Does this sound like TMS?

Okay, first of all, I am glad I finally found this forum, as it seems to encompass most of the fears and symptoms I've had the last 12 months.

I came home to Europe after a several months long trip to Latin America, and lately, my neck had been hurting and stiff. I was pretty sure I had dislocated a disc, and I was in so much fear of all the pain that I would have to go through. My muscles were sore and something didn't feel right. Something definitely didn't feel right. I thought I was sick, somehow, with a tropical virus, or something that was doing something to my system, because everything felt wrong. And it also seemed to be related to my neck.

I needed to see chiropractors to crack my neck because it was so stiff I head tension headaches so bad that I would even have headaches in my dreams. Of course I feared chiropractors, because I read on internet forums that they could permanently harm you. My I had to go. Nobody really found anything wrong with my neck. But it was so sore and stiff, and just felt sort of, uneven, like one side was more stiff than the other, and I kept imagining the dislocated disc.

Now before I go any further, I will say that I had been 4 months in Ecuador prior to this, where I had been quite stressed because I realised I would not be able to finish my master thesis on time. Actually, I had this jaw clicking and pain when I chewed for several months while I was in Ecuador. I got a fish bone in my throat, while in the jungle, something that the indigenous pointed out was a curse put on me by something or someone. Of course I had an accident with my main artery in the throat after a tonsil surgery some 15 years earlier, and the fish bone kept piercing the spot where my artery had burst. I was severely stressed for the 14 days I had it there until I got it removed.

Some months later, on my way through Colombia, my bus got pretty violently robbed by armed men in uniform, who put a gun to my head and started shooting out the windows. Nobody got hurt, they just shot out the windows and took everybodies money, but after that, something didn't feel quite right, so I did the only thing a man in his right mind would do which was travel further into Venezuela.

In Venezuela, I went to visit a friend outside of Caracas. Of course, there was an epidemic of some nasty tropical mosquito borne disease called Chikungunya there, everybody had it, and I started to google it. It said it affected the joints and could cause Rheumatic Arthritis in people who were predisposed. Of course my father has Rheumatoid Arthritis, so I began to worry about that. I also worried about getting the hell out of Venezuela in general, because I didn't feel safe, I kept hearing stories about how dangerous it was there, and meanwhile everyone was getting sick from this tropical disease.

I remember taking the night bus to Ciudad Bolivar, when my jaw pain reached a climax. A very sharp piercing pain, and right there and then I knew that the Chikungunya disease was incubating in my system.

The next evening, just upon reaching the Brazilian border, I got suddenly very sick, a very rapid onset high fever and intolerable stomach cramps. I was alone, so I lay for three full days and nights, shitting myself out on the floor, with fever, and feeling like my bones and head were crushed. It was new years eve, and I was laying by myself, as sick as I had ever been before, and these dreaded mosquitoes kept feasting on my body, and I knew there was a high incidence of malaria in the area...I had to go to a Venezuelan shitty border-town hospital, to receive IV drips. They had run out of painkillers, and there were glass and needles and blood on the floor. Jesus, I worried about blood-borne diseases after that!

To make a long story short, I made it to Brasil, where I stayed some weeks in a Yoga Ashram. There, one day, I heard a crack down my back doing a yoga pose, and from then on my neck didn't feel right.

I asked someone to have a look, and they said that it was "out of place".

Now, this is crucial, because, the whole idea of having a disc in the neck "out of place" got so embedded in my thoughtstream at this moment.


When I returned to Scandinavia, I thought I had a disc out of place, meanwhile I was googling "chikungunya" on the internet, and learning that the progression of the disease starts by the neck going very stiff. So I probably injured my beck AND the disease was progressing.

Alright, so as you can imagine, here start the long list of symptoms: My legs weire numb, and my arms asleep in the morning. Half of my hands were numb. And I got these weird spasms in the chest that scared me a lot. Also, I found it difficult to swallow. I kept thinking I had parasites and the virus, and everything just felt com tpletely f****d. I remember feeling like the floor was moving, the ground I stood on suddenly jolted. Then came the cramps under the feet. Intense.

There was the tingling in the hands, there was that cramped feeling in the hands...everything sore and "stuck".
I started reading about sciatica, and I got frenzied-out. The notion of pinched nerves, slipped discs, sharp excrutiating pain, people suffering on webforums, scientific reports on dreadful outcomes of various diseases, and so on.

I had my first panic attacks, as if something was "switched on" in the brain. Everything was just high pitch and high frequent. And I got these terrible pains under my feet. And from there it went downhill.

