Constructive ways of expressing rage

Hello everybody, I am posting here for the first time but I have been lurking here since late March. I discovered TMS almost by pure chance. After performing a posture stretch, my shoulder began to ache so badly that I could barely move for three days. Having had TMS for at least eight years but thinking that my problems were structural, I had been looking up religious views towards chronic pain and by pure chance I stumbled upon a Muslim blogger who was writing about Dr. Sarno and how his diagnosis and treatment had cured him. I ordered "Healing Back Pain" and "The Divided Mind" and read both books in a week. Then, I discovered this site which has been as useful to my recovery as the two books I read by Sarno.

The diagnosis was difficult to accept at first but I was probably more open-minded than many people because when I was in high school, I had problems with urinary frequency. I sometimes had to go to the bathroom 10-15 times an hour. I even had a exploratory surgery to determine whether there was anything wrong with my bladder. The results came in and everything was normal. I was referred to a few other doctors and none of them could determine what was wrong with me. Finally, I got an appointment with a well-respected, well-known physician in my area and he told me that my bladder problems were psychosomatic and that I would have to figure out how to ignore the urge to go. This was very difficult for me to accept initially because it meant admitting to myself that I had psychological problems. Eventually, I began to understand and accept the psychological source. In my senior year of high school, I started to experience back pain although it wasn't really a major concern until I started doing a workout routine. After a few months of this, I was in excruciating pain and spent the summer on my back. The back pain only got worse. While I was in university, I would study and do my homework on my back and often times would struggle to sit through classes. Even at that time, however, I remember noticing that my backpain was not as bad while I was out and about doing things.

I graduated and have been living with my parents and more or less had given up on life because every time I would find motivation the pain would inevitably find a way of holding me back. I had given up on finding help from the medical community because of my experiences with the doctor who diagnosed me with scoliosis when I was 21. I had practiced physiotherapy for many months but my pain never really went away.

My father throughout this miserable one third of my life never really accepted that I have been suffering and has kept pushing me to get out into the world and told me to just simply "get over" the pain.

Anyways, I discovered the works of Dr. Sarno in March, 2016 and within a few weeks I started to see a massive reduction in my back pain. Then I started getting really bad headaches and pain in the anus, what I call "hemorrhoid pain". I first started experiening this hemorrhoid pain while in college and there was one week where it was particularly excruciating. There was an actual internal hemorrhoid and often times I had blood in my feces but there is no reason that it should have been such a major source of excruciating pain.

I still have some back pain to this day but it usually goes away after a few minutes and then I feel pain in my head. Well, I learned about the concept of TMS equivalents from this site and also learned about Dr. Hanscom and how he tells his patients to take up journaling. I've been journaling for about a week now and this has really helped me to control my pain.

However, sometimes when I'm journaling or sometimes when I feel pain, I just get so angry at my subconscious for making me live in agony for eight years of my life. The last couple of days whenever I start to experience "hemorrhoid pain" I sometimes will feel so angry that I can't contain it in my head and I've been punching my furniture and pillows to unleash the anger. I am wondering if there is another way to express rage without feeling the need to destroy stuff. I've kept it cool and will continue to keep it cool but I don't want other people to see me gritting my teeth, shadow boxing, and punching my furniture. I need to figure out a way to channel my rage into something less violent. After taking a shower this morning, I was experiencing some "hemorrhoid pain" and I just had to get out of the house because I was so angry. I went outside and lit up a cigarette to cool down a bit. At the same time I was gritting my teeth and had my hand curled up into a fist and was mumbling aloud (I've never done this before) because I was just so pissed off at my subconscious. A neighbor was walking her dog while this was going on and I'm not sure if she saw me as I was behind some bushes but if she did she probably now thinks I'm a lunatic. I was so angry this morning that it even seemed to have had an impact on my vision.

Last night when I was angry, I did manage to set a new record for pull ups. Having been out of the whole exercise game for years due to TMS, I was quite happy when I managed to do 10 pull ups in a row.

 

Nice post! There's been a recent thread here debating the need for "journaling". Forest, SteveO and myself feel it's not necessary. I think it can just reinforce and focus on the negative issues rather then the solution, which is LIVING life. I would advise to get out there and just do something to create positive distractions and not the negative TMS creating distractions. Get away from the psycho-archeology and psycho-babbling looking for past issues. Dr. Sarno's solution is simple, believe in the theory that the pain is psychosomatic, and when you feel the pain, THINK PSYCHOLOGICAL--not physical.

