Fear

[Diana-M]

Did I scare my body to the point that is going to take time for it not to feel fear?

Filipe,
Have you read any books by Claire Weekes? She explains all about anxiety and how your body needs to heal. I read her book, Hope and Help for Your Nerves every day for a year so it would soak in. It’s a short book. It’s even available on YouTube, for free. It’s worth reading. It will help you a lot.

 

[Filipe2025]

Thanks, one thing that helped, is when she says to accept it and not fight it, right?

 

[Diana-M]

Thanks, one thing that helped, is when she says to accept it and not fight it, right?

Right. But she also explains the entire process of healing.

 

[Filipe2025]

Right. But she also explains the entire process of healing.

Which is? Is it slow? I mean, I'm very much in pain. Im having a relapse from RSD. My whole body hurts. I read that when you are sensitize with nerve pain, it took a lot of time for you to descencitize the nerves. Is this just a believe? If you change your thoughts you have imidiately relief?

 

[Diana-M]

Which is? Is it slow? I mean, I'm very much in pain. Im having a relapse from RSD. My whole body hurts. I read that when you are sensitize with nerve pain, it took a lot of time for you to descencitize the nerves. Is this just a believe? If you change your thoughts you have imidiately relief?

Basically, you have to do things to stop the flow of adrenaline. And then you have to give your nerves time to heal. (That’s the short version). I’ll add that you also have to work at ridding yourself of internal rage, because that also pumps your adrenaline. It’s all a viscous cycle, and you have to tackle it from a bunch of angles. Yes, tackling how you think can help a lot. This takes a lot of effort, and even then, it’s not a magic instant cure. But it can contribute to feeling better. I was able to drastically change my thinking with this awesome book called Feeling Good, by Dr. David Burns. It’s one of the best books I discovered here.

Another book I’ll strongly recommend you is The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook. It teaches a bunch of techniques for lowering your pain, and they really work. I’ve tried it. I’m sorry to hear you are in so much pain. That can really wear you down. Hang in there.

 

[Filipe2025]

Thanks for the book suggestions

I think chronic pain is caused by anxiety and OCD/ruminations which leads to fear... Those things perpetuate pain

What I still don't understand why, when I try deliberately to change my thoughts, to positive ones, it scares me so much. It has to come naturally, like if my subconscious is distracted. If I try doing positive affirmations, if I try meditating, then fear comes in. Like a big giant that is guarding the doors of my subconscious... Maybe I got this from a movie, when I was little...

I remember being very scared when I first saw the wizard of Oz...

Great video, by the way:

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[Diana-M]

If I try doing positive affirmations, if I try meditating, then fear comes in.

I think all of us TMS folks have to coax our brains to do things. So if yours is scared, I’d go very easy on it. Find some sort of mindfulness it will tolerate in very small increments to start, then build from there. I think you’ll like the Feeling Good book. It has been life altering for me. Great video! Thank you!

 

[Filipe2025]

Tell me one thing. Why doesn't the pain stops after you address your repressed emotions? For me I always had to "forget" about the pain, and it's getting difficult with age, because little things grab my attention today. I love the TMS theory, it worked for me everytime, but now it is taking longer, because this is a big relapse. I read a lot the necessity of having to unlearn your pain, but that's not Sarno's.

 

[Diana-M]

Tell me one thing. Why doesn't the pain stops after you address your repressed emotions? For me I always had to "forget" about the pain, and it's getting difficult with age, because little things grab my attention today. I love the TMS theory, it worked for me everytime, but now it is taking longer, because this is a big relapse. I read a lot the necessity of having to unlearn your pain, but that's not Sarno's.

The exact same thing has happened to me. In the past, without even knowing about Sarno, I ignored my TMS and it would go away. Now, I’m in a great big huge body-wide TMS episode and it is not going away fast. I’m not an expert, but I’d say that over time things just catch up with you. Emotional loads get heavier as you get older. Stress adds up. I think the pandemic pushed us all into hyper-alert and aggravated our nervous systems making everything more difficult.

