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kjarvis
Canada
36 Posts |
 Posted - 02/22/2006 : 08:49:10
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I am wondering if there were many people at all who experienced anxiety as TMS since there are really no volume of replies like there is to other posts. I really am desparate to get feedback so I can have some reassurance from others that they have been through this. I have got one reply which I appreciate, however I cannot leave work like that person to take time to heal. There are some replies stating that they had anxiety but no conclusion if there was success treating it as TMS. Please respond!!!!!
Kevin. |
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FlyByNight
Canada
209 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 08:58:40
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From wha t I understand anxiety has to do with your personality. It is one of the cause of TMS actually, not a symtom of TMS to me... dealing with your anxiety in an accepting, non controlling, non repressing way, is one way to fight your TMS and the pain associated with it.
P |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 12:18:41
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Hi Kevin,
I can't help you personally, but have you done a search on this forum? I think a lot of people have gone through anxiety.
Best wishes,
Hilary
Hilary N |
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 13:30:32
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| In Healing Back Pain. Sarno states that at the onset of back pain, anxiety is always present. Don't have my copy handy, but I think treating back pain as an anxiety symptom is very doable. Have you read Back Sense by Ron Siegel? He hits anxiety (panic attacks especially) pretty heavily in his Sarno-esque analysis of overcoming pain. It is written from a counselor's perspective also, and he is a former patient. That also lends credibility to his book. Hope this helps! By the way, I have been doing "the work" for about two months now, and I feel a ton better. Panic attacks are gone, but the lingering symptomatology takes a good while to heal due to nerve conditioning. Job stress is a huge problem for me that may keep me from complete recovery until resolved. |
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atg
USA
50 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 15:01:41
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Hi Kevin,
I had anxiety attacks that stopped about a year before the pain started (before I knew about tms.) Much like the pain, the anxiety seemed to succeed in getting me to focus on it throughout the day. "When is the anxiety going to start? What will I do if it never goes away? Everyone else seems so normal right now, and I'm racked with anxiety!" I believe that it was a tms equivalent. |
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Albert
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 15:15:32
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Regarding anxiety or any other negative emotion, I look at it this way.
You have your super ego (Dr. Sarno calls this your parent), your id ego (Dr. Sarno calls it your child), and you have your inner spiritual self.
Your childish mind, often for a hidden reason, will create negative emotions such as anger and fear. Once you find out why, the process starts to lose some power. Once you find out that such a tendency has a louder bark than bite, the process loses some more power. Once you realize that such a tendency has only as much power as you give it, it loses even more power. Empower yourself, not the tendency.
It also helps to realize that an irrational pattern of mind could care less about what is rational. Therefore, you take control.
If you want to know what specific psychological issue might be causing your anxiety, try this. Before you go to sleep, ask your inner spiritual self to provide you with a dream that tells you why you feel anxiety. This might sound new agey, but I've been paying close attention to my dreams for the past year, and almost every dream has told me things about myself and life. It also became clear that dreams are often created by an intelligence beyond our small egotistical mind.
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Carolyn
184 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 16:24:55
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There is no question in my mind that anxiety is a TMS equivalent. I had suffered from TMS for several years before I came upon Sarno but had never had any problem with anxiety at all. Almost immediately after I read the first book, my pain was completely gone but I had horrible vivid dreams and woke up with terrible anxiety every morning. Since then, the pain and the anxiety both come and go. Actually that first episode with anxiety is what really convinced me of the TMS theory and that something was going on in my subconscious that I had not been aware of.
I have had success dealing with my anxiety by allowing myself to feel it without the fear, judgement or just annoyance that accompanies a new symptom. I have recently started therapy and have had more of the anxiety I think as a result of digginh around in my mind. Something my therapist told me has really helped me control it. She just reminded me that anxiety is chemically the same as excitment in your body and it is all in how you interpret it. So now when I feel anxiety, I slightly shift my attitude to- Oh year there's some adrenalin being dumped into my system- I guess I'm excited about something and 'poof' just like that the anxiety disappears. It sounds so simple but has been so poewrful for me. I do some public speaking and had started to have these mini-panic attacks right as I got up to speak. I just use the shift in interpretation and the panic goes away immediately. It makes yo ufeel poerful and back in control which I thing goes a long way in taming the TMS.
