From Paris (France)

Hello
First of all, please excuse my English.
I'm French and bave been discovering TMS for a few weeks.
I've been suffering from low back pain and sciatica
for twenty years. So far, I have more or less managed to cope with it but these last two months, it's getting unbearable. I can hardly walk, sit, get up. For the first time in years, I made the decision not to get to work tomorrow because i must admit that I just can't. I'm a teacher and I love my job.
I feel like a failure.

 

Hello Kahina,

Your English is fine. Sorry to hear about your back pain and sciatica becoming unbearable these last two months...and that you've had to cope with it as long as you have.

I'm a teacher also in the U.S. I'm interested in how you have discovered about TMS. I'm starting a group here where I live to increase awareness of TMS and we will be reading Dr. John Sarno's books. Is that how you discovered about TMS, by reading one of Sarno's books? I was reading The Divided Mind about two months ago and had an experience during chapter 4 I believe that blew my mind. I discovered that my neck and shoulders pain was TMS generated because it began to tingle and it actually left. I had not even considered it being TMS.

Welcome here and I wish you well in your health and wholeness discoveries. My sister just came back from Paris a few weeks ago and bought me a purse from there. It is white with black cats on it....love the artist.

Daffy

 

Hi Kahina,

Welcome to the Forum and TMS Wiki. You're among friends here who understand much of what you're going through: fear, pain, and the sense that you're "not good enough." These are all experiences we know, common to TMS.

There are free programs at the Wiki which I highly recommend.

Also, increasing symptoms, although discouraging, often happen as you begin to contemplate your pain as TMS, not structural. I'm not sure on your timing with this lately.

I was a teacher for many years, and there are patterns here which support your understanding of your pain as mind-body:
-the job is about taking care of others
-the job is never done
-it can't be done perfectly, but inside there is a strong compulsion that it "needs to be right"
-lots of pressure!!!
-attempting to control what cannot be controlled (aliveness of children)
-little free time

Andy B

 

Hello Daffy and thank you for your answer.
TMS is not taken seriously here in France. I discovered it through you tube, I was looking for non medical ways to heal back pains.
I'm quite convinced that my pains are signals of untreated childhood traumas. I've never dived into it seriously because itwas too painful.
I've seen numerous psychotherapists who helped me to deal with my life, to be a "good mother" for my daughter or a "good wife" for my husband or a "good teacher" in my work and i'm realizing that I never took care of myself, and to be "good" to myself. My "self" was not important enough to be taken care of.
I had to be performant otherwise i always felt i would be rejected, hurt,harmed.
Î know where the roots of this rejection are (a very violent and traumatic childhood). I'm 59 now and my brain is telling me that what I thought was résilience was in fact a continuum of what I was taught to do : .be good to others and never complain.
Dr Sarno and many other TMS believers like you give me hope. Thank you for your message. I'm glad you found your way for healing.
I hope i'll find mine.

 

Hello Andy B and thank you for your answer.
You've nailed it : my last back pains occured at work! I was preparing a show with my students for the school open days
and I needed the help of the technical advisor who never answered my e-mails, my phone messages or my phone calls.
I felt endangered, so shameful, so angry...
Like a little child, I need recognition and I overwork to get it.
I'm seeing my MD tomorrow (for the third time in two weeks) because the médication she gave me so far were unefficient.
An MRI is booked for next week. I'm preparing myself not to be threatened by the results of the MRI because I'm deeply convinced it has to do with the illtreatments I endured during my childhood.
Thank you !

 

Please don't hurry to get an MRI! I made that mistake and it slowed my recovery. It will show some changes, since nobody in their 50s has a spine without some degeneration. It will be hard not to be threatened by the results, no matter how you prepare yourself. You can always get an MRI later. For now, read Sarno and do whatever helps you to approach your buried feelings. Try to stay away from doctors until you absorb Sarno's ideas and get used to thinking psychologically.

Good luck with your journey!

 

Oh my...yes, I do know about this myself. I'm sseeing so much the more I read about the effects a violent past had on myself and my family. I developed fibromyalgia right after I ended a long history of seeing a therapist.