Everyone is different. I had some family pressure and I didn’t know how to release it. This also contributed to my current relapse.

This is my personal opinion: I think it takes Sarno theory to learn to release your rage. And I think it also takes pain reprocessing to get yourself out of chronic pain that has settled in. I’m throwing everything at it. Some people on this forum might disagree with that, but I tried Sarno alone for several years this time around, and I didn’t get out of it.

I think no one really knows definitively why it takes as long as it takes for each person. There are probably a million reasons. But I do know this—eventually you have to change a lot about your life to heal TMS. Sooner or later. You have to stop being mean to yourself. Overworking yourself. Spending time with cruel people. Overdoing. It takes an overhaul. It catches up with you. And wanting it to go away fast just makes it worse. You have to find a way to walk over these hot coals and not feel it. You have to learn to escape the fear and doubt, live with the pain, challenge the pain, and wait until your body lets go. That’s all I got. But I’m still in it myself. I have way less fear than a year ago. Almost none. But I still have TMS.

 

[Filipe2025]

The exact same thing has happened to me. In the past, without even knowing about Sarno, I ignored my TMS and it would go away. Now, I’m in a great big huge body-wide TMS episode and it is not going away fast. I’m not an expert, but I’d say that over time things just catch up with you. Emotional loads get heavier as you get older. Stress adds up. I think the pandemic pushed us all into hyper-alert and aggravated our nervous systems making everything more difficult.

Everyone is different. I had some family pressure and I didn’t know how to release it. This also contributed to my current relapse.

This is my personal opinion: I think it takes Sarno theory to learn to release your rage. And I think it also takes pain reprocessing to get yourself out of chronic pain that has settled in. I’m throwing everything at it. Some people on this forum might disagree with that, but I tried Sarno alone for several years this time around, and I didn’t get out of it.

I think no one really knows definitively why it takes as long as it takes for each person. There are probably a million reasons. But I do know this—eventually you have to change a lot about your life to heal TMS. Sooner or later. You have to stop being mean to yourself. Overworking yourself. Spending time with cruel people. Overdoing. It takes an overhaul. It catches up with you. And wanting it to go away fast just makes it worse. You have to find a way to walk over these hot coals and not feel it. You have to learn to escape the fear and doubt, live with the pain, challenge the pain, and wait until your body lets go. That’s all I got. But I’m still in it myself. I have way less fear than a year ago. Almost none. But I still have TMS.

How old are you Diana? I'm 52. After I cured my self from TMS in the past I thought I only needed to relax my system for a while. I convinced myself of that... I wonder if there is people out there with no relapses

 

[Diana-M]

How old are you Diana? I'm 52. After I cured my self from TMS in the past I thought I only needed to relax my system for a while. I convinced myself of that... I wonder if there is people out there with no relapses

I’m 66. My last TMS was in 2017 and I thought I was done. But it came back. I’ve had TMS on and off my whole life. From what I noticed on this forum, most people get recurring TMS, but they learn how to get rid of it more quickly.

 

[Filipe2025]

I fuel myself with anxiety and fear, over the two months, because I thought I had throat cancer.

Now, I'm having difficulty sleeping, because, when Im sleeping I suddenly feel a deep sensation of fear and I wake up, and the pain starts. This fear is really barryed on my subconscious. I can identify it. I feel so guilty of loosing my grip over a simple health problem as a thyroiditis. Now I have a much bigger problem.

I feel once my fear stops, my pain stops. I think TMS theory releases from fear, by knowing the problem, but the problem is when you fear having fear, and thus perpetuating pain

 

[Diana-M]

I hear you! You just got yourself worked up into a state of high anxiety. Now you’ll have to heal yourself with patience and time. I did the exact same thing during the pandemic. I was so afraid that if I got Covid, I would die in the hospital alone. I was in a state of severe panic for too long — and my nervous system blew out. We can heal. Have you ever read Claire Weekes,’ Hope and Help for Your Nerves? It’s a really short book. I read it all the way through, then read parts of it every day for a year. I wanted it to soak in and make me stay in touch with the fact that I need to heal my nervous system. You have to watch your head talk. Resist the urge to catastrophize. Keep yourself calm. Give yourself a little chore or task to do every day to distract yourself from your worries. (I started writing a novel for this.) Definitely meditate daily, if you can.

