I'm learning, but still struggling

Hey y'all,
I'm new to all this but have learned a ton over the last couple of weeks. It might be best to tell my story and see if all this truly fits TMS, or maybe something else.

First, I have always struggled with anxiety, specifically health anxiety (hypochondria). I'd venture to guess I've had these anxieties all the way back to when I was around age 11 or 12. I am 43 years old now for context. I've been going through the SEP program and been journaling, but don't feel as though I've hit a breakthrough or an aha moment yet. I believe I just completed day 16. From my reading it seems like anxiety is a subtype of TMS. Would this be correct?
As far as pain: I wouldn't say I'm currently experiencing any pain per se. I am tense in a lot of different areas, but it's not painful, or maybe I've just learned to live this way? Over the years I've had many different "ailments" from headaches, dizziness, stomach aches, and then some tight areas in my body such as my neck, shoulders, hips, calf, and ankles.

Today and really over the last year it hasn't been so much headaches, dizziness, etc. but more like just fear induced anxiety over my body. I google a lot and seek reassurance a ton through google and doctor visits etc.

My anxiety really turned up a notch a little over a year ago, maybe 14 months ago. I had done something to my neck and it was extremely tense and hurt to move. Sometimes bending over would cause a rush to come over me and cause even more fear. Then out of the blue I had a panic attack and just had to take a seat somewhere and breath. A few weeks later I was trying everything I could to release the tension and pain in my neck. I was doing exercises, stretching, and seeing a chiropractor. Then suddenly one Saturday morning I bent over and felt like I was struck by lightening in my lower back. I couldn't move and had to crawl to an area to try and lay down. The back pain was crippling and it took days and days for me to be able to sit comfortable without pain. Once the pain subsided a few weeks after that I felt a tingling in my feet. I had never experienced that in my feet before outside of when they fall asleep in a weird angle. It freaked me out enough to go to the hospital where they ran all these tests, but couldn't find anything wrong with me. I was referred to a Neurologist who suspected low B12. I began taking the B12 and it didnt really work. I switched up the B12 to liquid and finally I was feeling some relief. All of this took place from Sept '24 through Jan '25.

I was starting to start feeling somewhat normal physically by the spring, but was still very anxious and would get worked up about whether I had certain neurological diseases even though the neurologist said I was fine. This caused me to experience more pain in the neck which eventually went away and then a pain in my calf. Eventually the pain in the calf went away, but by end of July '25 it came back with a fury. I was in a lot of pain all the while I was in Disney with my family. I was walking around miles and miles a day, but my calf was hurting the whole time. Once I returned home the pain began to subside, but to this day I still have a feeling in my right calf that just will not go away. It doesn't hurt, but I just know its there. This has led to me also being over analytical of my walk. I now over analyze my gait to the point that I just feel like its off. I video myself walking up and down the hallway and it looks fine, but it just feels off for some reason to me. It then begins to drum up more fear of whether I'll experience foot drop. This is where I am today.

Over the last 16 days I've had days of no calf tension to days where there is tension. I have ankle tension, and now obsessive over my walk.

That is a lot to digest for sure, but I guess I just need to know whether all this randomness is TMS, anxiety, or both? I plan to continue doing the plan and journaling, but some days I just feel like I'm not progressing or having that aha moment where it all makes sense.

My goals are to be able to be free from everyday anxiety, and to be free from tension in my body. I want to enjoy life with my kids and not be worried that the proverbial foot is about to drop.

Any insight or encouragement would be most helpful.

Thank you

 

Yes anxiety and TMS goes together, I’ve seen many people refer to things like anxiety and ocd as subsections of TMS. I agree, but I’m biased because I deal with all of them . All these things are hallmarks of dysfunctional ways of living, which can be often the result of traumas we experience as children and adults which throw our nervous systems out of whack. This leads to crappy thought patterns, emotional suppression and eventually symptoms if we let things continue as they have been. Tension in body parts is a common result, as our nervous system shifts to perpetual fight or flight and is on guard 24/7.

you’re brand new to this so take it easy on yourself! Limit the pressure to find some breakthrough this early, we hear stories of the book cures, or the people who cured their pain right away, that just isn’t the norm for the vast majority. Practice some self compassion and praise yourself for starting this journey.

you absolutely want to stop the googling of symptoms, they videoing yourself walking. And you really want to limit the scanning of your body, we can very easily make things worse by obsessing over normal sensations and then our brains start obsessing over the and then we can symptoms and pain from normal sensations. I say this as someone who obsessed over a vasectomy and then created pain for myself for 8 months lol. Hell even as I type this is I find myself touching my jaw because it hurts, I’m 8 months in and still learning! Every day, hour, minute, second is a chance to respond differently and start altering the brains base narrative to obsess and panic over sensations.

very often these symptoms, whether pain or anxiety are distractions from some turmoil that we don’t want to acknowledge. If I didn’t have this pain or this anxiety, what would I be thinking about?-is a good place to start. I had a really good stretch of almost no pain for 2ish weeks then I got hit with the worst anxiety of my life (vision issues, heavy breathing, feeling like I was gonna pass out), I didn’t respond great and so unsurprisingly I got physical symptoms afterwards. Every flare is an opportunity to respond better but when we get a new symptom it can be very easy to be thrown into a panic. Just gotta do our best!

 

This is great advice!!!

 

thank you for taking the time to respond. This is very good information.

 

"but don't feel as though I've hit a breakthrough or an aha moment yet"

Let go of this idea that there might be some sort of Aha Moment. It's kind of in the same boat as hoping for some magical medical breakthrough. There are rarely giant aha moments, but sometimes lots of teeny little ones. Start focusing on the small, or as our dear @BloodMoon calls it, the baby steps. Not just in the way you are approaching TMS work but in the things you discover about your self. The little patterns, the small habits but also the little improvements or small changes like symptoms moving...there is no logical reason for that, is there? NO!
Ankle tendon pain is one of my old symptoms. It's visiting right now and it means nothing except that at one point it got my attention...right now it has my attention in that I can feel it but it isn't stopping me at all from going about my day. When I notice or think about it in a judgemental way (eg. I don't want it, I don't like it, it's medical etc.) I just start thinking about something else (which used to take a lot of effort) especially reminding myself that this is about emotional tension and stress and I am doing great working on that.

Our minds are sort of pre-coded to be biased to the negative. Increasing the positive by looking at small wins in the changes you are making, in the things you are noticing about your internal self is a great way to realize that it's not always (and rarely ever) is about aha moments. It might be an accumulation of little aha's (which is usually is) - our false beliefs in ourselves and the way we hold self judgements, difficulty in slowing down and resting etc. etc. that helps us see the patterns we have developed and how we can begin to unravel the ones we don't need or that do us self-harm without realizing it.

The fact that you are on day 16 and are sticking to the program is in itself a wonderful thing you are doing for you and is probably a change for the better, isn't it? You are doing something for YOU.

Keep up the good work!