Hello (again!),
So, I joined this forum originally back in March, when I first wrote about having foot problems -
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/chronic-foot-pain-9-issues-diagnosed.15275/ (Chronic Foot Pain - 9 Issues Diagnosed)
Latterly, I had an MRI on the foot which showed there was absolutely sod all wrong with it, but a few months later, just after I'd started rowing, and was loving it, I have developed back pain. The pain itself started in the mid-back and then moved to settle in the low back, with the chiropractor saying it's SI joint related. It's come and gone a little bit, the chiropracting doesn't seem to be doing much, though he's making satisfied grunts and probably enjoys billing me, while over in the TMS corner, SI joint stuff doesn't really seem to feature in the literature that I've read. But that's not to say that it couldn't be TMS, of course; in fact, I really think it is. The timing is quite a coincidence, bearing in mind that my mind knows I won't take foot pain any more. And the issues with the back started after I'd rowed in a 5k time trial, so it would 'make sense,' for my back to have suffered an injury during such an exertion.
The status of my life is as follows -
Person 1 (mother) - I have had some really huge arguments this year, due to her new relationship, and have had to swallow a lot of my anger and resentment towards her, as she simply won't accept anything I say
Person 2 (friend) - controlling, tells me he loves me, lives with me, is very abusive about Person 3 (potential love rival). I feel pressure from him and much prefer my space (my home) when he's not there. He has a girlfriend but often comes back and says that he'll leave her if I just 'say the word.' He makes me feel guilty for not being in love with him
Person 3 (friend) - controlling, with someone else, tells me he loves me, tells me how much he hates Person 2, tells me that if I meet someone else he will stop all contact with me. I am sort of in love with him, despite it being desperately unhealthy. His partner is ill and I sometimes wonder how much guilt I have towards her for knowing what I do about her partner, and what I feel about him, as well as occasional resentment when I think that if she wasn't here, maybe I could have the relationship I wanted; even writing that makes me feel quite horrid, though I try to rationalise that we all are human and all have dark sides, needs and thoughts
Work-wise - I work for myself and need to meet several commitments every day. If I can't do these properly, I fake it so it appears that I have done, and so people like what I have 'done,' (even if I haven't, not properly) and pay me accordingly. I've taken on some work tomorrow - December 27th - and when I did so, I immediately thought to myself, 'you shouldn't have done that; you should've kept your Christmas holiday for a bit longer.' So, I know I'm a bit of a people-pleaser. I also suspect that I have lots of guilt (though I really don't feel it), I don't have great boundaries, I'm not an absolute perfectionist but I certainly want to look as though I've done everything I've said I should, as opposed to being honest about my workload and saying no when I need to , and I also have a hair-trigger temper that thoroughly enjoys being let out of its cage if someone cuts me up / overtakes me. My rage has become a bit disturbing of late; I was looking after a friend's dog recently and it got up onto a counter and I came home to find it had chewed some things. And I absolutely lost it to a point of virtual sadism. I did think afterwards, after I'd returned him to her, all smiles and 'lovely boy, had a great day,' complete mask, 'you've got a bit of an anger problem there, poppet.'
Life history - absent, depressive and violent father, mother who was obsessed about telling us all how 'normal' our family was and how anger was a bad thing and how not to get cross. I stammer and was bullied at school. Sexually assaulted twice, bullied out of jobs, raped in a relationship. I pick unavailable men, keep people at a distance and have been in horrendous debt. I'm not great at self-care (eat crap, disorganised) and have been in therapy for most of my life, while enjoying running rings around the therapists and not really 'getting better.' Commitment phobe, dark sense of humour. To people on the outside, however, I'm generally well-liked and seen as a charming, funny individual. I don't recognise all of the TMS personality, and certainly when I've done 'are you a perfectionist?' quizzes, it's come back with quite inconsistent results, but I DO recognise resentment, anger, guilt, rage and the impression of never letting people down - even if I do, on the sly, on the quiet.
Medical history - two shoulder arthroscopies (neither of which worked) to sort stuff which they couldn't actually find when they went in, hayfever, seasonal asthma, irritable bowel, TMJ, foot pain, back pain, depression, occasional dizziness. I also have the very tender areas which Dr Sarno specified. History of being very physically troubled by emotional things - ie, my dad died five years ago and my first response was to be sick. My emotions are very much felt as physical things; my appetite is affected by things, my sleep is affected by things.
I was talking to one of the women I row with recently and she was like, 'oh, I had an awful injury once,' and she described an event > it was horrible > it got better. I was standing there thinking, 'when have you EVER had an injury that has healed like that? Never!' And that's because despite SI not being a 'typical' TMS thing, I believe that it's simply my mind shuffling its protective strategy from my foot to my back. Already, I can feel myself being drawn back into the lure of getting lost in the 'injury,' - the therapies, the supplements, the exercises, the SI belt which I've bought, the worries, the prognosis. With this 'injury,' it prefers ice to anything, but general things which would help anything, including four Co-Dydramol, don't touch the pain. Sometimes it moves, sometimes it comes back, sometimes it goes away altogether and then comes back, angrily, after I've done some TMS work. There is certainly nothing of the 'getting better,' sort about it, and as I read the books with which we are all so familiar, it surely would after a time. I'm about 90% convinced it is TMS, with occasional lapses back to stretches and exercises because, well, it wants my attention, doesn't it? It wants to know it's working and that I don't have to look at myself. I recognise myself from a description early in The Divided Mind - you baffle the experts, you're physically well otherwise - all of that. So much of this resonates. Aaargh!
If you've managed to read this far - and if so, thank you! - then would you have any observations about what I've described?
