day 1

[feder]

Hi all- I am a real newbie to this forum and actually don't know if I'm posting correctly since I've never done this before. I've been suffering from chronic migraines since the birth of my fourth child in 2005 and have tried absolutely every thing out there to heal since then. I actually have been convinced that this is TMS for a couple of years, but the knowledge itself (that these are repressed emotions, that there is nothing 'real' wrong with me etc) unfortunately has not helped with my pain. Three years ago I was introduced to journalspeak and Nicole Sachs and became reconvinced that this is my issue and that there is no reason why I need to continue to suffer when so many people out there are getting better! I read Alan Gordon's book many times, so deeply resonate with it, and even paid for one of his therapists that are recommended on his website. She was wonderful, but still no real difference after three of four months, and it was becoming financially unsustainable so I stopped the therapy. Something wonderful that I did get from therapy is that with her help I really did rid myself of the fear and panic around my symptoms and became almost indifferent (well as much as possible), to the pain when it comes on- which I have to assume lessens its duration and intensity.

One of the things that appeal to me about Alan's approach is that it seems he doesnt feel it necessary to go deeply back into all of the emotions that first brought on the pain- meaning that once your body learns these pain pathways, the focus is/should be more on brain retraining them dredging up past hurts...this makes sense to me bc I don't think I have ongoing repressed anger issues, it's more of things I can think of from childhood/early adulthood etc... but now I'm starting to wonder if I do, in fact, have current emotional issues to deal with, and maybe that's why I haven't been experiencing any significant healing...so I really would like to explore that avenue. Therapy is not an option for me right now, and so I'm starting the Pain Recovery Program an keeping my fingers crossed!

One question: I am a stomach sleeper and have been often told over the years that this is part of the reason why I have such severe neck problems. I have tried so many times to train my body to sleep on the side, but I just so often end up flipping over right back onto my stomach (no pillow). And now I'm thinking....maybe it's not true? Maybe my neck pain is simply caused by TMS and I can not 'coddle' it and sleep however I want and if I wake up in pain it's my emotions-- not my position?? But then how can it be that I DO find the pain is worse when I don't sleep 'correctly'? Any opinions on this?? Should I just sleep on my stomach and ignore the neck muscles that seem to get so aggravated when I do?

What do you guys think??

Sorry for the long Megillah- I so appreciate this opportunity.

 

[Baseball65]

One question: I am a stomach sleeper and have been often told over the years that this is part of the reason why I have such severe neck problems.

I have been a stomach sleeper for all of my adult life.. I know I was when I first read "Healing Back Pain" in the late nineties, because I scribbled about it in the margin of the book, and it was one of the things I had to GO BACK to doing to get better..I had been told of how bad it was by the 'Medieval mythologists"...and I have now slept on it for another 25 years with NO problems..so it is a Red herring, and Old wives tale.....

there is no reason why I need to continue to suffer when so many people out there are getting better! I read Alan Gordon's book many times, so deeply resonate with it, and even paid for one of his therapists that are recommended on his website.

Well...not to throw rocks..but SARNO who started this stuff told people their pain would go away in weeks..and it did for 90% of us....It was only the new "Its all OK, you just need to not be afraid of the pain" Doctors who are making some BANK Bro!...who say "This might take years " (Cue...buying my books and having warm fuzzy chats with my staff, from whom I get the VIG)

FK that. Virtually everybody I see with a story like yours went the route you did..I am not bagging on you, but I would be Hella pissed if I did all of that work, spent that Cake and never got results. I'll stick with OG SARNO and the 2-5 weeks with a couple of two day follow ups. BTW Sarno's personal main symptom was Migraines...it's in his Book "Healing Back Pain" which describes this problem very different from all of the warm and fuzzy crew...and especially the solution

I know you're new to this forum. The good thing about being new in anything is a fresh start. You might want to Avoid any of that 'other' chatter you're familiar with and begin to look for anger that is hiding in plain sight....and close. You mentioned just having another kid? My 'omg' took me to the mat pain came after the birth of my second son and how that changed all of the relationships in my life...and most of the problems were lies i was telling myself about how lucky I was and how great my life and career were..and being lies I was aware of NONE of it. The Pain made sure of it...and went away when I started to look at anger and only anger...The impositions on Men and Fathers in our FOS current culture are waaaay out of line with reality.

