Sometimes it's not "just" psychological...

I'm also a clinical psychologist, and reading Sarno's Divided Mind. The symptom imperative is clear as a bell.

 

I just don't want to dismiss something that I have come this far for 17 months to give myself a comprehensive examination. I owe it to myself to cover all bases. Many people I read have musculoskeletal conditions and muscles faster relief and recover than pure nerve and autoimmune diseases. My own therapist said so and its in Sarnos book that autoimmune diseases may not be as responsive as muscle disorders are to TMS. Nothing is perfect so I like to give things the benefit of the doubt and not eliminate something just because it's from an MD. There are open minded MDS out there who use both approached. As along as the patient feels better that is what matters most.

 

It's a constant learning curve. Physical expressions of anxiety can be subtle. And of course the double bind of theories of the unconscious: if you know the contents, it's no longer unconscious, but there's always more! All I do know is I no longer have chronic pain, and the symptom imperative is quite noticeable in my life.

 

So happy for u that you are pain free! Best wishes to you

 

Thank you! My pain is episodic, and it usually ties into an emotion. And my mind is good at focusing me on somatic issues. Good luck to you in this process.!

 

Diane,

I hope you find the answers you seek soon. You're doing the right thing by ruling out the possibility of anything physical because you need to know what you are dealing with. Like you I favour an open-minded, open-hearted approach and understand that healing is as unique as we are.

My very best to you.

Plum x

 

This is so true. Sometimes I get weary when people imply that Parkinson's "should" be treated as if it were TMS. It simply isn't and it is naive to treat it so.

My partner and I incorporate emotional and TMS healing in our protocol and it does well as far as it goes but the other things we do are equally, if not more, important. TMS can overlay more serious disorders and recognising this is vital but to get evangelical about TMS ultimately doesn't help people with grave or threatening conditions.

In the early years of learning about TMS I yielded to the temptation to see pretty much everything in shades of TMS. A series of incidents made me reflect on this including;

I had a dear friend who suffered with anxiety. At one point she became quite worried about her eyes. I thought this classic TMS and told her not to worry. The next day I heard she'd had emergency surgery on a detached retina.

Then a family member who had suffered from a range of stomach problems, anxiety (especially around driving because they experienced visual anomalies) and depression for years (all classic TMS), was diagnosed with Benson's which is a form of Alzheimers that affects the visual system. Anxiety and depression are typical of the prodrome for this variation of dementia.

Only a fortnight ago one of my dearest family members suffered a TIA. Only a few days before we'd spoken about her symptoms and wondered whether her opthalmic migraines were developing into hemiplegic ones. Naturally the thought that she could be suffering a mild stroke crossed our minds and while she arranged for further tests we rested on a broad, if severe TMS occurance. Wrong again. Her second TIA came two days later.

This is not to scaremonger. It is to remind us to guard against complacency and wishful thinking. The correct diagnosis is important. Only then can you bring the right treatments to bear. Only then can you choose what is right for you.

Steve Ozanich believes cancer is TMS. Working backwards from this it is likely that he will see a broader spectrum of ills as TMS. I disagree. While emotional and psychological factors are undeniably a part of the genesis and as such must be addressed, they are not the whole story.

Doubtless intense anxiety and anger can over time cause us to blow a fuse. Best to deal with this sooner rather than later. Denial is part of TMS but it is also part of more serious conditions.

It is sensible and self-respectful to investigate health problems. Differential diagnosis will pick up anything serious early on. If nothing is found gather TMS healing into your arms and run for the hills and a happier life. Too many people here don't do this. They favour Dr. Google and his catastrophising, then they come here and veer towards TMS. Black and white thinking time and time again. These people become trapped in their self-created emotional gravity.

TMS healing is simple.

1. Have a Doctor check you out.
2. If they find nothing you're good to go with TMS.
3. If they find something, stop and take time out to research your options. Reflect. Tune into your body. Listen to your intuition. Favour mind~body healing. TMS protocol is outstanding for the emotional component of this.

But to vacillate endlessly, to let others diagnose from afar, to abdicate responsibility, to blindly follow advice given here...is insanity.

This thread is important. It matters because there is so much confusion and Catch 22 thinking. Clarity is everything. The vast majority of the time it will be TMS or it will fall a little wide of that mark, and that's no big deal. Knowing that for certain streamlines healing.

