Confused About Some Stuff

I've known about TMS for a year now and have had great gains with it! I have been experiencing several relapses in the previous couple of months. I think mine has to do with perfectionism and fear/preoccupation with the pain. I know that I'm completely obsessed with it and that's what I'm trying to work on now. My question though is if I switch gears from the pain and TMS and try to ignore all of that, won't that be repressing things? I know I think too much about things as I'm constantly reliving painful experiences in my life trying to figure out the repression piece and it's made me more unhappy actually. Could it really just be that I need to tell myself that I don't fear this and ignore it completely now? I need advice!

 

Looking for the 1 thing you repress is not needed to heal. You keep looking for the magic bullet out of FEAR. Fear of not finding this keeps you tmsing and your mind is preoccupied with this instead of the emotions underneath. As carl jung said nothing inhibits feeling like thinking. The more you anaylize things in general will keep you in a constant state of looking for one thing and chasing another (OCD). Take away fear in general and tms looses it's power over you slowly. Tmsers want answer now and want to be in control at all times, life doesn't work that way. Try to be easy on yourself and know it's ok to not know somethings or what you may have repressed. Go find something you enjoy in life. Find your purpose here, become whole and happy for where you are at now. It's ok to not focus on your tms and body it doesn't mean you will be repressing, in fact your taking away the power of tms by not giving it your attention. We are what we believe.

Ryan

 

Hi COgirl,

We can't think our way out of TMS. Believe me, if we could, I would be completely symptom free. We TMSers are too analytical and live too much in our heads. As @ryan9546 states above, it is about feeling the emotions underneath. This part of Alan Gordon's Recovery Program on Feeling Your Feelings, explains it really well:

http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/TMS_Recovery_Program#Feel_Your_Feelings

So when pain occurs, I first acknowledge that it is TMS, and is, therefore, due to repressed emotions. I tell my brain that it doesn't need to distract me anymore from my emotions, because I'm willing to feel them. I try to stop and breathe, and connect to what I'm feeling in my body. Sometimes journaling at this point helps me, as long as I don't get too analytical with it. This is very new and difficult for me, as I've spent my entire life trying not to connect with my emotions.

I usually find that where there are repressed emotions, there is internal conflict---I feel a certain way, but then feel I shouldn't feel that way. So I try to discover the feeling and feel the shoulds and shouldn'ts around it (ask how do I feel about having this feeling). I don't know if that makes any sense.

I suggest also reading through the threads at Ask-a-Therapist subforum, as many people have asked similar types of questions. You can also post your question there.

 

I think @ryan9546 hit it on the head when he identified fear as a main culprit. If you look at the TMS personality trait of perfectionism that you mention, I think that has fear at its root: fear of not being good enough, fear of being wrong, fear of not getting all responsibilities done, fear of not being loved if not good enough, and so on forever and forever. Then of course the fear of the pain itself.

So for me, the most important thing I do is try to change the channel from fear to something neutral or positive. I can switch to neutral by mindfulness/meditation, where I disconnect from fearful thoughts. I can switch to positive be acknowledging the pain or fear, telling it that I know it is only transitory, and then putting my attention on a positive feeling or thought. For example, remember a time when I felt great; think about how much I love my family, read/watch something funny, laugh, admire the beauty of nature.

It takes repetition but you'll get there!