Baseball the evangelist forgets....

I made an ass of myself today.

My friend who is the NICEST guy on the planet told me of his new Hip pain that started after running. Mind you, it started two days after running.

Funny how the rational,ego based mind works. "I have a symptom...let me check my calendar so I can ascribe it to a cause"

I listened to his story of how running a short distance on Saturday gave him excruciating, debilitating pain on TUESDAY. Wow... that was a neat trick.

I immediately asked him how his divorce is going. His divorce from a professional 'wife' who is still settling with her previous husband, Made false abuse accusations about him FOR which he now has to attend anger management classes (court assigned) even though he is the biggest most metro-non-violent man I know. I asked him about the massive settlement she walked away with for 4 months of marriage. She got his new car, all of his 'stuff' and he owes her about 20k more plus or minus...plus her legal fees which are even more thousands... and of course he is still paying alimony to his first wife who was of the same ilk.

Or that his son is now a career pot smoking dope dealer who won't get a job. Or that his other son that he pays child support for can't be seen sometimes because his other ex makes the schedule impossible... or how he is off work on Hiatus without pay.

Nah... I think it was the running. When I mentioned Sarno, both him and my other friend rolled their eyes at me.

but seriously folks... I only post this to remind us how very obvious it is to others when we have symptoms, but how very difficult it is to see in ourselves....
..and that most people won't investigate a psychological reason until it's the only chance. In his case, I'd say the hip pain from running is probably the more merciful.

oops, I did it again. Haven't slipped up like that in years

pax

 

I'm not surprised that is your friend's first response. People like to ascribe their pain to specific causes. Even though I was totally open to the mind/body connection, Dr. Sarno's work and such, I spent an awful lot of time trying to figure out where my pain came from. What had I done? How long would it stay? I still catch myself doing it but not as frequently.

On a related note, I just reconnected with a friend I hadn't been in touch with for a couple of years. We were chatting about mind/body and I told her about Dr. Sarno and The Great Pain Deception book and she was very open to it. Score!

 

I don't know who stated this but 'people have to be ripe to accept the diagnosis of TMS'. And yes, it is much easier to see TMS in others than in ourselves.
I have talked to so many people about TMS; the majority believe that there could be truth to it, but only a few accepted the possibility that they themselves suffer from it.
As for your friend, for him accepting the TMS diagnosis means he suddenly has to acknowledge all the painful things you wrote about. I am not surprised he resists. But... you planted the seed, maybe it germinates and it might really help him that you have been so honest towards him.