 

You don't know how relieved and grateful I am for your thorough and thought provoking response...I have been afraid to say it because I felt many would say I am in denial and it's all TMS..and it may be but my intuition says it's not. I never was a black and white thinker at least not on major areas like health. And exhaust person is unique even with something straightforward. I am scared of what lies ahead but heck I came this far for 17 months and suffered to the point where brushing my teeth caused immense nerve pain. So I Will have to see what unfolds.

I think your response bears a lot of valuable points. After all it is our health not a trivial issue at all. Thank u so much again!!! I don't feel as isolated and shamed just because as of now I see TMS approach as adjuntie and not the total answerr. But open minded if it should be.

 

I'm so glad my words helped you. It's ironic really that we can reach the point of repressing our fears and emotions on a TMS forum of all places! As @riv44 says we are all on a learning curve and that is perfectly fine.

Amusingly we get the gamut of head-shaking and eye-rolling responses from some folk in the medical profession at our broader approach to my partners care. I take it all in my stride these days. You mentioned open-minded doctors in an earlier post and that is a very important thing to seek out. It has taken us some time but we now have a team of progressive, compassionate people from various disciplines fully on our side. I treasure their different thoughts and insights, I respect their experience, I trust that they care and are helping.

Whatever the outcome for you please know that with a mindful approach you can recover from pretty much anything and learn to live a richer life in the process.

Much love to you.

Plum x

 

Some of my allopathic treaters are on board with the psychological/symptom imperative. I trust my primary care doctor who I have seen for 20 years or more. Mind-body becomes a discussion. We do need to be careful of evangelism, and diagnosing from afar. "Is my use of antidepressants an indication of TMS?" Such questions create worry and anxiety that do serve some sort of ill purpose.
Two of the worst things you can tell a person with cancer:
"The success of your treatment depends on your attitude."
"I read some guy who said that cancer is due to repressed anger. You must have been some real angry person!"
In recognizing TMS, we should not set up another disorder with stigma, with a 12-step or any other mandated process as the only way to deal with it.

 

Hi, Jacqui9,

I think a good example of "an expanded healing program" is Dr. Sarno's 12 Daily Reminders. I especially find the extended version helpful, from another member of the TMS healing community:


Herbie’s Extended Version of Dr. Sarno’s 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but it is caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does also cause real pain.
2. The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you get in pain or anxiety then the blood is restricted from going to your lower back, for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain. Remember, where there is no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, the pain stays because of fear.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from TMS healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.
4. The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. TMSers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits, traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build, then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks it is helping you.
5. TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you won’t have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed because you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.
6. Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear, then I feed the pain, If I fear, it’s impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.
7. Therefore, physical activity is harmless. If I want to work against the pain I could but it’s better to lose some of the pain so when I start my life over I have to be in pain trying to heal because facing the repressions and all the other activities that cause the pain and reversing my fear and focus to them, then I can heal.
8. I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my body’s ability to heal now. I can move as I want. I will not fear moving with a bent back anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.
9. The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how it is hidden -- its illusion, its fear.
10. I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face every one of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present.
11. I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.
12. I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling -- The science behind mind-body/TMS healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of TMS. TMS will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off physical symptoms and on to emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore, thus making the TMS of no pain effect on the body. This will in return, give us the cure and become pain-free.

 

Plum, my respect for you climbs to new levels with each word you utter--we are lucky to have you here.

Of COURSE it is crucial to be thoroughly worked up in order to rule out serious conditions. I lose sight of the fact that perhaps many here, especially newcomers, might not fully understand that. It is just as important to know what TMS is versus what it is not. Look to Dr. Sarno's work for this. I believe Steve O. to be a good man with an important message, but Sarno's books are the purest form of TMS knowledge. For anybody to have ever suggested to you that your partner's Parkinson's disease is merely a culmination of emotional repression is grossly, and, to borrow your term, insanely offensive.

I think the medical profession is at a serious crossroads. We are tremendous (I've been watching too many Donald Trump speeches) at treating acute infections, injuries, etc, but when things become chronic, we are essentially still at a complete loss. We are a very sick society. A change is inevitable, and I hope our voices are part of that change.

