As you have recovered, what's come up for you?

Hey everyone,

I didn't see this thread in the General Discussion forum's front pages, so please forgive me if this is a topic that's already been brought up.

This thread is about what kinds of repressed emotions and memories people discovered they had when they began applying TMS techniques. For some of you, this might be very personal, so you obviously don't have to share if you don't want to. But I'm curious about what kinds of emotions people felt like they were not processing, and what life events those emotions were connected to.

In my case, I was really scared of failing at my job. That's how my pain first started. I was obsessed with perfection and being seen as a good worker, but I was also convinced that I was bad at my job. I was ridiculously anxious around other people and didn't feel self-expressed. Later on I began rock climbing, and my fear of falling was so intense that it too contributed to my TMS symptoms. My symptoms occasionally come up now, usually around work (not doing enough or being good enough) or in social situations (not being smart enough or saying the right thing). I guess you could narrow it all down to an intense attachment with expected outcomes.

So, how about you? What's come up for you?

 

I knew what they were just did not think they were affecting me so much.

They were not getting along with my wife, having a hard time saying "No," to my parents, worrying about my kids a lot, bad childhood, being a perfectionist, and so on. I had to reevaluate my approach to life and find better ways to communicate my feeling and needs to others and more. I dedicated Ch.5 and Ch. 7 to discussing the causes of my TMS and the solutions I discovered. Even though going through pain and disability was a difficult experience what I learned from it and the changes I made have been awesome.

 

This is a great discussion topic, LaL - because a LOT of people new to TMS have a really hard time with this concept. So I'll jump in. I have three distinct emotional turning points thanks to doing "the work".

The first emotion I accessed, from reading The Divided Mind, was "permission" to acknowledge and accept that I had (have!) RAGE at having to grow old. There I was, thinking I had to grow old "gracefully" when I wanted to scream at the universe that it's f*****g unfair, to know that we have to die, and that with luck we'll get to suffer old age beforehand. These days, I can manage be graceful about it most of the time, but at least I can acknowledge the rage to myself, instead of beating myself up over it.

The second emotional turning point was when I started the SEP. While making my free-writing lists, I heard my brain telling me things like "that's not important, don't write that down." I had to make a conscious decision to write those things down anyway, and, as one does in the exercises, I examined them and journaled about them later. And while it's true that the incidents themselves weren't earth-shattering or traumatic, they were very revealing about my childhood, my family relationships, and especially my feelings about myself. I guess my brain thought that these things were dangerous and tried to fool me into ignoring them.

Later on, I did a meditation in which I got in touch with myself as a really young child, probably 4 or 5 years old, and I clearly saw (and felt!) that I was awkward, lonely and isolated - this was a surprising revelation, because I wasn't ever in my entire life consciously aware of this, but it explains a lot, such as my anxiety from a very young age, and some mild OCD behaviors on and off until I was about 10. Before this meditation I had journaled about those two things, and I've certainly been dealing with the anxiety all my life and especially when I started doing this work. But I never ever actually knew who I really was in my earliest years. I was also surprised because I always felt that I came from a loving and secure family, but I suspect that my mother had a lot of anxiety in those days, to say nothing of the fact that she only wanted two children, and she already had #3 before I turned four, and there was yet another to come (at which point my father got a vasectomy!) So she had anxiety, the attention of both parents was stretched pretty thin, and I think there was financial stress as well.

All good stuff to uncover! And three different ways that I uncovered it.

 

I completely understand what you're saying! I've been at a new job since February and the internal pressure to do well, be liked, not be a burden to my co-workers is intense. The most ridiculous TMS manifestation had been showing up after lunch.

During the morning work is very busy (I work in a public library). There's a lot to get done and a lot to focus on. However, after lunch things slow a bit. As a result, a lot of times I'm looking for something to do, worried that I'll not be all those things I want to be: helpful, good at my job, a self-starter, etc.

So the symptoms usually show up as grumbling intestines/pressure/stomach issues and...I'll just say it, an almost constant pressure and need to fart. It's like the pressure is both literally and figuratively building up.

Kind of funny if it weren't such an embarrassing bother. But I know what's going on.

Jay

 

I'm only on day nine so new to this. I think I am already aware of many of the events I need to look at, but was not aware how much emotion I have vested in them. It's been eye opening. The main thing that has emerged for me is that I have never felt safe. Ever. And as an adult this has lead to severe anxiety as well as physical pain. Moreover, I hold a lot of rage, particularly directed to the one person I believe was responsible for me not feeling safe, my mother. I have disliked my mother my entire adult life, but I'm starting to realize the extent of this. Yesterday, as part of the structured education program I wrote an "unsent" letter to my mother. I couldn't believe the words I wrote! I never realized I could feel so negatively about another person.