"I'm understanding more about why this happened also.
I'm 59 now and my brain is telling me that what I thought was résilience was in fact a continuum of what I was taught to do : .be good to others and never complain."

Wow...what a realization. What you thought was "resilience". This is a good word to describe it the mode of operating I thought was necessary in order to get through it all. And my sister also. What I realized is that I felt a relief so great within myself when in The Divided Mind John Sarnos says that (paraphrasing here) "...something inside of you doesn't like it..." Meaning the "pressures from within and pressures from without". It validates a part of me, gives me permission to pay attention to a part of me that wants to be seen or recognized if not just by my own self....childlike or not or even IF my own self would consider it or some aspect of it unacceptable. I find it is better now to just search for things within myself and to just withdraw my judgement of myself and let me be as I am. This is very new thinking for me. You are not a failure. You can do this. You are already considering something that you know resonates as true....this TMS. So...you are brave and following your intuition.

 

Hi Kahina,

You have a lot of self-awareness and you have a lot of understanding of how you fit the TMS theory/practice. This is huge. It is an individual, personal journey, and, beautifully, only you can make this voyage.

Many people have faced their fears, traumas, rage, and vulnerability and grown so much through this process. Many have reported this here. It can be life-changing. In my experience as well as addressing symptoms, we learn to be more patient, loving, attuned to ourselves and others --qualities which our "Goodist" nature often imitates, but which from the Goodist/childhood conditioned activity is not as genuine as these qualities when they come from more depth. Good luck!

Andy B

 

Thank you so much for your words, they are so soothing and helpful.
It's 6 am here and I had a very agitated night. My back is so stiff, so painful that I can hardly walk.
Thank you all in this forum to allow me to put words on my pains, on my sorrow, on my fears.
I woke up this morning fearing to become paralysed. What would happen to my daughter, my husband,my mother if I couldn't work anymore.

My mother...she was a sick woman, full of hatred and despise towards her husband and her ten children. She was very difficult to please,to content.
The nickname she used to give me as a child was : dustbin. I 'm writing this word and my back is starting aching. Three of my siblings committed suicide, three are still in a psychiatric hospital, one has left France and is living somewhere in Africa, three survived to this destruction and i'm one of these survivors. I left home when I was 18 and I never came back . Leaving or dying.
Three years ago, my two left siblings (and their spouses and children) got in touch with me in order to take care of her. Most of them are unemployed or with very low wages. I'm consequently in charge of the payment of her retirement house. My husband was very angry when I made this "decision"and I told him that as long as i'm working,it will be my charge, not his.
My mother is 86, she is an old woman who needs care. I have to take care of her, at least financially. This is my duty no matter what she did. How would i be a role model for my daughter if I don't take care of my own mother? What is your opinion about that? I feel deep inside that I 'm right in doing so. I think but I'm not sure that this decision could be part of my healing process. For that reason, I have to go back to work as soon as possible.
But i'm stuck in my stiff body...

 

Hi Kahina,

Thank you for sharing about your life here. I hear you. I have become aware of how I keep myself in a constant state of angst with my thoughts dragging me here and there constantly. Always with a commentary that never stops even when I try to sleep. Look outward paying attention to what you see but keep some attention on your breath. This takes attention away from your thoughts and put you in more of a position to be in alignment with what comes up for you. Stuck emotions will surface as feelings or sensations in your body and I find when I allow it by observing it...that the messages arise differently than a thought. I go on a search for things I'm unaware of but don't try and manipulate or control what appears. Just allow it to be as it is and not feed it with more thoughts. For me...I use Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT Tapping in conjunction with my search efforts to allow more discovery of my feelings and emotions. One thing after reading The Divided Mind is I understand I don't like the pressure I put on myself and that I allow from others. Its just not good because I hurt me doing it. Thank you again for writing and sharing. Daffy

 

Thank you Daffy, I really appreciate your reply to my post with your kind words and your expérience.
It helps a lot. I'm going to try to better understand EFT.
I took some medication two days ago and I feel more relaxed today. I know it's not the proper answer but i needed it
just to get some sleep. I try not to feel guilty about taking medication.
I'm reading the 'new pain recovery system', it's food for thought.
Thank you again.