“The most feared symptom will always be the last to go.” ✅

[Alouqua47]

Hi, how are you? I wanted to ask a question because the other day I saw a recovery video, I think it was by Dan Buglio, and he always emphasized that sometimes the most feared symptom while working with TMS is the one that’s always experienced at the end. Is that true? I mean, as we gradually lose fear of symptoms in general, do the less frequent ones—or the ones we fear less—tend to disappear first? Has anything like that happened to you? That is, having the symptom that bothers you the most, that scares you the most, while other, less important symptoms—which you weren’t afraid of—go away first or something like that. I ask because some of you have been at this longer and have made more progress in your recovery.

 

[Diana-M]

I think this is true in general. But overall, symptoms don’t follow any particular pattern. You can’t figure out the mystery. All you can do is plough forward and work on your life—change all your stressful ways. Quiet yourself. Release your emotions. And carry on as best you can. One day, it will be gone.

 

[HealingMe]

Yes, it does make sense! I had “OCD” my whole life — as early as 5 years old. It was my most feared symptom and the last to go.

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

Hi, how are you? I wanted to ask a question because the other day I saw a recovery video, I think it was by Dan Buglio, and he always emphasized that sometimes the most feared symptom while working with TMS is the one that’s always experienced at the end. Is that true? I mean, as we gradually lose fear of symptoms in general, do the less frequent ones—or the ones we fear less—tend to disappear first? Has anything like that happened to you? That is, having the symptom that bothers you the most, that scares you the most, while other, less important symptoms—which you weren’t afraid of—go away first or something like that. I ask because some of you have been at this longer and have made more progress in your recovery.

Yes and no - I have seen this pattern, but like Diana said sometimes it doesn't follow a pattern. I've seen people have big breakthroughs where it's washed over multiple symptoms of varying degrees of fear.

I think this may be intellectually interesting but I don't think these types of inquiries will necessarily help you. All you're doing is repeating and confirming to your brain that you have a great deal of fear around a certain symptom and then telling yourself that because of this it will take a long time to heal (which is only going to generate more fear).

 

[Bonnard]

Hi, how are you? I wanted to ask a question because the other day I saw a recovery video, I think it was by Dan Buglio, and he always emphasized that sometimes the most feared symptom while working with TMS is the one that’s always experienced at the end. Is that true? I mean, as we gradually lose fear of symptoms in general, do the less frequent ones—or the ones we fear less—tend to disappear first? Has anything like that happened to you? That is, having the symptom that bothers you the most, that scares you the most, while other, less important symptoms—which you weren’t afraid of—go away first or something like that. I ask because some of you have been at this longer and have made more progress in your recovery.

I saw Dan Buglio talk about that--here's the video link:

I think it sounds good and seems like maybe it would make sense. But, if there's one thing that's screaming from the forum--on a daily or weekly basis--it's that TMS shows up in a wide variety of ways. All sorts of symptoms (even for the same person); all sort of presentations; different kinds of timing, and waves where it gets really bad and maybe subsides and comes back with a vengeance (or maybe not). Trying to pin down a pattern on how symptoms might go away is just more attention and enthusiasm/importance placed on the symptoms themselves.

This video message works better for me:

This one part seems to connect to 'Outcome Independence,' and I find this really helpful/good stuff:
"By putting symptoms at the forefront of your assessment of whether or not you're doing well, you're going to ensure you stay in fear because you're going to think, 'I'm doing something wrong.' .... 'Why is this not working? I still hurt, so I must not be doing it right.'"