Todays task was to consider what I might find frustrating about the TMS journey. I get frustrated that when the pain gets worse it is often due to something physically I do or over do not an emotional trigger even though I try and find what could psychologically be affecting me there doesnt seem to be much there that has caused the pain to get worse.
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Frustration
- Thread starter Bowen
- Start date
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
Repression is the primary cause of flares, setbacks, and symptom imperatives. It's generally not the big ol' obvious triggers. Triggers, if they exist, are often distractions.
The only way to be aware of what's really being repressed is to be vulnerable to the old dangerously negative thoughts which keep being shoved down.
The only way to be aware of what's really being repressed is to be vulnerable to the old dangerously negative thoughts which keep being shoved down.
thank you Jan can I give you an example and get your opinion on it then?
I wanted to try swimming as an exercise to get back into and get fit. The pain levels that I am in after many years of it worsening are very high so I decided on a plan to gradually increase my laps. I started going to the local pool and just doing one lap and getting out and going home. I did this over numerous days in a row. I then increased it into two laps and did that multiple days in a row. I was ready to go to three laps and when I did I had a big flare up that lasted a significant amount of time and could not swim as a result of it. I did not have any fear of increasing my laps no any surprised emotions about it or about anything else on the day this occurred. In fact I was looking forward to it.
I even later went back to swimming months later and this time I tried a different style of swimming however it still flared the pain well beyond what it should do.
this is just an example however I would like to know your opinion on it?
many thanks
Cactusflower
Beloved Grand Eagle
There are many reasons for flairs in this case but most likely your brain is trying to keep you safe from doing hard things. Even the idea of swimming probably scared you before you went.
Anxiety and fear of increased symptoms. Sort of an expectation.
What do you do with that fear, that anxiety. Do you struggle to overcome it? Force your way through it?
Since you stopped swimming for a time, you were most likely avoiding the fear and anxiety at that time.
So now, in the moment, just feel it. Say you get in the pool and it hits you like a ton of bricks. Stop, hang on to the pool edge and feel that wave of emotional sensation. It’ll pass through you in a few moments.
Then swim. Swim one lap if you must. Just one and congratulate yourself. Don’t force or push more if you don’t want to. Do another if it feels good. Get out when you feel done. Not when you must have completed your mentally required laps, just get out when you feel like it.
You can come back tomorrow or next week.
You will become fit again when your mind and body are ready. This TMS work is a lot of hard work, you don’t need to do it all at once and if you keep being committed, you will get to your goals.
Right now, like @JanAtheCPA says, your main job is to learn to stop repressing a good portion of your emotions. Awareness by doing this SEP and allowing yourself to feel all the hard, crappy stuff of a lifetime of repression is a huge task. Start small, work up to things.
Anxiety and fear of increased symptoms. Sort of an expectation.
What do you do with that fear, that anxiety. Do you struggle to overcome it? Force your way through it?
Since you stopped swimming for a time, you were most likely avoiding the fear and anxiety at that time.
So now, in the moment, just feel it. Say you get in the pool and it hits you like a ton of bricks. Stop, hang on to the pool edge and feel that wave of emotional sensation. It’ll pass through you in a few moments.
Then swim. Swim one lap if you must. Just one and congratulate yourself. Don’t force or push more if you don’t want to. Do another if it feels good. Get out when you feel done. Not when you must have completed your mentally required laps, just get out when you feel like it.
You can come back tomorrow or next week.
You will become fit again when your mind and body are ready. This TMS work is a lot of hard work, you don’t need to do it all at once and if you keep being committed, you will get to your goals.
Right now, like @JanAtheCPA says, your main job is to learn to stop repressing a good portion of your emotions. Awareness by doing this SEP and allowing yourself to feel all the hard, crappy stuff of a lifetime of repression is a huge task. Start small, work up to things.
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
1. You're overthinking everything. This is your brain on TMS, running the show, and very effectively distracting you with highly organized controlled expectations. Cactusflower is saying the same thing. There is no room for emotional vulnerability in your scenario. Your brain has you right where it wants you.
