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susan828
USA
291 Posts |
 Posted - 02/09/2010 : 21:19:46
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I am going through a terrible week of fear of my pains, health anxiety is really bad today. Imagining going to the ER, the whole works. Does anyone ever get to the point of hating how your mind works and wishing it were different and not being able to get a grip and control the obsessive thoughts?
I am trying to sit down and think what on earth I am really upset about, what's so terrible in my life to be causing this preoccupation. I have read every book on health anxiety and now reading Sarno and the other authors I read about on this board.
What do you do when you get so frustrated and self-hatred kicks in. I feel like my mind will stay like this forever. I get temporary rests from this, wonderful days and moods and when it acts up again, I feel like this is my nature and I will never change. Tonight has just bee filled with fear and anxiety. Please don't suggest a therapist. They have never helped and I have no money for it. I feel that the people here know more than they do. You have been through this. I focus on a body part and it gets worse. I am so tired of my own brain and just feel hatred toward what I have become, an emotional mess. |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 22:05:33
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Try to accept the feeling of "self hate" as a TMS equivalent.
The fear and anxiety serve the same purpose as the pain. The obsessive thoughts serve the same purpose.
All these equivalent symptoms should be treated the same. You need to try to accept them all. Welcome them, and remind yourself it is all a benign signal that there are emotions stuck deep inside you that you are not in touch with.
It is deeper than something you are "really upset about." The child inside is in a blind rage due to pressures you have chosen to put upon yourself. Try to figure out the ingredients of this hidden rage. You may be surprised to learn it is the things that you do not realize are bothering you, that are simmering deep inside.
The frustration you feel is understandable, but it is an impediment to recovery. It is hard, but you need to try to take a long-term view and accept that the symptoms are benign and that if you do the work and have faith in the process, then you will be successful.
So do your best to banish those thoughts and stop being so hard on yourself. Just accept the symptoms for what they are, and live your life. |
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catspine
USA
239 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2010 : 05:15:56
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Hi Susan,
You can get a grip on your obsessive thoughts! it's a decision to make
at a specific moment.
Fear can not exist if there is no tension in your body, just try to fear something while your body is in a totally relaxed state and tell me what happens.
That's right , nothing!
It is simple but it works very well and it is fairly easy to accomplish.
An other thing is to be aware of what type of fear you're dealing with: There is mostly 2 main groups of fears: one is about what we don't know and the other one is about what we know.
In the first type we fear because we don't know so learning and understanding what is necessary to dissolve the fear will usually take care of it successfully.
In the second type we know the subject of your fear ( let say it is the symptoms) but fear builds up worse and out of proportions because our imagination kicks in and plays tricks on us dwelling in the past or in the future: ( the last time it got worse or what if those symptoms lasts for ever? )
The fact is we do not know for sure what will happen this is why we we start to doubt and to imagine a bad outcome .
So here is our chance: (what if I don't ask myself these negative questions? what if it doesn't get worse? what if the symptoms never come back? 
This is where we can chose fear or no fear and make a difference.
Of course in this case we think rationally out of experience and knowledge but this is dwelling in the past . Our imagination carries us in the future dwelling on what might happen we can not be sure of only the safety of the present moment can offer a break from fear.
Then when you're free of fear you tackle the rest one thing at a time.
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Edited by - catspine on 02/13/2010 23:25:48 |
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Gibbon
United Kingdom
138 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 06:27:39
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quote:
Originally posted by susan828
I am going through a terrible week of fear of my pains, health anxiety is really bad today. Imagining going to the ER, the whole works. Does anyone ever get to the point of hating how your mind works and wishing it were different and not being able to get a grip and control the obsessive thoughts?
Hiya Susuan
I'm certainly quite obsessive with thoughts as well - it's difficult to move on when my mind gets hooked on something 
I suppose I would recommend meditation - as much as possible, as often as possible - it makes you realise just how cluttered your mind is, how the same thoughts keep reappearing....try both mindful meditation (which you can do with your eyes open!) as well as traditional meditation.
