Frustration

Hi Diana,

you sent me a link to one of his other videos and I watched it and it was really good so I have been following him since. I will check this out as well thanks.

 

thank you I will check these out and I agree with you about the pain scale.

It is difficult as there seems to be many different theories and ways of getting better. I was speaking with Dr David Hanscom the other day and he was saying not to keep going back and re-visiting the past is that just keeps me stuck in a cycle. He said to just recognise when I am in victim mode and by that he means whenever I am angry or experiencing other unpleasant emotions in the moment and process them and then move on living life to the best of my ability.

 

I have gone back and experienced events of my childhood as it was then in a somatic experiencing therapy way however I am not saying more could not be done there.

 

When I spoke to Dr David Hanscom the other day I brought up the conversation about the flareups that I get when doing graded exercise. He does know my story well and he did not share the same opinion as you that all flareups are due to repressed emotions. He said that my central nervous system is so sensitised it is not surprising that this is occurring. I am sure that you have heard of the smoke alarm analogy in reference to chronic pain. When building up my exercise whether I am calm or not the smoke alarm at an unconscious level perceives danger and gets louder as a result of it. There is nothing that I can do about this happening the only thing that is in my control is how I respond to it. And the only thing that I can do is be self compassionate and reassure myself that this is alright and create a sense of safety. This is what I am doing and will continue to do.

Also in Sarnos work he says that repressed emotions are unconscious so that we are not aware of them it is only the suppressed emotions that we are aware of and can work with.

 

@Bowen
I’m glad you bring this up because I actually have the same problem. It’s comforting that Dr. Hanscom supports you.

Exercise has really made my hypersensitive nervous system get scared and cause pain. Each time I try something new, the pain will come and last for a long time. Then I get afraid and I put off exercising which only makes things worse. Last winter, I started a yoga program that was graduated. I began with the bed exercises and after months and months, my body got used to it. Then a month or so ago, I switched to the next level which is chair yoga. Ever since then, I have been struggling with pain. At the same time, I’ve been doing a lot of emotional work— So I thought it was that, causing my pain.

Then this week I started trying to do some squats, because I basically have no glutes. The next day, and all this week, I could hardly go up and down the steps. This scares me because I need to be able to go up the steps. So I went back to square one. I’m thinking I might go back to the bed yoga.

I have a friend on this forum, @BloodMoon. She has bravely recovered from being bedridden with TMS. And she swears by baby steps. Especially when it comes to physical things. She’s always trying to get me to lower my goals and go slower. Why? For the exact same reason I just explained. If you go too fast, your brain gets scared and gives you a lot of pain. In essence, you go backwards. At first, I didn’t believe her, but I certainly do now! I think you are learning the exact same thing.

The good news is, she has made a lot of progress! Great progress in fact: But very, very slowly. This gives me hope because she did it solely on graduated exposure. She didn’t necessarily focus much on the emotional issues. That was more intermittent, as I understand. She claims if I stick with it, I will make it— simply by ever so gently, making physical progress.

It’s hard, because so many people recover different ways. And they all want to help. I have tried so hard to follow the advice of different people. I tried working with the anger. I tried journaling. I still try those things. I never know —maybe one of these days it’ll work. Who knows, maybe I’m just perpetually aggravating my nervous system.

After a week of doing a bunch of scary emotional work— getting a bunch of symptoms and pain— not being able to exercise because of it— I think I’m just going to go back to being a snail and doing tiny little physical things.

Thanks for sharing your story! I was very interested in the swimming because I would love to swim again someday. I was a swimmer in high school and have swam a lot on and off my whole life. It has given me a lot of joy.

Keep up the fight, brother! We’ll find a way out of this.

I will follow your advice here: “the only thing that I can do is be self compassionate and reassure myself that this is alright and create a sense of safety. This is what I am doing and will continue to do.”

 

“The next day, and all this week, I could hardly go up and down the steps. This scares me because I need to be able to go up the steps.”

This is a normal physical reaction to working out.
Try bed yoga and One squat. Baby steps.
Keep going and adding a squat or switch and add an arm move.
You are training your brain there is no fire at the same time you are retraining your body from ground 0. It’s going to hurt. You will feel pain because you are human and reconditioning the body from ground 0 and not wanting to feel any sensations at all… feels.
The pain after squat isn’t TMS it’s a normal physical reaction. Hyperfocus and worry about it is TMS.

 

Thanks, cactus! Great advice.

 

I really don't think one can go wrong with taking 'baby steps'. As far as I see it, although there may be more, there are a couple of commonalities between all the approaches for recovery, and they are 1) believing that one's symptoms are caused by the brain and are not caused by a structural defect, and 2) the advice to get on with the normal activities of life as best one can, despite the symptoms. And 'baby steps', of course, fits in with the latter. Dr Sarno wrote in 'Healing Back Pain':" I now believe that the physical restrictions imposed by TMS are much more important than the symptoms, thus making it imperative that the patient gradually overcome them."

And he also wrote (this time in 'The Mindbody Prescription'): "The path to resumption of full physical activity, without fear, may be slow and uneven...

You must bide your time, try and try again, and stay secure in the knowledge that you will prevail in the end. This has proven to be the case for thousands of patients."