2. You have got to be willing to let go of being in control all the f***ing time. You've got to make room for vulnerability, which is very frightening because we are wired to associate vulnerability with literal life-or-death danger. But this is the only way to be healthy in the modern world.
I needed to hear this today! Thanks, Jan!
Thank you When I am experiencing the fear or anxiety I try not to struggle to overcome it will force my way through it I just try to have an awareness of it without judging it. And then if it is the case that my brain is judging it I try and be aware of that also.
I only stopped the swimming until the flareup started to subside and then I went back to it.
The point that you made about getting back into the pool and hanging onto the side is probably the most important hurdle in my situation because Ive been going through this more than twenty years and whenever I have tried to do what you said it has nearly always ended up in a pain windup which is where the pain flares up and then stays there and this becomes my new baseline and this is how I have got to the point where I’m basically non functional these days.
So the fear of history repeating itself like it has so many other times using this technique is huge and I do not know how to get past it?
Many thanks
Bowen
Thanks Jen I am just unclear on where to show the vulnerability in this situation.
In the past I have pushed through and said this is just TMS however it has always made me physically worse.
Cactusflower
Beloved Grand Eagle
“I have tried to do what you said it has nearly always ended up in a pain windup which is where the pain flares up and then stays there and this becomes my new baseline and this is how I have got to the point where I’m basically non functional these days.
So the fear of history repeating itself like it has so many other times using this technique is huge and I do not know how to get past it?”
@Bowen
To get through it, you have to constantly go back to the fact that the TMS is just noise. Keep reminding yourself that this is a nervous system with loud alarm bells, and your job is simply to turn them down over time.
I like that even with the alarms going off, symptoms flaring, you try to get back in the pool. But you mention it’s just kind of looping in a cycle.. you haven’t been able to turn down the bells.
It’s the fear of fear.
You’re already afraid of the first thing that happens.. which is the sensation of fear and then you push it away.. either you don’t want to feel it or you want to conquer it. How about just feel it.
Fear is a horrible, dreadful feeling. Lots of negative thoughts follow it. Let the thoughts float on by. Don’t attach meaning to them, because they are not truths. The horrible thoughts incite more fear. Let it come. Just take a minute or two and sit with it. Then when you get in the pool take it easy. Try a lap or two and call it a successful day and go home. Try it again in a few days and work up to your full workout. You want to dial those alarm bells back, so give it time. You’ll need to change your plan about why you want to work out. Right now it’d to work up to getting more fit.. but how about working on simply enjoying swimming again?
For a time, sometimes we need to recognize why we have goals and sometimes how they can be a little judgy and harsh on the backside.
I have been walking to feel
More fit. I increased my walking to 3 miles in one go.. and did ok for a few days and then symptoms increased. I looked at my motivation: to loose weight, to LOOK more fit = because I am not enough. Not being enough is deeply enraging - I still judge myself because my Mum judged my weight as “too much” if I was over 125lbs and I’m 6’1 .. so I get vulnerable with myself and figure out how to loose the weight without falling into the not enough trap because it’s a trigger.
The SEP will help you begin to notice your triggers, and then you can notice emotions surrounding them, and recognize things like subtle self-judgements and pressure that is unkind to yourself.
Eventually many of the triggers will soften and making and attaining goals will be for the enjoyment of accomplishment and not because we “must” do something.
It doesn’t mean giving up things now, it means noticing how you are doing things - the mindset behind it.
So the fear of history repeating itself like it has so many other times using this technique is huge and I do not know how to get past it?”
@Bowen
To get through it, you have to constantly go back to the fact that the TMS is just noise. Keep reminding yourself that this is a nervous system with loud alarm bells, and your job is simply to turn them down over time.
I like that even with the alarms going off, symptoms flaring, you try to get back in the pool. But you mention it’s just kind of looping in a cycle.. you haven’t been able to turn down the bells.
It’s the fear of fear.
You’re already afraid of the first thing that happens.. which is the sensation of fear and then you push it away.. either you don’t want to feel it or you want to conquer it. How about just feel it.