On top of that, you need to distract your brain - how about a new hobby? A sport? A new instrument? Learning a new skill? Anything that is going to get you up and out of yourself.....
finally, i'd say you need to accept the way you are rather than hating yourself for being like it - accept that you may be obsessive, accept that bad things have happened in your life....and try and reshape your attitude to a more positive self image....
I know all of this is easier said than done, so i don't want this advice to sound glib, but i think it might help.
Andrew
Check out the TMS website: www.rsi-backpain.co.uk |
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susan828
USA
291 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 07:46:50
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To everyone who replied, my reply is overdue and I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate what you wrote. I am trying to understand it and still don't get it, as I don't really get the Sarno books and those written by his disciples. I don't understand how understanding that it's rage takes the pain away. I have been doing more thinking about my childhood and what has caused my anxiety, panic attacks as a child and later in life in the past month than I have in years of therapy. But I don't understand Sarno's theory yet. If someone could just explain it in simpler terms..."recognizing that we have rage takes the pain away because....."
I am not dumb, I just don't understand this process, so don't see how I can implement it if I don't understand it :-( |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 08:22:09
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Hi Susan,
There's no “right” explanation but I'll have go at 2 alternative ones:
1) Recognizing that we have rage takes the pain away because... as children we learn that expression of rage isn't allowed, so we hide it, even from ourselves. But pushing down that rage takes a huge amount of internal resource, and maybe that resource takes away from the resources the body needs to function well.
2)as children we learn that expression of rage isn't allowed, so we hide it, even from ourselves. As a result, there's a huge amount of conflict going on inside us. Sarno likens the rage to desperadoes trying to escape from prison, I think. In order to stop that rage from escaping from the prison we have created for it, the mind creates the pain (or other mental equivalents) as a distraction. Because we are focussed on the pain, we are stopping ourselves from acknowledging the rage. It seems crazy that our mind should choose pain over rage, but somehow we learned at a very early age that rage isn't safe, and must be contained at all costs. Reconditioning that part of the mind takes away the pain.
I hope other people will add their explanation - don't worry if they sound contradictory – just take the one you like best.
Hilary N |
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marsha
252 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 11:35:06
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Monty’s posts have been instrumental in my recovery.
Also a post from la Kevin “A Cherokee Story” helped me see that I couldn’t get better if I kept reinforcing pain ,anger, resentment and sadness .
Maybe he will post it again.
For me it isn't so much the rage I have suppressed from my childhood it is the way I suppress my feelings now. As a child I wasn't good enough , nothing I did was right and I was always afraid. That is what I learned at the hands of a Borderline Mother and a weak father. In order to survive I repressed my rage ,FEAR and even my happiness. I have been repressing my feelings with anger. The anger( for me) really is the fear of feeling or being hurt,abandoned or criticized and even loved. Feelings=PAIN.or Pain=Stress x Resistance
When I started to understand my repression mechanism, I stopped being afraid and starting feeling.
I know now it is fine to be me.
Hope this is helpful.
Marsha
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Edited by - marsha on 02/14/2010 11:39:31 |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 12:16:32
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The symptoms (including pain, fear, anxiety) are psychogenic. This is not to say that "it is all in your head." The symptoms are very real. Yet, they are not due to any physical problem. They are manufactured by your unconscious mind.
The purpose of the manufactured symptoms is to keep you focused on them. While you are busy paying attention to the symptoms, you are distracted. The reason for the distraction is that the unconscious mind is trying to protect you.
Your mind is trying to protect you from feeling the rage that is stuck inside you. The rage is a pool of unconscious, repressed feelings that by definition cannot be felt. The brain wants to make sure that those feelings to not threaten to become conscious. To do this, it manufactures symptoms whose purpose is to distract you. The brain manufactures exactly those symptoms that are most likely to provide a successful distraction -- those symptoms that will most likely convince you that you have a real, physical problem.