Carolyn |
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Scottydog
United Kingdom
330 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 06:32:20
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Try sitting and concentrating on your breathing once or twice a day. Several posts recommend this for helping with TMS and it is helping me sleep better.
Search for meditation or deep breathing on the search page.
I ignored these posts initially as i'd done yoga and breathing in the past and though it seemed healthy I would only practise once or twice a week and I didn't think it did much for me.
Now I sit quietly for 10 minutes (longer is recommended but that's about the most I can do without getting frustrated!) twice a day. After a few days I found that I actually did feel nice and relaxed which spurred me on. Sit somewhere quiet, listen to your breathing, as thoughts come into your head imagine them floating off above you to be dealt with later. Relax your body, especially face and shoulders.
It can't do any harm.
Anne
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lastlostmonkey
35 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 07:05:16
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Hi,
I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression as a teenager and had frequent panic attacks. I now believe that it was the same thing as all my TMS pain / conditions, a distraction from the anger that I was feeling but not acknowledging. It makes much more sense in that context since nothing really changed about me to make it go away, I just developed other conditions. I now think that the cognitive behavioural therapy that I underwent did more harm than good in terms of repressing the anger and forcing my mind to come up with an alternative to the anxiety because I learnt to shut that off. In some ways anxiety seems so thoroughly TMS-like it doesn't need the logical step that physical pain does to accept it.
LastLostMonkey |
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Albert
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 10:46:18
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| Just before I started to get over my back pain, there was one evening where I woke up four times feeling very intense anxiety. The interesting thing is that while I felt this anxiety, I didn't feel any of the constant back pain I had been feeling. |
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kjarvis
Canada
36 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 15:02:26
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Thank you very much everyone I appreciate it. The book power of now by Tolle has halped alot also, anyone else read this book?
Kevin. |
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Special One
USA
61 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 21:04:37
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| In order to deal with panic attacks and general anxiety, I listened to the a set of tapes from the "Midwest Center for Anxiety" that really helped. One of the main statements that I use to cope is to "choose to be less affected." This reminds me that most of the time I am choosing to respond to stress in a way that causes anxiety, whether it be in my thoughts or actions. So I try to think differently, as Carolyn wrote, and it helps a lot. I also tell myself, I wasn't anxious a minute ago and nothing has changed since then, so there is no need to be anxious now. Since I have started tms work, I have less anxiety because I can tell myself not to fear the physical symptoms because they can go away. |
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wrldtrv
666 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 23:28:03
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It sure seems as though anxiety is a TMS equivalent. It definitely serves the same purpose--distraction from what might be going on in the unconscious. For me, anxiety is a nearly constant presence, though it varies greatly during the day. It is usually directed at a particular problem; for example, the past several months the theme has been the physical symptoms I have experienced and my dark fears about what they could mean. This means I don't have the time or energy to think about anything else (state of relationships, for example).
So, what to do? I've found in dealing with this that there are no quick fixes (unless you want to take a med, but that doesn't cure it anyway), that it is a daily struggle. Exercise, mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, reframing (as someone else mentioned), breathing exercises, thought stopping, relaxation exercises...all will work to some degree, but not without practice and persistence. |
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robbokop
United Kingdom
75 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2006 : 06:50:21
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Carolyn, I can relate to what you wrote about symptoms going but being replaced by anxiety. I have never suffered from anxiety before but now seem to be feeling it quite often through the day and like you am getting really horrible vivid dreams. Last night there was a really horrible one and today I feel really anxious. I have just done some journalling and it made me feel more calm, I think it is a TMS equivalent definitely.
Rob |
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Anxiety #2 request.
