Advice Appreciated

I've been working with a psychotherapist (EMDR) for the past couple of months. EMDR has helped attenuate the emotional charge for some recent traumatic memories but hasn't helped with the psychosomatic pains. Last week we started to explore childhood memories, childhood events, relationships, my parents ... and she told me we are making good progress as this is where EMDR needs to focus on for the biggest impact. In the last session I broke down saying to her I can't cope with the pain anymore and that I'm contemplating ending my life to conclude the suffering (legally in Switzerland). I told her I believe that my subconscious is on 24/7 alert and it's exhausting living in this way. It's not just pain but the agitation, irritableness, hypersensitivity is emotionally exhausting. The somatic effects of this on my breathing is a daily struggle. She then said based on your belief perhaps we've hit a wall in EMDR and you need to work with a hypnotherapist (?) to figure out what in your subconscious is causing your lizard brain to be on 24x7 hypersensitivity. This seems like a contradiction is advice. The thing is I do not have any memories in my conscious awareness that is severely traumatising e.g. car crash, molestation, sexual abuse etc. Perhaps it's decades of accumulation of stressors i.e. not one big event. I do not react well to psychiatric medication and I had high hopes for EMDR. One well known and respected person on this forum once mentioned that TMS = somaticized anxiety. This is exactly what it feels like to me. In its most severe form, I think it's the worst diagnosis in the universe as no one can help you i.e. you're on your own. In my conscious awareness I've come to feel at peace with the past. I do not feel emotionally triggered by past memories as much as I used to. I think EMDR has helped with that. However, could it be that I have repressed memories causing somaticized anxiety? I don't think I do. I think my mind is stuck on a loop of hypervigilance. Something triggered it which has since gone and the mind is too frightened to switch off the alarms. I think further psychotherapy - or trying hypnotherapy - is a waste of time and money. I gave my mind an ultimatum i.e. I love you ... I know you want to protect me ... but these alarms (more like drums than a violin) are falsely ringing and is having a severe impact on my day to day life. You either stop these alarms or I will have to take matters into my own hands and stop these alarms by legally ending my own life. I've shown you evidence time and time again that I'm safe and I'm not in danger. It's your decision but either way we cannot (you and I) continue living in this way. It's brutal and taxing. Does anyone else feel like this i.e. psychotherapy not working on their somatic symptoms and are running out of options? I've done the journaling, the introspection of the past etc. I don't think that is the solution. I now spend most of my days allowing and engaging in life as best as I can ... I'm coming to the conclusion that resolving this thing isn't necessarily about digging into the past (at least for me right now) i.e. it's about convincing your mind that I AM SAFE NOW. Some minds are easier to convince than others, mine is damn stubborn and is acting as if a dinosaur is hurtling its way to me at 100MPH. Has anyone on here done the standard Sarno TMS work and feel as if they have reached a dead end? Where does one go from here? Is it just time i.e. waiting for the mind to accept the diagnosis of TMS and you may wake up one day feeling better?

 

My first bit of advice would be to calm down and stop talking about the pain and how much it hurts, this is what is continuing your fight or flight response.

Respond calmly despite how much it may hurt ( i know its easier said than done), talk self kindness to yourself rather than beating yourself up about it.

I know how you feel though, Christmas 2023 was my low point, ready to end it and i didnt see a way out. I was depressed, stiff as a board due to the muscle contractions all over my body severely affect my hands and feet and didnt see any future. I took one look over at my son on Boxing Day who was still sharing a bed and he was so happy to see me when he woke up, i decided at that point ive had enough of feeling like this and im going to do it for him and my daughter.

18 months later i see the light at the end of the tunnel, the pain went after 12 months and now im just left a bit crooked due to the muscle imbalances and the contraction just in my hands and feet (it was all over before). I sleep amazingly and i feel calm and slowly my body is now catching up.

Its not an overnight fix.

 

It was only some months after my suicidal ideations that my symptoms improved greatly.

 

I’m sorry you are suffering @mikeinlondon
You are right. It is very draining to be going through these symptoms. I remember a few months ago mentioning to you that EMDR is not used for treating pain, but the parts of your life/mind your EMDR therapist mentions. It takes time for your mind to allow such deep and difficult work, -this is the stuff your mind is keeping you “safe” from.
Hang in there. It feels horrible, but don’t fight it. It WILL get better. It takes time. It takes you loving yourself and being willing to stand by yourself long enough to see it through. When the mental suffering eases a bit, you’ll be able to start doing some of the TMS work.
I think it’s very wise you point out one of the biggest parts of your anxiety is the “responsibility” to your own wellness. It’s really a gift to you. This self-focus is the gift you’ve never had permission to give yourself and you 100% deserve to be well.

