Fatigue...looking for advice

[Logan Cale]

I seem to be suffering from a lot of fatigue for the last few years. I think it's TMS related, but I am not sure 100% sure.

I sleep fine at night, then in the day I will sometimes get overwhelming fatigue and need to lie down for a while. It's like a nap but without the sleep. Other times at work I seem to be fine and to anyone who knows me at work probably thinks I am fine and full of energy (if anything I then get too much anxiety). Then get back home and overwhelming fatigue.

I was thinking maybe it's depression, but I find sometimes I am fine and other times not. A bit like TMS pain. Sometimes you have pain only during a certain time, doing a certain thing and only in a certain place.

From what I understand about TMS I need to just try and ignore the fatigue and just carry on with my day. I find this really hard though. Normally the urge to lie down to rest wins. Should I maybe try to carry on doing what I want to do with the fatigue for say 5 minutes, then build up slowly? Any help would be amazing!

 

[Booble]

I seem to be suffering from a lot of fatigue for the last few years. I think it's TMS related, but I am not sure 100% sure.

I sleep fine at night, then in the day I will sometimes get overwhelming fatigue and need to lie down for a while. It's like a nap but without the sleep. Other times at work I seem to be fine and to anyone who knows me at work probably thinks I am fine and full of energy (if anything I then get too much anxiety). Then get back home and overwhelming fatigue.

I was thinking maybe it's depression, but I find sometimes I am fine and other times not. A bit like TMS pain. Sometimes you have pain only during a certain time, doing a certain thing and only in a certain place.

From what I understand about TMS I need to just try and ignore the fatigue and just carry on with my day. I find this really hard though. Normally the urge to lie down to rest wins. Should I maybe try to carry on doing what I want to do with the fatigue for say 5 minutes, then build up slowly? Any help would be amazing!

It's OK to take a nap if you are tired. That's what normal people do.
It sounds like you are a high intense thinker/worker. That uses up a lot of energy.
Take some naps, try and go to bed a little earlier for a bit.

 

[Diana-M]

I was thinking maybe it's depression, but I find sometimes I am fine and other times not. A bit like TMS pain. Sometimes you have pain only during a certain time, doing a certain thing and only in a certain place.

If it is TMS, you could try doing all the healing methods, take the classes, journal, etc., and fight it that way. Carrying on despite the symptoms is only one small part of it.

 

[TG957]

From what I understand about TMS I need to just try and ignore the fatigue and just carry on with my day.

This is not a correct understanding of TMS. The foundation of the TMS method is to understand repressed emotions and/or psychological trauma hiding beneath your symptoms. Without doing this work you are not really applying TMS method. Start with SEP program offered on this site. It is free, and it is a good start. In my case, meditation was exceptionally helpful, but it was a deeper dive into my subconscious after I understood the foundational concepts of TMS.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

I was thinking maybe it's depression, but I find sometimes I am fine and other times not.

Rhetorical question for you: What do you think is the purpose of the "but" in this statement? Because the fact is that depression behaves just like any other symptom, and in fact it behaves just like any so-called real illness or injury, in that the sensations vary from day to day as well as minute to minute. Variability is thus irrelevant (and focusing on/measuring the fact of the variability is a distraction).

We had a teenage foster kid years ago who was eventually Dx'd with full-on Bipolar II, but before she was on medication she had totally normal days that were neither manic nor depressive. One or the other could also suddenly manifest seemingly out of nowhere. Even on medication, she still had breakthrough days for whatever reason.

It's important to understand that there is no either/or. There is no black and white. Our symptoms and our mental health coexist on a continuously changing spectrum in multiple shades of gray. I know that this is not comfortable for our personality types which crave consistency, certainty, measurability and control, but this is what it is.

Dr Sarno said that both depression and anxiety can be what he then called TMS equivalents, meaning symptoms that are mental rather than physical. Both are known to be symptoms that will appear unexpectedly in people who have been "doing the work" (meaning a program such as the SEP) for a couple of weeks - it's part of the TMS brain attempting to discourage the possibility that repressed emotions might be revealed.

So yeah, it might in fact be depression. If this is new for you, it may be related to doing the emotional work (are you?) or even from just exploring the possibilities. Our brains are wired to be negative, and they will rebel in different ways against the hope that people experience when they discover this knowledge.

In my profile, somewhere in my list of resources, I have a section of my own posts, one of which describes my personal experience with depression in 2011, the year I found this work and recovered. "Before Sarno", one of the really frightening symptoms I experienced as my TMS crisis peaked was depression, which I'd never experienced in my 60 years, but I sure as hell knew it when I felt it. It tried to take me down one last time during my TMS recovery a bit later on, but I managed to fight back. It can be done, but depression is also to be taken seriously if it persists and starts to significantly impact your life. Therapy can help.

 

[Diana-M]

I’ve battled depression on and off my whole life. It is tough! There’s a saying that “depression is anger turned inward.” Maybe explore who or what you are mad about right now. That’s what TMS healing is all about anyway. It should help.