Relaxation makes me feel worse

Hello everyone,

My name is Victor and I'm a 20 y/o male living in Belgium. This is my first post as I just made an account today. The past couple of days I've been reading a lot on this forum because I believe mental aspects play a huge role in my symptoms, if not cause them. My symptoms are mostly fatigue, weakness, constant anxiety (depersonalization) all over the place) and nervousness of the body (like constant twitching, shaking, ...) my leg muscles feel really tense. I also suffer from POTS which causes me to freak out. But the thing which bothers me the most is the constant weakness I feel in my whole body. When I lay down I feel like my whole body's buzzing an dlike there's no power in it. Pain is one of my lesser symptoms so I don't know if my symptoms can still be TMS?

Anyway the main reason why I'm writing this is because I just don't really know who to relax anymore. When I meditate, I start feeling my symptoms very heavily and I'd feel even weaker. Same for when I try to relax. This extreme wave of exhaustion hits me and suddenly I feel a real tiredness beyond how I feel normally. When meditating my whole body starts to ache and my hands start shaking even more. I feel like tensing up is the only thing which is actually giving me some power, opposed to trying to relax which causes me to feel very weak physically, and fatigued. Not so much mentally. Does anyone know a possible reason for this?

I'm scared I have cfs, but at the other hand, I'm still able to do a lot some days, others not so much. But I think that fear plays a greater role in this than cfs. I don't think I suffer from PEM and I often feel worse when thinking about my symptoms with a sense of doom. At the other hand I'll have moments where I try to say that everything is caused by my mind and that it will all get better. I feel slightly better but eventually my symptoms and weakness creep up on me and I'll feel as bad as before, if not worse.

I feel kind of relieved to get this of my chest.

Have a great day everyone

 

I don't know what all of those new acronyms are for, but psychosomatic symptoms come in all shapes and sizes. We just use the TMS brand because it meant something at one point in Sarno's education which he shared with the rest of us.

I am about as mellow as a chipmunk on crystal meth. I have never 'meditated' . I DO spend at least 20 minutes every morning (sometimes longer) writing and reviewing when I get up before the coffee is fully engaged. But I have never subscribed to the growing belief that the way to battle TMS is to relax... if it was, I would still have horrible symptoms, but I am fully recovered

I recovered completely without any 'relaxation'... Serenity, which I have found, can come from a lot of different places. A lot of us get it from sports, activities, writing ,etc.... the important part is to find a way to get some overview of the realm of emotions...or at least quiet enough to get a dawning of awareness of how we DON'T feel emotions or allow are thoughts to process through us naturally.

In an attempt to protect us our autonomic gives us all sorts of aches and pains and distractions.... sometimes they are really peculiar. I think the reason the Acronyms have proliferated is that in their failure to identify the cause, doctors keep lumping batches of symptoms into new 'diseases'.... and then name them incurable, rather than realize it is all the manifestation of the same mechanism.

Find some way to get out of learning about the new disease and learn about yourself.... the healing and freedom are always in the direction of truth and illumination....regardless of their names

 

Mind-body symptoms go far beyond pain. In fact, the following list contains dozens upon dozens of emotionally-driven symptoms (which are not limited to just anxiety), but still isn't comprehensive: https://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms.shtml (Anxiety Symptoms & Signs)

The mind-body syndrome can cause nearly ANY symptom.

It seems like you're feeling a great deal of fear. Sometimes trying to relax can have the opposite effect and instead make us feel more on edge. What do you genuinely enjoy doing in life? Why are you so fearful? What will help you live your best possible life? What will make you feel safe and secure today? Do you engage in physical activity, even light activity such as walking?

Sometimes answering these questions is far more important than any traditional relaxation exercises. Instead of meditation, maybe playing video games or basketball is your thing. Perhaps it's music or spending time with an animal. Relaxation doesn't have to come from being in a meditative state - anything that helps you unwind and feel content will calm your sympathetic nervous system down.

 

I have similar issues where mediation and attempted relaxation have failed me in the past when I am anxious.

There is a great book that Clair Weekes wrote about how to cope with anxiety "Hope and Help For Your Nerves". This helped me.

The key isn't to focus on your anxiety and making yourself relax or making this anxiety go away. Because if you try to make yourself not be anxious then it's only going to make you more anxious.

You just have to accept when you feel anxiety or symptoms and realize it's not that bad and only temporary. Find your passions and what you enjoy in life and do them regardless of how bad you feel. Don't worry about making yourself feel better in the moment, because I can tell you from experience that it's not going to work

 

i think meditation helping with TMS is going to vary from person to person. i've found it somewhat helpful. it may or may not help you. in Alan Gordon's course, he has one day dedicated to Paving Your Own Path. he says there are multiple tools you can use to help yourself but you need to find out what works best for you. i'll give a personal example. a major theme in helping with TMS, is the concept of "letting go". so i would often tell myself to let go but had a hard time doing it. not long ago i found a phrase that works for me. instread of saying let go, i tell myself first that i am safe...i'm not in any danger. then i tell myself to "let my guard down". that i'm fine and it's ok for to live in the moment and enjoy the moment.
the point is, find some self-talk that works for you.

 

I like that one. Because ultimately what is happening is that your fight or flight response is being triggered in order ensure your survival. If we can just convince ourselves that we aren't actually in danger then there really isn't anything to be afraid of.

My problem tho sometimes is that I keep trying to self talk my anxiety away and when it doesn't work it just makes me more anxious.

Like when I get in a fight with my girlfriend. My Id intiates my flight or fight and tells me I either have to fight (be defensive and argue back and resent her) or flight (run away, go be single, break up with her). Then I start telling myself that I shouldn't have those feelings and I try to make them go away and then the negative feedback loop begins

 

Quote of the day.
This cracked me up.

As someone who advocates self-soothing I feel this is a really important point. I’m referring to soothing as the exquisite counterpoint to Sarno’s original rage-to-soothe ratio and it’s largely why I recommend pleasure as a way of tilting the odds in your favour.

I do meditate and practice things like yin yoga BUT I enjoy them in and of themselves. I fear it is very easy to become precious and/or perfectionistic about such things which only serves to deliver us rudely back to square one.

I hope I’m pretty clear in my exhortation to soothe and care for yourself that this then paves the way for the necessary emotional work. That is a no brainer. You have to face down your own bullshit.

I agree with @Baseball65 and @Dorado on this.

I’d also say that if relaxation makes you feel worse than;

a. You’re not relaxed
b. There is a world of literature on this. Meditation and mindfulness are not the bliss filled dream we imagine them to be because they make us face ourselves alone. That is some seriously dark and freaky shit. And is also TMS work of a different flavour.

Sarno never intended us to become monks or nuns. I believe he’d be generous in his appraisal of the ways people run fast and loose with his essential message, but mostly I’m sure he’d be happy people healed, however they got there. I guess we all get there in our own sweet way.

Plum x

 

Thanks, Great thoughts.