 

[feder]

thanks for the super fast response. First of all it makes me SO HAPPY to have the ok to go ahead and sleep on my stomach! a little afraid- but so happy!

in terms of the kid-- that baby is now 18 years old. and yes, looking back I was totally overwhelmed- and the depression that came along with the migraines should have been a massive wake up call that all was not as peachy as it seemed, but at the time TMS was totally an unknown to me. So now I am older, and wiser, but also so far away from all of those- what I now am recognizing as- overwhelming emotions. At this point the kids are actually basically all out of the house and I'm finally starting to enjoy my freedoms and I am so done with headaches...I'm just ready to MOVE ON and get past all of it. But my body hasn't gotten the memo. Yet.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Great introduction, @feder and welcome to the forum!

I have to say that what is so good about your intro is how little time you spent on physical symptoms - and even then you only used general terminology. Hooray for that! I read every word, unlike many introductions where I have to skip paragraph after paragraph of detailed symptoms, gah. So give yourself five gold stars for a great beginning. Or, what sounds like a new beginning.

I'm with @Baseball65, in that I am a 2011 success story, which means I'm pretty much all about OG Sarno. The only resource we had at that time was the Structured Educational Program, loosely based I think on Dr Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain workbook? Anyway, the SEP features a number of helpful writing (aka journaling) techniques for learning to practice curiosity about, and to question what's really going on deeper than what seems to be your surface distress.

Nicole Sachs follows a lot of these same ideas with JournalSpeak, and personally I am a huge fan. You can't go wrong listening to her podcast episodes on a regular basis (there are a lot of them!) They typically run an hour or less, so it's not a huge commitment to listen to one or even a few episodes every week. She always has great reminders and often speaks of her time with Dr Sarno as well. Something for everyone in each episode.

In any case, it seems like you're making a great start - keep us posted!

 

[feder]

Thank you Jan! A question on what you wrote about what's going on underneath surface distress: I don't seem to see any direct correlation b/w external stresses and my symptoms. In other words, there could be times when everything is really going great in my life and I'll get grounded with a couple of days of pain, and then I can go through an intensely stressful time period and...nothing! And then other times I get the expected pain with the stress....there just doesn't seem to be an obvious correlation. Assuming that's normal?

At times I'll get a migraine and poke around for sources of stress and anger. And I'll find annoying things here and there that happened recently (as it does to all people) and I feel like sometimes I try to convince myself that I really have suppressed rage, not mild irritation....but eventually I need to admit that I'm just fabricating false emotions to try to explain my migraine.

Can it be that past emotions are causing present pain? And can the emotions be sadness/loneliness/abandonment/fear more than anger? then what is the TMS trying to distract you from? Pain of decades ago? How much journalspeak/memory excavation is necessary to undo present pain of past events??

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Can it be that past emotions are causing present pain? And can the emotions be sadness/loneliness/abandonment/fear more than anger? then what is the TMS trying to distract you from?

Have you read one of Dr Sarno's books? If not, you gotta go back to the source. @Baseball65 will always tell you that Healing Back Pain is the book, but the one I read was his last one which is The Divided Mind. Also, back pain was minor for me compared to neuro and GI symptoms.

If you have read Sarno, get him out and read him again. I would like to think that this will answer most of your questions. Quick response: the type of repression that Sarno talks about is absolutely about the deep terrifying emotions, of which abandonment and isolation are really huge. Rage in the way he uses it is not about getting angry at shit; getting angry at shit is in fact a distraction against what the true repressed rage is about. But this is a really lengthy topic and there are a lot of subtleties for each individual. It's best to start with Sarno and go on from there once you've rethought it.

I will say that the basic workings of the rage/distraction mechanism do tend to get lost over time, especially if you're looking at Alan's more recent work which is less emotionally based. We recently had a super interesting discussion thread about that, with many of us saying that Alan seems to have developed his latest theories and therapies in order to appeal to people who don't want to experience emotional vulnerability. It is the belief of many of us, and I believe that @Baseball65 will agree with me here, that if you're not willing to be emotionally vulnerable, you can retrain your brain all you want but you're never going to really get to the root of your symptoms. You'll manage, perhaps even regain much of your life, but...

I don't seem to see any direct correlation b/w external stresses and my symptoms.

