Day 3

Thanks for all the discussion on Day 2. Someone wrote about the fight/flight/freeze response, and I think my brain has been sending messages to my body to be on "alert" for danger for as long as I can remember. I have read a lot about trauma and there are some books about trauma being stored in the body. I think I believe that.

One assignment today was to watch Alan Gordon's video on accepting the diagnosis. He is a good speaker! He talks about the conditioning process--how we associate a movement or position with pain. One thing that has never made sense to me is that I get in tremendous pain riding in a car. I feel every bump all the way up to my shoulders and neck, and in my arms, too. My brother lives an hour and a half away and has Parkinson's. I would really like to visit him more as he just went on disability and is home by himself a lot, so maybe through this program I'll be able to learn to ride in the car.

The other assignment for Day 3 is to start writing out past events that may be associated with our pain. I already have a list I did for a psychotherapist and it is long. I will print it out tonight and make some notes about the timing of pain symptoms. I do have a significant amount of trauma in my history and have "dealt" with a lot of it in therapy, but it seems like there are always more layers. From everything I'm reading about TMS, it's not always necessary to completely work though things from the past before pain may subside.

Oh, and one more thing. I'm going to stop taking Tylenol. I take the maximum amount around the clock and have for 8-9 years. If TMS is muscle tension, Tylenol theoretically shouldn't help. I have the belief that I need it, although I'm still in pain, so it's obviously not working that well. I'm anticipating my pain may increase due to fear of not taking it--believing I need it and the pain will be worse if I don't take it. I've tried this before and always start taking it again. I hope it's not too early in the program to do this. It seems like I can do it now, but if not, I won't beat up on myself and can try again later.

 

Kindness changes everything.

Hi Barb,
I read in your post a sense of kindness to yourself. I see this in many places. One is that you will stop the Tynenol and if the results are not what you hoped, you will adjust and try again later. I think this kind of acceptance and ease is a great approach to your TMS program. To me it is the antidote to the TMS-prone and anxiety-prone personality activation that many of us have experienced in ourselves. Good luck!!
Andy B.

 

H, Barb M. You feel pain while riding in a car. If you can play an audio tape or CD while driving, maybe play some comforting relaxation talk sessions. amazon.com and Youtube are good places to look for them. You need something to take your mind off pain and worry while driving.
Deep breathing while driving is a great way to relax.

 

Good on you for taking the brave step to reduce the Tylenol! It sounds like you are taking a wise and balanced approach to this, rather than being overly extreme. I hope it all goes well!

 

Thanks everyone! It's been about 10 days with no Tylenol. I just wanted to do this because I worry about long-term damage of my liver, etc.I definitely think I've been more psychologically attached to it than anything. I haven't noticed my typical pain symptoms increasing. I have had a few headaches, which I don't usually have, but I think it's just sinus stuff.I have other meds I'd like to decrease at some point, but taking it very slowly!

 

I like what you said about not feeling like you have to have every single thing worked out and understood and healed from your past to be free of pain. Of course we all want to heal but I think it is much more the mechanism of understanding how our brain's are using the physical symptoms as a distraction and as a coping mechanism for really anything that comes up. Weather it be past or present or just a feeling like everything we do should be perfect all of the time.

For me, over over it is a question of reminding myself that these ways of being are NOT necessary anymore

Reminds me of what Andrew Harvey - an activist says about going forth into activism - not waiting until we are the most perfect and happily healed people to think that it's a good time to start caring about the world.