 

Mike,
Yes. Same. I’ve reached a dead end. All the deep digging in therapy made me worse. Journaling hasn’t helped. I’m so hypersensitive that my nerves are raw. But I know it does take time to heal. Just like to heal broken bones. There’s an amount of time to heal nerves. Claire Weekes says your body is working on it in the background. That gives me hope. Because frankly, each day I have to drum up hope from scratch. Helmut, the Mindful Gardener, says he had terrible symptoms—worse than ever—right up until he got better. What if you are about to get better? Or what if you get stronger and you can endure this until you get better? Please don’t give up! ❤️ Hugs!

 

This is where I am as well. I've pulled away from the journaling for now, still educating myself and reading, meditating nightly and just trying to live with the pain for now, staying active. I feel like at some point it has to come together! Hang in there, @mikeinlondon .

 

Thank you all for your responses. Your support and openness is very heartwarming. I think we all deserve a break from this. I think what got me here in the first place was supporting my sister during her cancer diagnosis. She spent years digging up past trauma and I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I do think retrospectively digging into the past can make things worse. I now believe that Dan Buglio is spot on when he says we don’t need to go into past traumas to fix the now. We just need to find a way to communicate to our bodies that we are safe now. That is the challenge. It’s time to bury the past and make peace with it and move on whatever moving on may be. Peace and love.

 

Yes, indeed!

As I've said elsewhere on these forums, from my experience, recovering from mind/body symptoms is like falling asleep—you can’t force it to happen. All you can do is create the right conditions for it to happen. Just as good sleep hygiene—a comfy bed and a cool, calm environment—encourages the brain to cause and allow you to sleep, recovery involves practising habits and environments that teach the brain to stop producing symptoms.

The way I have got to where I am now - from being in horrendous pain, housebound and intermittently bedridden (for months on end) to being able to function pretty normally by comparison - is by approaching everything I do in a 'baby steps' manner. At one point all I could do from my bed (when I was bedridden) was peel and chop vegetables for dinner on a tray that my husband would bring to me, but now I can prepare veg standing up in the kitchen and cook a meal like any normal person would do, and that progress has been achieved very gradually.

When I went from bedridden to housebound the only exercise I could do was a maximum of 2 minutes of gently walking on the spot plus 3 minutes of mock tai chi (moving my arms around in gentle flowing motions) but now I stand in front of the TV doing a whole sequence of movements that I have gradually added to over time that I now do twice a day for around half an hour a time.

Recovery requires patience. The lizard brain doesn't like big changes, it's fearful of them and it always errs on the side of caution.

Attempts to reach goals through forceful, radical or revolutionary means often fail because they heighten fear. The lizard brain, in particular the amygdala, was designed to alert parts of the body for action in the face of immediate danger. One way it accomplishes this is to slow down or stop other functions such as rational and creative thinking that could interfere with the physical ability to run or fight.

Approaching everything in small innocent, non-alarming, safe, 'baby' steps disarms the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought.

 

Sorry you are suffering. All of us on this Forum can relate to the struggle.

What you are describing above is Complex PTSD. I went most of my life thinking I didn't have PTSD until a few years ago when I read about Complex PTSD. I found the resources of Dr. Nicole LePera helpful in understanding this and providing self help strategies to deal with it. Having a label was helpful to me.

https://theholisticpsychologist.com/ (The Holistic Psychologist - The Power To Heal Yourself)

Hang in there. Things will improve.

 

Hi Mike, please hang in there.

Reading your post with how much work you’ve already done really reminded me of the time I discovered TMS and was scrambling to get rid of it as quickly as possible, throwing different things at it.

What really helped me was stepping away from the journaling of past events and any trauma. The pressure to find the one thing or unravel my past was enraging my subconscious even more.

I stopped and took the advice of teaching my brain that I am safe now, in the present. And if something triggers me I will remind my brain that there is no danger and respond in a calm manner. This has been instrumental in my recovery.

What is also important is making sure I am engaged in life. I fill my days with random things. I try not to stay too bored because my mind loves to wander.

Hang in there. I recently got out of a bad flare and felt like this was it for me. I was sitting and could feel the dark cloud come over me. I used to fear depression but there is nothing to fear as Claire Weekes says. Give into it and let it run its course. 10 minutes later it was gone. When I let go a little bit of the pressure and let it run its course, the light began to come in again little by little. Let time pass. This was very difficult for me to understand at first. It’s just another habit you are creating. Like riding a bike. You get scared, you fall, but you get back up again. Next time it’s even easier.

Remember, there’s nothing wrong with you. This is a human condition. It’s just anxiety. Every single person on this planet experiences it. You are safe.

Here's a great post from Steve Ozanich on healing with some great responses.
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/tms-healing-mistakes-made.2730/#post-15786

 

Steve's The Great Pain Deception remains my favorite book on TMS.

 

I haven’t read it but his past posts and threads resonate with me very much.

