Day 1 Feeling Hopeful

I'm feeling hopeful for the first time in years. I read a book "Personality Isn't Permanent" and in one chapter describes a lady who used Dr. Sarno's book and a "rage journal" to heal pain in her leg that had resurfaced from a traumatic injury 30 years before. I got curious and listened to "Healing Back Pain" on Youtube and immediately connected with what Dr. Sarno's theories are and how they might connect to my lower back pain.

I feel about 80% convinced. I started having acute back pain episodes when I started college. The worst I had it. I remember jumping off a ledge about 4 feet tall and then going to do a workout in my house. I felt some pain with movement but over the course of about 2 weeks, the pain got worse and I began to limp and one day I was in so much pain I couldn't roll over or get out of bed. Every step I took was excruciating. The chiropractor I saw sent me for an MRI where I was diagnosed with a 9mm herniated disc protrusion. I was in so much pain that I accepted a epidural steroid injection shot to reduce symptoms. I went to the chiropractor and PT after that as well.

I haven't been the same since then. The pain has always lingered. I've had multiple flare up episodes. I also am a perfectionistic personality who has struggled a lot with self criticism. My worst scenario happened when my husband and I were still newly married and fought a lot. This caused me a lot of stress. Lately I've been having back pain ever since my baby was born and she's almost 15 months. I feel pain putting her in her crib. I went to group therapy for postpartum anxiety and that gave me some helpful tools for trying to express my emotions, but I definitely feel the need for more work like this.

I still feel caught up in the thought that the herniation I had was almost a cm out of it's "normal" alignment. That sounded big to me at the time. I also work as an X-ray Technologist and have always seen these awful looking diagnoses and thought that people must be in so much pain because of how they looked. I also had some cysts develop at the bottom of my spine after the herniation that I felt certainly this came because of this incident. However, when reading the book, I felt like it made sense that if there was truly a concerning injury, the body has mechanisms to help it to heal rather quickly...so why do I still feel pain after 3-4 years? It doesn't match up. I tried recently experimenting and noticed too that I can bend, pick up my daughter etc and it doesn't always cause me pain, or contort my muscles in a certain way. There are long stretches where I feel no pain at all. I notice I've been very afraid of the pain and wondering when it will come.

I believe Dr. Sarno. I really think I'm going to benefit from this educational series. Please give me hope and connect with me if your story is similar to mine!