Day 25: How I'm Doing So Far

Hi,

I've made it to Day 25 and wanted to share how progress has looked for me. My pain journey started with chronic pelvic pain and associated genitourinary symptoms that started nearly 20 years ago and became worse in the past 10 years. The pain slowly also stared showing up in other places: glutes, shoulders, hips, even my ankle. Pain also wasn't the only thing as I became much more anxious.

I discovered Dr. Sarno's work earlier this year and have been journaling much more regularly over the past 4-5 months, working on it in therapy, etc.. I've certainly made progress. I used to be a very active person and slowly started to fear more and more movement - that exercise would cause flareups. That I had to complete my stretching and PT programs, etc. Like many others, I also noticed inconsistencies. I could usually hike long distances with lots of elevation gain and generally not experience my pain symptoms (hiking is something that I love).

I'm ecstatic to share that I've been able to ride a bike with my family 8-10 times in the past two months. Short distances, but getting over the fear of this has been amazing. Biking is something I did so much as kid. To be able to ride again with my family put such a smile on my face. I also signed up for a tennis course and played for an hour yesterday with no flare ups!

The changes in my fear related to movement have been great. On the flip side, I've noticed my anxiety symptoms becoming more frequent. My understanding is that this can be common while recovering. I'm aware of the symptom imperative, that the brain will look for other symptoms to keep feelings/emotions still repressed to not surface. I try to use this to continue being curious.

I've also had life events this year that would cause anxiety in most people, not just people recovering from TMS. I was laid off from my job after 12 years earlier this year. I took a new job a couple of months later that ended up being a terrible situation and was not what I applied or interviewed for. These were difficult events for me to handle and have been trying in my path to recovery. Perfectionism, being highly self-critical, low self-esteem, high self-doubt are all patterns I'm starting to become aware of, and these events greatly heightened these patterns in the short-term. While it's been very hard at times, I'm staring to feel more in-tune with my current emotions and be able to express them more regularly while continuing to explore previous emotions/feelings that have been suppressed.