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Day 42 After finishing the program

ProdigyCrab

Peer Supporter
I realised I never wrote about finishing this program and where I'm at now. I wasn't doing the program exercises religiously every day but I did start back in the middle of March, so I'm well and truly past week 6 now!

What's changed for me? When I went into this I was having horrible wrist pain and couldn't sit working at my PC for more than 4-5 hrs without aggravating it to an unbearable point. It was always the number 1 thing on my mind when I was working or doing any kind of physical activity.
I didn't have much trouble believing that this pain was TMS once I started exploring the idea. I followed advice and stopped using any kind of wrist braces, taking anti inflammatories, regular massaging. All the things that were a routine part of my day. I simply chose to stop letting the pain bother me.
But after all this time it's not gone.
That may sound disheartening, but all I have to do is remind myself what the pain used to be like and it's now maybe 70% better than what it was! I'm back at the gym doing things I had ruled out. I do push ups daily, something that was agonising before. I had a critical deadline a few weeks ago and I was spending 12 hours a day at the PC (I don't endorse this), something that once would have crippled me for weeks.

So undoubtedly there has been improvement, even if I'm not pain-free yet. I've learnt a lot more about myself by doing the writing exercises and now I see some of my flaws that contribute to TMS are far worse and more insidious than I had realised. Simply finding happiness is a far harder task for me than overcoming any physical barriers, but I have a strong suspicion that going down that path is what will make me finally pain-free.

The work isn't done so I continue with more education and exercises to reinforce things. I'm using the Curable app most days which I find has some good stuff, I especially like having guided meditations. I just started reading Unlearn Your Pain, I'm interested to see if anything there resonates with me. Please let me know if you have any recommendations for me moving forward!
 
That may sound disheartening, but all I have to do is remind myself what the pain used to be like and it's now maybe 70% better than what it was!

Doesn't sound disheartening to me at all, in fact a 70% reduction in that time is brilliant!

and now I see some of my flaws that contribute to TMS are far worse and more insidious than I had realised.

That might be a barrier - and I'm not taking about what contributes to TMS. Calling them flaws is potentially a self-compassion deficit. Most of these are protective mechanisms (the things that contribute to TMS, perfectionism as an example), so not flaws either in the sense of their purpose (not design flaws) and not flaws in terms of deficiency on your part (to be judged). An inner child won't take kindly to having their protective behaviours labelled as flaws, they've already been dismissed and judged enough (hence the symptoms). Give yourself grace and compassion for those behaviours as they serve an important function - it's just up to you to prove to your brain and yourself that they are no longer needed due to a new environment of safety :)
 
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