Fear is a horrible, dreadful feeling. Lots of negative thoughts follow it. Let the thoughts float on by. Don’t attach meaning to them, because they are not truths. The horrible thoughts incite more fear. Let it come. Just take a minute or two and sit with it. Then when you get in the pool take it easy. Try a lap or two and call it a successful day and go home. Try it again in a few days and work up to your full workout. You want to dial those alarm bells back, so give it time. You’ll need to change your plan about why you want to work out. Right now it’d to work up to getting more fit.. but how about working on simply enjoying swimming again?
For a time, sometimes we need to recognize why we have goals and sometimes how they can be a little judgy and harsh on the backside.
I have been walking to feel
More fit. I increased my walking to 3 miles in one go.. and did ok for a few days and then symptoms increased. I looked at my motivation: to loose weight, to LOOK more fit = because I am not enough. Not being enough is deeply enraging - I still judge myself because my Mum judged my weight as “too much” if I was over 125lbs and I’m 6’1 .. so I get vulnerable with myself and figure out how to loose the weight without falling into the not enough trap because it’s a trigger.
The SEP will help you begin to notice your triggers, and then you can notice emotions surrounding them, and recognize things like subtle self-judgements and pressure that is unkind to yourself.
Eventually many of the triggers will soften and making and attaining goals will be for the enjoyment of accomplishment and not because we “must” do something.
It doesn’t mean giving up things now, it means noticing how you are doing things - the mindset behind it.
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
You do the work. The writing exercises in the SEP. You must do them with brutal, 100% self-honesty. Don't let your fearful brain avoid, resist, or skip over anything. If you can't do this on your own, you seek help from a TMS coach or qualified professional therapist.
Thanks JanAtheCPA
I have nearly finished the SEP course and am trying to get into a practitioner.
I do know how to show vulnerability I was more talking about specifically in the swimming situation what you classify as vulnerability as it seems to be different with different people?
I see it is just being honest with myself and how I am feeling in that moment.
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
The details of the swimming are completely irrelevant. I was attempting to say that, when I pointed out that your TMS brain was "... running the show, and very effectively distracting you with highly organized controlled expectations."
You say you're almost done with the SEP, which should have provided multiple opportunities to examine old emotions and sources of stress and distress from your family and other childhood relationships and past experiences, so it's sad to see that you are figuratively still paddling around in the shallow end of the pool by obsessing about how to exercise and focusing so much on symptom intensity at different moments. It's interesting how you are careful to avoid describing your symptom details, presumably because you want to follow "the rules" like a good TMSer/perfectionist /goodist. Instead, you've substituted them with exercise details - and to be brutally honest, my eyes skimmed over them the same way I always skim over tedious symptom descriptions.
In other words, you're still thinking physically instead of psychologically. Cactusflower has tried to get you to associate your physical responses to your repressed and frightening negative emotions, but I'm afraid that I see a lot of resistance. Can you describe any benefit that you experienced from doing the SEP? And forgive me if I can't remember the details, but did you have an adverse childhood? And/or did you ever answer the Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire? I ask these questions whenever I see significant resistance and long-standing severe symptoms in spite of TMS awareness and acceptance.
I hope you can find some one-on-one professional help and I hope it's with someone with the guts to get past the ever-so-logical and subtle wall of your resistance. I'm beginning to notice that your unconscious resistance is pretty skilled at offering polite, but ultimately negative, comebacks for everything being offered by folks here. I suspect that we may not have the professional credentials to help you figure this out. We'll be here for you anyway.
You say you're almost done with the SEP, which should have provided multiple opportunities to examine old emotions and sources of stress and distress from your family and other childhood relationships and past experiences, so it's sad to see that you are figuratively still paddling around in the shallow end of the pool by obsessing about how to exercise and focusing so much on symptom intensity at different moments. It's interesting how you are careful to avoid describing your symptom details, presumably because you want to follow "the rules" like a good TMSer/perfectionist /goodist. Instead, you've substituted them with exercise details - and to be brutally honest, my eyes skimmed over them the same way I always skim over tedious symptom descriptions.
In other words, you're still thinking physically instead of psychologically. Cactusflower has tried to get you to associate your physical responses to your repressed and frightening negative emotions, but I'm afraid that I see a lot of resistance. Can you describe any benefit that you experienced from doing the SEP? And forgive me if I can't remember the details, but did you have an adverse childhood? And/or did you ever answer the Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire? I ask these questions whenever I see significant resistance and long-standing severe symptoms in spite of TMS awareness and acceptance.
