Ive listed my symptoms on here before so wont go in detail again but for the gist of it its widespread tension, nerve pain, sensitivity with some other symptoms, rapid heart rate, pelvic pain. ect, but i feel like I don't really have a lot of triggers and all my symptoms are just constant and than obviously can feel worse with activity or other external factors but for the most part its just constant some of the symptoms fluctuate a bit but not specific to like emotion it doesn't seem like. I am reading "unlearn ur pain" right now and it was talking about triggers and like just imagining the pain and getting it but i don't seem to get any of that... can someone give some feedback on this so I can get it out of my mind and stop worrying about it. Thank you and I appreciate everyone who has replied to me and everyone who replies to this.
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Do you need to have triggers?
- Thread starter KEANU4141
- Start date
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
@KEANU4141, I just reviewed your short history on the forum, and I'm going to remind you of a few things that I would like you to take seriously. I am keeping in mind that you are only 17, and that your attention span is not going to be great even under normal circumstances.
1. You already understand that you have got to stop overthinking every little thing. Did you ever look up the term Rumination? I would like to hear what you learned about it and how it applies to you and how it works to keep you exactly where you are. Rumination is a form of obsessive behavior, also kind of an addiction, which must be broken or you really won't get far.
2. The best and simplest advice I can give you right now is to find some self-talk that you can use to push out the excessive rumination. I just finished a really good book which says that talking to ourselves as if we are someone else is surprisingly effective at stopping the negatives thoughts. Here are some ideas:
"Hey, you're overthinking again! It's not helpful and not necessary! Let's do something else and let that one go"
"I get it - and rationally, you get it: you get that these crazy physical symptoms come from extreme anxiety, right? Your poor TMS brain is simply too primitive to understand that. It's time to work on calming down this unnecessary and irrational anxiety instead of giving in to it"
"Remember that there's nothing physically wrong with you. Your TMS brain is creating symptoms to distract you from looking at scary emotional things. But your TMS brain is not rational and it's not designed for today's world. What's the worst that could happen if you do look at the scary stuff?"
Again, these are some things you can literally say to yourself especially when your symptoms are at their worst and your ruminations are at their busiest.
3. You can't just get rid of your irrational fears unless you have something to replace them with. What you need is some quick activities you can go to which will reinforce your knowledge and TMS skills and calm down your obsessive thoughts.
Question: do you prefer resources that are visual, audio, written, or active? Do you like music or are you willing to try meditations? We can try to come up with short ideas. Too many suggestions are too long - I don't always have time for lengthy videos or podcasts - sometimes I just need a quick intervention to get off the anxiety hamster wheel.
4. In one of your posts you mentioned that there is something which has caused you an extreme amount of guilt. A really great way to process guilt is to write about. It might be too hard to write about it directly at first, so you could start by just taking 5 or 10 minutes to write down how you feel about the fact that there is an incident which causes you guilt and how you feel about maybe examining it. Write about your guilt as a concept without writing down the specifics. Go slowly, and don't push too hard. Maybe just a little bit each day. Each time you finish writing, tear it up into little tiny pieces and throw it away in multiple trash receptacles so no one can ever see it. Or burn it if that's acceptable in your circumstances. Don't use technology - these days we're all so connected that we don't even know how many of our apps are saving everything to cloud accounts almost instantly.
Another great writing technique is the "Unsent Letter". Write a letter to someone who you need to say some things to, and just let it all out, whatever it is. Then tear it up and send it to the trash.
I hope this can be of some help.
1. You already understand that you have got to stop overthinking every little thing. Did you ever look up the term Rumination? I would like to hear what you learned about it and how it applies to you and how it works to keep you exactly where you are. Rumination is a form of obsessive behavior, also kind of an addiction, which must be broken or you really won't get far.
