Where to start

Hi all ,

I am believe I am having Tms symptoms and have done a bit of reading on this site and watched a few videos , it all made sense and have even had little success and even managed to help my daughters migraines temporarily ease off instantly using distraction techniques

However I still get the symptoms and sometimes can’t control the urge to overthink the sensations and think that there cancer or other medical problems.

i am a 38 year old male and have always suffered from some form of panic attacks I went for a period of about 8 with no panic attacks but over the last five years I have had hugh amont of stressful situations ranging from attempted eviction of my home , my son haveing a ASBO put on him ,3 criminal court cases that I have had to fight and win with out a solicitor, buying my home , and another ongoing criminal case spanning over 2 years we have recently had a new baby after a 14 year gap since having our last child the Huge amount of stress and rage witin me agist the police/court system/local authorities has caused me me to have classical Tms symptoms ranging from chest pain shoulder pain prostate pain IBS and then anal pain , what i noticed was these pains allways went hand in had with me worrying was the sensation a heart attak did I have anal cancer / prostate
cancer

I mamanged to get rid of the chest pains by jogging when I got them which lead me to realise that if I was anything wrong with my heart it would not feel better by jogging the pain just melted away but moved to ibs and then to anal pain and then I would spend all day trying to see if I had piles etc the pain worse when sitting and noticed that this recent pain came on from extremely stressfull time in my life where I was having to conduct a criminal court case and defended myself as I don’t quailfly for legal aid but can’t afford a solicitor.

I manged to get some temporary relief and once more the pain went, I am used to going to court but this does cause me some anxiety as no matter how much perperation I do I always get overcome on the day of court could I prepared or done more, I had a panic attack just before going into court and noticed that the pain in my anus came back however due to the knowledge I learnt I realised was just my mind causing pain to distract from my emotions, I would have normally let their senstion overtake my thinking and would have spent the hole court case thinking the pain was back and all my attention would have been centred on this pain.

I realised this and managed to concentrate on my emotions and got over this in court and had managed to cure the pain and this Re-emphasised my mind that it is 100% Tms

Despite me having this knowledge today I have been having the same anal pain symptoms , I am away on a short break with my family at our holiday home on the coast and have had some mild constipation symptoms i had a few drinks last night whilst watching the boxing in a local pub I surffer with bad hangovers which cause my anxiety to sky rocket so I never had to meny drinks I woke up with huge anxiety and let’s just say my constipation has now gone , i have now been about 5 times and this has caused my anal pain to return I can’t seem to shift this using the normal techniques and am wondering if the the bowel movements have agrevated my rectum and caused soreness or once more have I been ignoring cancer or is it just the TMS .

I have never read any books on TMS or watched any full length dvds I have browsed the forums and practiced some of the stuff I have come across but think i need to fully take this onboard but don’t know where to start is there any downloadable dr sarno books or dvds ? Where should I start?

Any advice would be helpful

Thanks

James

 

Hi James,

Sorry to hear you're being dragged through the mill but offer much reassurance that you can recover. You've already experienced some great insights into TMS and your emotional self so this is a great time to take the bull by the horns and win this fight hands down.

Sometimes it's helpful to read about someone who has gone through a similar thing to yourself. There are quite a few members who suffer pelvic pain but more specifically there is a member on here who went through hell with anal and anxiety issues. He was a ball of stress but the last time he visited the forum he seemed to be gaining healing ground.

Here's a link to his last post where he explains how the pain and preoccupation are the result of tension. It's incredibly common to hold tension in the pelvic/perineum/bum region and for TMS to manifest there.

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/levator-ani-syndrome.13528/page-3#post-89745 (Levator ani syndrome)

Aside from the insights shared by the good people on the forum, you really do need to know Sarno's work first hand. Everything here builds upon it. The best book to read would be 'The Mindbody Prescription'. You can download it from Amazon for just over a fiver.

I think you'd also greatly benefit from the sage words of Claire Weekes. Her work focuses on overcoming anxiety and fear. Have you explored anything by her?

Meantime enjoy being by the sea (you jammy sod ).

Plum

 

James, hello, my goodness you have been dealing with a lot!

I'm a work in progress as well with nasty anal/rectal pain (linked to IBS in my case). I've found Alan Gordon's Pain Recovery Program (link at the top of the page) to be very helpful. It is immensely encouraging and has opened my mind to concepts and ideas regarding healing that I had not considered previously. I believe that recovery does NOT go in a straight line, nor is it speedy, in my experience there are good days, even weeks, then a flare will happen. Not to lose my cool when the latter happens (and this is the case right now) is what I'm grappling with - it is so very hard to ignore acute anal/rectal pain and spasm. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other and trusting that this will pass. Being in nature and walking and being out and about generally help me, as does music and dance.

Anyway, just wanted to welcome you, there is a lot of help here. As Plum says there are many of us with pelvic pain on this forum. I'm in my late 60s now but the IBS/anal stuff only got triggered when I was 60 after a couple of years of intense physical pain and stress. But I've been anxious, a goodist and a perfectionist for most of my life, so I fit the personality profile that Sarno laid out to a T.

 

Just been listing to the the mind body Prescription audio book for about a hour , I already have some understanding of the technique but I seem to be mentally trying to skip to the parts on how to actually get this repressed rage out of my subconscious as that’s basically what I think is the root of the TMS

but it is very confusing as what one the traumatic events has caused this fear I suspect they all played a part.

