MelissaO

Hi there, my name is Melissa and I’m a 50 year old wife and mother of six adults. I learned about Sarno and TMS just a couple months ago while recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery. I suffer mostly from FIBROMYALGIA and IBS.

I know most of us have some psychogenic problems by virtue of the fact that we’re human. I suffered horrible sexual abuse as a child and teen and did a wonderful job of pushing it aside to “survive”. In retrospect, I completely detached from myself emotionally in order to deal. I consequently developed ET (essential tremor) at age 14. I went on to marry and birth/raise six children - all adults now. I didn’t have time to take care of my health though I did see a lot of mental health therapists over the years who thought I was a wonderful miracle for surviving the abuse the way that I have. Basically, I’ve been told I have complex PTSD but am high functioning so “no one would know”. Anyway, I don’t like labels. Through my late teens and into adulthood I suffered random painful joint tightness and to a point where they would lock up. My hands and jaw were the most prominent areas. When I was about 35 I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia after a lot of blood tests came back telling me my locked joints and various pains in my arms, hands, and legs and feet all came back as normal. I threw away the Lyrica prescription and also put the “diagnosis” (label) to the curb - again, I don’t enjoy the labels. Next, my son developed an enormous killer tumor on his kidney and we almost lost him. It was right around this time that I developed a sudden onset of gut pain that was just unbelievably painful. I saw the regular doc and had the CT and the Ultrasound and ended up talking to a surgeon who wanted to remove my gallbladder. I changed up my diet and immediately felt better and cancelled the surgery. However, within a short month or two the pain came back just as bad but was in a different part of my gut. I ended up with an amazing gastrointestinal doc known as the “gut whisperer” who promptly scoped both ends and found some evidence of diverticuli and a teeny bit of gastritis but everything else came back fine. I’ll never forget sitting in his office and he said “Your tests are all clear. You are the classic poster child for IBS.” WHAT? This can’t be! Can IBS really wreak this much havoc on a person?! I couldn’t believe it! Then he looked at me square and asked, “Are you under a lot of stress?” I looked at him square and said, “No, not really. I’ve raised six children, my marriage is hard, I left my religion, I’m a childhood trauma survivor, my son has a horrible kidney cancer, but no, I’m good with my stress.” He just looked at me like I was full of shit. I sat there with my half smile and all of a sudden my fake “reality” came crashing down around me. I literally had NO IDEA I was stressed more than the average person. The memories of several therapists telling me how healthy I was and that I didn’t need them to be healthy made me aware that I was REALLY GOOD at hiding everything, even from myself. My gastroenterologist was amazing. He said, “It’s your stress. Stay away from the doctors.” That was 4 years ago. Since then I’ve had my gut issues flare - in fact I’ve had 4 bouts of diverticulitis this year - one landed me in the hospital. EACH time the flare followed a stressful event. I had also developed paralyzing foot pain and when it would go away I’d develop “tendinitis” in my arm and when it would begin to clear I’d get the tendinitis in the other arm. Next came my left knee to a point where I could barely walk. It, too, would come and go but after a couple years of that crap I had arthroscopic surgery on it and it felt wonderful. That was 3 months ago but wouldn’t you know that within 2 weeks of having that surgery which seemed to work wonders I developed almost the same exact pain in my right knee. I guess I’m lucky in that I didn’t ever really get true back pain. In my brain I always told myself I couldn’t handle back pain.. I had six kids to take care of! No back pain for me please! Well, it was just a couple months ago that I discovered Dr. Sarno through my daughter’s piano teacher (she had tendinitis in both arms for several months and nothing could fix it except reading Sarno’s book) and so being open like I am I wanted to read it. It definitely focused more on the back pain but since it mentioned Fibromyalgia and IBS I was hoping like crazy that my nonsensical physical pain could PLEASE be TMS!?

Well, this has turned into a long post! I guess I needed to say it all out loud to people who probably and thankfully understand. I am so excited for this opportunity to learn more. I’ve devoured Sarno’s MindBody book 3 times in the past month and have watched quite a bit of success stories. It’s not so easy to find the fibromyalgia and IBS stories... but I know they are out there. By the way, I was able to avert the right knee pain by talking to my brain and thanking it for trying to protect me from my emotions but reassuring it I can handle it and to stop giving me pain to distract me. The pain in my right knee went away immediately. My brain is just doing what it thinks is best for me. I think because I have a large amount of trauma that this could take awhile but I’m actually hoping I can avoid a psychotherapist and take this on without one. Anyway, it’s nice to meet you all! Thanks for reading.