| Author |
 Topic  |
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
 Posted - 01/24/2013 : 19:45:39
|
Hey all,
So Hillbilly has recently bid the forum farewell, and while he's not the kind of guy that would want a thread praising him, I thought perhaps we could compile some posts in thoughts in one place for future generations of forum users to learn from.
Hillbilly had his own distinct approach based on real-world action we could take to heal. He did it in his own life, and then went on to help scores of other people heal, asking nothing in return. What better way to repay his generosity than by leaving a thread people can call up to learn about the methods he used, and the wealth of knowledge he put together on healing from anxiety. (TMS)
Like Balto, Ace, Back2it, Art, Dave and so many other great posters, their words are worth repeating and learning from. After all, that's why we're here.
I'll try to add a few posts to this thread now and again, and I hope others will chime in and do the same. Though, he helped so many people heal... most of them don't even post here anymore. Here's to future learning. |
|
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 19:51:18
|
cnotes,
I suffered, as have many here. My pain and other symptoms had me tied in knots and nearly cost me my job and my family. I had headaches that I wouldn't wish on anyone. I had to force myself to get up and do what I needed to do in order to get back into living.
You can stand on the sidelines and watch for a while, but if you want to play you have to check in to the game and go play. Forget about how you feel. You will feel like $!$% for a good while yet. By ignoring the symptoms, I mean you can't use them as an excuse for not doing something, whether physical or emotional.
People don't ask for raises because of emotional symptoms. They don't like how they feel when rejected. They don't ask girls/boys out on dates for the same reasons. They don't exercise because it causes discomfort. One is emotional, the other physical, but they both have repercussions on you both physically and emotionally. So, given that you understand what you need to do to get through each day, you must now do them without excuses. You can't blame how you feel for not accomplishing things. When I started this I thought the people who gave me advice were nuts, but I was sick of suffering. If you are sick of it, then you have to go back to living, let the pain or whatever be there, and just keep going.
How's that for practical?
-Hillbilly |
 |
|
|
chickenbone
Panama
398 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 20:05:19
|
| Excellent advice from Hillbilly. I wish I could have known him while he was here. I am sure the forum will miss him. |
|
|
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
|
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 20:22:55
|
Jaya,
Rather than resurrect long-fought discussions I have had here on this board, I would just like to say that in my opinion there is no line between what you and others here call TMS and what others refer to as anxiety. They are synonyms, like 12 and a dozen. The real debate, I suppose, is about the psychophysiology of how the symptoms appear and why, but they aren't relevant to your questions. I have had no symptoms like the ones you describe for four years, but I had anxiety brewing just beneath the surface for decades before it exploded on me in my late 30's, wrecking my health and functionality for nearly a full year.
Back, neck and shoulder pain were by far the worst part of what I went through, although I had bouts of months of diarrhea, fatigue that cannot be described, strong emotional reactions to things that were mundane, electric jolts that jostled me awake, on guard, watching for symptoms to worsen, headaches, trouble walking, dizziness or a feeling like walking on a ship, strange eye tricks, muscle twitches all over, loss of appetite, bizarre thoughts that I would hurt someone badly, and the worst thought of all.....there was no way out of my symptoms or problems.
I wonder how strong your belief is in the explanation you have been given for your symptoms. If you believe TMS or anxiety is responsible, you cannot possibly take your nervous reactions seriously, even though they are awful and distressing, they are in no way dangerous or indicative of an illness. They are just unhappy nerves blowing off some steam. Forget about them and they will fade into the sunset. Try to resolve the conflict with your wife as best you can and take heart in the knowledge that you are healthy.
In case you need reinforcement that anxiety states can and do cause bizarre and awful symptoms that can last a long time, visit Jim Folk's website: anxietycentre dot com and check the list of symptoms he has compiled that either he or someone with whom he has worked has suffered from in their emotional distress. You'll feel better and take them less seriously.
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
|
|
|
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 20:37:05
|
Anxiety symptoms are simply symptoms of stress on steroids due to constant stress. The stress can be external, but mostly it is internal, and for it to interfere with your life to this level, you must have substantial fears about either your thoughts (hypochondiasis) or the sensations themselves.
If you were to go on a roller coaster with a friend, the two of you would experience much the same bodily reactions. The difference would be how you interpret the symptoms. You may see it as terror and avoid it ever happening again. She might label it "excitement" and seek it out every so often to get the adrenaline rush.
I cured myself of anxiety and pain (I believe strongly that the muscle pain we call TMS is simple muscle tension borne from anxious living) by simply understanding that what I was feeling were nothing more than stress symptoms. The thing that kept them coming was constantly guarding against them, avoiding things and people, and thereby creating stress responses all day, every day in my body through mental fixation.
I suspect that you are in this same cycle, and once you recognize it, you can easily break free, so long as you really believe that there is nothing wrong with you. If you continue to think that something is wrong, your body will stay on high alert and your symptoms will perpetuate on their own. It takes a while for the body to calm itself from the beating we give it in the midst of sustained worry, but rest assured you have not done irreparable harm. |
|
|
|
plum
United Kingdom
641 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2013 : 04:48:26
|
Bryan,
This is great. The more healing, positive voices the better. I like very much the immediacy of hillbilly's words. I love practical people.