 

Journaling helped my greatly. I also stopped '' punching the pillow'' or doing something getting busy to distract from the anger. When it hits and its hard to not want to punch or lash out at someone, I just stay with it and boy does it boil..... until I calm down. For me it works because I tell myself this way its really getting out , I really take the time to feel it. I don't repress it inward.
Dr Sarno and Steve O are the guideline you should follow. I just adapted my own style.
The 30,day program on this site and the success stories is fuel.

 

Hi Tom,

Do you have a link to the thread?

Thanks kindly, my friend.

Mike

 

Hi Mike, there are several references to journaling pro & con in this thread by SteveO and Forest:

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/david-hanscom-md.12178/ (David Hanscom MD)

 

Today my TMS pain seemed to have flaired up and I felt hazy and had a bad headache for a few hours in the evening. I find it interesting how now that I barely seem to have any back pain, the pain is mostly manifesting in my forehead and my anus. LOL what a combination. Anyways, I started doing some journaling, wrote something along the lines of "I wonder what my subconscious is raging about and how I can get angry." Then I felt so angry that I tore up the paper and kept telling my subconscious that I was going to hit the tile floor until the pain stopped. I hit the floor a few times with my left hand and my knuckles are bruised. It didn't really get rid of the TMS pain. I've calmed down and am now in a mental state that the TMS pain doesn't worry me and thus isn't very noticeable. At its worst today, I could barely focus on a conversation I was having because I wanted to scream in agony. It is strange that the symptoms seem to have gotten worse today after I started posting here. (Not blaming you guys of course. Discovering this site and Dr. Sarno is better than winning the Powerball. )

The pain in my anus and my forehead cannot be a coincidence. It has to be a TMS equivalent.

Anyways, I apologize if I come off as a nutjob or if my posts are incoherent. I feel like it will be any day now that I will overcome TMS for a few weeks straight. I anticipate that there will be something in the future that will arise and stress me out and I will have to remind myself that the pain is from TMS.

Expressing rage violently and intentionally getting myself angry is not going to solve this problem for me. I probably need to figure out how to become more indifferent to the pain.

 

And has anyone else brought up TMS to relatives and friends and they tell you that it is a ridiculous diagnosis? That has been the response every time I have brought up the subject to people who complain about their aches and pains. It is just incredible that most people, doctors included, don't seem to get it. And we have to watch people around us suffer because their ego cannot accept that they might have something wrong with themselves psychologically. It certainly is tough to accept the diagnosis but many people are going to suffer for decades or for the rest of their lives because they don't really understand this diagnosis. I probably would've recovered years ago if only I knew that someone like Sarno exists.

Hundreds of hours of Feldenkrais, physiotherapy, THOUSANDS of hours of monitoring my posture, did nothing for me.

 

Rage, you need to have some patience, it may have taken all your life to be culturally conditioned to repressing/suppressing your emotions into TMS/psychosomatic body symptoms--it will take a bit of time to de-condition. As far as proselytising TMS to others, most of the world needs their symptoms for a protective defense mechanism--you can lead a horse to water, but.... Try to find some less harmful avenues to channel your anger into like a punching bag, you don't want to create a real structural issue like a fracture. You may want to look into Reichian therapy where they put you into a room and you can scream your head off or whack a mattress with a baseball bat.

 

Does anyone here have recommendations for books or articles about dealing with anxiety? I don't really have social anxiety but I sometimes feel very nervous when thinking about my problems.

 

Hi MrRage,

I am interested to read about your experiences lately, and your progress.

I have two thoughts. The first is on expressing rage/anger safely: Get a wiffle bat
http://www.amazon.com/Wiffle-32-Ball-Bat/dp/B00CJBGH4G
and get an old pillow that you can beat on. The sound of a wiffle bat smacking something is extremely satisfying! Use words with the beating, like "Stop causing me pain!" This practice may lead to other areas of anger, such as your history. Follow the thread and express your anger to people in your past, like your father, who does not believe you're in any pain, or that you're doing it to yourself. "F##k you Dad, for not understanding me!"

This will save your hands and furnishings, walls, etc. You have an urge to express anger. Do it safely.

