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johnaccardi
USA
182 Posts |
 Posted - 09/20/2008 : 15:44:14
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I have been really into the TMS work now for 10 days. I haven't seen any change in symptoms but expect to soon since most people in "The Divided Mind" seem to take about a month or 2 to heal.
I'm curious as to how the symptoms fade away. I noticed Sarno did say the pain should decrease and then one should try to return to normal activity as soon as possible to speed complete recovery. Does this mean I could constantly think about the symptom and actually notice it improving? |
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swmr1
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2008 : 15:52:49
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For me it was completely ignoring the symptoms and going about my busniess as usual. I also had to decide that I could live with the symptoms and that they didn't scare me. I would not let the symptoms affect my life. Then, after a month or so of being busy with my life, I suddenly thought about how I hadn't been affected by them as much. And so it went. Ignoring and living life, then later (after not paying attention to my symptoms) noticing they weren't bothering me.
Not letting fear or obsession control me was the key. I took control and decided that I'd live the life I want regardless of my symptoms. Why let your crappy, irritating symptoms control you and how you live? |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2008 : 03:46:51
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Yeah, swmr1, that is how it seems to work for me.
The BIGGEST change has been not thinking that the right use of my attention is to try to "heal" myself.
It's funny, really!
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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scottjmurray
266 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2008 : 03:52:54
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i duno. you just kinda forget about it and it eases up the less you care about it. seems to be that way with the emotional distress too.
---
author of tms-recovery . com
(not sh!t, champagne)
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johnaccardi
USA
182 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2008 : 14:31:24
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That's discouraging, I really can't stop caring or thinking about this. Sarno says that the pain actually eases up before people have to return to normal activity and that it even takes some people months before they have the courage to return to normal activity after the symptoms have left. I need the symptom to fade through journaling or something, this one hasn't let me go for 1 second in the last 11 plus months and I don't see it letting me go any time soon.
Is journaling effective, is Sarno's theories effective...or is the answers just miraculously "forgetting" about it? |
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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2008 : 15:25:03
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quote:
Originally posted by swmr1
For me it was completely ignoring the symptoms and going about my busniess as usual. I also had to decide that I could live with the symptoms and that they didn't scare me. I would not let the symptoms affect my life. Then, after a month or so of being busy with my life, I suddenly thought about how I hadn't been affected by them as much. And so it went. Ignoring and living life, then later (after not paying attention to my symptoms) noticing they weren't bothering me.
Not letting fear or obsession control me was the key. I took control and decided that I'd live the life I want regardless of my symptoms. Why let your crappy, irritating symptoms control you and how you live?
I've been trying to get to this point for almost 2 years. The pain always kicks my ass. Always. I've been repeating the mantra "it gets worse b4 it gets better" over and over and over for too long to mention now. 
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swmr1
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 07:04:02
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quote:
I've been trying to get to this point for almost 2 years. The pain always kicks my ass. Always. I've been repeating the mantra "it gets worse b4 it gets better" over and over and over for too long to mention now.
Sorry, Sizzik, wish I could tell you something different but that's how things have worked for me. I don't know that I'm the "typical" TMS patient since I haven't found journaling very helpful. The number one thing that has helped me is to focus on something else. Right when I found Sarno there was a swim meet for which I had just been challenged to train. So, as that became my focus and I pushed my body (in a way I hadn't done for 20 years) I think I was enjoying myself too much to obsess about my piriformis issues. I had suspected my pain had a lot to do with my anxious nature and my emotions before I found Sarno's book so it all made a lot of sense to me.
I do think that constantly taking inventory of symptoms and checking if they're going away isn't helpful. How to get away from that is the big question. For me it was distraction and, I guess, competitiveness. I decided to go on offense instead of defense. Feeling like a victim was less than helpful for me but I don't think there's an easy formula for everyone to get away from that mentality. |
Edited by - swmr1 on 09/22/2008 07:07:34 |
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swmr1
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 07:38:12
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quote:
That's discouraging, I really can't stop caring or thinking about this.
I don't mean for my statements to be inflammatory, johnaccardi. I am curious about the above statement, though. You didn't say "I've really tried that and it hasn't worked." Instead you insist you "can't" right out of the gate. Don't take this the wrong way, but is it that you really "can't" or that you "won't"? Seriously, think about it for a minute before you respond. Do you truly want to stop caring or obsessing about this or are you hanging onto it for some reason? Perhaps your statement above isn't indicative of your intentions, I don't know.
