Work issues

Hi everyone, I've posted a few times before and am now fully convinced that the weird symptoms I've been experiencing are mind body symptoms and caused by my brain being in a state of fear, and my body in a state of fight/flight.

Previous threads are here:
Fascial restrictions | TMS Forum (The Mindbody Syndrome) (tmswiki.org)
Hard flaccid syndrome and TMS | TMS Forum (The Mindbody Syndrome) (tmswiki.org)

Even the things that I previously couldn't countenance being TMS I am now convinced by, like my body being visibly rotated and misaligned, which I believe is the brain tensing certain muscles because it believes there is danger, and nothing to do with arbitrary "muscle imbalances".

So that's great progress and it took me a long time to get here.

I have also watched some videos by the excellent Michael Hodge on YouTube which has made me think about what he calls "high-alert behaviours" like frequent checking of technology, inability to just sit still and not be doing anything etc. And the importance of living life and experiencing joy, love and connection. These are all things which have not been present in my life for a long time and I'm trying hard to work them back in.

But I have a problem with my job and I want your advice. I am about 15 years into my career (Human Resources) and have always been dissatisfied with it. I first sought career guidance in 2012. I have quit twice - once to go travelling and another time to go back to university to study mental health nursing in 2021, which I lasted only 5 months in before deciding it wasn't for me (my brain's logic at the time was that I was the one who needed looking after and I couldn't look after other people).

When Covid hit I was forced to work from home for the first time ever, and in my industry it was very busy, as you can imagine. This is when my symptoms became noticeably worse. And I noticed I was feeling anxious and jittery during the day. I thought I was drinking too much coffee so cut back. This persists to this day, even though I now have a completely reasonable workload and there are some days when I don't have enough to do. There are symptoms that occur (or get worse) when I'm working that are better or non-existent on the weekend.

Nowadays I work from home about 50% of the time, and I'm in the office the other 50%. However it's not like it was pre-Covid and the office is generally pretty empty and almost every interaction is on screens anyway. It's mostly emails, to be honest, and I'm just sat still all day.

On the one hand, should I be finding ways to teach my brain that my job isn't dangerous and there is no need to send symptoms? Is quitting just an example of giving in to the symptoms and letting them rule me? On the other hand, it feels like a Pavlovian response that my brain will now always regard an office job that involves screens, emails etc as dangerous. A third way of looking at it is that the symptoms are a message from my brain that this is not the work I should be doing and to find something more 'me'. Surely considerable rage is built up if someone is doing work which does not align with who they are.

I have considered becoming a primary school teacher as this will force me out of my comfortable job where I sit in my spare room looking at a screen all day. I would have to interact with other people. It would enable me to move my body and express myself. Of course the fear is that I will make that switch and nothing will change with the symptoms. But I guess in that case I can just quit and do something else entirely.

Another factor is that I have been in a very dark place for some years before finally coming to the conclusion that this is TMS. Part of me thinks I need a fresh start doing something completely new as I start the recovery process.

What do you think? Am I thinking along the right lines here or is there something I'm missing?

 

I'm gonna also ask if you've read a book by Dr. Sarno and perhaps read it or passages of it again and again.

Also note that the sense of isolation you are feeling is a common occurrence at this wiki lately. Instead of blaming work or technology and living in that glass half full mindset, have you thought about how you could change this scenario? I mean the only part of your job you mention is stressful is not having contact at work, and lots of screen time.

I'm going to refer to @TG957's book Defying the Verdict: How I Defeated Chronic Pain - although she was surrounded by co-workers, she was isolated mentally by her feelings of pain. She tackled this a few ways - she went out daily at lunchtime and ran, she meditated and learned to accept being alone with herself and her thoughts, and also got back into doing things that spark joy.

I don't think your situation is uncommon, you just need to feel empowered to do something about it.

 

Thanks both for your replies. I should clarify, I'm not saying that I think my symptoms will go away if I change careers, it's just noticeable that certain symptoms get worse while I'm doing my current job. Surely there are careers out there (lots of them) that would not do this. And yes, I absolutely need to accept this and not resist the additional symptoms.

Yes, I am relatively well read on this, although as you say I do need to re-read to get things to properly sink in. I have read several books by Sarno and am also currently reading the excellent "The Untethered Soul", which would also back up the point about observing and not resisting, and for accepting what is. I haven't done the SEP but have done the ACEs quiz and scored a medium-low number as I recall, but there were definitely adverse experiences in childhood, mostly of a chronic nature as my mother has unresolved trauma of her own and lives in perpetual fear. "Healing the Trauma That Binds You" was a revelation on this topic.

It's a tricky one because yes, on the one hand, most people are able to do corporate jobs, including partly working from home, without experiencing the symptoms that the job triggers in me, and therefore I need to look at what's causing the symptoms to arise, not what the arbitrary trigger (the job) is.

On the other hand, as Jan points out, the suffering comes from emotional conflicts that affected life decisions before embarking on the career. So were it not for these emotional conflicts I'd probably never have gone near this career in the first place. In fact, I never really chose the career anyway, I just applied for a temp job after uni and here I am 15 years later. I do think there is a genuine possibility of this career being a bad fit for me and not enabling me to be myself and let my authentic personality show.

