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Tatum
USA
7 Posts |
 Posted - 03/29/2007 : 16:15:35
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This is my first post. I am a 35 year male who has been a cop for 10 years. Last summer I began to have sciatica pain that was off the chain. This coincided with a federal investigation in which an officer on my department was terminated, after each and every officer was put through the ringer. MRI's, EMG's, X-Ray's, physcial therapy, ice, heat, pills, you name it. Periods of relief followed by new sources of pain. Missed a whole month of work at one point. My right hip was completely locked up.
I read an article(not even a book, although have ordered 2)by Dr. Sarno, and felt better by morning. No kidding.. However, I am having trouble pinpointing my "anger" issues due to there being so many. Don't laugh...
In 10 years I have responded to too many deaths to count, been involved in one fatal pursuit, been in front of Grand Jury with my nuts on the line, as well as a defendant in Federal Court.
I'm not sure if my issues are with our system, or with how I deal with it. I think the only emotions I have are anger and frustration.
Now for the screwed up part. I love it. I love the chaos. I think my brain loves it because that way it doesn't have to deal with any of it.
Awesome forum.... |
Edited by - Tatum on 03/29/2007 16:21:20 |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 17:40:08
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Welcome Tatum,
My 34 year old son is a police officer in a large city, so I can appreciate somewhat the kind of stresses that your job entails, although my son tends to "protect" all of us in the family from knowing just how much stress he deals with. He also loves the job--wanted to do it from the time he was in his early teens. He's been doing it about 7 years now. He loves the excitement, never having two days in a row that are the same, helping people, and being part of a dedicated team of people who care about justice.
But there are sometimes frustrations with how the system works. This particular son is able to shrug off a lot of the frustration and say "That's just the way it is, you just have to make the best of it and don't expect the system to be perfect." But two of my other sons would not be able to shrug off frustrations like that. They have a very strict sense of what is just and if there seem to be loop-holes or people who don't play exactly by the rules it drives them nuts and they can't just let it go. They would have a very difficult time doing a job like yours. I don't know if that's the kind of feeling you sometimes have, or if I'm misinterpreting your comment about having issues with the system, but I know that having a very definite sense of how things should work can lead to serious frustration when things don't work the way they're supposed to. But that doesn't mean that you will always have pain caused by your job--as you learn to acknowledge the anger and any other emotions that come up, rather than suppressing and repressing your feelings and just soldiering on, you will be able to cope with the frustrating aspects of your job without developing this debilitating pain.
According to Sarno, it isn't necessary to pin down each and every source of anger; the main thing that we need to do is to acknowledge that anger is there. Many of us have found it helpful to journal, and even if you don't know for sure what to write about, sometimes once you start writing then stuff you weren't even aware of pours out. The fact that you're aware of having anger is a good thing--it means you have a really good chance of getting rid of the physical pain fairly quickly. Connecting your pain with the investigation is a good insight. If you decide to journal you might want to start with the feelings you had about that investigation and see where that leads you. Reflect on the events and also on how the people who were involved behaved and on what your gut reactions to those events and people were. Then go from there.
It's great to have you here. Let us know how things go for you. Take care! Corey
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Stryder
686 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 19:51:24
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Hi Tatum,
For some people, just knowing that the pain is caused by the brain, and that your body is really ok, is all it takes to turn the corner. Sounds like you have made that connection early in your journey. That's great news. Once you stop obsessing and stop frantically searching for a physical "cure", you can start to get better.
You have been through a lot in your job, and it makes perfect sense to me that you do indeed like the job or else you would not have done it for so long. I have not been through all you have. But as a currently retired firefighter, I have scraped my share of MVA and motocycle accident patients off the pavement. The worst one when was our fire chief's teenage son perished in a head on MVA with another vehicle driven by a DWI. That's enuf shop talk.
The first time I read HBP, I didn't get it, and only read about 20 pages, and put it away.
A couple years later after a bunch of Docs and PT, I tried reading HBP again. It was like being woken from a nightmare. It was like this guy Sarno was in my head, as I read each page.
So welcome home. Keep reading Sarno's book(s), start a journal, find lots of ways to vent (there are lots of posts on that in the forum here, try a search http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/search.asp?FORUM_ID=2)
Take care, -Stryder |
Edited by - Stryder on 03/29/2007 21:40:02 |
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Tatum
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 19:59:24
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"For some people, just knowing that the pain is caused by the brain, and that your body is really ok, is all it takes to turn the corner."
I am early in the process but I noticed a change almost immediately. It was almost an out of body experience. Also, it was very easy for me to accept this problem as TMS once I educated myself due to all my tests coming back normal. I am sure if I had an "abnormality" that showed up on a test, it would be harder to make progress. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 09:43:54
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Hi Tatum and welcome to the forum,
It sounds like you're a fast study and have a good handle on TMS fundamentals. You are well on your way to recovery. I had sciatica symptoms once also and now they're all gone.
We had another peace officer on the board last year who made a rapid TMS recovery. I tried to link to his three threads but my computer skills are limited and couldn't get it to work. If you do a "SEARCH" under his member name, "kjarvis", you should be able to review his posts, you're TMS life-cycle issues are similar.
He was a Canadian peace officer and commented that one of his issues was "job bordom". I guess the criminal business is not as robust for our neighbors to the North as it is in the the lower forty-eight.
Good Luck and Stay Safe,
tt
some of my favorite excerpts from 'TDM' : http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2605
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New member who has finally seen the light.