The second thought is that sometimes when people are angry at their mind-body or symptoms, they are actually attacking themselves for their experience of pain. You'll know if this is true, by reading my words and inquiring into your experience. Are you rejecting you? If so, work with the Inner Critic to disengage. You can make the Inner Critic the pillow and use the wiffle bat, for instance.

You're making great progress, and whatever methods you use, make them your own, and go deep.

Andy B

 

My "inner critic" as you call it never really seems to turn off. Nothing I do is ever good enough for my inner critic. It's just like how my father always told me how much more advanced he was when he was my age. i.e. He is a high IQ individual who taught himself to read as a toddler whereas I didn't really take an interest in gaining literacy until I was six or seven. He was assembling radios and using soddering irons when he was 12 years old and learning how to work with wood whereas I am barely proficient in these skills even to this day. And apparently his sense of navigation was so much better than my own when he was my age. And his ability to earn money was and is so much better than my own. And his skills as an educated and trained worker are so much greater than my own even though he smoked marijuana during his college years and his ability to keep high paying jobs is so much better than my own even though he had a felony. It just never really occurred to him that I have been in excruciating pain for nearly eight years of my life.

As my father has told me on a few occasions, "if you had studied engineering, you would already be holding a job and you would be building a wonderful career. But I don't expect you to follow in my footsteps. Do what you want to do. But you really are lazy and you currently have nothing of value to contribute to society. Your situation is becoming more and more hopeless day by day and your work ethic is deplorable. You better start acting soon or you will never amount to anything and even the security of your future cannot be guaranteed in this increasingly brutal and competitive economy"

But when I was in university I would tell him about how I was having trouble doing my maths and science homework because I had to sit up and my back would start to ache and how I had brain fog which prevented me from concentrating sometimes during lectures. Apparently, this was due to laziness and a lack of discipline and growing pains are nothing but a trifling distraction and a wretched excuse for poor performance.

And the thousands (yes, thousands) of hours I have spent trying to figure out solutions to my back pain means essentially nothing in the eyes of my family or friends. While others spent their time using facebook, I was trying to learn about Feldenkrais, yoga, physiotherapy, or any other therapy for my back pain and other ailments. Discovering the works of Dr. Sarno, even though it was almost was by sheer accident, is an accomplishment that I am and should be proud of because instead of giving up years ago, I continued searching and searching and searching for some type of solution. I will tell you that I have felt hopeless and there have been many low points during these years but I persisted and discovered the genius solution that I myself would have never come up with on my own. The medical community enrages me because I should not have had to search for so long to discover the truth. But writing this post makes me hopeful that I will be able to do something with my life. I am planning on enrolling in an education program and hopefully start teaching English as a second language .

Hopefully, I am not coming off to the community as conceited. But I also want to fully cure myself and really familiarize myself with the relevant literature before I start contributing more here and helping others.

 

That's a pretty heavy story but not unlike many here and you don't sound at all conceited, quite to the contrary. I mentioned Reichian therapy which has sounded intriguing to me but I have never tried it but I may someday if the opportunity arises; I guess I do a mild form of it on the tennis courts. Here's a Youtube of a session. WARNING: this is heavy, but so can TMS be:

 

Hi MrRage,

Your existence does not need to be justified by "being enough," but it feels this way. It feels like survival. We have a deep need to be seen and loved, which goes back to our caretakers, as you describe. Eventually you may simply ignore the Inner Critic when it attacks, instead of justifying your existence, or arguing with it. This is a skillful process which can be learned. I am still learning it.

You exist. This is the truth. The fact that life does not simply go fairly easily from this basic fact means there is distortion and inner conflict. The TMS is, in fact likely pointing to this conflict.

Related to TMS, you can imagine, as Dr. Sarno says, how the Inner Child is feeling, in response to the Inner Critic. Enraged, hurt, not seen, not loved? Using the good Dr.'s guidance, you now have the real reason for your pain: deep feelings which do "not want to be felt." Knowing the real cause for pain, contemplating these real reasons every day ---even without "fixing them" is a powerful practice that is likely to bring relief.

It is hard, however, not to get sucked into the familiar deficiency that "you're not enough" as you do this practice. "Surely my self-treatment is the cause, and must be changed!" Not really. Awareness of the real cause for pain undermines the need for symptoms.

Your posts so far show how well you know yourself. I encourage you to gently inquire into the Sarno material and find yourself there in as much depth as possible. This is what worked for me, and especially my inner relations around the Inner Critic.

