| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 02/12/2007 : 17:53:30
When I was having pain, people often told me how strange it was that I should already have chronic pain at such a young age. (I'm 25.) If you are doubting that you could have TMS because you're "too young", you're not. It's been a while since I read The Mindbody Prescription and I had forgotten that on the very first page, Sarno describes us:
quote:
You are a single [person] in your twenties or thirties. You may or may not have an advanced degree, but you're trying to make your way in your chosen field. Your family history may be good, indifferent, or distinctly bad, but you can think of childhood recollections that are uncomfortable or painful. Your love life...is not the best and you are concerned about whether or not to marry or establish a long-term relationship. You wonder whether or not you want a family. You may be having money problems. In a variety of ways, a parent or parents (sometimes a sibling) may be a concern to you.
He goes on to say:
These brief sketches will not have describes every reader's life. They are meant to highlight one of the primary messages of this book: We are all under one kind of pressure or another. We all have internal reactions to those pressures, and all of us will have physical symptoms in response to those inner feelings...That is how mindbody symptoms come about--and they are universal in Western society. They are not a sign of mental or emotional illness.
The Good Doctor at his incisive best.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
| 13 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Singer_Artist |
Posted - 02/15/2007 : 15:37:13
ACL,
I wanted to write you an email to your regular address but so no way to do so...If you can, write me through my website and this way I will have your email address...My art website address is located in my profile here...Thanx!
Hugs,
Karen |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 02/14/2007 : 18:12:51
On that subject, a friend sent me this article today:
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ (The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids.
I got pushed into an identity of being smart, and I think it negatively impacted my ability to stick with fun or worthwhile things I'm not very good at, and also of exploring my artistic, creative side. So I'm working on that more now. It's fun.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
| carbar |
Posted - 02/14/2007 : 16:57:00
quote:
Originally posted by armchairlinguist
Lately I'm embracing that part of myself that always desires to further develop and become more whole. Sometimes in this context I think of things I was told my my parents while I was in college. The two most notable are "Keep those jeans, someday you'll grow back into them" and "You've never been interested in politics before". Both of these I now look back and see that I was developing one part of me, and my parents were trying to keep seeing me as I had always been. Luckily I resented the statements and resisted them. But our young adult years are full of many such attempts by others to keep us on the straight and narrow path they see for us, instead of helping us find what we really need. Voila, TMS.
Hmm, that's a good place to explore. I resent my own education and the influence of my parents so much, I feel like the majority of so-called grownups in my teen/adult life were trying to put me into the boxes of their expectations and tell me what to do rather than encourage me to grown myself as much as I could by just relaxing and having a good time. I wish I had grown-ups that could have modelled that to me.
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| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 02/14/2007 : 13:20:14
Yeah, I'm simply at the point to say "It worked for me and has worked for a lot of people." That is some evidence; it is not all the evidence. And I am certainly interested in the connection with SD, though my understanding is that the language of that diagnosis is not as "friendly" as TMS, it is more like the old diagnoses of hysteria, i.e. "It's all in your head". Further, most people with TMS will never be diagnosed with SD (or CFS/Fibro) because their symptoms are localized, even if they start in the teens/20s.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
| alexis |
Posted - 02/14/2007 : 09:03:53
quote:
Originally posted by armchairlinguist
Alexis, are you sure you're in the right thread? ;-)
Yeah, that one kind of wandered. My point was really that there is some valuable scientific research in related fields addressing the issues of age, but that there are reasons that the research findings have not been integrated (a new disease name was created rather than expanding and modifying existing diseases for practical treatment rather than scientific reasons). Again this gets to the question of whether a board such as this can serve for both treatment/support and scientific discussions at the same time.
I think liking Sarno because it worked is one thing, but promoting his scientific methodology as adequate (rather than a nice start) is going to have far reaching implications. |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 02/14/2007 : 08:50:28
Alexis, are you sure you're in the right thread? ;-)
I've never heard of John Ellis. If people prefer Sarno on this board, it's generally for the obvious reason that he or his materials helped them.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
| alexis |
Posted - 02/14/2007 : 08:38:00
I find it interesting that the related "somatization disorder" is believed to generally begin before age 30, and that existence of symptoms before that age is often a diagnostic criteria.
Sarno dances around the relationship between these two for reasons I can understand (see MBP p.47 where he says such a diagnosis would make his patients "irate"). Anyway, assuming you think he rejects most SD diagnoses and thinks most are TMS, this would make the ages recorded for these diagnoses more relevant.
Note that SD more closely resembles Fibromyalgia (mostly women) than, say, lower back pain (mostly men)--although a number of physicians claim they can tell the difference with testing. This is another very important reason for creating a whole new class of illness (even more potentially disgruntled patients), but in the process leaving out a large body of research that may well be relevant.
One thing about primary care physician driven research is that the focus is on getting individual patients well. This is great for the individual patient, but a physician will, as Sarno quotes Thompson as pointing out on MBP p82, choose wording and ways of presenting that are most likely to get the patient to do what the doctor believes is right.
I have said many times here that I think you need to take your care into your own hands—and I do believe an intelligent and open minded patient should place themselves at the core of their own diagnoses.
However, patients are not only often stupid, but have egos and other hang-ups that force treating physicians to pick and choose carefully how to present a condition in order to get patients to respond in the desired manner. I’m not saying this is bad, since the physician in this case feels his or her primary concern is in the well-being of the individual patient. But separating the diagnosis from other less savory (to the patient) diagnoses, is very important in getting a patient to accept the treatment.
