Day 10 Almost no symptoms but...

[jokeysmurf]

day 10. So far zero symptoms of pain but now it’s pretty much all day anxiety. I practice acceptance but it doesn’t do much. I continue to practice acceptance since that is what I feel I need to do and I did manage to get a few breaks here and there.

The difficult part is that when I am doing nothing, the anxiety is worst. My brain wants to fixate about how it feels, where it might go, whether it will go up on down but not in a tracking way more like obsessing. When I am able to do something it’s easier to accept the anxiety and move on.

I don’t actively avoid the anxiety nor do I do much to feed it. I let it exist and i accept. I’m getting better at it but i am really being tested with this. Imagine 8 or so hours of anxiety up and down and maybe 3-4 hours of a break.

The things that did help. Acceptance: today only a little. Exercise: for about 2 hours afterward. Yin Yoga: 2 more hours. Yin allowed me to sit with the discomfort for a long while, while calming my nervous system and giving my mind a task.

I am a bit confused if I should do anything when the anxiety is there while I’m not engaged in anything. My urge is to go do something. It doesn’t feel like a bad thing but I can’t always do something. When I sit with it my mind obsesses. Maybe I should practice being with it more?

It would be nice to be able to sit and relax or read a book without my anxiety revving up.

 

[Andy Bayliss]

Hi jokeysmurf,

Reading your post, I think you're doing a fine job. You're seeing that symptoms go and anxiety comes. More evidence for TMS.

You're sitting with and working with anxiety with skillful means.

Although the questions arise about "what should I do?" about anxiety, your techniques are solid. There is no perfect solution, in my experience. Sometimes we "do" because we're done observing and feeling the anxiety, and sometimes we sit with it. Really, what more can you do? Bravo!

Andy B

 

[jokeysmurf]

Thanks Andy, it is very TMS for it to flip flop from pain to anxiety as many people have written about on this forum. This part really tests my patience and it knows it. I have also journaled a bit and find there are some fears under the anxiety generated when doing nothing - which are a lot of thoughts I wasn’t aware of.

When I am unoccupied my mind becomes reflective and that’s when a lot of thoughts come in, though I didn’t perceive them as thoughts at first.

Some things I noticed are “if we do nothing then we will be nothing.” This has a double meaning as in if I do nothing I will be nothing but also that the anxiety will go away. There is also guilt that I am wasting my potential- which brings me full circle that there is a tendency to go back to being a perfectionist and be unkind and hard on myself, that I have to continue to prove myself by being as productive as possible or else it means I am lazy.

Lastly that I am alone, I spent a lot of time alone during my worst TMS, I laid around a lot basically feeling ill, feeling lonely or sorry for myself. I spent too much time on Google scaring myself and looking for answers. So I can see there is a lot of stuff tied up.

The answer: well like you said what more can you do? I think what I am doing must be working or I wouldn’t have gotten this far. Which means because I have a rise in symptoms shouldnt indicate that it’s not working. That’s my old thought pattern. It’s very uncomfortable these last 3 days and I guess no wonder. Besides my thoughts, what broke loose that day fishing has spread all over and it feels like a fire burning itself out. I suppose this pent up energy has to go somewhere.

Also I want to add that a lot of TMS writing seems to add malice or ill intent to our symptoms, I think this is an error. For one it would add more fear or dread and a desire to get out of it. Secondly I believe what Stephen Porges says about polyvagal theory that the body is always searching for homeostasis- which doesn’t mean its an easy route for it to get there but what it means is our thinking gets in the way of the sensations and since we all have scary sensations, the fear can catapult us back into a state of fight, flight or freeze.

Thanks for responding Andy.