2. The best and simplest advice I can give you right now is to find some self-talk that you can use to push out the excessive rumination. I just finished a really good book which says that talking to ourselves as if we are someone else is surprisingly effective at stopping the negatives thoughts. Here are some ideas:
"Hey, you're overthinking again! It's not helpful and not necessary! Let's do something else and let that one go"
"I get it - and rationally, you get it: you get that these crazy physical symptoms come from extreme anxiety, right? Your poor TMS brain is simply too primitive to understand that. It's time to work on calming down this unnecessary and irrational anxiety instead of giving in to it"
"Remember that there's nothing physically wrong with you. Your TMS brain is creating symptoms to distract you from looking at scary emotional things. But your TMS brain is not rational and it's not designed for today's world. What's the worst that could happen if you do look at the scary stuff?"
Again, these are some things you can literally say to yourself especially when your symptoms are at their worst and your ruminations are at their busiest.
3. You can't just get rid of your irrational fears unless you have something to replace them with. What you need is some quick activities you can go to which will reinforce your knowledge and TMS skills and calm down your obsessive thoughts.
Question: do you prefer resources that are visual, audio, written, or active? Do you like music or are you willing to try meditations? We can try to come up with short ideas. Too many suggestions are too long - I don't always have time for lengthy videos or podcasts - sometimes I just need a quick intervention to get off the anxiety hamster wheel.
4. In one of your posts you mentioned that there is something which has caused you an extreme amount of guilt. A really great way to process guilt is to write about. It might be too hard to write about it directly at first, so you could start by just taking 5 or 10 minutes to write down how you feel about the fact that there is an incident which causes you guilt and how you feel about maybe examining it. Write about your guilt as a concept without writing down the specifics. Go slowly, and don't push too hard. Maybe just a little bit each day. Each time you finish writing, tear it up into little tiny pieces and throw it away in multiple trash receptacles so no one can ever see it. Or burn it if that's acceptable in your circumstances. Don't use technology - these days we're all so connected that we don't even know how many of our apps are saving everything to cloud accounts almost instantly.
Another great writing technique is the "Unsent Letter". Write a letter to someone who you need to say some things to, and just let it all out, whatever it is. Then tear it up and send it to the trash.
I hope this can be of some help.
Your appreciation is appreciated in return @KEANU4141!
Cactusflower
Beloved Grand Eagle
I think you don’t recognize triggers, but your fear of not doing the TMS work “right” is one.
Symptoms are broader than what you feel physically. The anxiety and rumination are actually symptoms.
Don’t stress so much on doing the TMS work right or trying to find “the thing” that is causing your symptoms. When you get into this cycle I think it’s more important to practice newly acquired skills you are learning. Like @Jan says, look for things some folks call “affirmations (I think Schubiner calls them this in his book). I’m perfectly fine and can handle doing this. You may need to say it a thousand times. Remember with TMS there IS ultimately noting wrong with you. Not a single thing. It FEELS like there is, you might THINK there is, but remind yourself thoughts are not facts. It’s like ordering from menu and you think something sounds good.. for me it was tiger tail ice cream. I mean who doesn’t like tigers, right?
But one bite and that licorice with orange was disgusting! My thought that it sounded good wan’t true in reality. All thoughts are like that. They aren’t necessarily true. Keep reminding yourself what is true or not.
If you find the ruminations very over powering, it’s important to tell your TMS coach, parents or if you see a psychotherapist, tell them.
Symptoms are broader than what you feel physically. The anxiety and rumination are actually symptoms.
Don’t stress so much on doing the TMS work right or trying to find “the thing” that is causing your symptoms. When you get into this cycle I think it’s more important to practice newly acquired skills you are learning. Like @Jan says, look for things some folks call “affirmations (I think Schubiner calls them this in his book). I’m perfectly fine and can handle doing this. You may need to say it a thousand times. Remember with TMS there IS ultimately noting wrong with you. Not a single thing. It FEELS like there is, you might THINK there is, but remind yourself thoughts are not facts. It’s like ordering from menu and you think something sounds good.. for me it was tiger tail ice cream. I mean who doesn’t like tigers, right?
But one bite and that licorice with orange was disgusting! My thought that it sounded good wan’t true in reality. All thoughts are like that. They aren’t necessarily true. Keep reminding yourself what is true or not.
If you find the ruminations very over powering, it’s important to tell your TMS coach, parents or if you see a psychotherapist, tell them.