I have also come to the conclusion that I suffer with ocd as since my adult life I have a tendency to obsessively look into things, be it a new money earning project or trying to get route of any my sensations of pain. I over analyse everything but don’t have any problems when it comes to makeing a quick decision ,

Plum : thanks for your kind words and advice the post you mention I think was one of my first discoveries about TMS which Ionly found out about by obsessively searching stories relating to similar peoples pain and stories trying to solve there anal pain , so I suppose that my ocd tendencies where in this case a good Thing . I will have a look at Clair weekes at see where that takes me

Westb : thanks for you encouragement think I quickly read though Alan Gordon’s recovery program without actually doing all of the practices so will also have another look , I do find Alan Gordon’s demeanour and techniques very useful as mentioned I used the tecninc from one of audios where he cured the lady’s wrist pain live , on my non believing teenage daughters migraines she was amazed that her pain disappeared but not yet a believer

I can say I accept that the cause of my pain is TMS and now I’m trying to suss out how to convince unconscious mind to let go of this fear and rage but this at the moment is very confusing and will cause my ocd to hyper analyse the information available .

The other thing that I have noticed is that now I am aware of TMS every time one of my family have pain I start to try to impose that they too are suffering from TMS and honestly believe that it is extremely likely considering that they too had the burden of the stressfull barrage of extremely difficult and stressful times on our family .

But I think they feel I am going crazy and can’t comprehend what I’m trying to suggest .

Anyway thanks for listening and your input guys

 

James, two quick thoughts for you.

The first is you don't need to find or feel the source of your rage. You can't simply unearth it and chuck it out of your unconscious. That's not how how it goes. Many people, myself included, have gone down that rabbit hole. The best way to view this is in terms of tension. You are holding tons of physical tension, tension that is generated by your emotions.

Your emotions, personality and your response to events are the things that create the tension and the pain. TMS recovery is essentially learning how relax and stop taking life so seriously.

The second thing is that most of us pass through an evangelical phase of seeing TMS in others and wanting to share this with them. This rarely goes well. Not only is it an imposition, it is also another way the personality is trying to control life and people. That said the way you helped your daughter with migraine is brilliant. I guess I'm trying to say that a gentle touch is best. We can help people without really explaining the nuts and bolts.

All of the information on this site is golden. You just need to find the combination of practices that work for you and then be patient with them. Spend some time on the Success Story forum too. To inspire you, here is ezer's recovery story from pelvic pain:

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/pelvic-pain-healed.8680/ (Pelvic Pain - Healed)

Plum

 

Thank you for this line. I've never heard it put quite this way.

 

Plum, this is so true. I spent a lot of time sourcing the traumas of my childhood. This was good, in and of itself, yet even though I knew the anger/rage these events instilled in me in my childhood, I had not actually thought much about what the feeling was these events left me with.

Sarno states in the Mindbody Prescription "the rage is repressed, we do not feel it and, therefore, we cannot deal with it." and he goes on to suggest that we "explore....and become aware of ....buried feelings" that these feelings often gave rise to the rage. Once we recognize a feeling/thought that seems to resonate with us, we can become aware of this each time we are triggered. This knowledge allows us to release our physical symptoms by 'talking to our brain', soothing, so to speak. For me, one of the feelings I became aware of, that was a precursor to increased pain, was a feeling of disempowerment. By telling my brain that I am okay, I am not without my own power, and that this feeling will pass, I can help my body know that it no longer needs to hurt. I imagine there are many ways to approach this, but I found this to be very helpful at this point in time.

It seems that it does not matter if this is the 'source' of our rage, just that this feeling seems to be a precursor to pain.

Lainey

 

Thanks plum, at the moment I am not actually having any lingering pain , but i have noticed that I am feeling very anxious .

I am 7 days into my 11 days of work , work ,I must say is one of my sources of frustration but suspect this is true of most people .

However what I am noticing is the extra time on my hands I’m giving my thoughts to my emotions and in some respects still continually Obsessing for a cure or prevention yet I’m not currently in pain!!

I have noticed that I feel more anxious than normal and have a fear about having to deal with situations that could cause panic and I am now trying to cure my self of these anxiety issues with the knowledge of The mind

Also had a very strange feeling last night whilst sleeping, I thinking a dream the sensation was extremely wied and a little sacary I can only explain it as a flood of blood/energy/emotions all spilling out of my body , as I was aware and remember I think it must of partially woke me up but I can recal having the thought of a understanding this to be part of my rage coming out .

I had been listing to the Mind body prescription audio before sleeping so I suspect those thoughts remaind in my subconscious and can relate to the part about a lady that had been abused as a child she harboured this rage and after having some psychotherapy this bought the rage to Her consciousness and eventually had feelings of this spilling out side her body ,

I have also realised that my Weight gain is really effecting my mind I used to be in very good shape but have allowed myself to get out of shape and I have only just realised how far I have let myself go I have countily neglected this to deal with other issues with my life and had the thought that I will sort it out when I have time

I realise as I am typeing this that my mind is jumping from one thing to another but in some way it seems to be helping, or is that my personally trying to rationalise and not allow me to be socially shamed ?

At the moment if I had to describe my emotions and thoughts I would say I am frustrated and a little confused and slightly angery at myself , but I am going to get on with my day and try to go for a jog

Thanks for listening