doubts, unsure of myself and not seeing results

My history in short is - continuous stammer all the way through childhood. Later stammer subsided but continuous neck spasm began. Both are same inside, outer expression is different.

15 yrs of stammer. 7 years of neck spasm. And almost 5 years of knowing sarno and tms.

Been through cycles of symptom imperative. I just wait what would be next symptom. It just circulates among - neck spasm, ibs, bloating, tmj, shoulder pain, hip pain, eye pain, throat pain and at any given point that particular pain is so real it hurts so bad and cycle goes on and on. I don't know when cycle ends or not. I just fear one day body will be incapable to bear this cycle and breaks down.

I have doubts in me - is all this tms, emotional source of pain - is this going to heal me? I have been aware of my tension when this spasm started and type of personality I have. I see all criteria of tms in me. I see myself in tms books, posts. But i have doubts because i am not seeing the results. It has been 7 years and i still have same sharp pain as day 1 when all this began. Still neck spasm persist. Not seeing progress or any difference in my experience causes me to doubt if i am on right way? What am i missing?

It is really difficult to get other responsibilities done with having pain in life. As I move forward, responsibilities will increase. I am quiet afraid as to how I will be able to face them with such state in pain.

 

@silentflutes , what have you been doing in your TMS work? Have you seen any even small short-term improvements?

 

I was going to ask the same question.

Just "knowing" is enough for some people in the short term, but it's not enough for others, and in my experience it's also not enough in the long term for most people. Many people come back to "do the work" months or years after having initial success by just reading a couple of books.

We have two free programs which you probably know about since you've been around for a while. I suspect that you need to do the emotional work.

 

@TG957 @JanAtheCPA

I am not sure about improvement. The tight neck spasm has always been there. When other symptoms arises - neck spasm subsides slightly but it is there when I am engulfed into the symptom. When I have fever I don't have spasm at all- when I heal from fever, I get into spasm. Rate of fever decrease = rate of spasm increase

Let me share what I have done in 2-3 years.

To manage :
I force myself to do my work, chores despite of neck spasm. Experience is pain and agony. To get respite, I have been locked to habit of stretching/jolting my neck with popping sound of relief. I continuously pop my jaws as well to release the tension. I do this almost every few minute every day. It has been automatic habit. With these two compulsive habit I am able go through my day. I also chew chewing gum whole day every day. All these get me some instant relief from neck spasm. When I over do these habits and have sore jaw,neck then I try to sleep or ignore this.

Due to pain I just try to get bare minimum done and just want to put an end to this misery by sleeping or above habits forcefully. I just stay away from everything else. Pain has become center focus of my life since 7 yrs. I sometimes feel when will end?

To heal :

Some days, I get surge of doing something, I have to heal this. This way, I won't live a happy life. I revise notes bookmarks of tms books. I either do yoga, meditate, journal. I see emotional aspect and stress is causing all this. I hope yoga meditation journal releases emotion, stress so in turn I will be healed. Sometimes I get relief from this sometimes no.

Even after understanding all this, I am still not healed. When will this heal? When will be done with this? Desperation. Frustration.

Then I remember, letting this spasm be as it is and enjoying life is solution. I have focused a lot on this spasm so it is magnified and growing. So I try to ignore and enjoy my life but pain pulls me right into the neck spasm. Again I come back to previous mode - i must heal or resolve this first.


I get into this deadlock loop of what is the way to heal? Should I focus and do yoga meditation and heal or should I just let it be? Between these two I vacillate. To do something or let it be? Which comes first? Either way I am in pain.

In this cycle of to do or not to do things I have done -
- session with steve ozanich
- old free program of the wiki few years back.
- 1 month back, I completed David Schechter's 30 day mind body work book.
- meditation/breathing daily

 

@silentflutes, how much work have you done regarding your parents, and the childhood dynamics within your family? I'm not asking for any kind of detail, just an idea of whether or not you have seriously addressed family and parental relationships, and how deeply.

 

Everything you describe about your symptoms is clear indication of TMS. Muscle spasms are the result of stress, tension and suppressed emotions.

I am curious to know what exactly your meditation/breathing is like and how long is each session? What kind of emotional work have you done? Reading books is not enough, it is only through mindful inner work that you can reverse your suppression of emotions.

 

After coming across tms books - I did became aware of the extreme extent of me not accepting my family, parents ever and economic social condition I had to live through. I always had furious anger towards them for giving me birth into such poor family or giving birth without ability to fulfill basic needs. I also see how much stress, depression and pain that had caused in my entire life. All these realization came and I was able to see my past after reading couple of tms books and journal here and there.