I hope you can find some one-on-one professional help and I hope it's with someone with the guts to get past the ever-so-logical and subtle wall of your resistance. I'm beginning to notice that your unconscious resistance is pretty skilled at offering polite, but ultimately negative, comebacks for everything being offered by folks here. I suspect that we may not have the professional credentials to help you figure this out. We'll be here for you anyway.
Diana-M
Beloved Grand Eagle
@Bowen
I’ve got your same symptom reaction when I try to do things. And when I give in to the fear and pain, my symptoms are slowly controlling me and closing down my world. This past year, I got to where I could barely leave the couch. But over the past few months I’ve been easing my way back to activity. I picked doing the dishes as my initial battle ground. I could barely stand up to do it. Didn’t make it the first few tries. Now, I can do it fairly easily (for me)— I’m definitely not like a normal person doing it. I have to move the dishes in incremental steps to get them to the cabinet. But I CAN do it. And that’s all I care about. And… each day I have less and less dread of doing it. It’s an absolute battle of wills.
I know I can use this same method to gain back ground in other chores and exercises. And I use it to refute fear, too. If symptoms flare while I’m brushing my teeth, I’ll say, “No you don’t! This is easier than doing the dishes.”
That’s great you got yourself to the pool. You were winning! Your TMS brain tried to kick your butt. Just get stubborn. Go take back your ground! (Or in this case, your water)
Say to yourself, “If it doesn’t kill me, I’ll do it.” And it can’t kill you. This is the only way for people in our state to get our lives back.
I agree with all the requirements of TMS healing that are discussed here. Vulnerability, etc. And I’m doing all of that. But in the meantime, my body just got really scared of doing ANYTHING—and I have to reset its program (think of a computer program) to a lower dial. The way you do that is with what’s called “challenging” your symptoms. You push back. Not too much. Then you push back some more. Until your TMS brain realizes that doing dishes and swimming aren’t dangerous. Who’s really big on this concept is a guy called Helmut. He healed from 70 symptoms by challenging them daily. Feel scared, but do it anyway. That’s his theory.
Here’s one of his videos that I like:
https://www.youtube.com/live/nlVNyd1XNMw?si=FcmN9tYEp3bhkH6U
Someone on this forum who has helped me a lot with this is @BloodMoon . She’s big on doing baby steps. And she got most of her life back from being bedridden by incrementally finding that sweet spot and persisting to push the envelope. @Cactusflower has also taught me the same.
Please keep me posted on your progress!
I’ve got your same symptom reaction when I try to do things. And when I give in to the fear and pain, my symptoms are slowly controlling me and closing down my world. This past year, I got to where I could barely leave the couch. But over the past few months I’ve been easing my way back to activity. I picked doing the dishes as my initial battle ground. I could barely stand up to do it. Didn’t make it the first few tries. Now, I can do it fairly easily (for me)— I’m definitely not like a normal person doing it. I have to move the dishes in incremental steps to get them to the cabinet. But I CAN do it. And that’s all I care about. And… each day I have less and less dread of doing it. It’s an absolute battle of wills.
I know I can use this same method to gain back ground in other chores and exercises. And I use it to refute fear, too. If symptoms flare while I’m brushing my teeth, I’ll say, “No you don’t! This is easier than doing the dishes.”
That’s great you got yourself to the pool. You were winning! Your TMS brain tried to kick your butt. Just get stubborn. Go take back your ground! (Or in this case, your water)
Say to yourself, “If it doesn’t kill me, I’ll do it.” And it can’t kill you. This is the only way for people in our state to get our lives back.I agree with all the requirements of TMS healing that are discussed here. Vulnerability, etc. And I’m doing all of that. But in the meantime, my body just got really scared of doing ANYTHING—and I have to reset its program (think of a computer program) to a lower dial. The way you do that is with what’s called “challenging” your symptoms. You push back. Not too much. Then you push back some more. Until your TMS brain realizes that doing dishes and swimming aren’t dangerous. Who’s really big on this concept is a guy called Helmut. He healed from 70 symptoms by challenging them daily. Feel scared, but do it anyway. That’s his theory.