That’s because there isn't necessarily any such correlation. This is very individual, but in many cases the distraction provided by the stress, whether it's negative stress or positive stress, is good enough that the TMS brain mechanism doesn't need to provide a physical distraction. Again, this is completely individual. There is absolutely no one-size-fits-all mechanism or explanation.

How much journalspeak/memory excavation is necessary to undo present pain of past events??

It depends! This is why I prefer the SEP over Alan's program, because it provides an easy way to explore and to engage curiosity. I learned a lot about my early childhood self by doing the work. Nothing earth-shattering, no childhood adversity, just the typical childhood shit that every kid is forced to go through once we survive past infanthood. I'm pretty sure it's Nicole Sachs who has said that no one survives childhood unscathed.

Not too long ago I had an incident of waking up to a severe RA flare with major swelling, redness, and severe shooting pain in my entire right (dominant) hand and wrist. Believe it or not, I described this incident and the quick resolution of it in episode 90 of Nicole's podcast, which aired on June 7 if you care to check that out. My quick resolution is due entirely to my toolkit of TMS techniques which I learned by doing the SEP back in 2011 along with other skills, and continuing to talk and learn and practice. My many favorite resources are on my profile page.

 

[Baseball65]

In other words, there could be times when everything is really going great in my life and I'll get grounded with a couple of days of pain, and then I can go through an intensely stressful time period and...nothing!

Yep...In fact, I NEVER know why I get a symptom when I get the occasional relapse.. That is why we call this work. It is being an investigatopr in your own life. It is always something CLOSE, usually FAMILY and something fundamental that goes all the way back to the original formation of my head by the circumstances of early life.

Can it be that past emotions are causing present pain?

The YOU that those emotions formed, Yes...I have never 'healed' anything..But I need to remember who I am...I have this bad habit of forgetting based on current life situations. I am not a Father or Construction worker or Musician or Baseball Player in my deepest psyche... I am still a profoundly lonely Euro-Kid whose Father and Nanny just died, thrust into a violent and unsupervised Babylonian captivity (Los Angeles).... when I remember that I don't need to 'heal' that child or any of that crap...Just imagine how THAT kid is still complaining in there...I never actually feel it, but as I become aware? The symptoms go away.

I wish he would go away FOREVER so I didn't get the occasional relapse. .Reviewing Sarno and writing, screaming, breaking some plates and hitting plywood with a baseball bat has been sufficient for 25 years. ...not bad for a 12 dollar investment.

 

[Sita]

The impositions on Men and Fathers in our FOS current culture are waaaay out of line with reality.

Hi Baseball,

Why do you say that? I'm just curious, that's why I ask.

 

[Baseball65]

oh yeah...when my Kids No longer needed me and started being adults..I also went through a tumultuous time as my Purpose was no longer clear to me. In fact, they are both really independent and successful, which makes me 'proud' (?) and also Useless. "Now what do I do?"

 

[Ellen]

One of the things that appeal to me about Alan's approach is that it seems he doesnt feel it necessary to go deeply back into all of the emotions that first brought on the pain- meaning that once your body learns these pain pathways, the focus is/should be more on brain retraining them dredging up past hurts...this makes sense to me bc I don't think I have ongoing repressed anger issues, it's more of things I can think of from childhood/early adulthood etc... but now I'm starting to wonder if I do, in fact, have current emotional issues to deal with, and maybe that's why I haven't been experiencing any significant healing...

I had migraines for over 50 years and was able to get rid of them completely using TMS techniques. They had become chronic for the last year I had them. I've been free of them for over 10 years now.

When I first read about TMS, I didn't think I had repressed emotions either. However, I learned through doing the workbook in Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain (similar to the SEP) that I repressed all emotions, and this had become a pattern that I learned in early childhood. So it wasn't so much finding the emotions I had repressed as a child that led to recovery, but realizing that I had developed an unconscious pattern of repression. I was able to uncover how it started. My parents didn't tolerate expressions of anger. My father often said to me "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about", so I couldn't express sadness. If I expressed joy or enthusiasm, I was met with ridicule. So I learned to repress everything and did so well into adulthood. I think it was primarily uncovering this and then learning to feel and express my current emotions that led to my recovery from the migraines.

Also, because I had them for so long, there was an element of conditioning in them that I had to unlearn. I was conditioned to believe that changes in the barometric pressure triggered my migraines. This is nonsense, and I had to undo the association by using my rational, logical brain to repeatedly tell myself there was no logical reason for a change in barometric pressure to trigger a migraine. Eventually I broke this association.