Coming back to last 1 month - Some things related to family popped up while doing David Schechter's 30 day mind body work book - "When I didn't get what I want, when my needs desire were unmet, I got hurt deeply, intensely in childhood. Then I questioned why this is happening and I point parents as cause for all this pain hurt. A deep hurt pain. And in retaliation, to never have pain hurt or lacking - I started becoming critical, controlling of future - prevent force something bad from happening - that critical control/tightness/rigidity was in voice(Stammer), now in muscle - neck spasm. And every time in midst to pain/spasm, I feel this will never get healed. How would I accept something that gave me so much hurt? Had they ensure my needs, this wouldn't have started. " I had or have to accept family and all because that was the best they could do. I just feel - had I been born on much healthy environment and had basic needs/desire met I wouldn't have been in pain (stammer, spasm). I haven't done anything else to deal or address parental relation. My assumption is I continue doing yoga, breathing meditation or journals which will release emotion and heal eventually.

Could you discuss on work needed to be done?

 

Breathing meditation - lotus posture, close your eyes, breath 10-15 times slow relaxing. Then alternate nose breathing for couple of minutes then observing your breath. ~20 mins, once a day

I am not sure about emotional work. I did David Schechter's 30 day mind body work book a month ago. And, when in pain I skim through tms book notes and highlights. I either do breathing meditation or take a walk in park or do some yoga posture. I am assuming these will eventually release any emotion held in body and heal.

can you elaborate on mindful inner work?

 

To me it sounds like you are really, really close to getting this all out.....and then that lower part of your brain is putting the break on and stopping you. The way that you say, "I feel this will never get healed." I personally don't think yoga and breathing or anything like that is going to help in a big way until you feel the feels of that parental hurt.

 

@silentflutes, the overwhelming emotions I get from you are rage and resentment and victimhood.

I don't know how you can possibly find peace and healing if your thoughts continue to be consumed by how you were a victim of your upbringing. I also suspect that self-hatred plays a significant role. This is made worse by the continued victimhood, which then becomes a negative downward cycle that never ends.

But you can end it.

My best advice is to seek some very skilled therapeutic help, to get you out of this cycle, to find a way to forgive your family, and most importantly to learn how to love yourself. It can be done, but you need someone to work with you one-on-one.

I sincerely wish you success in your journey.

~Jan

 

You may want to look at Dr Hanscom’s website. He discusses anger in various forms, and self victimization in depth. He also gives suggestion on how to begin changing perspectives and beginning to live in the now, instead of the past. Along with this he discusses self calming, and moving through an emotional process to understand (conscious and unconscious) how forgive, refocus anger and so much more. His work didn’t speak to me in total personally, but I did feel victim to symptoms. I no longer feel that way. I don’t think any of this is a in substitution for a really good therapist, as @JanAtheCPA suggests, but it might help you see a path that you can ask that therapist to help you with, and get a better understanding of your ability to truly heal so many aspects of your life.

 

While breathing meditation and any yoga breathing asanas are very good in general, I personally did not see any significant improvements through meditation until I started practicing a sitting meditation every day for at least 1 hour in a single sitting, the longer, the better. Why I started doing it? Somebody mentioned on some of the forums that to see results, you need to do at least 20 minutes. Took me a while to get there, but only then I understood what they meant. After about 10-15 mins I usually see a rise in anxiety, but as I sit through it, about 20 minutes into, I see a noticeable change in how my body and mind respond. I believe that healing phase of meditation begins at that point. I started seeing small improvements in my pain levels after about a month of daily practice. It took me over a year to see drastic improvements. I worked with someone who was meditating 3 times a day for 15 min each and was telling me that meditation was useless. She started doing it my way and healed from a very serious case of TMS.

As for emotional work, it varies by the person, some people dive into psychoanalysis and look for childhood traumas, to great results. In my case it was observing my emotions on a daily basis and understanding the underlying causes and my reactions to the events of the day. One thing I learned, you cannot do it by going through the motions without getting honest about your own inner motives and often facing unpleasant truth about yourself. As the saying goes, if it does not hurt, it does not work. It applies to the emotional hurt that comes from putting a mirror to your face.

 

Jan is right. It is only when we stop seeing ourselves as victims and feel small about ourselves, and instead start feeling that we can handle whatever life throws at us, that pain goes away, because we now feel in control of our feelings and our life.