Thanks ever so
Sarah
So, I joined this forum originally back in March, when I first wrote about having foot problems -
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/chronic-foot-pain-9-issues-diagnosed.15275/ (Chronic Foot Pain - 9 Issues Diagnosed)
Latterly, I had an MRI on the foot which showed there was absolutely sod all wrong with it, but a few months later, just after I'd started rowing, and was loving it, I have developed back pain. The pain itself started in the mid-back and then moved to settle in the low back, with the chiropractor saying it's SI joint related. It's come and gone a little bit, the chiropracting doesn't seem to be doing much, though he's making satisfied grunts and probably enjoys billing me, while over in the TMS corner, SI joint stuff doesn't really seem to feature in the literature that I've read. But that's not to say that it couldn't be TMS, of course; in fact, I really think it is. The timing is quite a coincidence, bearing in mind that my mind knows I won't take foot pain any more. And the issues with the back started after I'd rowed in a 5k time trial, so it would 'make sense,' for my back to have suffered an injury during such an exertion.
The status of my life is as follows -
Person 1 (mother) - I have had some really huge arguments this year, due to her new relationship, and have had to swallow a lot of my anger and resentment towards her, as she simply won't accept anything I say
Person 2 (friend) - controlling, tells me he loves me, lives with me, is very abusive about Person 3 (potential love rival). I feel pressure from him and much prefer my space (my home) when he's not there. He has a girlfriend but often comes back and says that he'll leave her if I just 'say the word.' He makes me feel guilty for not being in love with him
Person 3 (friend) - controlling, with someone else, tells me he loves me, tells me how much he hates Person 2, tells me that if I meet someone else he will stop all contact with me. I am sort of in love with him, despite it being desperately unhealthy. His partner is ill and I sometimes wonder how much guilt I have towards her for knowing what I do about her partner, and what I feel about him, as well as occasional resentment when I think that if she wasn't here, maybe I could have the relationship I wanted; even writing that makes me feel quite horrid, though I try to rationalise that we all are human and all have dark sides, needs and thoughts
Work-wise - I work for myself and need to meet several commitments every day. If I can't do these properly, I fake it so it appears that I have done, and so people like what I have 'done,' (even if I haven't, not properly) and pay me accordingly. I've taken on some work tomorrow - December 27th - and when I did so, I immediately thought to myself, 'you shouldn't have done that; you should've kept your Christmas holiday for a bit longer.' So, I know I'm a bit of a people-pleaser. I also suspect that I have lots of guilt (though I really don't feel it), I don't have great boundaries, I'm not an absolute perfectionist but I certainly want to look as though I've done everything I've said I should, as opposed to being honest about my workload and saying no when I need to , and I also have a hair-trigger temper that thoroughly enjoys being let out of its cage if someone cuts me up / overtakes me. My rage has become a bit disturbing of late; I was looking after a friend's dog recently and it got up onto a counter and I came home to find it had chewed some things. And I absolutely lost it to a point of virtual sadism. I did think afterwards, after I'd returned him to her, all smiles and 'lovely boy, had a great day,' complete mask, 'you've got a bit of an anger problem there, poppet.'
Life history - absent, depressive and violent father, mother who was obsessed about telling us all how 'normal' our family was and how anger was a bad thing and how not to get cross. I stammer and was bullied at school. Sexually assaulted twice, bullied out of jobs, raped in a relationship. I pick unavailable men, keep people at a distance and have been in horrendous debt. I'm not great at self-care (eat crap, disorganised) and have been in therapy for most of my life, while enjoying running rings around the therapists and not really 'getting better.' Commitment phobe, dark sense of humour. To people on the outside, however, I'm generally well-liked and seen as a charming, funny individual. I don't recognise all of the TMS personality, and certainly when I've done 'are you a perfectionist?' quizzes, it's come back with quite inconsistent results, but I DO recognise resentment, anger, guilt, rage and the impression of never letting people down - even if I do, on the sly, on the quiet.
Medical history - two shoulder arthroscopies (neither of which worked) to sort stuff which they couldn't actually find when they went in, hayfever, seasonal asthma, irritable bowel, TMJ, foot pain, back pain, depression, occasional dizziness. I also have the very tender areas which Dr Sarno specified. History of being very physically troubled by emotional things - ie, my dad died five years ago and my first response was to be sick. My emotions are very much felt as physical things; my appetite is affected by things, my sleep is affected by things.
I was talking to one of the women I row with recently and she was like, 'oh, I had an awful injury once,' and she described an event > it was horrible > it got better. I was standing there thinking, 'when have you EVER had an injury that has healed like that? Never!' And that's because despite SI not being a 'typical' TMS thing, I believe that it's simply my mind shuffling its protective strategy from my foot to my back. Already, I can feel myself being drawn back into the lure of getting lost in the 'injury,' - the therapies, the supplements, the exercises, the SI belt which I've bought, the worries, the prognosis. With this 'injury,' it prefers ice to anything, but general things which would help anything, including four Co-Dydramol, don't touch the pain. Sometimes it moves, sometimes it comes back, sometimes it goes away altogether and then comes back, angrily, after I've done some TMS work. There is certainly nothing of the 'getting better,' sort about it, and as I read the books with which we are all so familiar, it surely would after a time. I'm about 90% convinced it is TMS, with occasional lapses back to stretches and exercises because, well, it wants my attention, doesn't it? It wants to know it's working and that I don't have to look at myself. I recognise myself from a description early in The Divided Mind - you baffle the experts, you're physically well otherwise - all of that. So much of this resonates. Aaargh!
If you've managed to read this far - and if so, thank you! - then would you have any observations about what I've described?
Thanks ever so
Sarah
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