There are many success stories of people who have overcome migraines on this Forum and elsewhere on line. It is totally possible to get rid of them. I wish you the best in your recovery efforts.

 

[feder]

I had migraines for over 50 years and was able to get rid of them completely using TMS techniques. They had become chronic for the last year I had them. I've been free of them for over 10 years now.

When I first read about TMS, I didn't think I had repressed emotions either. However, I learned through doing the workbook in Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain (similar to the SEP) that I repressed all emotions, and this had become a pattern that I learned in early childhood. So it wasn't so much finding the emotions I had repressed as a child that led to recovery, but realizing that I had developed an unconscious pattern of repression. I was able to uncover how it started. My parents didn't tolerate expressions of anger. My father often said to me "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about", so I couldn't express sadness. If I expressed joy or enthusiasm, I was met with ridicule. So I learned to repress everything and did so well into adulthood. I think it was primarily uncovering this and then learning to feel and express my current emotions that led to my recovery from the migraines.

Also, because I had them for so long, there was an element of conditioning in them that I had to unlearn. I was conditioned to believe that changes in the barometric pressure triggered my migraines. This is nonsense, and I had to undo the association by using my rational, logical brain to repeatedly tell myself there was no logical reason for a change in barometric pressure to trigger a migraine. Eventually I broke this association.

There are many success stories of people who have overcome migraines on this Forum and elsewhere on line. It is totally possible to get rid of them. I wish you the best in your recovery efforts.

Yes!!! This change in the barometric pressure is a big one for me...... when there's a big storm coming on....and then also when I don't get more then 7 hours of sleep....and then also when I skip a meal....and when it's that time of month....but then it gets to a point (here we are! ), when the triggers are SO ubiquitous, that you feel like the gig is up. Last night I slept back on my stomach, the way I like to. And yes, my neck was tight in the morning. But you know what, half the time it's tight when I sleep on my side as well.

question: Today I felt a headache coming on, and I KNOW it was a stress response to a situation that made me angry...but the pain still persisted. I told my body that it wasn't necessary to try and distract me, as I know I'm angry, and that's ok and not a dangerous situation....but the pain still persisted. If the pain is trying to distract me from the emotion, then shouldn't the awareness of the emotion make it go away??

 

[JanAtheCPA]

I told my body that it wasn't necessary to try and distract me, as I know I'm angry, and that's ok and not a dangerous situation....but the pain still persisted. If the pain is trying to distract me from the emotion, then shouldn't the awareness of the emotion make it go away??

I'm a huge advocate of constructive self-talk ("this isn't necessary" is one of my favorites) but in my experience, this is a tool that is more effective for minor flares AFTER you've done the majority of the emotional work.

My strong recommendation is to get out the pen and paper and start writing shit down.

This is usually referred to as journaling, a term I avoid because I want to be clear that this kind of writing (also referred to as expressive writing, or emotional writing) is NOT about keeping a formal journal. The advice from the TMS pros is to destroy your writing session after you're done (Even though Nicole Sachs has created the JournalSpeak method, she is all about destroying what you write. She has a method for doing it electronically, but I prefer seeing my illegible scribbling on a piece of paper that I can then tear up. Plus auto-correct is just a distraction which has no value when the output is shit and is intended to be disposed of as shit).

The process is 100% about getting the buildup of shitty thoughts that are clogging up our unconscious brains OUT of there and into our conscious awareness, just long enough to experience how acknowledging them openly is not physically harmful to our physical survival, as you have already alluded to. The thing is, you're saying above that you expect to do this just by thinking rational thoughts, and I am here to tell you that I am, after 13 years, also still trying to convince myself that thinking about it is enough, but more often than not, just thinking is NOT enough. Having gone through the work big-time back in 2011, I really believe that when you are new to this, that you must make a commitment to doing the writing in a structured fashion (like the SEP) in order to get a feel for how the different options work for you, and also to provide time to think of it as a skill that is worth having in your regular TMS toolkit. You need time to develope any skill.