 

Oh @mikeinlondon - I'm so sorry you are experiencing this. It just seems like too much, I know.

But, please please... moment to moment - know it can and it does get better.

When people would say that to me, I really thought F - YOU, you don't have to endure this. And, you don't know the intensity of this.
And, I don't have family nearby, no kids, friends all involved in highly demanding lives, so, I thought, there wasn't going to be anyone who would really "care" or so my brain was trying to convince me (like I didn't even have the, "yeah, but what will my kids/spouse/pet do without me.").

Somehow though miraculously things did/have shifted. And, I even find myself somewhat excited to delve into projects I wouldn't have even considered taking on before and giving my brain problem-solving tasks to work on that are completely unrelated to "getting better"/healing, etc., this, even though I thought I could not go on another minute so many times.

It has been said before, but finding ways to engage with life in completely other ways that have nothing to do with focusing on symptoms has been the key. Not trying to find more information, not researching techniques/strategies, etc. -- but more of a sort of "show me, don't tell me." kind of thing for the mind. Oh, and even things like helping my neighbors move furniture, etc., to which my brain's predictive processing had to update its data like welll, if she is moving furniture, we must be safe, right?)

I know it might seem absurd when your brain is telling you there is a tiger in the room and you're what? Going to just try live life, but yeah, exactly that.
Even imagining taking the tiger along going to the grocery store, walking on the trails, etc. A new superpower.

I believe in you. Holding the vision of better moments for you.

 

I know this is the key to healing. It’s hard to implement but focusing on safety - not talking safety - is the way to convince the lizard brain that there’s no danger. I recall Dan B saying similar.

 

I appreciate what you’re saying and I know that you’re trying to help. However, when you’re sleep deprived and your day is spent in a zombie like state how does one muster the emotional energy to do that? Last night I was asleep for three hours. That’s with the help of drugs. I was up from 1:30 till 8:00 tossing and turning in pain. The less sleep the less emotional resources to pull through the hardest of challenges. Ever since I had a bad infection my mind has been on severe high alert. Infection went away but my mind still thinks there’s imminent danger. This challenge isn’t one about pain or sleep but one of a very fearful mind that is impacting every aspect of my life. Just pain would be much easier. I know the solution to all of this is to live life as much as possible, stop complaining about the pain and just allow the sensations without fear. It’s much easier to do when you’ve had a good nights sleep. I believe Helmut had a couple of months of severe insomnia. It’s nearly been a year for me! TMS work requires your mind and body to have the resources to do the work. If your mind and body are too exhausted from a lack of down time then you don’t get very far. Ultimately. I have a very severe TMS mind. My only consolation is that I have a diagnosis and know it’s my mind and my body is okay. Unfortunately, the mind is slowly killing the body by not allowing it to rest. Sarno says TMS isn’t dangerous. I don’t agree. I think TMS in the most severest of forms can be very dangerous. Insomnia can cause diseases over time. Pain can cause mental exhaustion and stress leading to burn out which may cause physical disease. In my mind un controlled TMS (in its severe form) is just as dangerous as cancer.

 

This is horrible! You poor soul. I honestly don’t know how you’re doing it. No sleep is crazy-making and drains hope so fast. I wonder if you could have intervals of deep meditation throughout your day? And slowly increase each interval. It would calm down your nervous system and actually give you rest. I cured severe panic once with meditation. Maybe no blue light and caffeine after noon. Don’t read any news or disturbing things ever. Do you have a big underlying problem in your life your mind is trying to solve? I always get insomnia when I’m worrying about something. (Obviously, now you’re worrying about this.) But aside from that is there another big problem that you worry about?

I’m sorry I keep mentioning Claire Weekes. I know you don’t like her that much— But she has done wonders for my nerves. Her big whole thing is adrenaline. Every time we get nervous or afraid it’s like you’re squeezing a lemon and the lemon juice is adrenaline. To get your nerves to calm down, you have to stop overdosing on adrenaline. (Yes, you have to calm down your mind and teach your lizard you are safe and all that). But also think in terms of adrenaline. Every thought can cause it to pump. Thinking you’re going to die of cancer for example will cause adrenaline. Once I got ahold of this concept, I started to brew up some really good ways of thinking that I could lean on. Rote things I could tell myself when I got afraid.

I’ve noticed that I sleep really well when I read before bed some kind of good engaging story but not too exciting. Also believe it or not, knitting does something to the brain that really makes sleep get very deep. If you have any interest in knitting…it might help. (We won’t tell! lol)

God decides how we live or die. If you’re meant to die of cancer, you’re going to— Sleep or not. Don’t be afraid of cancer right now.

I’m gonna say this every time I talk to you. And maybe one day you’ll just do it to shut me up. Listen to Claire Weekes’, Hope and Help for Your Nerves. Over and over. Listen to it so much that you can recite it with her. That’s what I did to start calming down my body. That’s what lowered my adrenaline. That’s what’s helped me go from 16 to 4 symptoms. That’s what has soothed me. What do you have to lose? Just listen to it!

