| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Ivy |
Posted - 09/01/2011 : 19:30:35
Hi,
I'm new to the forum. I've read Sarno's books which have really helped me with all my classic TMS symptoms & I think I've had them all! But now I've got a new weird one that I haven't been able to get rid of like the others. For the last couple months, I've been struggling with a sunburn feeling on my skin. It moves around between my wrists, below the elbows & lower legs, ankles & shins. I had annual blood tests done last month which came out good, no B12 or nutritional deficiencies. I keep trying to ignore it, but it won't go away! Any ideas? Thank you, appreciate the help  |
| 12 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| art |
Posted - 09/04/2011 : 06:50:34
It's a challenge that's for sure. I always like Woody Allen's famous line, I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens...
I use a variety of strategies. There's the, "well I was dead (effectively) for billions of years before I was born and it didn't bother me then." I do find that helpful. I also like the "we're all nothing but stardust" point of view, which automatically leads to the notion that we're all part of the same thing, unimportant as individuals, and as immortal as the universe.
Like you, the legacy thing has never been high on my list. I wouldn't take any solace at all in by some miracle writing some great novel at the age of 60 that I knew I'd always be remembered for.
For me, as per Woody's line, it's really not death so much but the actual dying...all the potential pain and fear. Not a happy prospect.
Sounds like your step father had an enviable capacity for living...A lesson for us all... |
| Taoist Pilgrim |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 16:11:45
quote:
Originally posted by art
Thanks T.P. This is all very interesting to me. Perhaps it's solipsistic on my end, but my experience so clearly implicates anxiety as the prime culprit, that I've wondered it it's the case for most people in one way or another. This whole protecting ourselves from subconscious rage thing has always seemed like too many moving parts to me....
I've been making a great effort to change my response to all pain. There's a half or second or so between the time you notice pain and the emotional response that pain elicits. WIth practice, I'm learning to alter that response and it's already made a great difference...
The key, or one key for me, is not to cling desperately to the "it's not real" idea, but to relax into a whole different perspective, which is "real or not, it's all fundamentally ok."
At the bottom of all of this is fear of death and annihilation. It's a reasonable fear. In fact, one could argue it's a form of insanity not to be terrified by our existential predicament. Our highly evolved brains are a curse and a blessing in this regard. Unlike other animals we know about death, but also unlike them we have the tools to find ways to transcend...
I totally agree with you about the fear of death and annihalation. I located very early on that my health anxiety was basically a expression of existential angst...not so much the fear of death but rather the sheer terror at no longer existing.
This really was the ultimate paradox of health anxiety for me. I hated my life on many levels and was watching each day pass in a groundhog scenario of misery and symptom fixation BUT I didn't want my life to end. It is a bit like the Robbile Williams lyric..."I don't want to die, but I ain't keen on living either!
I have spoken to many people about existential angst and a common weapon people seem to use against it is the concept of leaving some form of legacy. The thing for me is that whatever legacy I leave is totally useless to me as I am now longer going to be alive and therefore all its value is totally negated...I suppose taken to its logical conclusion it all boils down to one big, whats the friggin point?
What I have tried to do is to place myself back into the universe as a whole. Health anxiety has made me the most self absorbed and selfish person ever and to that extent the world had basically become my comfort, my thoughts and my concerns. Whilst this may seem a totally valid way to live life I found it caused me problems when I was no longer functioning correctly as it showed that just investing in yourself gives you no safety net and a totally distorted world view.
I have experienced 3 deaths in the last year and one of those was my step father, he was a lovely chap and the most laid back guy you could ever meet. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and battled it with dignity for 5 years. I recall a few months before he died me and my wife visited my mother and step father. I was talking to my mother in the kitchen and she was telling me how hard everything was...my mother is as neurotic as me (go figure) and was elaborating on how pointless and unfair everything was. During this period my wife had gone upstairs to see my step father in his study. When my wife came down my mother wearily asked how her husband was upstairs...my wife said he was fine and was happily sitting in the sunshine coming through the window and enjoying doing his sudoku puzzle. My mother looked at my wife and said in a tone laden with distain...Yes, but he is doing a sudoku riddled with cancer. It was in that moment that I realised why I was the way I was and why I was allowing myself to suffer with health anxiety. It didn't give me the answers as such but it pointed me in the right direction I believe.
anyway, apologies for waffling |
| art |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 15:29:33
Thanks T.P. This is all very interesting to me. Perhaps it's solipsistic on my end, but my experience so clearly implicates anxiety as the prime culprit, that I've wondered it it's the case for most people in one way or another. This whole protecting ourselves from subconscious rage thing has always seemed like too many moving parts to me....
I've been making a great effort to change my response to all pain. There's a half or second or so between the time you notice pain and the emotional response that pain elicits. WIth practice, I'm learning to alter that response and it's already made a great difference...