When you become aware of this, the pain will fade because the brain's strategy will no longer work. If you refuse to be distracted by the manufactured symptoms, and focus on "dangerous" emotions anyway, then the strategy has failed. The brain will stop manufacturing symptoms because they no longer serve their intended purpose.
This is Dr. Sarno's explanation in a nutshell, but it really doesn't matter if you buy the details of the explanation or not. I think you are too hung up on trying to "understand" the theory. The fact is, you really don't need to understand it in detail, nor can we be certain that Dr. Sarno's details are correct.
IMO the most important thing to understand about TMS is that you are conditioned to experience these symptoms and react to them in certain ways (fear, anxiety, etc.). The pain is a conditioned response to repressed emotions that you are not in touch with. To undo the conditioning, you must "do the work" which is a simple process:
1. Repudiate the structural diagnosis. Accept the symptoms are psychogenic and benign, and not due to physical defects or illness.
2. Stop all physical treatments. Attempts to treat the problem (physical therpy, chiropractic, stretching, etc.) reinforce the belief that you have a physical problem.
3. Resume normal physical activity. Despite the pain, you need to do your best to resume normal activity. At first this might be difficult as you have to push through the pain. But this is a crucial step and sends a message to your brain that you believe your body is strong and healthy.
4. Whenever you are aware of the pain, focus your thoughts on psychological issues. Try to think about what is going on in your life that might be affecting you on an emotional level deeper than you realize. It doesn't matter if you find anything. It is the act of shifting your thoughts that breaks the conditioning.
In the simplest possible terms: ignore the pain and accept that its origin is psychological.
Don't get hung up on intellectualizing or over-analyzing this. This is a common trap and is not productive. Follow the steps Dr. Sarno lays out in his book, whether or not you fully understand or believe the theory. |
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catspine
USA
239 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 13:21:11
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Hi Susan
I can relate to that one does not understand how it works. It is not a question of how intelligent you are and in your case it seems like reasoning can even be counter productive.
Maybe the reason why you don't understand the "process" is because you want to have some control over its consequences fearing something could go wrong or just to make sure everything works as planned and mistakes free so that it doesn't come back or that it would alter the benefits of repressing emotions ( because on the surface there are benefits to it or else we wouldn't repress our emotions).
I think you should look into what is causing you not to understand instead,it may also be that some fear factor is involved in the understanding process... you can definitely have an intellectual approach to solve this particular problem but leave understanding the process aside.
If the problem remains with that part you don't understand I would just look at it not as 'a process' but as a fact and not question that part any longer. Except for the sake of genuine curiosity there is no need to understand anyway once it is accepted as a fact.
In my opinion there is not one "process" according to which TMS works but probably many either separate or combined, I believe there are many ways for the brain to make connections in the nervous system in our development or experience with the world and ourselves . We are the result of a biological chain reaction and what our environment connected to our senses made of it.
You know by now that considering your history it's more than likely that TMS is involved so trust and let the part of you that knows how to handle that do the thinking and the fixing for you and go on with your life (you may never know what that part of you is so don't interfere and call it what you want : your luck , your guardian angel, anything you can relate to, just assign the task to it).
All is required of you is to look at it as a fact and it's not going to hurt you so it's all good. Not to mention you can heal from it. Thinking of it in one form or another will just keep the pain alive because that's exactly what you brain wants you to do instead of releasing your emotions : that's to think about the pain of course with its friend the fear as an assistant.
You know Susan it 's like when you can't find something you're looking for desperately like let say reading glasses for example, it's frustrating but it's often when you stop searching that you'll find them later where you did not expect them to be. The same principle can apply to that you don't understand. It will come to you at its own pace.