Here’s one of his videos that I like:
https://www.youtube.com/live/nlVNyd1XNMw?si=FcmN9tYEp3bhkH6U
Someone on this forum who has helped me a lot with this is @BloodMoon . She’s big on doing baby steps. And she got most of her life back from being bedridden by incrementally finding that sweet spot and persisting to push the envelope. @Cactusflower has also taught me the same.
Please keep me posted on your progress!
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Diana-M
Beloved Grand Eagle
I just wanted to add to this thread. Tonight I made a salad for the first time in more than a year and a half. I got everything out of the fridge and put everything back in the fridge too. It was hard and I started to feel like I couldn’t do it, but I just said no I can do it. I ignored everything going on and I just carried on. Why? Because it’s not even as hard as doing the dishes!!!! 
Diana-M
Beloved Grand Eagle
@Bowen
I hope you’re seeing this! The thread got long in your absence! I’ve been racking my brain to remember a book I read earlier this year by a lady who had the same situation we have. She could only do things for a couple minutes at a time. And she tried to swim, like you. She was very persistent. She just kept the consistency and slightly increased her activities a little at a time, and she got her life back. I especially like her diary at the end of the book. It really gave me hope! The book is called From Pain to Power, by Narinder Sheena.
I hope you’re seeing this! The thread got long in your absence! I’ve been racking my brain to remember a book I read earlier this year by a lady who had the same situation we have. She could only do things for a couple minutes at a time. And she tried to swim, like you. She was very persistent. She just kept the consistency and slightly increased her activities a little at a time, and she got her life back. I especially like her diary at the end of the book. It really gave me hope! The book is called From Pain to Power, by Narinder Sheena.
The swimming example was just an example this happens in everything I do whether it be sitting, walking or standing. The longer that I do it the worse the pain gets and even when I increase the amount of time I can do something it never changes the pain. The baseline of the pain that I experience is around seven and a half in general and is constant. Then when I go to do something just slowly gets worse in the areas that I experience it and I work on thinking psychologically during this and not focusing on the pain. If I can find the subtle or obvious emotions I allow myself to feel them and also be aware of them.
Often even when I do something that is using part of my body that does not have pain suddenly pain will just go to that area to try and stop me from doing whatever it is I am doing even though I had no hesitations about doing it or even considered getting pain from doing whatever it was. I usually in this instance keep going and talk out loud to myself and think psychologically about why my brain is doing this and what repressed emotions could be contributing to this. However when I do this the pain continually gets worse to the point where I have to stop. It then may go away after a while and then when I go back to do that thing the pain goes back there.
I would not say that I am careful not to explain what my symptoms are I am ok to do that where it is required it was just not part of the question to ponder on that day in the SEP program. The benefits that I have received from the SEP program is giving more attention to what is going on psychologically and identifying when my TMS personality traits are present.
I definitely did have an adverse childhood and I have explored all of this through journaling and also with extensive therapy and multiple types of therapy techniques. There is nothing that I am aware of that I have not explored and I have left no stone unturned and being completely honest to the point where if I keep on going over the same things I find that it starts to be unbeneficial to me.
I am just being honest with where I am at and doing my best. There is obviously something much more obvious to you than it is to me because so far using the knowledge and skills I have learned I have not broken through.
Diana-M
Beloved Grand Eagle
Same. Lots of therapy (10 yrs); adverse childhood. Lots of journaling. I know all of this has helped. And I think it was needed. But I don’t think for people like us there is always a direct correlation between something you thought of that day or that moment and why you’re in pain. It’s deeper than that. Maybe we haven’t released enough rage. It’s hard to do. But also, I think anxiety plays in. I really like The Mindful Gardener. Check him out on YouTube. His name is Helmut. He uses a tactic that is helping me move forward a few inches. Challenge your symptoms and reduce your adrenaline. You have to watch a bunch of his videos to get the gist of it. He kind of rambles. He has a partner, Sam Miller, who teaches all sorts of other stuff. But I’d look at his videos first. It’s all about fear. Your body is stuck in protective mode.
