amazing and confusing

Found this sight accidentally, searching for relief to odd symptom I have had since May-burning mouth. The doctors say it is GERD although I don't believe it as no medication has helped. I think it is stress related. Reading Sarno's book I started to feel better but then these other things started up like pain in my leg, neck and shoulders. Pretty funny. Have had anxiety in the past which must have started this whole mess off. Anxiety has returned with a vengeance. Any suggestions on how to tackle all this at once? Have started to journal. Feel both excited about this but also sceptical and overwhelmed.

 

Hi Leslie, and welcome to our community.

You're already laughing at your TMS, which is a very good start :^)

If you haven't already, I recommend that you start working our free online Structured Educational Program

And for your anxiety, the book that has helped many of us is Hope And Help For Your Nerves, by the wonderful Claire Weekes. She wrote it in 1969, thirteen years before Dr. Sarno published his first book. She was already well-acquainted with the link between anxiety and physical symptoms.

Check in with the forum regularly, keep us posted, and all the best on your new journey!

Jan

 

Leslie, here are Claire Weekes' principles I go over everyday. I also practice mindfulness which is helping me through my TMS recovery. I hope this helps.

1. Face
When you have the strange physical symptoms that result from sustained stress or fear, don’t run from
them. Go with them, relax, even analyze them. Understand that these symptoms are just strange
physical feelings from over-sensitized, adrenalin-releasing nerves and that the feeling has no medical
significance and causes no real harm. Look at the sensations with interest rather than fear.
2. Accept
Accept these unpleasant feelings as something that will be with you for a little while until you recover.
Your nerves are sensitized and will take time to heal, just as a broken leg takes time. You will gradually
forget to notice the feelings. By this acceptance, you break the fear-adrenalin-fear cycle that keeps your
nerves in a sensitized state.
3. Float
Give up the struggle. Stop holding tensely onto yourself trying to control your fear or do something about
it, while subjecting yourself to constant self-analysis. Stop trying to navigate your way out of this illness
by meeting each obstacle as if it were a challenge that must be met before recovery is possible. Bypass
the struggle, go around the mountain, not over it. Loosen your attitude and relax your mind. Don’t strive
to relax, wait to relax. In your tense effort to control yourself, you release more adrenalin and so further
excite your organs to produce the unpleasant sensations.
4. Let time pass
Be patient. Give yourself time to recover, and never be discouraged by failure. Rest, rest, rest.

 

Thank you both. I read Claire Weekes' book about a year ago when my anxiety was really working on me. It did help, but life has been sort of unrelenting the past couple years and I have struggled rather than accepted. A work in progress. I have a degree in Counseling, so you would think I would be exempt from this, but my helpful nature got the best of me. I am realing I am such a people pleaser and have a real problem with guilt and not letting people down. A new reality for me, so I have some work to do. Posted day 1 and am excited to learn from this great gift of a website.