Some of your posts make you seem like you are unwilling to let it go. I think that may be part of your problem. BUT, that said, I am no expert and there seems to be no one formula for everyone. Best wishes to you... |
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RageSootheRatio
Canada
430 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 08:15:15
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John, you say it hasn't left you for "1 second" in 11 months!! That is a LOT of attention being paid to a symptom !! Just wanted to ask what you are doing whenever you pay attention to it? Do you:
* immediately start THINKING "psychological" ?? In other words, do you review your "list" of pressures from past, present and from your personality? And then write essays on them?
* use Scott Brady's ideas re visualizing "turning the barometer down"? or doing a "battle" with it (he used a white knight example, or deleting pain words scrolling down a computer screen)
* think about how to balance out your frustration re your symptoms with SOOTHING things?
* how much are you *challenging* your pain (even for a few minutes to start with) ... in other words, what are you doing for the "deconditioning" of your pain?
* what are you SAYING to yourself "every second" you are aware of your pain? One phrase I used was for myself, was, "I'm IN!!!!" (kind of a response to Scott Brady's question about this approach: "are you out, or are you IN?!")
* and are you reading the treatment suggestions EVERY DAY?
Hope something in here is helpful for you to get ONE SECOND of relief today! ;o) |
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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 08:54:58
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Nice honest answer. Thanx. I know that i've inadvertantly built an altar to my pain. Being here perpetuates it, but i'm grateful for being here as I feel it has kept me off the surgeon table.
So swmr, you are recovered from your pain? Saying you had to decide you could live with it must've been key. Going a month and realizing you were not as consumed is where i'd like to be. I was able to go 10 Days not being here when my goal was 3 Weeks. This past saturday wouldve been 3 weeks. In hindsight it's such a short time. When your'e suffering you cant believe how long a week is.
I've had numerous pains come and go because I thought they paled in comparison to the spine pain, including piriformis that felt like my right but cheek had an ice pick lodged in it, but knowing it was just tms and laughing about it made it fade away. The only reason I was laughing was because I had believed it was symptom imparative and tms wad on the run. But the back pain is still there.
Its hard for me to go from the board because the mind wanders back to the physical so easily, and I could see myself giving into surgery fully knowing it wont help, but yet I just cant sit here and read another book, journal another page, writing another list.
Sorry for hijacking your thread John. |
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johnaccardi
USA
182 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 10:57:46
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Swmr1,
First of all, sorry if I seem pissed off. It's because I am, but obviously not at you or anyone on this forum...you guys are nothing but help.
I feel like have tried at making this symptom disappear pretty hard over the past few months, and if anything it's gotten worse. From what everyone seems to be saying...trying isn't the answer, "forgetting" is.
I know what you mean by not wanting it to go away. Of course I think I want it to go away but every day, all the time, I'm thinking to myself that I would be a really cool guy, and a really successful guy If this wasn't with me. This is, in a strange way, a good feeling, it gives me a hope for future potential that I truly believe in. These thoughts might definately be keeping this around.
My big question is, what the hell is the point of journaling and all of Sarno's theory if the answer is to forget. I mean the programs out there are expensive...obviously they work for a great deal of people. I just can't see these programs making that many people "let go." There must be other answers.
Ragesootheratio...ill reply to yours later, im in a rush to be somewhere. |
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hkp
47 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 11:08:35
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Hi John:
Does your university offer mindfulness or meditation classes? These are helpful in learning to direct your attention in different ways. And no side effects!
You could also pick up Jon Kabat-Zinn's books.
hkp |
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swmr1
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 13:27:03
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quote:
Of course I think I want it to go away but every day, all the time, I'm thinking to myself that I would be a really cool guy, and a really successful guy If this wasn't with me.
I'm no psychologist, but this almost sounds like a protection mechanism of some kind. You'd be this awesome guy (whatever that really is) IF ONLY you didn't have your problem. But could your problem be giving you a convenient excuse to "fail"? Perhaps you're afraid of rejection of your normal self--so having this problem protects you from having to see if the regular you would be rejected or not?
I've been learning a lot this past year or two about "normal" and "right and wrong". In many ways they don't really exist. For 42 years I've acted like there is some objective standard that I either measure up to or I don't. The reality is that no such thing exists. Life is so much more complicated than that. People aren't nearly as interested in the externals that I get so wrapped up in. We're all so interested in our own "defects,"when most of the rest of the world either doesn't see them or doesn't care.
If you happen to see "Burn After Reading" (and I don't recommend everyone see it as it's very dark comedy--Coen brothers and all), it's like one of the characters who is obsessed with getting plastic surgery. It will make her OK. She's convinced she's not alright and she completely misses the fact that others like her as she is because she's so caught up in needing these procedures she can't see anything else.
