Can pain awakening be tms?

Wodan

Wodan

Newcomer
For the last 12 years every morning around 6 am I wake up with short mouth breathing and lower cramping stomach pain. Also I notice a dry mouth and anxiety. Soon then my breathing recovers and sometimes I have to urinate and release some stomach or belly gas. And sleeping can sometimes be continued. However in stressfull times this kind of awakening can re occur many times per hour. Or when I am more at ease I can sleep right through till the clock starts ringing. Stil after standing up the anxiety can be high and a lot of depressing and critical thought come into my mind. Mostly I have to wait until around noon to be free of these depressing thoughts. When I drive a car I notice I have sensitive and critical thoughts about sounds and vibrations of the car. Or I notice worries around the things I have to do that day. I have had a lot of examinations colonoscopy, sleepapnea, stomach scans etc.. nothing clear was discovered. Can this be TMS? Since it seems to hide every time in my sleep?
 
Maar als TMS vanuit mijn brein wordt bedacht om mij te beschermen zogezegd. En dit gebeurt en ontstaat tegen de ochtend in mijn slaap! Waardoor mijn darmen verkrampen en mijn ademhaling ontregeld beschadigd. Hoe kan ik dan daarbij komen om het te voelen en te neutraliseren, wil ik half slapen. En ik voel de aanleiding niet. Hoe pak ik dit aan?
 
Wodan said:
Maar als TMS vanuit mijn brein wordt bedacht om mij te beschermen zogezegd. En dit gebeurt en ontstaat tegen de ochtend in mijn slaap! Waardoor mijn darmen verkrampen en mijn ademhaling ontregeld beschadigd. Hoe kan ik dan daarbij komen om het te voelen en te neutraliseren, wil ik half slapen. En ik voel de aanleiding niet. Hoe pak ik dit aan?
Click to expand...

Good question! You can only do what you can do whilst you're awake - the emotional work you do will feed into your subconscious and will have a positive impact on your sleep I am sure. You can also work on your TMS belief and how you view symptoms, which will impact your reactions to them 24/7 even subconsciously. That's all to say that you can still do a lot to impact your symptoms even if you might not be able to react exactly how you want in the exact moment :)
 
Dank voor je betrokkenheid en de concrete aanpak suggesties. Al die tijd heb ik het vanwege het benauwde en angstige gevoel 's ochtends eea weggeduwd of affirmaties of adem technieken gebruikt, ook omdat ik zo graag verder wil(de) slapen. Nu komt er meer rust op en durf ik meer toe te laten. Maar och wat duurt het lang om hier ontspanning op te krijgen. En emotioneel werk en overtuigingen voelen ongrijpbaar en ver weg omdat ik het effect niet direct kan voelen. Aan welke overtuiging of emotie zou ik kunnen werken, als ik de relatie niet voel met de ontwaak stoornis? Er is bij mij in de voormiddag een betrekkelijk vage buik spanning, waarvan ik de invloed voel op mijn (angstige) denken. Het klaart sneller op bij geconcentreerde activiteiten.
 
My general thoughts are to work on your belief in the TMS diagnosis (address any doubts you have) and also, if the emotional work isn't as clear, focus more broadly on self-compassion (which includes taking pressure off of yourself, less self-criticism, lowering perfectionism + people-pleasing and taking care of yourself as you do others).

Assuming that your symptoms are in the morning though but then most of the day they are gone, that is great evidence of TMS and it can also inform the emotional work. I would be focusing potentially on work (or whatever else you do first thing in the morning and during the day) , and how waking up makes me feel in the morning. Do I deny myself the feeling of not being inspired with regards to work and do I feel as if I shouldn't feel this way? There's likely an emotional reason for the timing :)
 
Tjonge, Adam hoe kun je mijn karaktereigenschappen zo goed inschatten? Is dit zo kenmerkend voor TMS-mensen? Zelfs je inschatting voor die ochtend emoties zit kort bij de verklaringen die ik er zelf aan gegeven heb. Het ontbreekt mij aan inspiratie en verlangens naar de toekomst. Anderen helpen is een soort levensbehoefte van mij. En ik kan er slecht tegen als mensen boos of kritisch zijn op mij. Lastig om te veranderen merk ik en dat benauwd mij. Ik ben niet gewend om ruimhartig naar mezelf te zijn.
 
Very typical! The vast majority of those with TMS have the same personality traits, as these drive self-pressure, nervous system dysregulation and fear.

All of what you listed too makes it far more likely that your symptoms are TMS - the structured program on this forum definitely goes into addressing these things, but even this awareness and your own intuition on how to address these can be very powerful :)
 
Unfortunately my phone is not offering me the option to translate the rest of your posts, @Wodan, so my response is based on your top post in English, but I feel like this thread could have been written for you, to answer your initial question of "can this be TMS?":
BinLA

Thread 'Recovered from over a decade of anxiety/panic/TMS...'

Hello again, my long-time friends...

Apologies for this being so long in advance. I'm wordy. lol.