Thanks for creating this thread. |
|
|
|
Sylvia
199 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2013 : 05:05:26
|
Around a month ago I went back and looked through Hillbilly's posts to find things I thought were useful to me.
So I cut and pasted to word, and when done, I had 8 pages : ).
I had written him a couple of times, but this was before I knew most could not email me back. I thought he just wasn't interested.
I wish that I could have a personal relationship with him. But now he's gone.
You've got your work cut out. But when you are done it will be good for years into the future. Hillbilly is the streamlined approach.
I look forward to his final healed post where he will condense his own way of getting well. |
Edited by - Sylvia on 03/01/2013 07:27:55 |
|
|
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2013 : 11:16:34
|
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvia
Around a month ago I went back and looked through Hillbilly's posts to find things I thought were useful to me.
So I cut and pasted to word, and when done, I had 8 pages : ).
I had written him a couple of times, but this was before I knew most could not email me back. I thought he just wasn't interested.
I wish that I could have a personal relationship with him. But now he's gone.
You've got your work cut out. But when you are done it will be good for years into the future.
I look forward to his final healed post where he will condense his own way of getting well.
That's awesome Sylvia. Hope you post some! Would love to know which ones helped you. |
|
|
|
Sylvia
199 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2013 : 11:39:57
|
| Can no do. This cut and past is all yours. I never saved it on Word, I merely printed it. Besides, I'm gonna leave the forum soon to reprogram my beliefs. I won't be lurking here to read. I'll be back in a few months to report how it's going though. |
Edited by - Sylvia on 01/25/2013 11:41:59 |
|
|
|
plum
United Kingdom
641 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2013 : 04:52:48
|
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.
~Hillbilly
|
|
|
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2013 : 15:26:55
|
"Sarno Says"
Lol!
Great find, Plum! |
|
|
|
alix
USA
434 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2013 : 16:16:49
|
Brilliant find plum.
Love this:
quote:
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.
|
|
|
|
bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2013 : 21:15:25
|
Thought this post was very relevant to a few conversations happening around here right now....
I think wrld and art are correct. I think passivity is the best and quickest route out of nervous problems. Demonstratively so in my own experience. I viewed thoughts that were prevalent at the time of my most intense suffering as just another symptom. It truly was difficult to focus on anything when pain and other symptoms were making so much noise, and then the thoughts that accompanied the symptoms just kept things going.
To PTosh's point about the unconscious, I don't think anyone would argue that these things appear from outside your control and just go and go and go and keep our focus, but the idea that the brain is employing a strategy to distract you by giving you false information via thought and body symptom is to me the most difficult part of this theory and wholly unnecessary to resolution.
But it is certainly possible to change your thoughts and beliefs as well. I recently went through this with my child. He's past Santa Claus now. I simply replaced a thought with another, one much more evidence-based and pointed out the impossibility of the former idea with a new one. He understood it, accepted it as true, and will likely never think about all the myths surrounding the larger myth.
This is the same process that happens when you accept that your problems are nervous instead of organic when you have anxiety or TMS, if you like. It just takes longer to accept for many because the evidence to replace the organic basis is not as plausible, nor as widely known.
The most important question in replacing thoughts is do you believe them? If you really, really do believe your symptoms are nervous in origin and not a disease process, the process of recovery is fairly easy and straightforward. If not, well you see what happens. People return here again and again with symptoms seeking reassurance. This board and all that I have seen are exactly the same in this regard. |
|
|
|
Aussie
Australia
87 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 02:26:58
|
This is great stuff. Hillbilly highlights what I now believe as what is keeping me and many others from beating stubborn Tms.
Sarno said it in healing back pain and the first time you hear it its hard to swallow.
"Even the perception that your pain is coming from a structural problem is enough to perpetuate the pain and keep it going" |
Edited by - Aussie on 01/28/2013 02:29:06 |
|
|
|
balto
839 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2014 : 20:31:47
|
just thought this should be back on top too. It is a great read for the new year.
------------------------
No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
|
|
|
Back2-It
USA
438 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2014 : 22:54:12
|
quote:
Originally posted by bryan3000
Hey all,
So Hillbilly has recently bid the forum farewell, and while he's not the kind of guy that would want a thread praising him, I thought perhaps we could compile some posts in thoughts in one place for future generations of forum users to learn from.
Hillbilly had his own distinct approach based on real-world action we could take to heal. He did it in his own life, and then went on to help scores of other people heal, asking nothing in return. What better way to repay his generosity than by leaving a thread people can call up to learn about the methods he used, and the wealth of knowledge he put together on healing from anxiety. (TMS)
Like Balto, Ace, Back2it, Art, Dave and so many other great posters, their words are worth repeating and learning from. After all, that's why we're here.
I'll try to add a few posts to this thread now and again, and I hope others will chime in and do the same. Though, he helped so many people heal... most of them don't even post here anymore. Here's to future learning.