I want you to know that I’m praying for you. Every day. And I believe in prayer. I know God will help you.

Take care, brother. I hear you. I know you are really struggling. I’m sorry about that. Hang tight!

 

Bless you, Diana. You are a sweetie. Everytime I meditate i.e. focus on my body my breathing goes into hyperventilation i.e. as if I'm running a marathon. There is something triggering a stress response as soon as I focus on the breath. When I don't focus on the breath it is fine. Last night I woke up at 1 am and my mind went on my breath. I was told people in fight or flight focus on internal systems automatically. Anyways, it was lovely because the breath was natural and calm. However, within 5 minutes the breath changed from calm to angry. It's so uncomfortable. It's as if the anxiety is centred on the breath. Periodically through the day I feel I need to gasp for air and take a deep breath. It's all sensitised nerves. Why is it centred on my breath I do not know.

I take chinese herbs to sleep and they work to put me to sleep. However, I often wake up 2 -3 hours later. So going to sleep is fine it's just maintaining it. I don't go to bed worried, I listen to a meditation (not focussed on breath) every night before I sleep then shortly after that I am unconscious. I struggle with that meditation as any attention on the breath causes my mind to think it's under threat. It's the most bizarre thing.

Last year I used to have adrenaline surges, I don't have them anymore. The only ruminating thoughts I have is about the present i.e. the discomfort and pain. I try to distract myself ... easier during the day, not easy doing that lying in bed.

I think my body was already taxed from stressors many months ago. I was very vulnerable and exhausted. I then got a severe infection (H Pylori) and took strong antibiotics. That took its toll on me as I was already low resilience. The infection has since gone but the shock to the brain was profound and left the brain in hyper mode. I think this is similar to long covid. I believe long covid is TMS i.e. mind overreacting to the threat of the virus long after the infection clears leading to pain, anxiety, insomnia etc. I believe my diagnosis is "long x" which is essentially TMS i.e. could be long influenza, long pneumonia, long covid, long h pylori etc.

I used to feed fear to my brain but since I learned about TMS I have since stopped that. I self sooth a lot and feed messages of safety to it. I even say if I have cancer so be it, what will be will be, I don't care anymore. I do take Claire's advice in that I try to float through my anxieties (allow) and let them be without changing it or resisting it. I do think my lizard brain is so fearful that it's refusing to listen or negotiate.

I wonder if anyone on this forum had "long x" with significant pain and insomnia then recovered? I think "long x" happens when someone contracts an infection but their system is already taxed to the point that they have little or no resilience. The mind is then overloaded and switches on alarms (pains/anxieties/insomnia) to say "enough is enough" ... if this carries on you are putting me in danger as I have less and less resources to deal with stressors.

Thank you for your support, sister. You are a kind spirit. You have a big heart. If you were my daughter I'd be so proud of you, your empathy and support for others is tear inducing. If there were more people like you in this world the planet would be in a much better place. I'm not just saying that.

 

Mike,
You made me cry❤️

That’s good about the herbs and falling asleep fast. That’s great! At least you have that going for you.

I know a lot of people focus on the breath when they meditate. I never have. I just focus on a peaceful scene, and when random thoughts come to my head, I just gently push them away like bubbles and focus back on the peaceful scene. That’s all I do to meditate. After practicing this for months daily, I will be able to do it longer and hold the peaceful scene longer. And then, after some more months, I actually get this really deep, deep relaxation. It’s hard to describe what it feels like, but it’s almost like a drug. I know that it does really good things. I wouldn’t think about breathing at all— especially since that’s kind of where you focus your panic.

I had Covid and that’s when my really bad symptoms came—right after that. That was about a year and a half ago. So yes, I would say I’m a long Covid case. I think of it as I was already a nervous wreck and Covid pushed me over the edge. I don’t know if I’m a success story yet, but I plan on being one. You can join me!

Floating is only a small part of what Claire Weekes teaches. She mostly teaches what you do to yourself when you get afraid. And by the way, you don’t always know when adrenaline is pumping. It’s pumping when you are chronically hyper-sensitized. Claire Weekes is who taught me about the physical mechanics of nervous illness. And having that information reduced my fear. Reducing my fear reduced by adrenaline. But even when you turn the adrenaline down, you still need time for your nerves to heal. So, you need your whole system to come down to a lower level of stress. And it’s all caused by your thinking. This is just part of what she teaches. But it takes a while to soak it all in. That’s why I say listen to it over and over. Please! Trust me on this!

I hope you have a really good rest of your day! Take it easy!

 

Mike, ever tried using affirmations?

 

Do you mean like “I’m safe”, “I’m not in danger”, “my body is strong and resilient”? If so, yes, I do.