live with less resistance to your inner experience day to day. I would recommend reading The Master Practice which is mentioned in the TMS wiki book page. I feel that that book doesn't empathize self-compassion enough though and the rage to soothe ratio. For that I would recommend Chronic Pain Your Key to Recovery.

 

Reading a TMS book IS Job One! Your unconscious realized TMS was your problem. The gremlin prevented you from following the route that what would have led you to the solution--that is reading a TMS book and acquiring the fundamentals of TMS KNOWLEDGE PENICILLIN.

Dr. Sarno says you do not have to perform psychic-archeology, finding THE incidents in your past that caused your TMS pain symptoms. You just have to understand TMS THEORY. It sounds like you are beating yourself up badly, picking your life apart, thinking that will render a solution. In my opinion from what you wrote, it sounds like you are self-flagellating and wearing yourself out through psycho-babbling.

READ A TMS BOOK! Your unconscious is already self-sabotaging a good outcome by asking about other treatments. Your prejudging that reading the book will be a fail, that reading a book is not enough--it IS enough!

 

If anyone has been reading my posts over the last few months, I keep coming up with what I think is a genius thought that I am sure is what I have been repressing. Inevitably I write or talk about that thing, and it makes no difference whatsoever. I have been talking and writing over the last 3-4 months with a new therapist who is helping me see that there are other emotions that can be repressed other than ANGER/RAGE. Every time I get a temporary reduction in pain, I have been trying to take a mental note of what it was I was writing or talking about.

I then try to add all the topics together to get to what I have to believe that I am repressing.

I now believe that I have figured out exactly what I have been repressing, and it is very ugly, but I can see why I would have repressed those feelings.

In short, I believe I have been repressing a lot of FEAR.

If it does significantly reduce the pain, I will re-post on here over the next 2-3 days.

I know I don't need to, but thanks for your continued support.

 

The reason I went down the route of the psychotherapy is that I have had symptoms and illnesses of TMS related for 80-90% of my entire life, so I felt that I had no other option but to do it.

Over the last few weeks, my mind has become a lot clearer and I believe I have reached the answer.

It has taken far longer than I could have ever imagined, but it has been worth it. I could not have continued without having gone through what I had to do.

Thanks again.

 

Sounds like you are really trying to hard....take a break and do something you love..