Fear. Break the fear. As Hillbilly said, "Fear can be your jailor." Or not. This is the real nub of it. This is the "cure". If you let the physical manifestations of pain (emotion) stop you, then you will not get better. Read and re-read Hillbilly's "cure" and then read Balto's advice. This is the one lesson: overcome your fear; endure your discomfort and pain, and return to the mundane of the everyday. It is no simpler than this, but it is hard. You have to suck it up and go. Don't try for the amazing: do the dishes, cut the lawn, scrub the floor, wash the car, sit in discomfort at a party, work methodically at your job. Endure. Change your thoughts because you cannot change your symptoms. Eventually your thoughts will overrule your symptoms and you will wake one day free of pain, just as you woke one day in pain. Endure, endeavor, presist, continue, contribute, be a part of your family, your church, your community, your town, and do it despite the "distressing but not dangerous" symptoms. This is the way. This is the way Hillbilly pointed to. You must choose.
"Bridges Freeze Before Roads" |
|
|
|
njoy
Canada
188 Posts |
|
|
jaya
USA
175 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2014 : 08:48:07
|
quote:
Originally posted by bryan3000
Jaya,
yup, im still here!
Rather than resurrect long-fought discussions I have had here on this board, I would just like to say that in my opinion there is no line between what you and others here call TMS and what others refer to as anxiety. They are synonyms, like 12 and a dozen. The real debate, I suppose, is about the psychophysiology of how the symptoms appear and why, but they aren't relevant to your questions. I have had no symptoms like the ones you describe for four years, but I had anxiety brewing just beneath the surface for decades before it exploded on me in my late 30's, wrecking my health and functionality for nearly a full year.
Back, neck and shoulder pain were by far the worst part of what I went through, although I had bouts of months of diarrhea, fatigue that cannot be described, strong emotional reactions to things that were mundane, electric jolts that jostled me awake, on guard, watching for symptoms to worsen, headaches, trouble walking, dizziness or a feeling like walking on a ship, strange eye tricks, muscle twitches all over, loss of appetite, bizarre thoughts that I would hurt someone badly, and the worst thought of all.....there was no way out of my symptoms or problems.
I wonder how strong your belief is in the explanation you have been given for your symptoms. If you believe TMS or anxiety is responsible, you cannot possibly take your nervous reactions seriously, even though they are awful and distressing, they are in no way dangerous or indicative of an illness. They are just unhappy nerves blowing off some steam. Forget about them and they will fade into the sunset. Try to resolve the conflict with your wife as best you can and take heart in the knowledge that you are healthy.
In case you need reinforcement that anxiety states can and do cause bizarre and awful symptoms that can last a long time, visit Jim Folk's website: anxietycentre dot com and check the list of symptoms he has compiled that either he or someone with whom he has worked has suffered from in their emotional distress. You'll feel better and take them less seriously.
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
|
|
|
|
jaya
USA
175 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2014 : 08:52:15
|
| still here and going through reflux stuff now, gerd and lpr type stuff----however my life has been stressful at the same time, wife very ill--they think it may be ovarian cancer---as most of you know uncertainty destroys me...plus taking care of my father angers me...my resevoir of rage has runneth over----but down deep i know my symptoms are nonsense....ive beat it before and ill beat it again...ANGER is my downfall..:( |
|
|
|
RogueWave
USA
1 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2014 : 10:57:28
|
Hi everyone, I've been lurking here for a bit but this is my first post. I love the info in this thread specifically, which is why I'm bumping it.
Very briefly, I had bad TMS pain years ago (which had
lasted for years), but resolved it completely since then.
I've had no real lingering TMS problems since then, until about 5 months ago. After some severe, prolonged stress, I had several bouts of panic attacks, which eventually stopped but has left me with chronic dizziness. I didn't realize this was TMS at first because I had a friend develop it around the same time after a minor viral infection in the inner ear, so I assumed that's what it was. As the weeks went on with no real relief, I started to get more upset about it, and then developed insomnia with mild panic attacks at night. I finally had the requisite MRI, blood test, etc, and everything is fine.
I applied my previous TMS learning, but it really didn't help.
So I found this forum, and read Dr. Weeke's books. Fantastic stuff, and I have slowly been getting better. Hillbilly's posts really hit home for me.
However I have one lingering problem: I have resumed all my normal activities, and have really worked on 'floating' past the symptoms. But physically I love to train hard, surf, snowboard, etc. The second I started feeling better I tried to fearlessly do these activities again, but each time I have been met with a severe exacerbation.
So my question is, if fear (and therefor adrenaline) starts and perpetuates symptoms, wouldn't it stand to reason that any big releases of adrenaline can also perpetuate symptoms? I'm referring to an already-sensitized nervous system of course. If adrenaline and other excitatory hormones/neurotransmitters perpetuate the symptoms, it doesn't matter where they come from, correct? I have already gotten past my fear of the symptoms, but only recently, so I have that part covered already.
I'm assuming I should just lay off these things until my nerves have settled down more, but my struggle with this is that I don't want to give into fear and perpetuate the cycle. Living normally is the one major thing to do to cure this, but in this case I'm not really sure that's the best idea just yet (as far as the extreme stuff is concerned).
I think I know my answer but I'd like to hear opinions, please! |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Hillbilly - Words and actions
