Day 13 Back on SEP during Therapist's vacation

Hi everyone,

I'm back on the SEP while my therapist is away for a couple of weeks. Today I wrote an unsent letter to the effing incompetent optometrist who caused me so much trouble with my eyes. What an a**hole. (Usually I don't swear, but I find swearing in therapeutic situations very...therapeutic!!) He should lose his d*mn license.

In terms of what book I've found most helpful...I think Alan Gordon's book The Way Out really started me off. I've read Sarno, too, and Nichole Saks, and this forum has really helped. Claire Weekes is my overall most favorite resource, but I've really needed the TMS stuff to see beyond my raging anxiety. It's really helpful to think of TMS symptoms as anxiety symptoms, too, and vice versa. Sometimes I need to talk directly to the anxiety and symptoms and *then* accept/float rather than just moving right to accept/float. I find it helpful to tell my body it doesn't need to give me the symptom because it can give me the emotion instead, and either way I'm going to go on with my day.

Still scary to invite it to send me big emotions, though. And sometimes I really get trapped in the rabbit hole of fear about my sensations.

Another thing I've realized just today as that the preparation I'm doing for my walking pilgrimage in Spain in June feels like safetyism. As in, I have to walk every day or I won't be safe on this dangerous, dangerous pilgrimage! I need to change my attitude about that because I'm plenty strong and I can walk a few miles for a few days just like any other person. And I've already broken in my shoes I also am of course freaking out about how my eyes will "handle" the pilgrimage. Oh well. We shall see. I am effing going. (There's that swearing again.)

Trying to get excited about the food I'm going to have in Spain while I'm there, instead, and buy some fun walking clothes, too!

Dixie

 

@Baseball65 A question for you, since you and I have had similar eye TMS. I'm going back to the opthamologist tomorrow to check to see whether I need reading glasses. When I had seen them (the other doc at his practice, but still) before they had said I was on the brink but probably didn't quite need them yet. But then later on the phone he said if it was blurring while reading that meant my eyes were under strain and to use readers over my contacts. But readers over my contacts were weird and caused a combination of pain and relief.

Now I'm wearing glasses full time instead of contacts and having strain and blurriness when using the computer/reading, blurring in and out, in and out. It's also all definitely gotten worse, but every once in a while I have a day or hour-long session when using the computer doesn't bother me at all (reading a book is way scarier/harder).

But I don't know if it's TMS or not. I'm 41 and it's truly possible I could need reading glasses. Meanwhile I'm also having dry eye and blurriness at various distances from that sometimes...surely that's TMS? Or is it actual strain? Or a medication side effect? I've noticed that using eye drops doesn't really make it any better. Only just for like a minute or two.

I guess I see what he says and go from there? I'm having trouble figuring this particular symptom out (the blurriness/strain at near) because it's so common to actually need reading glasses at my age, but my anxieties right now are super-focused on my eyes, so...and the dry eyes also cause wackiness and reading glasses won't solve that...

@JanAtheCPA You always have straight-shooting wisdom to share -- any thoughts?

 

“And sometimes I really get trapped in the rabbit hole of fear about my sensations.”

like meditation, this is much of the TMZs “practice” to wellness. You dig yourself out of that rabbit hole on repeat so that it becomes more automatic to see what’s going on and remind yourself that the hole is actually very shallow..

Have you been to Spain before? It’s fantastic and one of the safest places to visit. People are so friendly and hospitable!

 

wearing Readers OVER corrective lenses is sort of silly. I have a mild astigmatism, but readers are so powerful it negates the need for corrective lenses as well.

When I tried to read wearing my contacts, my near vision was Worse! I could see 300 feet away, but I couldn't read my phone. Even the mild readers I normally use couldn't over ride the corrective lenses. I read a LOT and if I am sitting up I don't really need readers...only when I am laying in bed

 

This is part of why I wanted you to respond! Ha! So I could hear this kind of response again. Thank you.
My plan today is to see if the doc thinks I need reading glasses, and if he does, to just do whatever he says he would normally do for a normal person -- readers, bifocals, progressives, whatever -- or nothing if he says he doesn't. I do miss reading so much.
I actually wrote an essay the other day about how it's taken me 6 weeks to get 2/3 of the way through my current pleasure read (The Lincoln Highway). It probably would've taken me 4-5 days to read in the past. Baby steps...a few pages at a time.

