Tips for an overthinking guy

Hello everyone!

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my looong story and feel free to correct my english if needed (i'm a french guy ).

I just finished one week of hospitalization in neurology where I was sent after coming in the emergencies for an unbearable "Arnold neuralgia on one side, headache and horrible pain behind the eyes on the same side" mix.
After explaining my story or how I ended to be absolutely obsessed with finding the cause of pain to a psychiatrist, he told me about Sarno books and methods.

Here's my story :
4 years ago, after finishing high school, I attend an equivalent of university in a new big city not far from my parents home. It was an opportunity for me, for the first time, to really feel free, independent and do what I want as my parents was a little bit strict with me when I was living with them.
I begin my studies with a permanent competitor mentality, I think I've always been like that but I was more aware of it at this time because I know I must be in the top ten of my prom in order to get the best school after (unfortunately that's how it works in France).

Besides the studies I played basketball a lot, I was a beginner but really loved it so I always played until my muscles can't take no more . And one day as I've finished a big workout with classic aches in my quadriceps, I pursued an other workout instead of resting as usual... that's where the pain began.
As I remembered, the pain appeared only in my left quadriceps (the one that I used the most to jump) and was like an intense burning path through the muscles, absolutely random as it could burn while resting but nothing when running or skating for example.
I decided to find a medical answer to it as stopped effort for months and ices didn't change the pain. Nothing was found with ultrasound and many months of physiotherapy didn't helped. I wasn't obsessed at the time so I let the pain be.

Several weeks after, a terrible pain to the testicles brought me to the emergencies, it was so intense that I focused all my interest to it and it seems like I forget the leg pain. I visited two or three urologists who told me there was nothing, made ultrasound too : nothing wrong.
So during several months I suffered the horrible testicles pain and sometimes the leg one at the same time without improvements or changements, the only release was an osteopath that success to stop both pains after one session, but it comes back again so I remember I had a second one and trying with him to find the origin but I'm not sure about this.

Then one day I began some home workout musculation. At the time I find my body not "symetric" as my right hip was higher than the other, my right pectoral was smaller than the other and other futile details. After series of pushups, I began to get an horrible pain at the junction between the pectoral and the biceps, now I know that is the rotator cuff but at the time as the pain was in majority in the pectoral I tried stretching again, echography and physiotherapy but the pain didn't fade at all.

After months of terrible pain, one year ago, i met a postural osteopath and physiotherapist who made a sort of muscular summary of myself, that's where I found that I had a gibbosity, it's like a scoliosis but your body spins with the spine (don't know if it's clear haha it's actually hard to explain in french so).
And then begins the worst part of the story, because this spin of my body was very visible from my point of view, it became more and more an obsession.

At the beginning, I saw one osteopath that put my body back "straight" but it twisted again and I tried another osteopath then physiotherapist and it twisted again.
The more therapists I saw the more the more pains I got but the more I asked questions and the more I understood every pain, every muscles, every vertebrae that plays a role in the pain.

I've always had a scientific mentality and I really wonder a lot on everything not anxious actually but I "overthink" all the time, if it hurts there is a reason, so I tried by any means to found and understand it, every pain was "logical" due to my posture, to the way my pelvis twisted, to the particular vertebrae involved...
I've learned more medical things in a year than in computer science which was what I was studying at the moment in 3 years I think.
I was addicted to osteopathy : every week I visited one to "release" me from the pain and the famous spin of my body.

Finally, a last pain clearly overcomes my capacity to find causes in everything : a behind the eye pain. After a postural therapist told me the arch of the foot and the eyes played an important role in the posture, I got special soles and glasses for a minor correction (not the same for the two eyes one's myopic, the other is astigmatic). I began to be a lot of concerned by the symmetry (again) of my face and the eyes in particular, because the optician told me that my glasses where perfectly put while I found that it wasn't and that they fell on one side (isn't it ridiculous? ).
That's where the pain behind the left eye appeared, like something burning and pulls the eye out. It appeared, increased more and more until I noticed in the mirror that this eye was bigger than the other so I started to freak out.
Since that day, I've been feeling like my eye pulls more and more out of the orbit (I still don't know if I've always been like that actually) and after three months of eye pain I decided to jump again in the circle of finding a cause as several osteopaths found correlation with this pain, some neuralgia and the postural problems.
But I think I went too far on this one, I quitted the school that I struggled to get (I was in the top ten remember ), gathered all the information I had during these 3 years and went to 2 differents therapists per day to find the reason of my postural and so the eye pain.
Obviously, I finished at the emergencies as the neuralgia in the left side spread on the other side, my neck muscles became horribly tensed, my trapezius (that I think was already source of pain with the leg pain) and all of my body was burning in pain. They sent me to the neurology hospitalization where I finally find this psychiatrist.

I'm now in a worse state than before the hospitalization, I have double vision, painful eyes, back pains (upper and lower), leg pain, pelvic pains but I'm now aware of the TMS syndrom. The fact is I'm still someone who overthinks and the TMS resources made myself ask questions. Because the emotions that I'm feeling right now are not anxiety or depression as my psychiatrist want to cure but are just rage and sadness.
If this pain never never showed up, my life would have been 1000x better, I would resume sports, musculation, be more confident, never noticed about my eyes, have a better social life and that makes me cry, makes me horribly angry.

The thing is that I don't know what's wrong exactly, I've persuaded myself for 4 days now that the pain is due to TMS but the pain is still there even stronger, I've looking for the hidden emotions, for finding what my brain wants to tell me but it brings me to the rage against the pain like a circle, I've tried to live normally but the pain is too strong and every move I make, it triggers a pain that I know which muscles is involved so I think about the cause, the posture, etc...
I know it has been only 4 days but it's hard to fight this alone, the pain is very violent.

I would really appreciate any kind of advices.



Best regards
Thomas

 

Four days is really short.... Give yourself more time and grace. I don't think I'd fully accepted TMS until a week or so. Also, your acceptance of TMS will increase as you see physical symptoms decrease. So give it time. Read lots of success stories.

Here is my story (very long though). I went from bedridden to playing soccer in a couple of months. There were many frustrating setbacks. But it was worth it. I got my life back and have been painfree for a year and a half.

https://christianvictorianliterature.com/2019/01/18/my-story-a-victorian-healing/ (My Story: A Victorian Healing)

 

Hi grapefruit,
Your testimony was really inspiring as it really looks like my story actually. I would ask you some questions because I want to know more about some parts of your healing.
What did you mean by thinking about the things that bother me when I feel the pain? That part was hard for me to understand and so to apply it.
And how did you success to fully feel this repressed rage and to find the origin?

 

Apenas son 4.dias. Aún recuerdo Cúa do empezó esto. Yo. Llevo 10 años de dolor y ya me acostumbre a tener media vida. Atrás dejé la depresión q mantenía por la frustración. De sentirme tan. Débil. Tan agotada tan adolorida. Animo. Estarás bn.. Ojala a mi 4 día de dolor hubiese tenido todo este material. De informácion. Saludos desde Colombia

 

The Mind body Prescription, which deals more with how to locate rage, helped me. I just tried to think, if I could let myself be mad about anything or anyone in my whole life, no matter who or what, what would it be? I found it has to do with some regrets, even though I am very happy with my life. No matter what path you take in life, you are always giving something up. It's inevitable. When I admitted to myself a source of rage I had never admitted before, I felt very emotional and almost shaky. My symptoms flared up but the next morning I felt amazing.