Example: I've had a buildup of minor stresses and annoyances and fears lately, and I was starting to feel physically pretty crappy in spite of regularly stopping to breathe deeply and relax my muscles and remind myself that none of this stress is the end of the world. But of course the usual thing was happening, which is that as the physical symptoms kept coming and changing and getting a little worse my brain started the old "what if there's something actually wrong?" routine, and that triggers the snowball/vicious cycle effect. A couple of mornings ago when the cat woke me with some kind of feline existential crisis, caterwauling at 5am, I was quite unnerved, so I decided to sit up and finally get out a piece of old notebook paper and a pen and start writing. I usually need to start with a generic question like "okay, wtf is going on with you?" and then just see what comes out of my brain and onto the paper. I spent at least 20 minutes on it because I had a lot of jumbled thoughts that had been spinning around the mental squirrel cage for a while. I slept well for another few hours and woke up feeling better than I had in days.

It happens like this every single time, and yet I still put it off until I hit a little mini-crisis. This is my brain on TMS, of course.

Mind you, for someone like you who is in the early days of doing this work, emotional writing might create more questions, and even discomfort, niether of which are bad things for most people (we are not talking about someone with severe untreated trauma or mental illness). If you're making progress, you may even experience an increase in symptoms or new symptoms or a surge of anxiety - which of course is VERY distressing but is also very good news. I would even go so far as to say that if you are NOT experiencing what Dr. Sarno called the Symptom Imperative, then you are probably not doing the work in a way which is leading to progress.

My advice about writing shit down:
Don't allow your brain to edit what you write - IOW, don't stop to think about how to say it, just write it.
Don't worry about spelling or grammar or even readability because no one is ever going to read it, including you.
DO be completely, 100% honest about what comes out onto the paper. If it makes you uncomfortable, that's your TMS brain trying to get you to stop.

Nicole Sachs advises writing for 20 minutes (followed by a ten-minute meditation which I never manage to do and that's a big source of self-pressure which is not helpful but that's another discussion). Her reason for 20 minutes is that it takes over ten minutes before you start getting to the good stuff. I don't time myself anymore, because I've been doing this long enough to know how to keep nudging myself until I find the flow. Sometimes I get there quickly, but it's always different.

Some final thoughts: the goal of this kind of writing is to clearly confront the irrational behavior of your primitive brain mechanism, which literally doesn't understand the difference between legitimate stress over career or relationships or climate change or whatever, vs the stress of seeing a sabre-tooth tiger jump out from behind a rock. When it senses your stress, its first response is to engage the fight/flight/freeze response, putting you into high alert and repressing any emotions you might be having. This brain mechanism evolved in a primitive world that lasted for many tens of thousands of years before and after the emergence of homo sapiens, and it has only had a teensy sliver of evolutionary time in which to experience, never mind adapt to, the very different stresses of modern society, where most of us are lucky enough to be physically very safe. Thus our TMS brain mechanisms have NO idea what to do with today's stressors.

 

[Baseball65]

Today I felt a headache coming on, and I KNOW it was a stress response to a situation that made me angry...but the pain still persisted. I told my body that it wasn't necessary to try and distract me, as I know I'm angry, and that's ok and not a dangerous situation....but the pain still persisted.

Nope...if that was the case, most of us would never have been in pain. I usually know what I am pissed about..in fact, my mind makes movies (brainstorming) w/o my consent about how I will be vindicated, revenged upon and how (as we discussed this morning) I will control how the world views me....or ...
Maybe My awareness is simply not enough.

From the WRITING about your angers in the morning and getting a wider perspective about who you are every minute, not just when you are angry, you're going to have a basic list of 2 or three seriously deep understandings about WHY you are the way you are...when you find yourself paying attention to symptoms, consciously and forcefully turn your attention to the ITEMS on the list... Most of us have 'first consciousness' thoughts from our memory.

Here's one: I was attacked by a kid at a 'family' event when I was 6 and had just got to America. He jammed some watermelon in my face and even at 6 years old, I instinctively knew how to fight...I ended up wailing on him even though he was older and bigger. I GOT IN TROUBLE, because I was a 'guest' and not really a member of the religion whose picnic it was (The Bad Goyim Kid) complete shame and stigmatization!