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Edited by - catspine on 02/14/2010 14:09:19 |
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 16:36:29
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Susan,
The first time I responded to one of your threads, I added a warning about the "paralysis of analysis." This is an oh-so-common stage of recovery that begins right after a commitment is made to getting better. It is often concurrently mixed with an uptick in severity of symptoms, which is coupled with doubts about the path of recovery. There is not a wide, golden paved road up this mountain. If there were, I would've found it back when I was searching. I had hundreds of bookmarks of sites on the internet, read scores of books about what was going on with different views of how to conquer it, and the sum total of all that effort was I was still stuck at Square One. But each minute I spent reading and not living the hourglass of life was pouring away, waiting for me to summon some courage, get up and do the things I had read about for months.
I like simple. I'll take simple everytime. So, how about we don't play Sarno Says for a minute and look at the logic and illogic of your condition. If you believe, and you seem to at least borderline accept that your condition is caused by negative emotions, how is adding more frustration to an overflowing reservoir of frustration going to reverse a frustration-based condition? Answer: It isn't.
Dr. Weekes tells us that nervous conditions thrive on three things: sensitization, bewilderment, and fear. You have all three in abundant supply, and you must reduce all three before symptoms abate. Right now the source of your bewilderment is also the source of your fear. You can't reckon it out nicely and neatly, so you remain bewildered. Your bewilderment adds to the growing tsunami of negative thought with things like (I'll never recover; this is permanent; there isn't a real treatment, etc.)I have already suggested to you that you go back and read Dr. Weekes' straightforward explanation of how overworked nerves act up and how they make you feel.
Even if you have strong symptoms and your mind is in the toilet, it still isn't dangerous. Danger never enters the picture in reality. It only exists in your head. Therefore, perhaps you aren't cut out for Sarno's theory and treatment plan, if they only provide you a source of more frustration. The antidote for frustration is positive emotion, things like relaxation, laughter, joy, accomplishment. These things you should seek. They will eventually do their magic. But now is not the time to prove your superior analytical skills. It is time to make life as simple and basic as possible, to let the maddening world go mad, and focus on healing your body and mind.
I think there are some very good-hearted and well-intending people on this forum. They try their best to explain things to you as they have understood them. This is what I am attempting as well, only the explanation I had to find was not Dr. Sarno's. Whatever you choose to do, do it knowing that others have "felt the fear and did it anyway" and are the better for it today.
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
Edited by - Hillbilly on 02/15/2010 15:15:25 |
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patils
72 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 21:52:05
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Hi Susan,
Nobody will cure from RSI unless barking of dog in out head get stopped.
We hear this barking continousely in our head and body releaases stress hormones.
Ignore it and path to recovery will start.
Hilliby : I like your posts. In fact sometimes I wait for your posts to appear and read it. Meaning too changes as we recover.
Thanks for contributing on this forum. May be like me, many others are benefiting.
And great Thanks to Dave for making this all possible.
Keep Posting,
Sachin |
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susan828
USA
291 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2010 : 22:01:23
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| patils, I don't have rsi. I have facial pain and tooth pain from unknown causes. However, I am sure the reasoning applies, if mine is caused by TMS. I have to absorb what everyone has written. It's hard for me and again, I thank everyone for taking the time to explain this in detail. I so much want to be happy again and not waste away my only life. |
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jerica
USA
94 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2010 : 08:07:43
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Susan I just want to hug you because you sound so much like me (so it'd be like hugging myself lol). I have read the books and have the same questions. I keep wondering why I'm not "getting it"? I AM full of rage and maybe more than that I think I'm SAD. (Hence my inability to cry.) I'm hurt, I want to scream and cry. I can acknowledge that the feelings are in there but I wonder if I'm not better because I am NOT feeling them. It is like I'm looking into a room from outside and I see the feelings in there so I know what they are for the most part, but I can't FEEL them. I can't cry. I can't scream. Nothing gets better. All I have with me and inside me are symptoms. I have chest pain, I can't breathe, I feel like I'm smothering or choking. I tremble, I panic, my heart skips beats, I'm always shrinking and trying to hide. Maybe hiding from my own feelings, maybe hiding from being hurt more. I don't know.