 

Yeah, I guess a lot of people do this but it feels really wacky to me.

 

I have only passed through it on a train! I'm really excited to get to spend some time there.

 

Explains why the antidepressant I'm taking stopped helping me sleep after just a few nights.

 

Dixie, Lately I’ve had trouble concentrating to read. I’m like you, I read a LoT! So I’ve been listening to books, and it’s good! I thought I wouldn’t like it much, but I do.

I don’t get why the reading glasses thing is such a big deal. I have bifocals now (which I love.) Progressives made me woozy. For years, I had long distance glasses and a pair of prescription readers. Now I have bifocals and a pair of readers. And before that, I just bought readers in the grocery store. You just have to experiment around. Same with antidepressants. Sometimes it takes several tries.

 

Lots of reasons why, but the simplest is that I'm a part-time editor and author. I even have a book coming out next spring. So reading is absolutely essential to my professional life...and I have an inner conflict about that work because of the stupid stuff I have absorbed about womanhood and mothering. So of course TMS zeroes right in on that and freaks me out: "They won't work!" "You're different than everyone else -- you'll never read again!" "Why are you even trying to do this, why can't you just accept that you are not allowed to read or work?" And much worse.

So although the eyestrain with near work itself is not TMS (or at least, not all of it is -- it's definitely better or worse depending on TMS stuff and anxiety), TMS has grabbed onto it with all its strength in terms of anxiety and insomnia and other physical symptoms re: eyes, headache, neck pain, etc. And when I relax, I'm able to do a lot more near work a lot more comfortably.

If I were not focused on the eyes in this way it would be kind of a non-issue. "Oh, I tried readers, they didn't really work. Oh well, I guess I try progressives and see how that goes. I have a headache while doing near work and can't do as much as usual while I figure this out, oh well, it's all right."

One of my brain's favorite tricks is a deeply held belief that I am different from other people. But I'm not!

 

I’m a writer, too. Was a journalist for 30 years. Then last year, my hands curled up (my tendons in my hands and arms are tightened). I can’t type, so I retired. I could try writing stories via audio, but it’s hard. I am MISERABLE being retired. Writing gave me so much. I now write by hand every day—mostly journaling, some creative stuff—just so I don’t go totally insane. I have struggled with feeling worthless and vulnerable not earning money. It gave me a sense of power and self worth. But since working on the forum, that’s improving. (So, I definitely understand having issues!) But the important thing I wanted to note is that TMS often hits people where it hurts most: gamers’ hands, musicians’ hands, writers’ hands, runners’ legs. And for you, your eyes! It’s what happens.

Maybe this “tragedy” of TMS will help us heal in more ways than one. Maybe I’ll learn to feel more value just for being me—not for earning money and writing. Maybe you will address and refute these blocks you have on being a part-time writer-editor? I guess for both of us, the bottom line issue is self esteem. You deserve to develop as a person, IN ADDITION to being a mother. I know some churches teach mothers should stay home and only raise kids. (I used to be in one.) This has even caused judgment in years past—stay-at-home mothers vs working mothers. (Now it seems most mothers work, so that debate might be dying down.) Maybe your eye TMS will help you evaluate your true beliefs about this issue. Or heal from it. Whatever you need! I guess it’s an opportunity for growth.

 

This is one of those fascinating things -- the precision of it often seems utterly "remarkable!"

 

Amazing, Diana! Another thing we have in common.

I had a 5-year-long hand and wrist inflammation issue that prevented me from writing when I was in my 20's and in graduate school. I had to use dictation software (which was pretty clunky back then). I now see that it was TMS, but I didn't know it at the time. I healed from it, mostly by getting myself into a place of greater safety in my relationships -- again, although I didn't know it at the time. You can heal, too -- and already are healing!!

Occasionally since I started doing this TMS work 4 weeks ago that old inflammation has twinged. I've just laughed at it -- "Oh, no way are we doing that again! Don't be ridiculous. I know what YOU are." And it has gone away.

 

Awesome!(Sorry you went through all that! )