Joey2276
Peer Supporter
Hi all
wanted to give everyone an update and welcome suggestions or advice on how to proceed with treatment.
Briefly I am a 38/m and had fibro/CFS symptoms since teens. I came across the 20 20 Sarno segment and it stuck a big chord and I've been on the TMS train all the way since then. For 2 or 3 weeks I did journaling, reading, exploring myself, but with essentially zero results. I began psychotherapy with a TMS trained therapist once per week and found small improvements in many symptoms from the get-go.
It seemed each session my uncsoncious was changing into a more healthy uncsoncious as we unpealed the layers of anger and fear and other unhealthy mind states. The symptoms that have improved the most are body aches/joint stiffness, brain fog, anxiety, OCD, and I do feel now that my body is strong, after my whole life thinking I had a weak constitution. This has me very excited as I was very much into athletics and am doing a bit more with that lately and not fearing so much that I'll damage myself. The fear is strong though; I would say I am psyched out after a life time of babying my body and am somewhat PTSD from "fighting" all the symptoms for so long; I mean they really are horrible symptoms.
Here is where I need some advice. It's been 8 months in therapy, 34 sessions, and each time I get a small improvement and feel I am interracting with the world and my thoughts in a healthier way, but when I try journaling, meditating, reading TMS books, it doesn't seem to make any difference.
**I'd like to know how often did Dr Sarno's patients go to therapy on a weekly basis.**
I'm thinking of going more often but have a long drive which is very tiring to get there. Also if anyone has any tips to how I can get into my unconscious and/or improve my symptoms or if anyone has had a similar story as mine I would love to hear what course they took with their treatment.
I do still deal with doubts; I believe fully that my body is strong, but I wonder about my brain; my worst symptom is a flu like fatigue/mental depression that is always there and has been for many many years. The more exercie I do the more my body feels very drained; I love surfing but dont do it because after an hour of it I feel utterly exhausted and have to be very carefull driving home almost as if I was drunk. Same drunk/exhausted feeling after moderate exercise (2 mile brisk walk for example).
On the bright side the anxiety and joint stiffness both seem about 1/3 of the way better from the worst times. I think way too much, think fast, talk fast, always am out of my body as Eckarte Tolle would say and this habit seems nearly impossible to break. Perhaps that is a big reason for my body being so worn out. The times I really feel in my body are when I cry, or when I have a migraine or am sick in another way; things slow down big time then and I feel very present, though my symptoms are still basically the same aside from a reduction in anxiety.
The therapy has been very interesting; for the first 3 months I had a massive wall of anxiety my therapist could barely get through, then for a few months we were able to get to some feelings but still a high wall. Only in the last month or two have I really began feeling some raw emotions like anger and sadness during therapy, and he is able to talk more to the true emotional me and not the self created resistance wall.
My relationships are changing quite a bit. No more mister nice guy especially; much more of a sense of calm but still a long way to go; if someone starts stepping on my toes they darn well know about it now; where's before I had the disease to please in a major way. I still fall back into that as it is deeply engrained but the liberating power I feel now when I do stand up for myself in an emotional context in dealing with people and thoughts compared to before is awesome.
Well this should have been 4 postings but thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Joseph
wanted to give everyone an update and welcome suggestions or advice on how to proceed with treatment.
Briefly I am a 38/m and had fibro/CFS symptoms since teens. I came across the 20 20 Sarno segment and it stuck a big chord and I've been on the TMS train all the way since then. For 2 or 3 weeks I did journaling, reading, exploring myself, but with essentially zero results. I began psychotherapy with a TMS trained therapist once per week and found small improvements in many symptoms from the get-go.
It seemed each session my uncsoncious was changing into a more healthy uncsoncious as we unpealed the layers of anger and fear and other unhealthy mind states. The symptoms that have improved the most are body aches/joint stiffness, brain fog, anxiety, OCD, and I do feel now that my body is strong, after my whole life thinking I had a weak constitution. This has me very excited as I was very much into athletics and am doing a bit more with that lately and not fearing so much that I'll damage myself. The fear is strong though; I would say I am psyched out after a life time of babying my body and am somewhat PTSD from "fighting" all the symptoms for so long; I mean they really are horrible symptoms.
Here is where I need some advice. It's been 8 months in therapy, 34 sessions, and each time I get a small improvement and feel I am interracting with the world and my thoughts in a healthier way, but when I try journaling, meditating, reading TMS books, it doesn't seem to make any difference.
**I'd like to know how often did Dr Sarno's patients go to therapy on a weekly basis.**
I'm thinking of going more often but have a long drive which is very tiring to get there. Also if anyone has any tips to how I can get into my unconscious and/or improve my symptoms or if anyone has had a similar story as mine I would love to hear what course they took with their treatment.
I do still deal with doubts; I believe fully that my body is strong, but I wonder about my brain; my worst symptom is a flu like fatigue/mental depression that is always there and has been for many many years. The more exercie I do the more my body feels very drained; I love surfing but dont do it because after an hour of it I feel utterly exhausted and have to be very carefull driving home almost as if I was drunk. Same drunk/exhausted feeling after moderate exercise (2 mile brisk walk for example).
On the bright side the anxiety and joint stiffness both seem about 1/3 of the way better from the worst times. I think way too much, think fast, talk fast, always am out of my body as Eckarte Tolle would say and this habit seems nearly impossible to break. Perhaps that is a big reason for my body being so worn out. The times I really feel in my body are when I cry, or when I have a migraine or am sick in another way; things slow down big time then and I feel very present, though my symptoms are still basically the same aside from a reduction in anxiety.
The therapy has been very interesting; for the first 3 months I had a massive wall of anxiety my therapist could barely get through, then for a few months we were able to get to some feelings but still a high wall. Only in the last month or two have I really began feeling some raw emotions like anger and sadness during therapy, and he is able to talk more to the true emotional me and not the self created resistance wall.
My relationships are changing quite a bit. No more mister nice guy especially; much more of a sense of calm but still a long way to go; if someone starts stepping on my toes they darn well know about it now; where's before I had the disease to please in a major way. I still fall back into that as it is deeply engrained but the liberating power I feel now when I do stand up for myself in an emotional context in dealing with people and thoughts compared to before is awesome.
Well this should have been 4 postings but thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Joseph