 

[Filipe2025]

I hear you! You just got yourself worked up into a state of high anxiety. Now you’ll have to heal yourself with patience and time. I did the exact same thing during the pandemic. I was so afraid that if I got Covid, I would die in the hospital alone. I was in a state of severe panic for too long — and my nervous system blew out. We can heal. Have you ever read Claire Weekes, Hope and Help for Your Nerves? it’s a really short book. I read it all the way through, then read parts of it every day for a year. I wanted it to soak in and make me stay in touch with the fact that I need to heal my nervous system. You have to watch your head talk. Resist the urge to catastrophize. Keep yourself calm. Give yourself a little chore or task to do every day to distract yourself from your worries. (I started writing a novel for this.) Definitely meditate. Daily if you can.

Do the nerves need time to heal? Isn't it spontaneous? There are people here in this forum that heal spontaneously, right, just by reading the Sarno's book.

How long took Steve Ozanich to heal, after knowing about TMS?

 

[Diana-M]

With TMS there are two issues. The repressed emotions that Sarno talked about. And a hypersensitive nervous system. (They tend to go hand-in-hand.) Most people with TMS have anxiety issues. So, you have to tackle both. (Yes, some people get instant cures from reading Sarno, but not many.) Healing your nervous system does take time. And the tricky part is, you have to turn off your adrenaline for the healing to begin. And most of us are pumping adrenaline all day long from the things we think about. I really really recommend her book. Here’s a free audio version:

 

[Rusty Red]

How long it takes another person will unfortunately have no bearing on your own recovery timeline. Best thing you can do is release the timeline expectation.

 

[Joulegirl]

Do the nerves need time to heal? Isn't it spontaneous? There are people here in this forum that heal spontaneously, right, just by reading the Sarno's book.

This is highly unusual and gave me false expectations as well. Your timeline will be on your own. Let go of any expectation and just keep doing the work consistently.

 

[Filipe2025]

It took me several years to heal myself from chronic pain, from 2010 to 2013, by that time I still had doubts about the TMS theory. I had some relapses in the meantime, but not like this one. This relapse was a stupidly. Since I don't even remember what TMS was, I played with anxiety and fear. Instead of calling myself down I did the opposite, searching for what was wrong with my throat.

I had a hobby which absorbed me completely in the past, and that was the key to recover in the first place. It forced me to change my thoughts, I lost the pleasure of doing it

If you manage to calm yourself down, can this lead to a cure?

Can you explain me the maximum sentitization one can expect? I mean, if you are in a state if stress for 3 months, that implies how many month of desensitisation? Noone knows?

Do shell shock soldiers ever recovered?

 

[Diana-M]

I had some relapses in the meantime, but not like this one.

Don’t blame yourself. This stuff is hard. And times are hard! The whole world is on high anxious alert these days. Our brains are actually programmed to look for the negative. (Because that’s what kept cavemen safe. Where’s the sabertooth coming from next?) Your brain doesn’t care about good news. It’s not dangerous. So…at any rate… you succumbed. But it’s not your fault; let it go. Embrace your journey and start growing from it.

It was a lie to think you’d never get TMS again. We all can, and usually do. But we can bounce back.

I had a hobby which absorbed me completely in the past, and that was the key to recover in the first place.

This is fantastic! It worked once. So do it again! Can you find something new?

If you manage to calm yourself down, can this lead to a cure?

I’ll let Claire Weekes tell you. (Yes!)

 

[Joulegirl]

Hobbies are great! I currently use running and gardening as my hobbies. Of course with it being winter I've not been able to do them much since it is colder.

You've done this before and you will beat this again! You know this is TMS and that is 1/2 the battle. Now it is time to do the work (try the SEP here on the website!) and start focusing on other things again!