Eczema and how to feel your emotions

So I’ve recovered from a bunch of TMS-symptoms throughout the years, but I’m still somewhat caught in the symptom imperative so I’m clearly not completely out of the woods yet. That said, the intensity of the symptoms are not as high as before, and I’ve been able to take a lot of my life back. And if old symptoms reappear I’m able to get rid of them pretty quickly.

My recent symptom is eczema in my face which have lasted for like a year. I’ve had it on and off for years before that, and I’m actually not sure if it’s a TMS-symptom or caused by something else. Thus I’ve actually never done the TMS approach on it to try to remove it that way. That said, I’m getting more and more «evidence» that it’s actually the good ole TMS and I’m just starting to treat it like it is.

Like, several times I have seemed to be able to stop the itching by really focusing on allowing the symptoms to just be there, and by really feeling the negative emotions surrounding it while not resisting them.

The symptom is also behaving weird which often is a tell-tale sign of TMS for me. It started to appear a year ago as a small itchy patch below my right eye, and came and went a couple of times before it disappeared. Right after, the same pattern recurred, but now along my right nasolabial fold. Then it appeared along the right side of my nose a couple of times before it dissappeared yet again. And right after, it started to appear on the left side of my face in the area below my eye and up along the left side of the nose. It has stuck in this area for like 6 months now. First it came in cycles, but for the past month it has persisted, and the patch has gotten bigger. I think what I’m trying to say is that this strange pattern is giving me TMS vibes.

It’s also suspicious that it came soon after I let go of some stressors in my life. For me, that’s often how I get a new TMS symptom. It’s as if the stress energy that before manifested through the factors I removed now needs to find some new excuse to manifest itself. And I’m really not scared of my old TMS symptoms like pain and anxiety anymore so I guess my mind can’t use those as outlets anymore.

Eczema is a whole other ball game though. With pain and anxiety I was still able to do everything I wanted to do, so that really took the fear out of it. With eczema on the other hand it hits straight into my self-esteem and I feel like it really hinders my dating and social life which in turn fuels the fear of the symptom.

So let’s say I’m able to remove the eczema with the approach I’ve used on my old TMS-symptoms which is basically to remove the fear of the symptom with outcome independence. But then what? Based on my past TMS history I will likely just get a new symptom that is even scarier, and I’m stuck in the symptom imperative yet again. I feel like I need to update my approach. How to get to the source of what’s really driving this symptom-imperative pattern?

I know Sarno says stress around our life situations can be one of the causes, along with surpressed feelings. While I have a tendency to put pressure on myself, I don’t have a particular stressful life. And as said earlier, when I remove stressors in my life I tend to get new TMS symptoms as it’s if the stress energy now needs to find a new outlet.

So I’m thinking surpressed feelings may be the culprit in my case. Like I have a big pile of surpessed feelings stuck inside me that is desperat to manifest itself. And to do so it uses life situations, beliefs, TMS symptoms, etc as excuses. So removing one of them just make another one appear with the same feelings attached. In other words, the symptom imperative in a broader sense.

So it seems like what I have overlooked in my old approach is to focus on removing surpressed feelings. But exactly how should we go about doing this? Let’s say I feel anger or any other negative emotion because I feel the eczema is wrecking my life. Should I change my belief around the symptom so I stop being anxious about it, or should I try to feel and act out on the anger in case it’s surpressed anger from my childhood that uses the symptom as an excuse to manifest? I’ve usually used the first approach with my old TMS symptoms as it removed the fear/resistance to the symptom, and while it works to remove that particular symptom, it seems to keep me stuck in the symptom imperative. I suspect it’s so because I inadvertently keep surpressing the surpressed emotion that is actually the cause of the symptom by not actually really dealing with it?

On the other hand, with acting out on the anger I fear it will just fuel the symptom as in some way I validate an emotion that works as a resistance to the symptom. And it’s the very resistance to the symptom in its various forms that fuels it? See the dilemma?

Would maybe a better approach be to dig for old surpressed emotions unrelated to the symptoms so I don’t risk fueling the symptoms while still being able to reduce the pile of surpressed emotions?

Also, can eczema actually be TMS? Anyone here having had eczema and realized it was only TMS? If so, how did you go about removing it?

Sorry for the wall of text. It was supposed to be short but it just kept adding up lol. I really appreciate any replies though. I also wanna say a big thank you to this forum and all its contributors. This forum was what made me realize that my old symptoms were TMS and it completely changed my life.

 

Thanks a lot for your reply. Yes you’re right, it’s definitely time to investigate surpressed emotions. And it’s good to get confirmed my suspicion that anger over my symptoms is the wrong focus. I’m starting the SEP now and will continue through with it.