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3 months in: What I’ve learned on this wiki

Diana-M

Diana-M

Beloved Grand Eagle
I joined this wiki 3 months ago, and I’ve had TMS for years. Some of my TMS episodes I have fought off. Right now I am in a stubborn episode with multiple symptoms.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned to be true so far, based on what I’ve learned from this wiki and it’s free classes: The Pain Recovery Program and the Structured Educational Program. These classes are excellent and lay out all the basics for your journey.

This is an emotional journey. Not a physical one. So even though you’re tempted, don’t use the forum to talk symptoms. Use it to talk emotional healing. That’s what will help the most.

1. It is going to take time to heal. So save yourself the disappointment and come to grips with that.

2.There is no silver bullet strategy for healing. The healing will require your own unique combo of methods you glean from taking in everyone’s stories. You don’t necessarily need to do the exact thing someone else with your exact symptoms did. You can successfully pull from any TMS recovery story. Create your own plan, after you build on the basics: #1 Study the books by John Sarno.

3. TMS is basically anxiety/fear. Severe anxiety. You are going to have to do what it takes to calm yourself down. Work hard at learning what causes that. Some is how you think (personality traits). Some is how you repress your feelings (especially from your past). Some is your current situation and stress. You’ll have to address all three.

4. You’re not going to heal without journaling. End of story. Some form is required. And you will have to do it daily and a lot of it. Some people do video entries or recordings. And it’s HARD. How bad do you want to get better?

5. When you finally learn to be happy and live, despite TMS, you will be getting close to healing.

6. The TMS community is a very special group of people. They all want to help. It’s a counter-culture group, I believe, leading to the advancement of society. Because the medical world is lagging behind—And so many people are suffering. We can be a light for this healing.

7. You can do this. Yes! It’s possible. Read the success stories!

8. Jump in. Stop lurking (if you are :-) )and ask a question. That’s when things started to happen for me. I am not healed (yet!), but I feel 100% better most days— despite symptoms. And I have HOPE!
 
I successfully use Sarno's methods without ever having done any journaling.

I have gone over my whole history of things that I am enraged about, past and present, completely in my head.

This is very convenient as fitting in journaling is impractical in my life at the moment.

I do, however, have plenty of hours in the day when I go about my farm work and can deal without whatever buried rage I have.

I have even found it very helpful to be able to talk to my brain right in the midst of an enraging situation, like when somebody who makes your brain boil is standing right in front of you blabbing in your face.

If you can successfully scrap journaling then you can get way more mental work done anytime, any day.

Plus, you don't need to fear getting busted with rage pages.
 
@Michael Coutts,
I was thinking of you the other day because I did read somewhere in another of your posts that you did all of your journaling in your head. Right now I can’t type and it’s also pretty hard to write long hand due to cramping (TMS) in my hands, so I was thinking I will use your method to work it out in my head. You overcame a lot this way. So, obviously it works!
 
@Diana-M If there's no chance of you being overheard, or of anyone accessing your phone, you could also consider recording and talking and raging into your phone (and play it back to yourself if you want to... some people do and some people don't read their journaling so you've obviously got the choice about that) and then delete it. (Helmut aka 'The Mindful Gardener' (on YouTube) who had over 70 TMS symptoms did that as part of his recovery. He'd sit in the privacy of his car, parked out of the way of everybody, and talk away into his phone.)
 
Thanks, @BloodMoon! I have tried that once. It feels even more vulnerable. Probably a good thing! I will try it some more. (I have also followed Helmut’s story; I think because you posted it.) His recovery is very inspiring.
 
Diana-M said:
It feels even more vulnerable. Probably a good thing!
Click to expand...
As you know, Diana, that's my theory (based on personal experience) - that taking a risk and allowing vulnerability leads to freedom from the fear of vulnerability, which is what holds many of us back from true emotional expression.

BTW, did you see the latest Success Story? It doesn't look like one because the subject line didn't include a success word, and the story didn't start out with a single clue about the conclusion, but I saw a lot of your story as I read the entire thing. Check it out https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/cfs-ibs-hip-pain-mri-with-labral-tear-fai-cysts-and-other-symptoms.28260/ (CFS, IBS, Hip pain MRI with labral tear, FAI, cysts and other symptoms)
 
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