Fear of TMS itself?

Here is one for you guys... In my recovery process I realized that everything TMS related makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately being the ultimate TMS personality type (anxious, fearful, devils advocate to everything) I r have heard that fear makes the TMS pain worse and can make it come back. Instead of fearing the physical activity I now have a fear of my fear because that cause TMS. Can anxiety and fear effect this or is it all rage? Any tips on how to have mental confidence to get over this fear of my fear making my TMS pain worse?

Thank you all so much and you have helped so much already!

TMS hugs,

Ryan

 

Hey Ryan:

I get your conundrum - a lot of this work feels rather circular. Back in the day there were numerous discussions about whether anxiety causes TMS, or if TMS causes anxiety, but in the end we decided (as had been proposed by Dr. Sarno) that in fact, TMS is anxiety.

So to answer your question - this anxiety (chronic, low-level fear) is just another aspect of your TMS, which means that it's just another symptom. It's a distraction served up by your fearful brain in order to keep repressing negative emotions.

Our programs (the SEP and Alan Gordon's program) are designed to help you get at those emotions so they are no longer seen as a threat to your fearful brain.

 

Well, as Franklin Roosevelt said: "The only thing we have to fear is TMS!" But more seriously, I've heard people talk about "fear loops" and it's something I actually called it before I even knew about TMS. That usually means your fear is creating symptoms which makes you even more scared which then creates more symptoms and on and on.... To restate what Jan said (only because I started to write this before she replied), most of these things are very similar: some kind of distraction to keep you away from your feelings about something.