All I know is I have these symptoms and I can not allow myself to part with them. I know they serve some purpose, but I would rather they didn't and would go away.
Do you relate to that? Have you done any of the journaling? I have a hard time with it (unless it's on livejournal.com where I keep a private journal but it's mostly symptom focused.)
I think what everyone's saying makes sense...the symptoms really are distracting (and punishing if you feel like you deserve that) and there's always that idea that maybe it's something really wrong with you that the docs haven't found. That will keep you going to doctors over and over.
I also agree that therapy so far for me has not helped. I do feel like I know what they know and it doesn't help. I don't need more info, I need to take action. But WHAT action? |
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susan828
USA
291 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2010 : 16:12:18
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Hi Jerica, I have been journaling since age 10. I had a diary back then and there are signs of severe hypochondria and even thoughts of suicide because I was having panic attacks and of course, didn't know what they were called and didn't understand it all. I have actually showed this diary to several therapists over the years and scrutinized it myself to see what on earth was going on. In school, with my parents, anything....and come up with nothing. I stayed home from school, would not go on school trips because this "thing" would overtake me.
If I could know what caused this, maybe I could relate it to my life since then and do some good cognitive therapy on myself. I don't think I will ever figure it out. In answer to your question, I still am reading the books again and sent away for Dr. Schubiner's book which is coming out next month. Not a day goes by where I don't think I have something, appendicitis, a pending toothache, you name it. I have had scans, every test under the sun. Knowing logically that this is our minds blowing things out of proportion is a help sometimes but when I get into one of my frenzies, taking temp, blood pressure (i even have a stethoscope and blood pressure machine), I am just a wreck at those times. I can't even answer my phone because I am in a state of terror. I have every book on health anxiety that's been written and I will read them at those moments but the terror is so profound, the fear that I will be in the ER alone, that I will have nobody to help me, horrible.
I think it's easier if we have a husband, partner, best friend who will be there with us. It is terrifying being single and I don't know how I am ever going to find a guy like this (once he finds out!). I am pretty, have a nice shape and a lot going for me and I know we are more than this problem...but it just seems like this is so overwhelming and nobody would want to get involved with me and take this on. Rats!! |
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jerica
USA
94 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2010 : 16:44:33
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Susan, I know how you feel. I have heart obsessions so every symptom to me is about that. I find a way to make it about that. I've had so many heart tests and keep getting told to take xanax. No one knows what to do with me anymore. Doctors shake their heads at me, tell me how I am terrorizing myself. They sometimes start getting even a little bit snotty (one doc was mentioning "the boy who cried wolf" to me and once when I asked a doc about Lyme disease he said, "you're crazy, you've always been crazy." That's what he said. My docs just all insist that I'm severely anxious and need a therapist but therapy doesn't help or hasn't so far not like I haven't paid thousands trying.)
I have read a ton of books as well. I have been to the ER all by myself more times than I can count because I don't like to bring my daughter there and pick up germs so I drive myself there, sometimes at night and just sit and go through the crap and then drive myself home with my prescription for Xanax. I run to the docs over EVERYTHING. This week has been hard because I keep feeling weird sensations in my lungs, like heaviness or congestion or a wheeze or whatever and I get this urge to go to the doc but then after a few seconds it's gone and I tell myself they will just listen to your lungs and not hear anything wrong. I just saw my cardiologist last week and he listened to my heart and lungs, and the week before that I had a Holter monitor and that was fine. So I don't know anymore.
It's an obsessive frenzy to find something wrong but there's nothing wrong. It only feels like there's something wrong. There aren't enough TMS doctors, I really need someone who would be available to me to talk me down and work with me closely on this stuff.
