Estoy cansado.

Estoy cansado. Todavía no he logrado nada. He estado escribiendo, hablando sobre todo conmigo mismo sobre fantasmas del pasado y tratando de ver qué más podía descubrir. Sin embargo, no he hecho mucho.
He estado haciendo muchas actividades, intentando ignorar los síntomas, evitando el miedo y la catastrofización. He intentado vivir con normalidad, manteniéndome activa, pero sinceramente no encuentro alivio. Es difícil tener un dolor eléctrico que empezó debajo del hombro y ahora sube a la espalda. Lo único bueno es que ahora está más en el lado izquierdo y siento el brazo derecho un poco más libre.
Aun así, me despierto y no puedo evitar llorar y pensar que he fracasado. No sé si llorar es un fracaso, pero siento que lo es. ¿Qué mensaje de seguridad le estoy dando a mi cerebro si lloro? Al mismo tiempo, pienso que si no lloro, me estoy guardando algo. ¿cómo decirlo? Una forma de luchar.
Pues no lo sé. Dicen que para sanar y liberarse de los síntomas hay que llegar a un punto en el que ya no te importe nada o algo así. No sé cómo se supone que voy a llegar ahí.
El dolor es extraño. A veces ni siquiera puedo explicarlo. Puedo hacer mis actividades diarias, pero el dolor se percibe; está ahí en mi brazo, difuso. Me duelen los dedos. Es como un dolor nervioso.
No sé si alguien ha pasado por algo similar. Quienes se recuperaron, ¿también tuvieron momentos así, aunque lloraron? Quizás su dolor no fue así.

 

Hi, it isn't so much about not caring about anything but losing the fear you have around the symptoms. Naturally if you fear them less you'll care about them less. Knowing with little doubt that they are simply TMS and not a sign of a structural issue is obviously a very important factor in reducing that fear

 

If I don’t really have to completely eliminate that sensation, and it actually gets to a point where I simply don’t care about my pain and I’m just not afraid of the symptoms, then maybe I’m not doing so badly. And I’m calm most of the time. My pain is always there, it just varies from day to day or moment to moment—it can flare up.
Actually, since I slowly started lowering the fear, especially over these past almost two months when I began working with the SMT theory, I feel like everything has gotten worse. I had some other symptoms before, but they weren’t as persistent—more sporadic. But now my arms, which used to bother me only above the elbow, now have this pain up to the shoulder and sometimes it even reaches my back. And regarding my legs, basically the same thing. Before, I only felt bilateral pain inside my calves. Now I also feel pain in my thighs, although of a different kind, like the soreness you get after exercising for a long time—but it comes and goes, the same with my back.
Sometimes I also feel random sensations in my body, like nerve-like or electric sensations for a few seconds—on my face, anywhere. But honestly, my arms are what make me cry, because when the volume of the pain rises—like yesterday, it happened twice—I realized it was right after two moments when I got a little stressed.
That’s what I mean. When the pain is too strong, that’s when I cry. I can’t help it, and sometimes I feel like it’s a failure. I just wanted to know if anyone who has already experienced improvement went through this as part of the process. One day the pain was so strong that I couldn’t stop myself from crying.
I don’t know—I can only say that I’ve gotten worse. My pains haven’t increased in intensity, but they’ve spread more. And my symptoms… I feel unwell and tense in my body. These days they’ve been more frequent. I literally feel my body very uncomfortable everywhere, with strong pain in my arms.
Honestly, I don’t know—when people talk about flare-ups, they say there are symptom-free days. I wish I could have something like that. Mine are there all the time.

 

I'm not familiar with what SMT means so please let me know.

I don't think crying is an issue at all, feel free to let your emotions out.

The main issue that I see (1000 times more important than whether you cry or not, that's dwarfed in importance), and I've seen it in your other posts, is that you're constantly talking about the symptoms and how they act (I know others have mentioned this to you before). There is an obsession with them. I understand that from the point of view of how they are impacting your life, but this isn't helping your recovery at all. Why? Because you're trying to convince your scared brain that this is just TMS and not a body problem. If it is TMS, then in terms of recovery that's all you need to know, the symptom itself isn't relevant (again, obviously it's relevant to your life and day-to day, but not to recovery - I am very empathetic of your situation and I don't want you to suffer, so please don't take this as me trying to minimise your experience - believe me I know how much it sucks - everything I say is out of compassion to help you recover). It could be a skin issue, bowel problems, back pain, chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue, nerve pain - if it's TMS it's TMS. If the treatment for each of these TMS manifestations were different (how to recover from nerve pain was completely different to IBS for example), then symptoms would be more relevant, but that's not the case. It's all due to a scared brain and TMS recovery from the experts is prescribed the same (it covers the field).