I have met that kid over and over in life..he is always a clean cut 'Eddie Haskell' type..and I always want to kick his ass...again and again. The outrage is unbearable....SO...if I started having pain in my back at work tomorrow, I start forcefully and consciously running that tape again....I think "Wow..the Me that was outraged at age 6 has never really changed...just been papered over with 'adult ' behaviour'." I think about how trapped I feel, about how that might affect my perspective , etc....this is a CREATIVE act..a good imagination is way more important that 'doing it right'

Is that kid the reason I have TMS? Of course not....but when I do that , a few times i am sending a message to the deepest part of my unconscious that I know the REAL reason (which I may never know) is down there in the same sewer system. And, If I stick to it, the pain goes. Fast. I also might reflect on the nature of conditioning and how, in spite of fancying myself intelligent, I am just as condition-able as one of the rats in Skinner's box.

Personal relationship problems, social problems, finacial problems..have your 'problem your gonna ruminate on' READY before the symptom comes...and if you catch yourself focusing on pain, roll the film, start a dialogue, begin investigating..turn your mind FORCEFULLY

I used to get migraines any time I smelled carob. Insane, right? Not. From doing the aformentioned execise, I discovered that I was conditioned about age 12 (start of junior High) and the school was landscaped with Carob tress that smelled strongly....I met that kid again (new face and name) and rather than focus on the anger, I got migraines..and then like Skinners Rat, glued them together.....When I realized this after reading Sarno, I never got a migraine from smelling carob again. I 'disassembled' them.


If I keep focusing on 'current' anger, I might eventually get symptom free too, but I'd rather go down and undermine the foundation then deal with the hissy details of all the little things that piss my drama queen self off on a regular basis..this is about prevention and maintenance! But it does take work and focus...on the psychological. You know you better than any counselor or Dr ever will.

 

[feder]

this is so good. Ok- so it seems to me like I need to stop being rational, and to even stay away from too much 'headspeak', and actually physically write things down. I so, so appreciate you guys who give so much time to lead and help us along. Thank you!

 

[feder]

Nope...if that was the case, most of us would never have been in pain. I usually know what I am pissed about..in fact, my mind makes movies (brainstorming) w/o my consent about how I will be vindicated, revenged upon and how (as we discussed this morning) I will control how the world views me....or ...
Maybe My awareness is simply not enough.

From the WRITING about your angers in the morning and getting a wider perspective about who you are every minute, not just when you are angry, you're going to have a basic list of 2 or three seriously deep understandings about WHY you are the way you are...when you find yourself paying attention to symptoms, consciously and forcefully turn your attention to the ITEMS on the list... Most of us have 'first consciousness' thoughts from our memory.

Here's one: I was attacked by a kid at a 'family' event when I was 6 and had just got to America. He jammed some watermelon in my face and even at 6 years old, I instinctively knew how to fight...I ended up wailing on him even though he was older and bigger. I GOT IN TROUBLE, because I was a 'guest' and not really a member of the religion whose picnic it was (The Bad Goyim Kid) complete shame and stigmatization!

I have met that kid over and over in life..he is always a clean cut 'Eddie Haskell' type..and I always want to kick his ass...again and again. The outrage is unbearable....SO...if I started having pain in my back at work tomorrow, I start forcefully and consciously running that tape again....I think "Wow..the Me that was outraged at age 6 has never really changed...just been papered over with 'adult ' behaviour'." I think about how trapped I feel, about how that might affect my perspective , etc....this is a CREATIVE act..a good imagination is way more important that 'doing it right'

Is that kid the reason I have TMS? Of course not....but when I do that , a few times i am sending a message to the deepest part of my unconscious that I know the REAL reason (which I may never know) is down there in the same sewer system. And, If I stick to it, the pain goes. Fast. I also might reflect on the nature of conditioning and how, in spite of fancying myself intelligent, I am just as condition-able as one of the rats in Skinner's box.

Personal relationship problems, social problems, finacial problems..have your 'problem your gonna ruminate on' READY before the symptom comes...and if you catch yourself focusing on pain, roll the film, start a dialogue, begin investigating..turn your mind FORCEFULLY

I used to get migraines any time I smelled carob. Insane, right? Not. From doing the aformentioned execise, I discovered that I was conditioned about age 12 (start of junior High) and the school was landscaped with Carob tress that smelled strongly....I met that kid again (new face and name) and rather than focus on the anger, I got migraines..and then like Skinners Rat, glued them together.....When I realized this after reading Sarno, I never got a migraine from smelling carob again. I 'disassembled' them.