My impulse is telling me that as part of healing I need to surround myself with people, rather than avoiding as I have done my whole life. I have started taking small steps with this in my social life. My impulse is telling me I need movement, self-expression and human connection in my work. I guess the next step is to test the waters and do some shadowing and see what my gut instinct says then.

 

"Wherever you go, there you are."---- Jon Kabat-Zinn

I get where you're coming from. I changed jobs and locales many times when I had TMS, hoping it would change things. It never did, because the problem was contained inside of me. I only recovered from TMS when I started doing "the work". Seeking external change never helps, though there may be an initial placebo effect.

I think you should pick a TMS program, apply yourself to it, and stick with it till the end. You won't regret it.

 

I'm not expecting a career change to do anything for my baseline TMS symptoms, however my current job appears to be a trigger for some symptoms to worsen, or appear at all. There are surely many careers that would not do that, although I understand the point about not acting based on fear triggers. This follows on neatly from a chapter I read in The Untethered Soul last night called "removing the inner thorn". The idea being that we must remove the thorn rather than build elaborate devices to stop it hurting us.

I am fully committed to the TMS healing process and favour Dan Buglio's safety-based approach. Ultimately living my life without fear, which is the opposite of what I've been doing for the last several years.

I see a career change as an example of doing just that. There are two ways one can approach this:
- I need to change career because my current job causes symptoms and that's therefore a fear response and I want to avoid it.
- I need to change career because my current job limits me, does not provide space for authentic expression of self, is isolating and doesn't involve co-regulation of other humans face-to-face. I therefore want to change it for another career which will have its own fear triggers but is a better representation of who I am and will enable me to live life more fully. Staying in my current job feeds in to my avoidant tendencies.

Is the second one not valid?

 

Just sent you a PM. This sounds so much like me I felt obligated to reach out.

 

You seem to have a wealth of knowledge in treating your TMS. But from what I hear about your job and fear of switching - you may want to look at regulating your vagus nerve. Your vagus nerve seems on edge. The isolation itself can cause your vagus nerve problems to worsen. You may need to biohack. Aside from meditation and vagus nerve excersies, I’ve found the most powerful to be cold water immersion up to the neck. I’ve built a DIY cold plunge out of a chest freezer and immerse myself in 44 degree water for 5 minutes. It does wonders for the vagus nerve. It’s wierd to talk about, but you may also want to practice “no fap” (Google) to let the growth hormones build, these will help you in social situations. And from these biohacks, your body will be able to no have this fear of social situations again as it is a natural thing, and as you biohack your body, you’ll be back on track!

 

You’re probably right that I should try vagus nerve exercises and there is a bit of a fear of social situations going on. I previously tried cold showers and can’t say I saw any real benefit other than feeling amazing just afterwards. But maybe more consistency is needed. And yes, I am practicing nofap and around 1 month in currently.

 

Your life history resonates alot with my experience. I don't know what the right career path would be but as you've suggested shadowing someone would probably be the best way to see if it would be right for you, as teaching can be stressful too.

On the topic of the vagus nerve/the nervous system, one website which I've found really interesting is programpeace.com, which the author describes the the nervous system dysfunction and internal stress he experienced and how to learned to overcome it. I find it helpful to read about others experiencing the same symptoms and issues as ourselves, and their journey to overcome them, especially random issues that not many people talk about like vocal constriction.

 

Thanks so much for the reply, looks like a really interesting site/book.

As for the job stuff, I get that all jobs will have their stresses, for me though the triggering factor seems to be doing a job that involves interacting with a screen, and involving multiple competing priorities. My default state seems to be rushing (probably due to a previous burnout and a subconscious fear of running out of time). Doing my job causes feelings of overwhelm and derealisation. And I completely understand that the real issue here is why something benign like work causes that, but regardless of that I don't like my job and want to do something else.

Lately I have been thinking how nice it would be to have a job that has separate back-to-back appointments during the day, and speaking directly to people in real life, moving from one appointment to the next and not having to constantly prioritise or work out how I would best be spending my time. I have taken the first steps in becoming a driving instructor - again, not a job without stress but ticks a lot of boxes for me, as I love coaching people and helping them develop, I'm very good at explaining things clearly and concisely, it ticks the back-to-back appointments box and means I'll be getting out in the real word interacting with my local community, not stuck in my spare room looking at a screen all day.

 

Hi @jcf254
I resonated with your thoughts and questions here. It seems you understand what’s needed to heal from TMS. You aren’t trying to avoid what it takes to heal. You just plain are realizing your career —that you didn’t even really pick— doesn’t satisfy you.

I’ve always believed that if a person likes about 65% of the actual tasks involved with their job, they will like the job. (I figured this out from bouncing around myself.)

At any rate, I did read recently that it’s rage inducing to feel like you aren’t receiving growth and the opportunity to develop who really are in life. It looks like from the quotes above you know what you want (a change) and you like to help people grow. These are good things. It can’t hurt to get them for yourself while you keep working on your self discovery to heal.

Just know that TMS is fickle and there’s no real silver bullet for healing. It takes a bunch of things and sometimes a lot time. But I think you’ll get there! Being happy about life, your career and feeling empowered to finally choose what you want, is a good start. I say, Go get that!