By constantly talking about them and focusing on them (especially in this forum and related to your recovery), your brain is confused. It thinks well if she is so focused on the body and what the sensations are doing, then naturally there must be something wrong with the body (that is how you'd behave with a genuine structural issue). Your subconscious mind can't tell the difference. Given you know what TMS is, your mind is also knows that the symptom itself is largely irrelevant when it comes to TMS (as I said above) so by you putting so much attention on them, the brain is thinking well it mustn't be TMS and we must be broken.

This isn't a judgment and pretty much everyone has this issue at first (I did too), so I'm speaking from experience. You say you're lowering fear but both from your focus on the symptoms and some other things you're saying I sense quite a lot of fear (and frustration too - which is really just fear expressed another way).

I likewise understand wanting to find someone who had very similar symptoms to you who has healed (for encouragement purposes), but again it sends the same message to your brain as above. If you truly knew it was TMS, then you'd know the symptom itself isn't the issue. You could theoretically get the same amount of wisdom and guidance from someone who recovered from dizziness or another other completely different symptom (obviously advice from those with similar symptoms will land better, that's only natural, I'm just making the point).

You could do all the work in the world and put in all the effort, but often seemingly small things like this make a massive difference (and block recovery). Another thing too is you sound as if you are in hawk mode with your symptoms so to speak and are watching their every move. You can't strictly measure progress by what happens with the symptoms (I understand the desire too as this is the ultimate goal), as again it just sends a message to the brain that there's a body problem (TMS recovery is about lowering fear and attention, then the symptom reduction follows, often not straight away).

Whether someone is engaging in these behaviours or not is often a reflection of true indifference building and fear reducing (i.e. monitoring your symptoms constantly isn't a reflection of reduced fear and indifference, in fact it's quite the opposite). To summarise what I said above too, the only relevance your symptoms have to recovery is whether you truly believe they are TMS (how symptoms act is only relevant as evidence of the fact that they are TMS). Once that's achieved, it's all the same work for everyone

 

Everyone on this website has hit rock bottom with their symptoms. It usually is when the doctors cannot do anything else for you and yet the symptoms persist and nothing is working. By the tone of this post, you are there.

The only way out of this is through it. No one is going to fix you but yourself. And the only way you are going to do that is if you start a program. Have you looked at the SEP program on this site? It will help you learn more about TMS but also process your emotions. I think I asked you this before and you didn't respond.

You have to stop talking about your symptoms TODAY. You will not get better by ruminating on them and writing posts dedicated to your symptoms. I would love to see your next post be about how you are going to tackle TMS. What books are you reading? What program are you doing? What emotions are you feeling?

This will be the first step in your wellness journey. It's scary but as your start to work on your emotions and your nervous system, you will see results. Maybe not in your symptoms at first-but more in your mental health. For me, as I did the program and read the books, my lifestyle and mindset changed. That is when I started to see the reduction in my symptoms. Another thing I did was to laugh. I watched a funny movie, tv show, or comedian show. It was something to take my mind off my symptoms. When I saw a reduction in my symptoms, I started exercising as well. Everything happened in baby steps.

What will be your first step today?

 

Agreed, well said.

 

I’m sorry. I know I always talk about the symptoms. Maybe it’s because deep down I really want someone who had something like this to have overcome it. I find some old posts with something similar and people did recover, but they’re just a tiny minority. Right now I feel like there’s no one who has improved with the kind of symptoms I have.
You know? Yes, it’s true—I’m aware that the specific symptom doesn’t matter. The healing process is the same, but the difficulty feels different. It’s not the same to tell people, “My back hurts and it’s disabling,” as it is to say, “I have nerve pain that moves around in my arms.” Everyone thinks I’m crazy, or that I’m making it up, that I’m exaggerating.
The worst part is that I have to do everything with those arms. Do you know how frustrating that can be? I try to breathe, and most of the time I stay calm, but I can’t help feeling anger. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry at my brain—not just for choosing my arms, but for the type of pain it gave me. I wouldn’t mind living with my other symptoms, but I wish it would just leave my arms alone.
I’m sorry that right now there’s no one with these symptoms who can give me advice, since most of the people I think have recovered don’t come back—and maybe that’s a good sign. Thank you for your words. At least I know that crying isn’t a failure, even though sometimes I’m not sure.

