Drawing pains

[Redditor]

I have been having some pain, which I'm not sure if it's TMS. They're really hard to describe in words but I can "see" them and draw them. Is this normal? Sometimes it's a little hard to tell what they actually feel like just from the images so I added captions. Please excuse my amateur artistic abilities...

This is what I sometimes feel in my chest. It's usually at my heart, in front of my heart. But it can occur on the right side of my body opposite of the heart too. It's sharp but not stabbing. Sort of like muscles cramping up, but it feels sharp. This kind of pain only lasts about a second.

This is what I felt in my torso between my left kidney and my back. I could almost feel a hand or a claw. But it's not a human hand or animal/bird claw. It's a creepy claw and sort of boxy, like the stuff you see in Minecraft. I had a lot of trouble illustrating the boxy part so it looks more like an ordinary creepy claw in the picture. It's kind of like scratching and tapping but more of tapping. Each time it taps, I feel pain. Sometimes it taps about 5 times, goes away, and keeps coming back. It always stops eventually though.

I felt this in my lower back, near my spine above the pelvic region. Starts small, grows big, and becomes small again. I feel like I can almost control the pain, like it's a muscle cramp and I can almost stop my muscles from moving but the only thing preventing that is that those are involuntary muscles. This also happens between my left kidney and back sometimes but I haven't had the time to illustrate that.

I guess I answered my own question, "Is this normal?" From looking at what I just wrote, probably not. So my question now is, is this TMS and has this happened to anyone else here?

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

I prefer paintings of landscapes with cows in it that look like cows, but you definitely are depicting something going on.
Keep at it. Maybe 200 years from now Antiques Roadshow will show them and say they're worth a million.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

You should see the paintings a niece's husband does. He teaches art in a college and his paintings sell for
hundreds of dollars. But if he's painting his TMS symptoms, he needs professional help. Compared to his,
yours look like they were painted by Shirley Temple.

 

[Redditor]

Compared to his,
yours look like they were painted by Shirley Temple.

I'll assume that's a compliment and say thank you. Trust me, I don't do this for a living though.

 

[Forest]

One can never tell, but it certainly sounds like TMS to me. Dr. Sarno sometimes says that the more intense a chronic pain is, the more likely that it is TMS. Also, the stranger the pain is, the more likely it is to be TMS. Finally, if a neurologist is saying that is stress related, that is a pretty strong signal.

Of course, only a doctor can make a diagnosis, so it is important to work with a physician to rule out anything serious. In particular, with your low weight, I would be worried that that might be causing symptoms. Only a doctor can answer that question for you, though. Like I said, if your neurologist says that it is stress, that is a strong signal.

What we've found on the forums is that accepting the diagnosis is key to recovery, so once you do have a diagnosis, you'll want to accept it completely. Doubt can really wreak havoc with a mind-body condition.

If you'd like to learn more, we have a Structured Educational Program that guides people through some of the best free TMS resources and does so at a manageable pace and with a thought out order. You can find it here if you are interested. Many of the people here swear by it:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Structured_Educational_Program

The idea would be to dive into the SEP in hopes that starting your way through it might help to add some clarity.

 

[Redditor]

the more intense a chronic pain is, the more likely that it is TMS.

What exactly is "chronic" pain? I used to picture chronic pain as a mild, dull pain that lasts a long time.

But my pains are sharp and fast. They last about a second each, every single time. The only thing that's close to "chronic" about them is their recurrence. Does that qualify as "chronic"?

 

[Forest]

Yup, I would think so. Chronic pain can be quite agonizing and can come and go. One definition of chronic pain is pain that has been around for 6 months or more. I prefer a definition of chronic pain as being pain that has outlived it's usefulness of signaling damage to the body. Acute pain typically signals real damage to the body, but pain becomes chronic when the damage has healed and, for some reason, the pain goes on. Alternatively there may not have been any damage in the first place. The pain is just there.

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

I have been having some pain, which I'm not sure if it's TMS. They're really hard to describe in words but I can "see" them and draw them. Is this normal? Sometimes it's a little hard to tell what they actually feel like just from the images so I added captions. Please excuse my amateur artistic abilities...

This is what I sometimes feel in my chest. It's usually at my heart, in front of my heart. But it can occur on the right side of my body opposite of the heart too. It's sharp but not stabbing. Sort of like muscles cramping up, but it feels sharp. This kind of pain only lasts about a second.

This is what I felt in my torso between my left kidney and my back. I could almost feel a hand or a claw. But it's not a human hand or animal/bird claw. It's a creepy claw and sort of boxy, like the stuff you see in Minecraft. I had a lot of trouble illustrating the boxy part so it looks more like an ordinary creepy claw in the picture. It's kind of like scratching and tapping but more of tapping. Each time it taps, I feel pain. Sometimes it taps about 5 times, goes away, and keeps coming back. It always stops eventually though.

I felt this in my lower back, near my spine above the pelvic region. Starts small, grows big, and becomes small again. I feel like I can almost control the pain, like it's a muscle cramp and I can almost stop my muscles from moving but the only thing preventing that is that those are involuntary muscles. This also happens between my left kidney and back sometimes but I haven't had the time to illustrate that.

I guess I answered my own question, "Is this normal?" From looking at what I just wrote, probably not. So my question now is, is this TMS and has this happened to anyone else here?

Wow Redditor very good illustrations, if you can draw the pain why don't you visualize all of these illustrations getting better and returning to a normal healthy look in your minds eye. That's one way by imaging ya know.

A great bet with the visualization control since you said you could almost control it (which is every but an indicator that its tms) I'd agree with forest for you to start the SEP program. It will help you find out what it is your repressing that's causing these pains thus effecting a cure.