AnitaV
Well known member
I would like to share a story of a recent bout with TMS that I experienced. I will share it in detail because I think it could be helpful in understanding the nature of TMS.
Seven years ago, I recovered from over a decade of crippling foot pain, as well as bouts of eye pain, back pain, and wrist pain, thanks to Dr. Sarno's work. My primary symptom was severe pain at the bottom of my foot which was usually diagnosed as plantar fasciitis.
You can read my story here: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-tms-success-story-crippling-foot-pain-plantar-fasciitis-wrist-pain-eye-pain.5224/ (My TMS Success Story (crippling foot pain - plantar fasciitis, wrist pain, eye pain))
I also wrote a TMS recovery plan based on my experience here: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-tms-recovery-plan.12499/ (My TMS Recovery Plan)
In the years since my recovery, I have continued to work on learning to feel my emotions and stop repressing my true self with the help of an amazing program at A New Life Center (www.anewlc.com). When I do repress my emotions, I exhibit new symptoms, but I have learned to see physical symptoms as a sign that I need to do emotional work, and have continued improving my emotional health as a result. I have been able to resolve every physical symptom that has come up using this approach.
That all brings me to my current story: in February of this year, I hit my toe very hard and thought that I broke it. This was new territory for me, as pretty much all pain that I have ever experienced was TMS. Here, I had a real injury that required rest and healing time.
About two weeks after the initial injury, I was feeling much better and decided to take a walk. About 10 minutes into the walk, I started feeling pain in that toe. I turned around and went home, and by the time I returned home, the pain was intense.
I was very upset, and believed that I had walked on my injured toe too soon and had reinjured it. I went back to resting, but for the next two weeks, my pain continued to be very intense and did not get much better. I was emotionally distraught, and fell back into the same patterns of anxiety that had plagued me for so many years in the past. I kept thinking that I had caused some sort of irreparable damage to myself by doing too much too soon. My pain was not getting better the way it had when I initially injured the toe. I was overcome with anxiety and fear.
That brings us to the interesting part: I was making dinner one evening with my foot resting up on a stool. I decided then that I must not be healing because I am using the foot too much, so I should get crutches and use those until the toe gets better. I felt tremendous relief once I had made this decision. My anxiety went away and I stopped worrying about the toe.
Then, when I took my foot off the stool and stepped on it to walk to my dining table, the pain was gone. I was completely shocked. Just a little while ago, every step had been extremely painful, and now, all of a sudden, it did not hurt anymore. Then, when I stepped on my other foot, I suddenly experienced sharp pain in the bottom my foot, just as I had in my many years of "plantar fasciitis".
I took a few more steps and had the same experience - almost no pain in the foot with the injured toe, and strong pain in the bottom of my other foot. I immediately realized what was happening. The pain I had been experiencing in my injured toe in the two weeks since my toe was TMS. The purpose of TMS is to cause fear, anxiety, and distraction to keep you from experiencing negative emotions. At the moment that I decided to get crutches and stopped feeling scared and anxious, the toe pain stopped serving this purpose, so my mindbody created pain in a different location to try to continue distracting me. Thanks to what I have learned through my healing journey, this distraction did not work.
I understood what was happening, did some emotional work, and my pain was gone very soon after. I had an x-ray scheduled for the next day, and it showed that my toe was not broken after all, it had been sprained. Much of my pain was coming from my fear that my toe was broken, so after learning that it had never been broken, the little pain that was remaining disappeared.
I hope that this story helps illustrate the nature of TMS, and how dramatically your pain can appear, shift, and disappear. It also illustrates that TMS pain aims to be as believable as possible, so it will often show up at the site of an injury, where you are already expecting to have pain.
Remember, you are strong, you have the ability to be in perfect health, and with the right knowledge and work you can overcome any TMS pain!
Seven years ago, I recovered from over a decade of crippling foot pain, as well as bouts of eye pain, back pain, and wrist pain, thanks to Dr. Sarno's work. My primary symptom was severe pain at the bottom of my foot which was usually diagnosed as plantar fasciitis.
You can read my story here: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-tms-success-story-crippling-foot-pain-plantar-fasciitis-wrist-pain-eye-pain.5224/ (My TMS Success Story (crippling foot pain - plantar fasciitis, wrist pain, eye pain))
I also wrote a TMS recovery plan based on my experience here: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-tms-recovery-plan.12499/ (My TMS Recovery Plan)
In the years since my recovery, I have continued to work on learning to feel my emotions and stop repressing my true self with the help of an amazing program at A New Life Center (www.anewlc.com). When I do repress my emotions, I exhibit new symptoms, but I have learned to see physical symptoms as a sign that I need to do emotional work, and have continued improving my emotional health as a result. I have been able to resolve every physical symptom that has come up using this approach.
That all brings me to my current story: in February of this year, I hit my toe very hard and thought that I broke it. This was new territory for me, as pretty much all pain that I have ever experienced was TMS. Here, I had a real injury that required rest and healing time.
About two weeks after the initial injury, I was feeling much better and decided to take a walk. About 10 minutes into the walk, I started feeling pain in that toe. I turned around and went home, and by the time I returned home, the pain was intense.
I was very upset, and believed that I had walked on my injured toe too soon and had reinjured it. I went back to resting, but for the next two weeks, my pain continued to be very intense and did not get much better. I was emotionally distraught, and fell back into the same patterns of anxiety that had plagued me for so many years in the past. I kept thinking that I had caused some sort of irreparable damage to myself by doing too much too soon. My pain was not getting better the way it had when I initially injured the toe. I was overcome with anxiety and fear.
That brings us to the interesting part: I was making dinner one evening with my foot resting up on a stool. I decided then that I must not be healing because I am using the foot too much, so I should get crutches and use those until the toe gets better. I felt tremendous relief once I had made this decision. My anxiety went away and I stopped worrying about the toe.
Then, when I took my foot off the stool and stepped on it to walk to my dining table, the pain was gone. I was completely shocked. Just a little while ago, every step had been extremely painful, and now, all of a sudden, it did not hurt anymore. Then, when I stepped on my other foot, I suddenly experienced sharp pain in the bottom my foot, just as I had in my many years of "plantar fasciitis".
I took a few more steps and had the same experience - almost no pain in the foot with the injured toe, and strong pain in the bottom of my other foot. I immediately realized what was happening. The pain I had been experiencing in my injured toe in the two weeks since my toe was TMS. The purpose of TMS is to cause fear, anxiety, and distraction to keep you from experiencing negative emotions. At the moment that I decided to get crutches and stopped feeling scared and anxious, the toe pain stopped serving this purpose, so my mindbody created pain in a different location to try to continue distracting me. Thanks to what I have learned through my healing journey, this distraction did not work.
I understood what was happening, did some emotional work, and my pain was gone very soon after. I had an x-ray scheduled for the next day, and it showed that my toe was not broken after all, it had been sprained. Much of my pain was coming from my fear that my toe was broken, so after learning that it had never been broken, the little pain that was remaining disappeared.
I hope that this story helps illustrate the nature of TMS, and how dramatically your pain can appear, shift, and disappear. It also illustrates that TMS pain aims to be as believable as possible, so it will often show up at the site of an injury, where you are already expecting to have pain.
Remember, you are strong, you have the ability to be in perfect health, and with the right knowledge and work you can overcome any TMS pain!
