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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Wavy Soul[/i] [br]This is a longish post about my long flu / TMS and sibling issues. Cinderella and Her Sisters is an incredible book about this stuff. I've now had fairly bad flu for almost a month, and after a slow curve of getting better, I woke up again yesterday with a major sore throat and bad, chesty cough. It's like it's doing another round! I have tried very seriously to go back to my life, but the pattern has been one day in which I do a few things, and the next in which I am literally out for the count on the couch all day and night. Sweating and shivering. Feels real enough. Doc says it's a viral not bacterial infection (so antibiotics aren't suggested, even if I would want to do them). I want to say what I have come up with in terms of the emotional component: Some stuff is happening in England with my family, and it has been triggering memories that I now realize I hadn't really dealt with. It has to do with sibling abuse (I was the abusee). I have always known about it - in fact it hasn't really stopped, although I keep my distance and it's just verbal snapping. But basically my sis has hated me since birth. Recently she really lashed out at me on the phone, and as well as shocking me, it put me into a kind of detox of a certain layer of undetected feeling that has been there in the background of my consciousness nearly all my life. I was the second sister (of 2) and she has always envied me. As I grew up and moved away from all that, I have continued to attract the occasional replay of this scenario. A woman will seem to be my friend, but will end up acting just like my sis, however loving, kind and friendly I am. Tonight I was talking to a good friend about the thin layer of painful irritation and mucus that I can feel in my lungs but can't quite seem to clear. A few minutes later I was talking about these feelings as a long-term thin layer of stuff I haven't been able to clear. Bingo. The mucus is perhaps trying to help me remember and release - at a kind of visceral level - the feeling of constant threat and hopelessness that I had as a child as a result of the constant presence of someone who hated me for no reason. The other day, someone loaned me an incredible book called "Cinderella and Her Sisters," about envy, specifically being the envied one. I have read books on dealing with envy, but have never read a detailed, validating description of the horror of being envied (and therefore hated and rejected), just for being who one is. Just for being born. I'm not blaming her - she must have been really hurting already for me to have been such a threat. The book says that it's a real double bind to be the object of envy, because you cannot repair the relationship with the envier. They are getting something out of objectifying you (not having to look at themselves, for example). If you are kind, they think you are patronizing them. If you get mad, this confirms their story that you are bad. It's a completely crazy-making feeling. Anyway, what I have also come up with, sitting with these memories and also the flu for weeks, is that I got into the habit early in life of being vulnerable via illness in order not to be so hated and attacked by her, and by others who may resent my rather "too much" worldly expression. I had figured this was the mechanism before, but now I am really "getting" that this is what is going on, and it has been going on for so long it's like an addiction that started young -- as though I started drinking when I was in my twenties and now can't stop --(which is when my major TMS started, although I've had it all my life, as my mom and sis also have). Here's the weird thing: I was e-mailing sis to say I can't come to England yet because of my flu (to help with our mom). I found myself detailing the medical tests the doc has given me, and exaggerating them a bit. (I'm outing myself here, so please don't jump on me!). AND IT WORKED! She was much more friendly and gentle than usual in her response. Damn! I can see how much I have used this in my life. It's such a set-up. First, from the years of childhood confusion and pain from the sibling experience, I am programmed to expect people to envy and reject me. Second, I manifest large. Third, in order to make sure they don't hate me, I have been sick. I don't think this is the MAIN reason for my TMS. Sarno specifically says that TMS isn't the same as secondary gains. But distracting me from my rage at being treated so badly for so long probably is central to my TMS. If I even THINK of confronting sis (who is quite scary!), I get scared. It's not that I think I need to confront her, either. Anyway, this is long, but I hope it may be helpful to someone. One of the points is that sibling issues can be as deep as the stuff with parents that therapists tend to focus on. xxx Love is the answer, whatever the question [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.