If I keep focusing on 'current' anger, I might eventually get symptom free too, but I'd rather go down and undermine the foundation then deal with the hissy details of all the little things that piss my drama queen self off on a regular basis..this is about prevention and maintenance! But it does take work and focus...on the psychological. You know you better than any counselor or Dr ever will.

 

[feder]

Trying not to get overwhelmed here with all this. Ok, one step at a time. I'm on day 3 of the program and just starting to make my lists. Most of my traumatic, strong episodes are actually in my young adulthood, not childhood and I'm assuming that's ok (at 21, my middle age self right now can certainly see was still SUCH a little girl in so many way). Your posts and Jan's posts are making so many things click together for me...

 

[JanAtheCPA]

it seems to me like I need to stop being rational

There's nothing wrong with the rational self-talk messages like "I'm physically safe, this isn't necessary". These are actually very useful in the moment, particular for small annoying symptoms that try to trick you into fear. It's just that they aren't enough in the long term, because there's a bigger picture to deal with.

 

[Baseball65]

It's just that they aren't enough in the long term, because there's a bigger picture to deal with.

Yep... I 'talk to my head' all of the time when I am fighting this off...it is a multi-faceted attack. I am trying to shake something loose in the depths of my being, so I drop as many depth charges as possible...who knows?, when I die and sit before the Grand Achitect, he might say "You only needed to do_______" (fill in blank) But it's like what they say about advertising....only half of it works..they just don't know which half

Now your advertising in your own Head!

 

[Ellen]

question: Today I felt a headache coming on, and I KNOW it was a stress response to a situation that made me angry...but the pain still persisted. I told my body that it wasn't necessary to try and distract me, as I know I'm angry, and that's ok and not a dangerous situation....but the pain still persisted. If the pain is trying to distract me from the emotion, then shouldn't the awareness of the emotion make it go away??

In my experience, it is very difficult (though not impossible*) to reverse a migraine once it's there. Your autonomic system has already instructed your blood vessels to expand and this is causing the pain. I recommend working on prevention, as that is how I had my success. You've been given great tips above on how to get all the repressed emotions out on paper. Also, work on decoupling the conditioning around barometric pressure and the other "triggers" you mention. I did this by telling myself repeatedly things like "There is no logical reason for you to get a headache because the pressure has changed. You don't need to create a headache now. So just stop!". Find your own words, but the idea is to use your logical, rational brain to override your irrational unconscious. I did this at the first signs that I might be getting a headache (tingly scalp, vision changes). Don't wait till it's a full blown headache.

*I once was able to get rid of a migraine after it had started by using a meditation that is similar to Alan Gordon's Pain Reprocessing Therapy. It was a lot of work though, so I recommend prevention techniques instead.

You're making a good start. Be patient. Be consistent. You'll get there.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

*I once was able to get rid of a migraine after it had started by using a meditation that is similar to Alan Gordon's Pain Reprocessing Therapy. It was a lot of work though, so I recommend prevention techniques instead.

I have a similar story! Decades ago in my twenties (in the 1970s) I was suddenly stricken in the middle of the day with debilitating menstrual cramps, something which happened to me only every few months, and which normally only happened when I was at home. I was looking at several hours of writhing around in pain, but this one time I was at work, 30 minutes from home, and I was already doubled over in agony. I was the front desk receptionist for a small manufacturing company with no private place to lie down other than the conference room floor, so that's where I ended up. The thought of being there for probably four hours was horrifying. I knew about muscle relaxation for cramps but past attempts were only successful for a few seconds at a time. This time I was extremely motivated! Like Ellen said above, I don't think I've ever worked so hard at anything in my life. I kept at it, mindfully relaxing all those abdominal and pelvic muscles, breathing, and visualizing pain relief. It was a tremendous effort, but I think I managed a full 5 minutes, maybe a bit more (nothing!but it felt like forever) before I dozed off. When I woke up a total of not even 30 minutes had passed, the pain was totally gone, and although I felt a bit shaky, instead of going home I got up and went back to my desk. It was a damn miracle.

But here's the thing. It's not like I never had those really bad cramps ever again, because I certainly did, every few months as before. And when they came on I would again employ those relaxation techniques and the breathing and the visualization. But I never again succeeded in overcoming the pain. Every single time it was the typical three or four hours of writhing pain - because I was always at home. The desperate motivation simply did not exist.