I'm learning to be alright if everyone in the world doesn't approve of me. And I'm trying to notice those who like me as I am a little more. It's not easy, but I'm finding it pretty liberating when I have a small success... |
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mizlorinj
USA
490 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 14:02:42
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um, 10 days? that really is NOT a lot of time that you've been concentrating on the TMS treatment plan.
John, why are you fighting this? It is safe to say that for MOST of us who try it, Journaling DOES in fact work. But you have to DO IT. Why do so many psychologists and even MDs recommend it? Because IT WORKS. And I want to do it because I don't want to chance that the emotions left in there (not processing them by journaling) will cause something else--possibly more serious than back pain!
You said recently that you saw a letup when you were journaling. What happened? How many days did you write out what you were feeling? It takes more than just a few.
Also, you have to get past the "when I am rid of this condition I will be a . . . ". You have to be that person NOW. Condition or no condition.
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swmr1
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 16:13:34
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quote:
So swmr, you are recovered from your pain? Saying you had to decide you could live with it must've been key.
I'm recovered from my piriformis issue (which lasted from 1999-2006). I have a twinge now and then but it goes away within a day or so. I think I came to the conclusion that my piriformis pain was hugely irritating but it wasn't what I'd call extremely painful. I could still function (albeit uncomfortably) but I wasn't relegated to my bed. The thing that made it so debilitating was the worry that something was really wrong. That made me constantly focus on the fact that it was spasming and bothering me. I really thought about it and realized that if it stayed forever I could deal with it as long as it didn't mean my days of exercising and doing the things I like were over. That was my big fear. Once that fear was gone things started to get better.
I also have dealt with one or two shoulder/foot issues over the last year and a half. Though I have taken a work-out or two off here and there to make sure I didn't push too hard, I have experimented with getting right back into activities and have, so far, been encouraged by the fact that none of my "injuries" have sidelined me for more than a day or two.
I currently have what the doctors are telling me is some tendonitis in one of my feet due to my marathon training. I'm playing around with my running to see how far I can push things. I haven't read much on tendonitis and TMS but I know Sarno thinks it's suspect at least. I will say that I've upped my running mileage quite a lot and it wouldn't surprise me if my foot decided to rebel a little with all the new stress. But, I've decided not to fear it. I'll just see what happens. Worst case scenario, i have to back off on my running and maybe end up doing that half-marathon until my tendons and muscles get used to the pounding. That might be good for me and my perfectionist drive to complete the mission I've started. Learning to be satisfied meeting my goals only part-way might actually be good for me.
When you are training on your bike are you enjoying yourself? Do you let yourself just throw caution to the wind and enjoy yourself? Or are you challenging your pain and focusing on that the whole time? Give yourself permission to do something you like and do it for the fun of it. Maybe that will give you some time off from focusing on the pain.
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winnieboo
USA
269 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 17:21:57
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quote:
My big question is, what the hell is the point of journaling and all of Sarno's theory if the answer is to forget.
Let's clear up any confusion about what you're forgetting about! The answer is to forget about the physical symptoms. Focus on your emotions instead. Journaling is just one method of helping TMSers bring internalized emotions out and on to paper where you can see them, review them and deal with them. In the meantime, listen to the great advice swmr and lori and everyone else offers on this thread. Live your life! Do it now, despite your symptoms. Make yourself go out, do things, engage with people and the world. Since you must have to go to class, how about lingering afterwards on the lawn or in the library? Take a book, enjoy the sun, work out, whatever it is you like to do--fully resume doing it!
"Scanning" your body for the symptoms (something we can all relate to) keeps you connected to the pain or discomfort. You just have to find a way to re-engage your mind with your world. The symptoms are distracting you from something you fear or that makes you angry, sad, etc. Journaling or talking to a therapist will help you uncover that. |
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johnaccardi
USA
182 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 21:05:04
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Swmr, Thanks for that insight. You know, that's something I came across and realized journaling today just before I read your post. I really think that's the reason for this thing, It's so I have the social excuse.
Mizlorinj, I know 10 days isn't enough and that's why i'm still journaling everyday. It was just so frustrating to get the same hopes as it looked like journaling was helping a lot on that first and second day and then all of a sudden the symptom seemed to get worse than ever. I've just had enough of these false hopes. I'm working on being "that person" now, and I'm also working on realizing that life wouldn't be so great without this symptom, my problems are because of me and who I am... not the symptom.