However, medical pros are not there to hold our hands. They help us. Society relies far too heavily on them. We are ultimately responsible for optimizing our health outcomes. If we do happen to have something that is not TMS, or TMS in addition to something more insidious, emotional self-care is still of utmost importance, if not more so. Then things like nutrition and appropriate exercise must also fall into place. Of course for many diseases (like Parkinson's), we have much more work to do to prevent and successfully treat them. Regardless, and I think you would agree with me, Plum, a strong mind is the catalyst for us to become the best, healthiest versions of ourselves.

Namaste you beautiful woman!

Steve

 

Steve,

I am tickled pink by the kindness of your compliment. Thank you muchly for it.

I agree completely with your assessment of medicine as it currently stands. Here in the UK our National Health Service is collapsing under the weight of bureaucracy and demand. I cannot help but wonder how much the fragmentation of relationships, families and communities play a part in the devastation of health. We all need a home, a place to belong to and somewhere along the way we traded our guardianship of the natural world and its ways for technological boons that we are far from mature enough to understand the implications of. A roundabout way of saying yes, we are responsible for our own health, ranging from the well-being of our bodies and minds through to the richness and bounty of the land.

My time dealing with the medical profession has convinced me that there is a need for a form of psychological mediation, people who soften the harshness of doctors words and convey the fears and concerns of patients. There ought to be a transition period between diagnosis and treatment (which is so terribly rushed a person cannot catch their breath let alone gather their thoughts), where full explanations are given, medications explained, treatments (allopathic and alternative) are considered. Time to assimilate. Time to grieve the end of one chapter in life if this is needed. This alone would probably resolve issues like the TMS overlay.

Some years ago I saw a video on YouTube of a hospital created around an atrium, with beautiful high-reaching trees and lush green plants in abundance. Gardeners were employed to tend to the greenness and vicariously to the gentling of psyches frazzled by fear. I wonder how different medicine could be if it turned away from the sterility of maze-like corridors, faceless, graceless buildings and shameless corporate greed. There are ways of honouring disease and dying whereby they make sense and are seen as part of a natural cycle that we will all experience. Terror and denial breed terror and denial. A recent report told how even doctors and nurses shun the dying, how they are left thirsty, cold and hungry for human contact. We should hold people as they plunge into the darkness of whatever comes next.

Perhaps I have spent too much time in this hinterland...perhaps not enough. Either way I implicitly know you understand these things for which there are no words yet are tangible nonetheless. Last night I sat on my balcony as dusk transitioned to full night. A large dusky moth approached attracted by light inside. I used to be afraid of these night creatures until I realised they wore their mystery on the outside and that they were sisters of butterflies. Then all the fear that was, was gone.

 

I want to thank you for this.

For the first time yesterday, I took my partner out for a walk in the park in a wheelchair. For every good and spirited reason under the sun he has eschewed yielding to such aids but for a couple of months he has been in a bad way. Is this a phase? Is it progression? It is currently impossible to tell. These dark times are savage insights into the real differences between TMS and serious disorders. (Parkinson's is due to nerve death in the substantia nigra. Symptoms only show when the resulting dopamine levels drop to around 20-30%.)

The park was full of people. We noticed an immediate difference. When my boy walks through the park oftentimes people stare, or adolescents shout insults, or dogs run up and say hello. In the wheelchair he donned a cloak of invisibility. No one looked, they pointedly avoided our eyes. They gave us a wide berth as if I were talking ebola itself for a friendly stroll.

These social reactions are also progressions. Humans are so terrified of this level of ill-health and the resonance of where it leads that they avoid it. Yesterday was just one more sorry example and experience of this. I think the rash suggestion that anything like Parkinson's is TMS is part of this avoidance, part of making the horror small, manageable, in some way ok.

But it isn't. It really isn't.
I have watched Parkinson's destroy the man I love. It has taken his genius, his voice, his looks, his functioning...it has left his humour, astonishingly, and a tremendous amount of courage. Sometimes it feels like a very, very long and very, very slow goodbye.

I have come to greatly appreciate people who compassionately see this and quietly support us both.

 

My best to you, Plum, as you and your partner go through this massive and difficult passage, and I concur completely with your thoughts in this post. I'm so glad you're present on this forum.

 

Bless your heart. Thank you. x

 

God Bless you and your partner dearest Plum.
As always my heartfelt thoughts are with you both.

xx

 

Your support is worth its weight in gold my dear. I cherish our friendship. My love to you and your fabulous husband.

 

Bless you Plum, much love to you and your partner.

 

Much love to you Mike.
I have missed you. xxx