Baseball65
Beloved Grand Eagle
I just looked up that word my self. Funny, I always thought it was a neutral word like 'consideration' or 'meditating upon' whereas it actually has a negative connotation. It seems closer (in the human context) to BRAINSTORMING which is also a word that in it's original meaning had a negative connotation.
My own word for that would have been 'catastrophising' which is symptom number one, prima fascia of OCD. In this case I Imagine your Brain is going "OH crap ....this won't work for me because I don't have the correct dysfunction"
Having been a sufferer of said malady, I can assure you that one of it's terrible tolls is the need to do everything correct and perfect OR trash it and keep starting over because you're not doing something 'right'. Therefore, like someone with their foot nailed to the floor, you never get anywhere. It's a self preservation strategy of the Ego. And a liability, not an asset
Rather than damn yourself to Hell for not doing it right, rejoice, for SARNO compared TMS to OCD...repetitive thoughts are actually a slightly different distraction than our pain...instead of our back or feet, our head hurts from too much thinking.
So, when you catch yourself disqualifying yourself based on not having the 'correct' symptomology, you are actually staring right through the symptomology...make sense? To Quote Eckhart Tolle it is like the Chief of Police looking for an arsonist when the Chief of Police IS the arsonist.
One of the strongest AHA! moments I had during my initial recovery was in the first part of "Healing Back Pain" when Sarno made that comparison...having had OCD and being aware of it, it was easy to see how something else could create a diversion to distract me from unpleasant emotions. In fact, To this day, I still call TMS "OCD of the Body".....something that keeps begging for my attention so I won't look at what the REAL problem is (ANGER SHAME GUILT,etc)
All of the 'diagnoses' chapters are simply there to assure you you are suffering from a emotional malady not a physical one...after that they are redundant and actually part of the problem......If you just jump into the solution you will look back and laugh at some point...100% guran-f-ing-teed.
The Solution is Vigorously and strenuously looking for and speculating upon what emotional repressed things have necessitated you needing a symptom. Anger Makers, Guilt Makers, Responsibilities (even the 'good ones) and such....
I have been recovered for a long time and I still don't know my 'triggers'.
peace
TG957
Beloved Grand Eagle
Great linguistic analysis! I would add "dwelling" to the list of synonyms. Literally, your thoughts about your symptoms dwell, occupy, inhabit your brain and refuse to leave. Your thoughts, as @Cactusflower points out, are your trigger!
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
Dr Hanscom came up with his own acronym, which is RUTs, for Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts. Here is his intro (at https://backincontrol.com/ruts/ (RUTs - Back in Control))
Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts (RUTs) are a problem with being human. Although many people are not bothered much by them, others have a difficult time, and they markedly interfere with their quality of life. At some tipping point they can be severe enough to compromise the ability to function. The term for this extreme form is obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
You can’t outrun your mind
Although physical pain elicits an automatic avoidance or withdrawal response, there is no refuge from mental pain, which is processed in similar brain circuits. We only know to suppress them, which makes them even worse. The brain perceives these thoughts to be a threat and fires up the fight or flight response. A sustained threat physiology is the basis of chronic mental and physical disease.
It is my opinion that RUTs may be the most significant force in driving chronic mental and physical disease. Unpleasant thoughts are sensory input and emotions are the physiological reaction. They are solvable using research-based approaches. Possibly the one most overlooked factor in dealing with obsessive thought patterns is addressing the threat physiology component.
(more at https://backincontrol.com/ruts/ (RUTs - Back in Control))
You can’t outrun your mind
Although physical pain elicits an automatic avoidance or withdrawal response, there is no refuge from mental pain, which is processed in similar brain circuits. We only know to suppress them, which makes them even worse. The brain perceives these thoughts to be a threat and fires up the fight or flight response. A sustained threat physiology is the basis of chronic mental and physical disease.
It is my opinion that RUTs may be the most significant force in driving chronic mental and physical disease. Unpleasant thoughts are sensory input and emotions are the physiological reaction. They are solvable using research-based approaches. Possibly the one most overlooked factor in dealing with obsessive thought patterns is addressing the threat physiology component.
(more at https://backincontrol.com/ruts/ (RUTs - Back in Control))