This is a good Helmut video. https://www.youtube.com/live/nlVNyd1XNMw?si=55PbquKLHEd-z5SM
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JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
"Obvious" may be giving my thoughts and perceptions way too much credit! I'm just a retired tax accountant, after all. But look - the basic premise of this work is actually simple, and it can be obvious to some extent. However, I'll be the first to assure anyone that the subtleties of individual resistance are neither obvious nor easy to tease out into the open.
@Diana-M is one of the people with a background of adversity and abuse who is willing to put in the intense work it takes to make tiny incremental improvements, so I really advise you to look to her and follow her journey, because her story does seem very similar. Maybe she can speak to you better than I can about emotional vulnerability.
My sense in your description of "I've already done it all" is that you might not have tried exploring your abusive childhood by going back to how you really experienced it at the time - literally opening yourself up to revert to the child you were then. You can intellectually "revisit" the past all you like and express plenty of anger towards your abusers for specific acts of harm, but you're right that on its own this only gets you so far. The real rage exists where the vulnerable child only knows at a very primitive survival level that he might die from abandonment and isolation, and that he's being betrayed by the people whose job is to protect and nurture him. Survival meant stuffing your emotions and "sucking it up" and behaving a certain way to try to remain safe - behaviors which unconsciously carry into adulthood where emotional vulnerability continues to be repressed.
If you can't face, acknowledge, and actually FEEL the heartbreaking truth about this reality that you lived through, you could remain emotionally stuck.
I highly recommend this recent success story. It's all about letting the true rage come up from the deepest darkest depths, and then letting it manifest in mindful consciousness without editing or controlling one's thoughts - whether expressed in visualization or on paper - and no matter how horrifying they might get.
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/thirty-years-of-severe-back-pain-gone-using-mock-violence.30052/ (Thirty years of severe back pain gone, using mock violence)
Here's another success story that is a bit daunting in its length, but if nothing else can impress upon you the uncertainty about what it can take to recover, and particularly the complete lack of clear rules, timeline, specific activities, or a straight path, this is the story that might convince you to keep trying, and to take real RISKS:
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/pain-free-from-hypermobile-ctd-fibro-dx-20-years-of-pain.29325/ (Pain free from hypermobile CTD/fibro dx, 20 years of pain)
Another good SS:
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/success-story-cfs-hip-pain-mri-labral-tear-fai-ibs-insomnia-eczema-tooth-pain-many-others.28260/ (Success story: CFS, Hip pain, MRI labral tear, FAI, IBS, Insomnia, eczema, tooth pain & many others)
I will also recommend this post written by Derek Sapico in the old "Ask a Therapist" program (and thank you to @HealingMe for posting it today) because I feel like he describes exactly what you've been doing - and why it doesn't work to relieve symptoms.
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/how-do-i-overcome-the-desire-to-get-rid-of-my-pain.8603/#post-47221 (Derek S. - How do I overcome the desire to get rid of my pain?)
If you really just can't figure out how to do the deeper vulnerable emotional work, perhaps you can still "get by" with a rigorous commitment to not letting your symptoms have so much damn power over you, following Derek's advice.
One more thing, @Bowen:
It's ironic that you've written this in all seriousness just days after I posted a Guardian article about pain perception, which essentially calls out the extreme subjectivity of the so-called pain scale. Or, to put it another way, the complete lack of meaning of the pain scale. You need to stop with the pain scale. That's your brain on TMS, wasting more time and psychic energy on a meaningless metric.
Last week another community member made a vow in front of many others here to stop checking in on and measuring her pain, and she reported that she was sticking to that vow (I hope she still is!)
In 2009, before and after a fairly simple hip stabilizing surgery (bike crash at age 58), I got bored by the nurses obsessing over my pain level (because I wouldn't take opioids) so I took to saying "I've had cramps worse than this, just let me have some ibuprofen and I'll be fine". In 2009 I was "Before Sarno" but even then I didn't believe in the pain scale, because I'd figured out early on that pain is entirely subjective AND heavily influenced by anxiety.
So start with this one very defined and simple-to-understand action: stop checking in with your pain and give up the damn pain scale.