Sincerely,

Andy B

 

Hi MrRage,
You might enjoy this summary of one person's approach, if you have not already read this.
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-tms-recovery-plan.12499/#post-66691 (My TMS Recovery Plan)

 

Off-topic post:
@Tennis Tom
Wilhelm Reich has probably done a disservice to psychotherapy because the man himself seemed to have lost his marbles during his incarceration at the end of his life and possibly even a full decade before his trial. One of the reasons why I never took psychotherapy and the ideas of Freud seriously prior to discovering Dr. Sarno is because I encountered the works of Reich and the works of Freud at roughly the same time and dismissed psychotherapy after having read a quote by Reich wherein he speculated that it was hard to raise awareness about class struggle and to promote Communism among Europe's proletariat because the quality of their orgasms were subpar. He also has followers who to this day layer steel wool and organic cotton in glass jars in order to accumulate what they call "orgone energy", a sort of 'vitalistic, ' 'libidinal' energy or force. To a layman like myself, this all sounds a bit far fetched.

Although his ideas about rage seem to be right on target. I will say that I'd love to someday have the opportunity to attack a mattress and cry and whimper like a baby in front of a grown man and not be judged for it. :cigar:

 

Just trying to be helpful Rage, you obviously know a lot more about Reich then I do. A lot of great thinkers also had some nutty ideas along the way that may have not panned out--the price they pay for being original thinkers, not every idea will turn out to be a winner. Babe Ruth, when he set the record for home-runs, also set the records for strike-outs. Hopefully with the development of Viagra and Cialis, the quality of the proletariat's orgasms have come up few notches. Maybe the cause of the proletariat's "sub-par" orgasms is due to their being tired after a day of hardwork, versus the government bureaucrats having lots of energy left after hanging around the water-cooler all day and watching internet porn in their cubicles between shuffling papers.

 

@Tennis Tom
Reich was undoubtedly on to something and as you said most geniuses seem to have some quirky ideas. For example, Linus Pauling, who won a Nobel prize for his contributions to physics and chemistry, promoted vitamin c injections as an almost universal panacea. As for the working class and the quality of their orgasms, I imagine that they would probably have better orgasms than their white collar brothers because they have a bit more liberty to act rude and crude around each other and thus can more directly express themselves.

Anyways, I haven't had too many TMS symptoms today which is nice.

 

Well put MrRage. Seek and ye shall find. How nice to actually have a chance to explore all aspects of being ourselves, and be seen and supported in our exploration.

 

try Wim Hof method, ice baths and cold showers

 

Can Compuslive Bad Habits be a Manifestation of the Mind Body Syndrome?

For example, when I feel very nervous or anxious about something, I will bite my nails. This is a rare occurrence for me.

However, I also have had a bad habit of scratching my head and usually do so unconsciously. Often times when I was taking tests in high school and college, my hair would be a mess by the time I finished because I would be running my fingers through my hair with my non-dominant. My mother also has this habit of messing with her hair when she's thinking or is stressed and she has informed me that my grandfather and great grandfather also had this habit.

I have noticed recently that when the level of pain in my body decreases, there is a tendency to unconsciously start scratching my head. I am beginning to believe this is another manifestation of the mind body syndrome although I'd be interested in hearing whether this has been observed among other patients.




Incidentally, I've been blessed after discovering Sarno with an unusual lack of allergies.

In conclusion, mind body syndrome is definitely a real phenomenon. The amount of circumstantial evidence on this forum and elsewhere is far too compelling and the failure of the medical community to treat chronic pain conditions with an acceptable rate of success demonstrates to me and should demonstrate to whoever is reading this post that Dr. Sarno, Schubiner, and the rest are on the right side of history. It's not even worth it to bother arguing with an idiot doctor or idiot family member if they try and argue with this diagnosis because their side also lacks credible evidence that can link chronic pain to structural abnormalities. Even their own evidence and data indicates the importance a psychological component in a patient's recovery.
Doctors might be exceptionally bright and talented people but they are also just as likely to be burnouts and devotees to the cult of chronic pain attributed to structural abnormalities. These bozos cannot argue with fact but instead must rely on what they've been incorrectly trained to believe and millions if not billions of people around the planet are going to have to suffer as a consequence.

Has anyone noticed that pain seems to be worse when you're feeling tired and is far less when you're feeling alert? Or is that just me?

Enough rambling, time to go back to sleep.