Winniepoo, I see what you mean about the journaling. Still, i'm not sure it's the actual emptying of the emotions or the simple distractive qualities of journaling and maybe even a placebo effect that does the healing. I guess it doesn't really matter.
Ragesootheratio, I don't always think psychological, actually I almost never do...I do write the pressure essays. I don't know of Scott Brady but i'll look into it. Of course I think about balancing my frustration, I love my hobbies and lately have been finding time for them and adding more all the time. It's not pain that I have, it's mouth and speech symptoms, to challenge them I am at college going to classes, and living with mostly strangers. I look to party on weekends and stay as social as possible. I say to myself, "my problems don't come from the symptom, they come from me" or i just have hope this will be gone someday...I like to think of me at 25 (6 years from now) and just picture me as a confident man who doesn't have this symptom anymore. I'm not reading the treatment segment.
I just realized these were probably all ritorical questions, haha. |
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Mely
16 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2008 : 00:06:49
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quote:
Originally posted by winnieboo
quote:
My big question is, what the hell is the point of journaling and all of Sarno's theory if the answer is to forget.
Let's clear up any confusion about what you're forgetting about! The answer is to forget about the physical symptoms. Focus on your emotions instead. Journaling is just one method of helping TMSers bring internalized emotions out and on to paper where you can see them, review them and deal with them. In the meantime, listen to the great advice swmr and lori and everyone else offers on this thread. Live your life! Do it now, despite your symptoms. Make yourself go out, do things, engage with people and the world. Since you must have to go to class, how about lingering afterwards on the lawn or in the library? Take a book, enjoy the sun, work out, whatever it is you like to do--fully resume doing it!
"Scanning" your body for the symptoms (something we can all relate to) keeps you connected to the pain or discomfort. You just have to find a way to re-engage your mind with your world. The symptoms are distracting you from something you fear or that makes you angry, sad, etc. Journaling or talking to a therapist will help you uncover that.
I've also been struggling with the same query as John. I'm not sure how you forget about your physical symptoms and focus on your emotions since it is all connected. I thought that the point of journaling was to try and associate a certain feeling or emotion at the time you are feeling the pain so you know what emotions are causing you problems. I copied the following tip from somewhere (don't remember where): "Every time you have pain, think of what directly preceeded it. What emotions or feelings were involved." If this is the case, aren't you still focussing on the pain?
John - I'm also in about the same time frame as you. I started journalling close to 2 weeks ago. At first, I'd identify some type of emotion directly preceeding the pain - anger, frustration etc. I'd have some brief relief from the pain but it would just come back again. Then, after a stressful day of getting ready for a family dinner without enough help from my children in my estimation, I got really bad back pain and a headache. I took a pill and felt better. Since that really bad day, I've been feeling progressively better every day (thank G-d). I'm also pushing at the excercise which was causing me a lot of pain but has 90% subsided.
good luck |
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mizlorinj
USA
490 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2008 : 06:43:25
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John, since you mention false hopes and question other things so much, you are still expressing too much doubt for this method to truly help you. If you believe this method will work, it will. If you continue to doubt because you see no results in a few days, it will not work for you. We get what we focus on; if we focus on "this isn't working" that's what you'll get. If you focus on "this worked for many others and it is going to work for me" it will. Repeated thoughts become a belief.
You said you are not reading the treatment segment daily. I did that when I was in the worst TMS. So you are missing a large part of changing your thoughts by not reading it.
Your comment implies that you identify with this symptom now; it has become part of who you are. Why? Does it give you a conversation piece? Is there secondary gain? Are you getting attention from someone because of it? Don't become your symptom. I'm sure there's a very worthwhile guy underneath the symptom of dry mouth! But YOU need to accept and feel that.
Mely, the point of focusing on the emotion that preceded the pain is to see what you were thinking when the pain began, make the connection with the emotion that is causing the pain. Then address the emotion.
-Lori
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Edited by - mizlorinj on 09/23/2008 06:51:34 |
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swmr1
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2008 : 06:59:39
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quote:
I love my hobbies and lately have been finding time for them and adding more all the time.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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to challenge them I am at college going to classes, and living with mostly strangers. I look to party on weekends and stay as social as possible.
Again, YES!!!!!!!!
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I say to myself, "my problems don't come from the symptom, they come from me" or i just have hope this will be gone someday...I like to think of me at 25 (6 years from now) and just picture me as a confident man who doesn't have this symptom anymore
How about changing this one...to "I may have some irritating symptoms but I am not at fault, or defective. I am an individual who is constantly growing and learning. I am just as worthwhile as anyone else. 6 years from now I will have grown and learned more but it's OK to be 19 now in the process like everyone else."