The key, or one key for me, is not to cling desperately to the "it's not real" idea, something that by definition is always subject to doubt,..but to relax into a whole different perspective, which is "real or not, it's all fundamentally ok."
At the bottom of all of this of course is fear of annihilation. It's a reasonable fear. In fact, one could argue it's a form of insanity not to be terrified by our existential predicament. Our highly evolved brains are a curse and a blessing in this regard. Unlike other animals we know about death, but also unlike them we have the tools to find ways to transcend... |
| Taoist Pilgrim |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 13:34:53
quote:
Originally posted by art
quote:
Originally posted by Taoist Pilgrim
quote:
Originally posted by Ivy
Thank you for your responses. I am sure it is TMS. After more searching, looks like it is a classic anxiety symptom. Just when ya think it's (TMS)gone for good, wham...a new weird symptom. Crazy 
Symptom shifting is always a massive indication that your root causation is anxiety based.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Certainly in my case, and in many, many others on the forum. Just wondering how you came to this? Is it something you've read?
Over the last few years I have suffered from untold physical complaints and ailments and it has always been the case that as soon as one would pass something else would pop up to replace it...this soon ballooned into out of control health anxiety.
I suppose this is similar to the concept of the symptom imperative that Sarno talks about...I just have to have a physical sensation or symptom to dwell and fixate on. Most of the time I recognise the process now but this still doesn't mean I'm immune from falling into the trap....a read of my recent posts regarding sciatica will highlight this.
This is quite interesting:
http://www.anxietynetwork.com/pdshift.html |
| Ivy |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 10:43:51
Hi, yes, here is a link that describes this anxiety symptom.
anxietycentre.com/anxietysymptoms/burning_skin_sensation.shtml
I also viewed Monte Hueftle's series of TMS videos on his website runningpain.com, and my symptoms are diminishing after 2 months of this nonsense. He talks about getting in a "stuck" phase with our chronic disorder, and how we need to deal with current repressing of emotions and induced tension vs.focusing on what happened to us years ago. He also talks about changing our ways of thinking (to "clean" thinking) & our behavior patterns to break the vicious, painful TMS cycle. Very interesting stuff there. Happy Healing!  |
| art |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 08:30:33
quote:
Originally posted by Taoist Pilgrim
quote:
Originally posted by Ivy
Thank you for your responses. I am sure it is TMS. After more searching, looks like it is a classic anxiety symptom. Just when ya think it's (TMS)gone for good, wham...a new weird symptom. Crazy
Symptom shifting is always a massive indication that your root causation is anxiety based.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Certainly in my case, and in many, many others on the forum. Just wondering how you came to this? Is it something you've read? |
| Taoist Pilgrim |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 00:25:57
quote:
Originally posted by Ivy
Thank you for your responses. I am sure it is TMS. After more searching, looks like it is a classic anxiety symptom. Just when ya think it's (TMS)gone for good, wham...a new weird symptom. Crazy
Symptom shifting is always a massive indication that your root causation is anxiety based. |
| Ivy |
Posted - 09/02/2011 : 21:16:53
Thank you for your responses. I am sure it is TMS. After more searching, looks like it is a classic anxiety symptom. Just when ya think it's (TMS)gone for good, wham...a new weird symptom. Crazy |
| Taoist Pilgrim |
Posted - 09/02/2011 : 11:55:23
Regarding the stone in the shoe sensation. I remember Googling that and not finding anything about it...I spent at least an hour following spurious link after link until I eventually found some guy who swore it was his first MS symptom. I ran down the GP in a blind panic and demanded to see him, needless to say he was not impressed and told me to bugger off... Oh the fun of health anxiety. |
| art |
Posted - 09/02/2011 : 10:26:40
Anyone doubting the power of the mind to create physically baseless symptoms should read T.P.'s above post. Amazing, the things we do to ourselves.. |
| Taoist Pilgrim |
Posted - 09/02/2011 : 02:29:17
This is parathesia. I had this pretty much constantly when my anxiety was at its height. Bearing in mind anxiety is pretty much TMS by defintion then it probably could be what you are also experiencing. When I had this one day a patch of skin would feel sunburnt the next day like windburnt and the next icy cold or even wet. This sensation would appear in different spots all over my body. Some over 'interesting' manifestations of this was feeling as if I was wearing socks when I wasn't, the feeling of constantly sitting on a damp or wet patch and also the feeling of having a stone in my shoe when there wasn't one. I believe much of this is related to the heightened focus on our bodily sensations which leads to us becoming over sensitive to normal bodily functioning. |
| raiderjoe |
Posted - 09/01/2011 : 21:13:24
Im new here to but i get that sunburn feeling all the time around my back and mouth i used to get burning mouth but it stopped for whatever reason. Stress is one powerful thing especially when u dont know how to cope with certain situations .
no pain no gain |
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