nowtimecoach

Three years ago, the sporadic thoracic back pain and spasms that had been visiting me off and on as I grappled with caretaking and grief issues, decided to stay. I was under a great deal of stress, driving 500 miles at least once a month to take care of my 89 year old father. It was a familiar story for many adult children. My mother died from a traumatic heart surgery, leaving my dad to try and figure out how to take care of himself after being married for 60 some odd years. But age caught up with him and the responsibilities started falling on my shoulders. I had two other sisters at the time. But the one sister had a life threatening disease and God brought her up to heaven two years after my mother died. My father died two years after that.
The pain really kicked in after all these deaths and I did the usual rounds of every doctor imaginable looking for relief. Sometimes I got relief but mostly it always came back and I couldn't get any a firm diagnosis that made sense. All tests came back negative for anything structural. The final test was an overall bone scan. There were two things that happened with that test. One, I laid down on the machine. The test takes about 30 to 40 minutes to film. I laid down with pain. During the filming, I fell into a deep sleep. When it was all over, I got up and I had absolutely no pain. I felt like I had had some kind of healing during that time. The bone scan, which was the very last test possible to have, showed nothing.
My sister had given my Sarno's book about three months prior to this. I read a few pages and didn't feel like it applied to me. After the test results and the healing I received, I was READY to receive Sarno's information.
My life has been very different as a result! I did the SEP on this forum. I read everyday to keep my awareness settled in the right direction. My pain has decreased about 85%. I have resumed activities that slowly, one by one, I eliminated from my life. I am going to start in on the Unlearn Your Pain program because so many have spoken highly of it.
I am not cured at this point of TMS. Because I still have days or time of preoccupation with experienced pain. I keep remembering Sarno's perspective that you are healed when you have absolutely no fear related to TMS symptoms. I don't fear activity setting anything off... but certainly my personality traits, the pressures and anxieties I produce are still being worked out.
And as a perfectionist, I have to pull my own covers because the fact is that its only been 3 months since I've embraced this way of thinking and living!!!! And to that I say "Give Yourself A Break Molly!!!" That to me is the way of life that the TMS diagnosis has given me.