Now, 12 months later, I still have all these symptoms, and I still border to panic attacks often. So obviously there is an anxiety disorder going on here.

But the thing is, I really recognize the "tension" aspect of the whole thing, in that, I have been doing years of meditation, and now, recently, it feels like the "stuff" under the surface is somehow closer...not visible yet, but closer. So that every time my subconscious goes through a "negative" thought, I can feel the contraction go through my system.

Does anyone have these body jolts, sensations of nerves contracting, while experiencing worry?

I've worried a lot about finishing my master degree, i've worried a lot about disease and death, I've SEEN a lot of disease and death, and I also have this type of personality that isn't particularly pleased with oneself, actually I don't think I'm any good at anything, and I'm slightly depressed about it, meanwhile I've studied the human condition on planet earth for the last 10 years quite extensively.


Now it seems that it all boils down to: "subconscious/conscious thought about slipped disc" leads to body jolts.
"subconscious/conscious thought about some viral banquet, feasting on my nervous system" leads to sharp pain in the foot.

general feelings of going insane are accompanied by this moving current of energy, anywhere on the body really. sometimes the groin, sometimes the lips twitch, sometimes it is tingling, sometimes it is sharp.

I think I've got lyme disease, because surely all this tension/anxiety can't produce all this????

but i checked myself for Lyme, I checked myself for Hepatitis and HIV, I checked myself for Chikungunya, I checked myself for everything I can think of, except of course MS, which my mind constantly tries to convince me that I have, but only when I feel the sharp pains of course.

I went to see an Ayurvedic Practitioner in India over christmas, and he concluded that my Vata is completely out of balance. And also my pitta, for those of you who have read some ayurveda.

Do I really have this many issues? I guess I do, because I've been meditating for years, and I'm a calm guy, and everybody seem to like me, I actually appear to be pretty popular and "in demand", but I keep thinking I'm not really any good at anything, and my awareness is "sub optimal". And I'm really fed up of not having finished my master degree and being able to take a good job and keep having to do gritty boring work like washing dishes. Actually, that's an insight I had the other day, while washing dishes at work. I was furious. I was MAD, I started to SWEAR AND CURSE to the pain...apparently there is a lot of repressed rage. Who am I?

 

Hi Knut,

Welcome to this forum.

Yes, with your stress, high expectations for yourself, and variety of symptoms, it certainly sounds like TMS, but your first step should be to have a doctor check out your concerns about Lyme, hepatitis, HIV, and so on, if you haven't done so already. You need some solid information to start figuring this out. Stay out of the Internet medical sites -- they won't help you and they'll just make you more scared.

It sounds like you make impossible demands on yourself, which is a recipe for TMS. Try to find some compassion for yourself instead. You've been through a lot.

It's a great thing that you let yourself get mad. That's being compassionate to yourself, by honoring your feelings. And 'Who am I?' is a great question for you to ask. Perhaps you've been pushing yourself down the wrong path, and need to get back in touch with what you really want. But be easy on yourself, and take the time you need to figure it out. Don't expect instant answers.

David.

 

Hi Knut,

Welcome to the Forum and this wonderful TMS support group. It sounds like you've had the basic physical stuff checked out, and you don't have the many systemic problems that have gone through your mind over time. I am happy about that.

I agree with David that the anger you felt is a good breakthrough. Something more real happened. Something closer to your life force emerged. Something closer to your personal truth. The anger can cut through worry, depression, self-examination, in a good way.

This seems interesting and good to me. You are aware of tension, and perhaps fear and anxiety about the stuff "lurking" down below. As you feel the contraction, you may be able to correlate this with superego activity, an attack by the Inner Critic. That may be what is happening. That is the way I first felt superego activity in my body. As a specific contraction in my body. It was helpful to identify the attacking words, and learn to disengage from the Inner Critic. This may or may not be your situation, but as you say this:

this sounds like self-rejection to me, an indication of superego activity.

If this seems true, and you want skills to understand and work with the superego, I recommend you read the book Soul Without Shame by Byron Brown, and do the exercises.

I also recommend the free programs for self-exploration at the Wiki
Alan Gordon's TMS Recovery Program
and
The Structured Education Program

Most participants are impressed by the revelations of their inner feelings, feelings they were not aware of, as they do these programs.

You also don't mention any counseling, to support yourself in your anxiety. I hope you get some help, since it sounds like you are suffering.

Sincerely,

Andy B