Day 10 A recollection...how pain does not make sense at times

As I move through this program, many things are really coming back to me.

Back in Dec, I was having a routine mammogram and an MRI for some lower back pain that had both been scheduled on the same day for my convenience. The mammogram took longer than usual and I knew something was wrong. The Radiologist had seen a small mass. He was not overly concerned but wanted to schedule a biopsy next day to take some samples. I decided to cancel the MRI as I felt I did not want to deal with 2 potential health issues back to back. 2 days later, the biopsy showed all clear..no cancer. I never rescheduled the mammogram, as I felt so good to not have to deal with a cancer finding. I counted my blessings for weeks.

The interesting thing is, when he showed me the suspect mass on an xray, within minutes my lower back pain all but disappeared. I had a new worry and my internal stacking order of priorities shifted in only minutes. The mass concern was #1 and all else took a backseat. This is before I EVER heard of Dr. Sarno or his book or DVD, I was already questioning:

What is really going on here? I did not know about an iota about TMS, but I began to wonder if there was a mind-body-stress connection.

Now that I am reading and learning more, I can identify other instances. Kids very ill. Mom 100% fine. Best friend on a weekend trip becoming deathly ill and hospitalized. My back not saying a hoot for 14 days while I sat in ICU, slept on floor and almost watched her die. However, after all these instances were over, I had some sort of back episode shortly thereafter. I recovered quickly, but it was as if my body was saying "OK, now you can focus on you for a bit".

Sounds crazy, but I have known for a while something as off with my structural diagnosis versus symptoms.

Thanks to this site, I can work through this now, one step at a time.

 

The exact same thing happens to me. When some bigger distraction comes along it seems to take over for the lesser distraction. That's the symptom imperative at work, I suppose! I'm looking forward to the end of the symptom imperative

 

Never heard of symptom imperative, but makes a lot of sense. Crazy how our minds work. I guess crazy beautiful.

 

Have you read Steven Ozanich's book, The Great Pain Deception? It's one of the best TMS books I've ever read. I highly recommend it. The TMS weekly call in discussion group did a session for each chapter. This is the call on the Chapter about the symptom imperative.
Click here to download the mp3 audio

I've really enjoyed listening to these podcasts as I read the book.

This is a link to Steve's book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0615462219/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1397768362&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

Blessings ❤️❤️