It's been a while since I've posted and that's usually good news, right? I'm not sure who's still around from the old days but this place was always far and away the safest forum to visit. Meaning, I could always count on quality advice here - not scare tactics, not meds-pushing... but the right kind of answers. I'm glad to see it's still going strong.

My story goes back to 2010, which is bizarre to write out and if I had known how long it would take me to truly feel recovered at the...
  • Like
 
Adam Coloretti (coach) said:
Hak typerend! De overgrote meerderheid van de mensen met TMS heeft dezelfde persoonlijkheidskenmerken, omdat deze zelfopgelegde druk, ontregeling van het indirect en angst veroorzaken.

Alles wat je hebt genoemd, maakt het veel waarschijnlijker dat je symptomen TMS zijn. Het gestructureerde programma op dit forum gaat zeker in deze zaken, maar zelfs dit bewustzijn en je eigen intuïtie over hoe je verwant moet gaan, kunnen al heel waardevol zijn.:)
Click to expand...
Dus al die typische kenmerken komen uit je onderbewuste brein. Ik kan wel die angst en druk ontmaskeren, maar dan komt mijn brein waarschijnlijk weer met nieuwe strategieën lijkt mij. Is mijn ervaring ook. En je onderbewuste is veel krachtiger dan je bewuste brein. Hoe neutraliseer je die emotionele bron van TMS door alleen de symptomen te ontmaskeren?
 
That fear and pressure is what is fuelling the symptoms - so there's no new strategy to be had without the fuel source. Hopefully that makes sense and I understand you - by working on your emotions and increasing self-compassion, you remove the need for the symptoms - that's what I and many others did to recover :)
 
Ik begrijp wat je bedoelt. Maar de buikpijn begint in mijn slaap. Waarschijnlijk reageert mijn ademhaling dan. Dan word ik wakker met minder angst dan in omvangrijke jaren, maar het is wel angst die snel weer bruikbaar is. Vervolgens val ik weer in slaap of dommel ik weg, om enige tijd later weer wakker te worden.
Ik merk overdag weinig effect van mijn werk. Ik merk de angst en stress op en bestempel die als angstgevoelens en stress, terwijl er geen lichamelijke oorzaak is. En ik probeer de pijn te beschrijven, wat 's ochtends vroeg, zo vaak saai en vermoeiend is. Hoe lang duurt het voordat ik het effect merk van het werk dat ik doe? Ik merk dat ik overdag meer angst heb, maar dit kan ook komen door meer stress in mijn leven. A new house and problems with my youngest son.
 
Last edited:
As long as it takes you to lower the self-pressure and increase your self-compassion - the symptoms are a danger alarm, so you need to prove to the brain that you are safe even with the symptoms. That often involves reducing the pressure on yourself and really becoming kinder to yourself internally - that's often not an overnight fix, but your ability to do this is not hindered by your symptoms by your symptoms waking you up.
 
I will continue in English, translations are confusing sometimes.
In the morning I am used to talk a walk in a park nearby to get rid of my bowel pain and stress. Then I have breakfast and start my jobs I have planned for that day. Although it may seem a good ritual I am starting to realise that even this ritual has become now infected with anxiety and bowel pain. The anxiety seems to spread during the day and I try to do the somatic experiencing by noticing the pain and anxiety without wishing it away or do something about it. This is hard to maintain! But it prevents from getting worse. And I can understand the logic that the only way is to face the anxiety, pain and pressure symptoms. And although doing jobs and the work can give me some relieving distraction it all together cost a lot of energy. So I promised myself to take things more slow.
Another thing I noticed: to start noticing all these self sabotaging/negative thoughts in my thinking is much more complex then I thought. Thinking back what I just thought is trying to recover a combination of thoughts and feelings. My brain is also foggy in facilitating these recovering actions.
Thank you, Adam for your efforts to understand and reflect on my messages!
 
Last edited:
Wodan said:
Another thing I noticed: to start noticing all these self sabotaging/negative thoughts in my thinking is much more complex then I thought. Thinking back what I just thought is trying to recover a combination of thoughts and feelings. My brain is also foggy in facilitating these recovering actions.
Click to expand...

It's great that you're thinking about that. The two things I would focus on are:

1. Your belief in the TMS diagnosis - I'd review the evidence and build that belief, as that will give you more confidence and also improve your reactions to and your relationship with the symptoms automatically (it's basically impossible to be calm and indifferent towards symptoms if you think it might mean that something is wrong with your body).

2. The self-pressure and negative thoughts - Going for a walk is great and can be in a way self-compassionate too, but a much better strategy to "get rid of your pain" is to start to treat yourself better and take the pressure off. You told me above that you resonated with this in terms of what you need to work on. Being more generous to yourself, letting people be angry whilst still setting boundaries and potentially that lack of inspiration is due to you putting everyone else's needs before your own. Perhaps this pain is a message that this needs to change.

Belief in the TMS diagnosis + the relevant emotional work, rooted in an increase in self-compassion = recovery from TMS - I've never seen it not work (at least to an extent) :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top