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susan828
USA
291 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2010 : 17:16:32
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Jerica, that was a lousy thing for the doctor to say to you. I have read that 80% or more of office visits are from stress related symptoms so they should know better and be a little more sympathetic or understanding. I have had dentists tell me similar things, that I worry too much but that isn't helpful. They are human though and get frustrated and sometimes because they like us as people and wish we could just see the light.
At times, my mind is so clear and I am able to shrug off symptoms. I also have reflux so have been in the ER twice thinking it's a heart attack. One was the day after Thanksgiving. I hate the expression "Duh" but in this case it fits, LOL. You eat too much, you get pains in the chest and stomach. However, being a googler, I also know that too much fat in the bloodstream after a heavy meal can bring on a heart attack. So I try to not do this anymore.
It is SO nice to have a day with no preoccupations, just being like everyone else. I dso use a technique at times...I pretend I am someone else...knowing they wouldn't worry and this works. But that's not the answer and per what you said, neither is xanax. Forget about what that does in the long run, withdrawal, argh. Not for me.
I don't know if any therapist has more insight than we do, honestly. I had to loan my books to my last therapist who knew nothing about health anxiety. What's the point then? I quit her. I think we just have to keep working on this..just like I got rid of panic attacks by saying "hello panic, get lost", maybe we can do the same with this..ride with the pain and somehow convince ourselves that it's normal aches and pains that our grandma told us about and they will pass. |
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marymn
USA
2 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2010 : 04:42:21
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Hey susan!!
It is just a normal behavior what you possess right now, so don't worry too much about it, sometimes we don't know why we are depressed about and we try to figure it out...
and this makes the condition worse, whenever you feel like this in future better try to focus your mind on some thing else, like watch tv or listen to some excited music.
Drug Rehab |
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Sky
USA
96 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2010 : 23:20:50
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Dear Susan,
I read your message, and I can't recommend the author and therapist Alice Miller to you enough.
She deftly points out how the root of all of our emotional baggage is the heartbreak we first suffered under parents who were too controlling and mired in their own baggage to really love us. But...they're our parents, and we were so small, sensitive, and vulnerable when they first terrified us to death or made us suffer our first bouts of horrible loneliness. As kids, we dealt with these first negative feelings toward the people we most cherished in this world, by repressing them...
and as someone familiar with Sarno, you know where that gets us.
I greatly recommend "The Drama of the Gifted Child," or "The Body Never Lies."
Sarno took me the first giant step in my life to finally coming to feel and see who I really am. Miller took me the next huge step, and her ideas completely make sense with my own history of family, and chronic pain (I had 2 years' RSI in my hands disappear after reading The Mindbody Prescription).
Best of luck, and remember that we're all here to support YOU. Hopefully you can get even more in touch with who that You really is, and how the tragedy of your life is that you were never really allowed to be her. Until now, maybe.
---
A site I'm building: Pass it on for anyone who might benefit from a brief and clear introduction to Sarno!
http://themindbodyspot.wordpress.com/ |
Edited by - Sky on 05/26/2010 23:22:57 |
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Erata
63 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 11:04:02
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Thanks,Sky,for the reminder about Alice Miller—I have most of her books but haven’t read them in years. It’s time to dust them off. Miller’s work is definitely a good companion to Sarno’s, because she’s a pioneer in studying the long term effects of childhood suffering (and, let’s face it, all children suffer in varying degrees). Thirty years ago, someone sent me, anonymously, a copy of The Drama of the Gifted Child. I was still in deep denial about my history and didn’t understand receiving such a book, but I read it later and found it, and her subsequent books, to offer treasure troves of wisdom. (One--I can’t remember which--detailed possible early trauma experienced by several historical figures, artists and performers along with fascinating psychoanalysis of how it affected their work and people in their lives.)
I think other good books on severe childhood trauma are: Too Scared To Cry, by Lenore Terr, The Myth of Sanity by Martha Stout and the seminal book by Scott Peck, People of the Lie.
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Depression and self-hate
