Day 1 with hypermobility/ hEDS diagnosis

Hi, I'm happy to be here.

I'm just starting the structured program after doing similar work for a while with my local chronic pain and fatigue clinic. I've had chronic joint pain, fatigue, brain fog and gut issues for many years. I fully accept that mindbody/ central sensitisation is part of my condition, though I still think joint instability and weak connective tissue is part of it too. But I'm keeping an open mind.

I've made a lot of progress physically with exercises, but am stuck on the fatigue/ cognitive side of things. I used to be a straight A student, and miss that mind I used to have. I want to feel like that person again. I'm happy to tackle it from every possible direction! I feel like I'm already able to do a little bit more, now I'm feeling less anxious about protecting my energy level due to believing that it's not a straightforwardly physical issue.

 

I hear you on partial acceptance- as you move to full acceptance that there is nothing wrong with your body, your body won't hold back in thinking that it's not okay and fix itself as well. Since it's Day 1, know that it's a process and all processes take time. I've healed before from a TMS attack and I remember how hard it was to accept the diagnosis and how hard it was to process the emotions. Hang in there. Also, God wants you well- a sermon series by Andrew Wommack will help you understand the other side to this- since you say you'd be happy to tackle from every possible direction!

 

Thanks. I'm enjoying Nicole Sachs podcasts and Youtube as well, and finding the journalling very helpful (I'm on day 20 something now). It's great that I can see the journalling benefitting me emotionally and in other ways which helps avoid getting too stuck on wanting to see changes in my physical symptoms.

I don't know that I have believing 100% that my symptoms are mindbody as a goal- it is confirmed that I have a genetic connective tissue disorder which other family members also have, and my joints do sublux (partially dislocate) on a regular basis. But I don't believe that means I have to have chronic pain in every joint all the time, or all the other symptoms. My other family members don't experience that, and I didn't until I was in my 30s.

 

I hear you Phoenix rising. I can't go into too much theological debates with you- all I can offer you is my story, but anything that you believe with the words 'it is confirmed' will be what is true for you. I'm a Believer in Christ, which means that for me, I believe in life altering words like 'By his wounds you have been healed' which means that I as a Believer in Christ, do not have to live with sickness. I have the power to accept my healing, and the only thing in my life that is confirmed is what I declare to be the truth.

I'll tell you what was confirmed for me. I had lived in pain for 8 months straight. I did MRIs and X-rays, and this year saw 7 different doctors. It was confirmed that it was seismoditis. It was also confirmed that seismods don't heal, and it was further confirmed that I would either have to live with the pain or do surgery. My toe was also constantly swollen. I could not put any weight on it, and this all happened from an injury back in February. The pain was not TMS- not at all. An MRI showed a sick, dying seismod that was in words of one doctor 'polvarized.'

Now, as a Believer in Christ, I could not make sense of why I would believe in God- a God that always cured people who were sick, and also be sick myself from something incurable. It didn't make any sense to me. Now, I know not everyone believes in Jesus, but one of the primary ways that Jesus pulled people into listening to Him was through miraculous healing. The church doesn't do that anymore. So there I was, stuck between two worlds, and I'm 1 million percent sure it was not TMS. A part of the back side of my toe was black-ish and from anyone googling seismoditis, anyone can tell you that those bones do not heal ever. If you google seismoditis on TMS forums, no one has healed from it- because it was a sickness of the actual bone.

In the midst of this confusion, I started listening to Andrew Wommack who had a series on his website, called 'God wants you well' from his TV Archives in 2010. From there, I learned the power of my faith and how God will never overstep my belief. I remember in prayer, God asking me if I truly believed that I would get better from surgery, and I said, yes. He asked me if i believed i could get better non surgically, and i said no. And I heard a voice crystal clear in my head say, "According to your faith, it will be done to you," The same words Jesus said when He healed a person. In other words, it wasn't about God's sovereignity, it was about what I chose to believe as confirmed. And I said, God, I don't want to do surgery. I know that I have lots of unbelief. Help me.

Weeks passed, and no progress. Then I was led to a book by Tony Myers called "Unlocking the secrets of divine healing". I read it and it helped me understand deeper what Andrew Wommack was saying, and he happened by chance to also mention how Andrew's teachings and Curry Blake's were the best in learning about healing. I read it, and still remember how i felt after. My toe was in so much pain- swollen in fact. And I prayed, and stood up and guess what? No pain. That was about 3 weeks ago. Today I went for a forty five minute walk. Nothing. I do jumping jacks. Walk on my tippy toes. Nothing. All about 2 weeks away from deciding to do a surgery.

Now thankfully, knowledge of TMS is simply another way of explaining to people that their brains lie to them- that we cannot walk by flesh, but by our spirit. And because of this knowledge, thousands of people are set free from debilitating pain. Praise God. Because the authority to heal our bodies is not a religious thing, it is a gift that we all have, and whether or not we accept it relies more on us than on God.

And so that is where TMS work stops. We can't TMS away cancers, or terminal diseases, or genetic disorders. Only the power of Christ can do that- which unfortunately you nor I won't even hear that in most churches, and is a fact that is so religious-ized. But I'm grateful to have been exposed to this knowledge. Because when I realized that I would rather cut out a part of my body than learn how to trust God, I had to re-think myself.

According to your faith, all things will be done. And whatever you say is confirmed, is confirmed for you. The power of your faith is yours alone, and God will never mess with it. Free will. But I can tell you, that when Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago- every illness died with Him. Check out Andrew Wommack and then afterwards (and truly afterwards) Tony Myers for a fuller understanding of this. There;s nothing genetic unless you claim it so. The spiritual decides the physical. If we think psychological and ignore our bodies, the pain goes away. We must accept the TMS diagnosis to heal. We must accept that Jesus has already healed us to receive healing. Our physical pain is a distration, there is nothing wrong with us. Once we pray, sickness leaves our body and we must do anything and everything to ignore our bodies and focus on the cross. It's one and the same thing- but once again, TMS can only go so far. I hope this doesn't sound like a debate. I'm just happy to be walking, after 7 doctors said that I would not- and I myself saw a sick, dying, bone, with my own very eyes.

 

What we conveniently call TMS, in honor of Dr. Sarno's ability to explain to the modern world the power of the mind over the body, is all about changing your mind, and about using the power of your mind to heal your body.

There are many many different techniques for accomplishing this, including the power of visualization, which isn't even something that Dr. Sarno comprehended in his work - but which I have practiced and which believe in. I believe that visualization might form the base of some Eastern practices.

Really, the only things you need, in order to accomplish your own recovery, are faith, and the ability to be brutally honest with yourself. Easier said than done, mind you - but I did want to say that faith is essential.

That being said - faith can be based in anything that works for you. It might be one of the many human forms of worship, or it might be a number of other practices or beliefs.

When I come across someone who has gone into minute and lengthy detail about their symptoms, my advice to them is to forget the details, and learn to just say "my back symptoms" or "my nervous symptoms" because the details don't matter.

I believe the same advice can apply to a system of faith that someone has found to work in their recovery. "My faith in Jesus" is enough, and for the most part, it's all that others really want to hear.