Norma Jean

Hello,

I have been thinking about my story. I am not a professional writer so this may not be written as well as some others.

I grew up in So Florida during the fifties and sixties. I had an older brother born in 1950 with Hemophilia A. Our family suffered a lot because there wasn't much known at that time. There were no comprehensive Hemophilia centers and no products that are used today to prevent bleeds.

I have had TMS all my life. I am 72. I was always in pain either emotional or physical.

At age 12 I collapsed on the floor in terror the day the police came to take my brother away. He would break laws because of his pain and buy drugs to ease his suffering. Not a pretty picture. He became a career criminal and through the years he spent many of them in jail, prison, detention centers, youth hall, etc. He contacted HIV-Aids in 1988 from tainted blood factor and later died in prison at the age of 41. I am sure the reader will understand.

Doctors would roll their eyes when I came to their office. None of them knew what to do for someone who had Fibromyalgia, Chronic fatigue, irritable bowel, and all kinds of other symptoms. Some of these were not even in the PDR yet.

I found massage, psychotherapy, acupuncture, chiropractic and tried very much to not take drugs. I was in AA, OA, and other 12 step programs. I was always on the lookout for something that could help.

In 1996 my late husband and I moved to Belleview, Florida and my back collapsed again from being scared to death we would not have enough money to survive.

A friend told me about Dr John Sarno and his book "Healing Back Pain".
I read and re-read the book many times. I got it and all the pain went away.

Fast forward. My husband died in 2013. I was working out of my home office for 7 years after his death. Then in September 2020 after the pandemic came, I could no longer tolerate all the changes in the public. I had the worse TMS attack of my life.

I have been in pain for almost 4 years now. I read and re-read Dr. Sarno's books but reading the books and watching his class video did not work for me this time. I tried therapy again for a while but unless a therapist understands TMS it is not helpful

I recently found Howard Schubiner MD and am reading his book on Pain. I have been able to reduce some of the pain already. He is very compassionate and easy to learn from. Getting mad at my brain does not work for me. Being kind and compassionate does. I took Nicole Sachs lessons on pain. It was good to revisit all the issues the journal writing brought up.

I am more focused now on reading about the brain and writing and really doing all I can to change the neuropathways in my brain.

More later.