And to take the words of primary treating physicians as the core of a theory, especially when it is psychological in nature, seems risky to me. Not that we have a huge choice right now, but it should raise flags for some to read critically. It seems funny how easily some here are eager to prefer such home-grown research in Sarno's case, but have clearly (in the case of carpal tunnel) rejected the work of John Ellis who's research was developed in a similar way.
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| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 02/13/2007 : 21:56:44
Thanks carbar. The inner child work is the part of TMS that I've found most healing for myself, as well. Maybe in our teens and twenties is when we first become disconnected from the child as people expect us to act like grownups...
In that spirit:
"In the adult there lurks a child--an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and that calls for increasing care, attention, education. This is the part of the human personality that wishes to develop and become whole." --Jung, as quoted in http://www.creativegrowth.com/teresa.htm
Lately I'm embracing that part of myself that always desires to further develop and become more whole. Sometimes in this context I think of things I was told my my parents while I was in college. The two most notable are "Keep those jeans, someday you'll grow back into them" and "You've never been interested in politics before". Both of these I now look back and see that I was developing one part of me, and my parents were trying to keep seeing me as I had always been. Luckily I resented the statements and resisted them. But our young adult years are full of many such attempts by others to keep us on the straight and narrow path they see for us, instead of helping us find what we really need. Voila, TMS.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
| tennis tom |
Posted - 02/13/2007 : 21:48:06
quote:
Originally posted by 2scoops
I believe TMS is just going to keep growing as an epidemic. It seems as today, we as a society are very driven to be accpeted, to be successful and ou worth is based on that. Our careers sort of define us these days, getting degrees, have a good penion, 401k, good pay, etc. America seems to be an individualistic society, with many pressures to adhere to. We seem to compare ourselves with one another, if we don't meet these expectations, that causes anger, shame, guilt, fear, worry, etc. It just defines what we all ready believe about ourselves, we are defective. It seems to be prevalent in our society, and individual successes seem to outweigh, what we could do as a group, love is missing in this world.
Yeah, people can be affected at any time. It hit me at 16 i was playing basketball, when I landed after a rebound, it all started. That year, I was playing baseball for my high school, didn't evn want to play, but just wanted to please my friends, so I joined. At 25, it really got to me, when docs gave me diagnsosis, the nocebo hit, and once again, I was defective, not only eomotionally and spiritually, but physically now. At 26, chronic back pain, acid reflux, burning nerve pain, that kept me in bed, leg weakness, etc. I'm 90% better, and soon I will be free. It's all about learning the truth about ourselves and those underlying fears, worries, shames, that defective self that we see. I'm not good enough, I don't make enough money, my body is not good enough, what do people think of me, how can I please this person or that person, will I be able to retire, etc. There's a lot of lies out there plaguing society.
Sorry to ramble, but in order to get better, we have to understans a truth and get to the root of the problem. Modren medicine is trained to do so, and they just don't seem to believe. I would love to be be involved with this kind of stuff as a career.
2scoops, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Our society is a TMS cauldron. Our government is no longer for the people, by the people. Our criminal politicians are passing so many laws and regulations, that we no longer trust anyone or ourselves. Add to that all the laws of PC and we are always on the edge waiting for the hammer to come down for some unknown transgression. TMS is far from our personal making. We can thank our crooked politicians for creating much of our daily life pressure. |
| carbar |
Posted - 02/13/2007 : 21:22:01
here, here, ACL. I heard "you are so young" "how unusual" all throughout dealing with RSI pain since age 17. I'm 25, too. Also, was just rereading Mindbody Perscription myself. I really appreciate how you discuss the inner child so much on the boards since that was something in MBP that I really needed to reread and internalize a bit more. A lot of the images of the inner child that you post about made MBP resonate much more. Kudos! |
| 2scoops |
Posted - 02/13/2007 : 12:12:52
I believe TMS is just going to keep growing as an epidemic. It seems as today, we as a society are very driven to be accpeted, to be successful and ou worth is based on that. Our careers sort of define us these days, getting degrees, have a good penion, 401k, good pay, etc. America seems to be an individualistic society, with many pressures to adhere to. We seem to compare ourselves with one another, if we don't meet these expectations, that causes anger, shame, guilt, fear, worry, etc. It just defines what we all ready believe about ourselves, we are defective. It seems to be prevalent in our society, and individual successes seem to outweigh, what we could do as a group, love is missing in this world.
Yeah, people can be affected at any time. It hit me at 16 i was playing basketball, when I landed after a rebound, it all started. That year, I was playing baseball for my high school, didn't evn want to play, but just wanted to please my friends, so I joined. At 25, it really got to me, when docs gave me diagnsosis, the nocebo hit, and once again, I was defective, not only eomotionally and spiritually, but physically now. At 26, chronic back pain, acid reflux, burning nerve pain, that kept me in bed, leg weakness, etc. I'm 90% better, and soon I will be free. It's all about learning the truth about ourselves and those underlying fears, worries, shames, that defective self that we see. I'm not good enough, I don't make enough money, my body is not good enough, what do people think of me, how can I please this person or that person, will I be able to retire, etc. There's a lot of lies out there plaguing society.
Sorry to ramble, but in order to get better, we have to understans a truth and get to the root of the problem. Modren medicine is trained to do so, and they just don't seem to believe. I would love to be be involved with this kind of stuff as a career. |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 02/12/2007 : 20:41:53
Yep. Mine started when I was 13, in milder form.
There was a thread a while back where a bunch of people said how old they were and when their first TMS onset was, but I can't find it anymore.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
| dschid |
Posted - 02/12/2007 : 20:08:09
You can have TMS at any age. I remember when I was around 8 or 9 I started waking up with a very stiff neck that hurt when bent it forward. It has lasted until now and I'm 22. My back pain began when I was 16 and has lasted until now (but not for long).
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