Don't believe the hype. Your peers are no more awesome than you. They may seem like they have "arrived" but it's mostly pretense. No one "arrives" anywhere at 25. Life is a process. We're all learning and making mistakes and doing some things well all the time. Take it from someone who is old enough to be your mom--you're always going to feel like you're different. Everyone is different. That's what makes us individuals.
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winnieboo
USA
269 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2008 : 09:58:29
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John and Mely,
First, let me say again, everyone's journey is different, and I pray that we all have patience. It took me a year to come out of my pain. I was freaking out after two months because "Sarno said" that was possible. But look on the bright side John, you are so young! I am 48 and have suffered with all kinds of ailments all this time. You will recover and have a happy life. Your symptoms WILL GO AWAY!
So I've been thinking about this thread and what it took for me, and I started to write this long chronological thing, but I decided to stick with a more conceptual answer for you: First, I think the phrase "letting go" is not a little phrase. It's a huge concept and very difficult to grab hold of. Until I was able to let go, hearing someone say "you've got to let go!" felt insulting and disorienting. The words are a huge oversimplification.
For me the TMS journey has been about coming out of DENIAL. I came out of the pain when I faced that I wasn't perfect. Plain and simple. It's the single-most SCARY and SHOCKING thing I've had to look at in my entire 40-some years. It sounds ridiculous writing it!
That's an oversimplification, too, but it just about covers everything I've done in therapy for the last 10 months (and with other therapists who came before that). I'm sure I'll have to work for some time now on forgiving myself for not being perfect, but that is my own twisted issue, not necesssarily anyone else's.
But the "perfect" thing cuts through the entire my story line and all my S--t, notice the capital letter. I did not have the perfect childhood, or the perfect parents, nor was I the perfect parent. I'm not the perfect salesperson, and gee, I always wanted to write a book and I never did that, so I really didn't have the perfect life, or haven't yet, have I?
I could go on and on, but you see, this was my pain. My pain was, and is, in wishing. Wishing that the past hadn't happened the way it did, wishing that my mom wasn't an alcoholic (just thought I'd be a little more specific to add color) wishing I hadn't said or done something, wishing that my husband hadn't just said what he did, wishing that my kids had or hadn't done thus and so. This wishing connects to wanting to be in control, which leads to frustration (because you can't be), which leads to anger (the next step). The emotions are like lined-up dominos. This first one's out of balance and topples down on the others. Then you have these piles of black and white bricks either spilling out into your life or vying for space in the the unconscious. If you're prone to being perfect, stuffing them in the unconscious is a tidier option.
So, you ask, WHAT'S THAT GOT TO DO WITH THE PHYSICAL PAIN??? These emotions build up tension in the body. They are like toxins. Can we release them all? I couldn't! There were too many! I was always editing reality. And stuffing. All unconscious. Prior to reading Sarno, my family and friends did notice that I was angry a lot. I was reaching the breaking point.
So I think the process in looking at the emotions is to become alert about what happens in your life, what shuts you down, or what makes you scream at your husband, or kids or mom or whomever your subconscious deems is close enough and safe enough to vent on (no one is really deserving of any anger that's strong enough to cause damage of course). Once you can catch yourself and say, oh, that's me needing control, or that's me wishing that reality was different, you can pick up the domino that's about to fall and toss it out of the scene, or pick it up and look at it and deal with it--before it hits all the others and falls into that already seething pool, so to speak. This is the letting go. This is catching it when it's real and raw and malleable, before it turns into a defensive kind of anger or lashing out or, worse yet, before it turns into an ache or pain in your body.
Interestingly, I think that the ache and pain actually come FIRST when you are reacting to something. You get called on in class, what happens? Butterflies...The healthy thing is to "let those butterflies go" or take off. You start talking, know that this is a familiar reaction to the internal questions, "will I say the right/best/stupid thing?" and become engaged in the moment ANYWAY, show your stuff. Turn the fear into action and then it just becomes your life. That moment. What happened. On with the next moment. When we shut down, the butterflies swarm inside.
I love the buddhist teachings, because they are all about this kind of letting go. Of seeing your emotions, learning how to watch them, acknowledging, letting them be there and integrating them, but refraining from letting them "hook you." And in hooking you, they get stuck in your brain or your body and paralyze.
Anyway, this is way too long which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place, but I hope it somehow makes sense and can offer some help. Thank you for listening as it's been cathartic writing this. |
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How do symptoms fade?