 

Don't talk about your symptoms with anyone. Don't complain about them, don't give them space or breath.
You live with them, side by side but not through them.
You are not a victim of them, they are there to communicate with you that there is something you need to feel, but are pushing it off to the side.
People here have similar symptoms (I mentioned I have had some similar symptoms and have completely recovered from those symptoms) but you still keep searching for the *perfect* match, perhaps you want detail. I do not provide detail about my symptoms because the symptom is not the "problem" the emotions and thoughts/obsessions are the concern.
The work is to refocus your mind on the emotions, on life, on joy and on living. It's not easy, it can take time which for a few is just days, for most is longer. For some it takes much longer. This is a personal journey to wellness, and gaining back the spirit of your life.
The choice is to suffer (suffering is mental and emotional, it's not the physical pain or symptom) and be miserable to to make the decision that today I will put one foot in front of the other and begin to step out of the old habits and patterns that keep me stuck in this place. You deserve to be in a much better place, treat yourself like you would treat anyone you love who is suffering. Kindness, compassion, encouragement.

 

No need to apologise! You don't owe us anything. It's your recovery and it's up to you.

I completely understand the desire to find people who have overcome it. But when you said "I find some old posts with something similar and people did recover, but they're just a tiny minority". You've actually done really well. I never found anyone with pain in the exact location where I had it, I had to settle for the broader notion of pelvic pain (and I had to decide that this was enough to pursue my own healing and that I didn't need anymore confirmation). You're contradicting yourself too because you said that you found people who did recover but in the next sentence you feel like no one has improved. Most people who recover just go back to life and don't feel the need to share their success story, so I'm not sure really what you mean by "tiny minority". To me that idea (as well as you looking at the above contradiction in the negative light) is just feeding into a potential victim mentality and the potential idea that you're a special case and that this won't work for you.

I don't think you're crazy or exaggerating at all. The other thing I wanted to say is that I have a diagnostic guide book which has over 500 diagnoses in it and whether or not TMS could apply to them (it is written by Dr Clarke, Dr Schubiner and Dr Schechter - so the top experts with over 7000 patients worth of experience). They talk about nerve pain and how it can present in basically any part of the body (including the arms) - although they don't give patent by patient examples (the book would be a million pages if they did) - they wouldn't mention nerve pain in the arms as potentially TMS if they didn't heal multiple patients with that specific condition.

Cactusflower said they had similar symptoms and recovered, so I think it would be a mistake to feel as if they don't answer that desire you have at the end when you said "no one with these symptoms can give me advice". They are giving you free advice too so I think it would be madness not to jump all over it.

I don't know how frustrating your specific symptom is necessarily - and I have great empathy for you. Having said that, when I was at my worst with my pelvic pain I would have traded it for your symptom and I would have said a similar thing to you in that just give it to me anywhere else. I probably would have said "I can't even walk or sit down without horrible pain, I'd love to trade it for arm pain because even though I couldn't use my arms at least I'd be able to sit down and enjoy a movie or go and walk in the park". The point of this is not a competition or a game of who has it worse, the point is that each person when they have their symptoms the worst (even if they've had multiple symptoms) will hate it so much that they'd trade it for something else. Also, someone else with your exact symptom history would prefer the arm symptoms to another symptom which you've had (I know that may be hard to believe but it's true) - we are all different and we are all the product of our experiences (some would be more comfortable with pain moving around than pain being in one spot, and vice versa - I have met them all). I've never met someone in a massive flare who thought that their symptom wasn't the worst symptom to ever exist. I'm not being facetious, it's just how our brains work because that's what we are experiencing in the moment (and we would do anything to escape it).

When you said you wouldn't mind living with other symptoms, the good thing is that if you understand the message of the symptoms, you don't have to live with any symptoms. That notion is also sending a message to the brain as to what you think is possible. You can be chronic pain free