Heart issues real

I've got aortic stenosis ( a bad aortic valve), high lipoprotein A, low HDL, left ventricle hypertrophy, a high CT score (600), hypertension and family history of sudden heart attacks (my youngest brother died at age 46)...I am 57 and I fear I don't have long to live...Sometimes symptoms are NOT TMS and some of are going to die early..I am also single and alone with heart and heart valve disease which is terrifying. I meditate, low fat vegan diet, statins etc etc but it is what it is. Death..it's on the menu for us all; some sooner than others. Still I read my Sarno book and try to reduce unecessary emotional stress that will speed my demise and added suffering. Regardless we all have to come to grips with our mortality and live to the fullest...At age 43 I moved to Hollywood to become an actor, age 54 I moved to Asia alone with no safety net etc etc)

 

New Warrior,
Good Morning,
I feel your fears. I am 71 and was just told I had an optic nerve stroke. I posted yesterday but so far no replies. I too am single and alone. For us to worry about when the time will come is so useless. We both know that intellectually. My days get somewhat easier when I stop trying to push and pull and control the things I can't. Right now I'm getting ready to go for a temporal artery biopsy. I'm filled with anger that I have one more problem to deal with. I hope u have someone u can talk to. Some support whatever that means for u. Until u can direct less of your energy to that death topic. Do you feel taken care of or does it just feel that you must do all of that yourself? My thoughts are with you.

 

You are very correct worry does not help and we still may yet find a partner ! Stay healthy Dave an American in Thailand !)

 

I feel alone but I have friends, an American shrink in Thailand, doctors here etc

 

Thanks man ! I am obsessed with death aging mortality....

 

So, hi again @newarrior - are you intending to resume this conversation from four years ago, or do you have a question or comment for the forum community?

I've responded to you in the past and I know you have plenty of TMS recovery experience, although I'm not sure you ever did any emotional work beyond understanding Dr Sarno's theories, but TMS skills can certainly be brought to bear on the existential dread of mortality.

The Rage of Age is what led me to discover Dr Sarno in 2011 when I turned 60. Your age, IOW, but 13 years ago making me 73 today (and very appreciative of my Medicare coverage, since I had paid for my own self-employed health insurance for almost 30 years).

If you are interested in a free-ranging discussion about how some experienced TMSers deal with general dread and instances of anxiety over mortality, I can dig up the URL for a thread where we discuss it. The individual who started that discussion is I believe also around 60 and obsessively worried about aging and disability as supposedly inevitable preludes to death.

Welcome to your completely normal post-middle-age brain on TMS.

 

Well, lookie here, you are still alive 4 years later. Imagine what it might have been like not obsessing over your death for the last 4 years.
(Note: I'm not judging, I do the same.)
All the heart issues that you mention are today are more manageable than you give them credit for. They are not the death sentence that they were, especially with healthful living habits like you have.

Here's a secret.
Being obsessed with death, aging and mortality like we are doesn't mean we are going to die immediately, despite the fact that it feels that way.
Maybe we will, maybe we won't.

We obsess over it not because it's going to happen imminently, we obsess over it because of our lovely blend of genetics and emotional traumas.

On an unrelated note, are you still in Thailand?

 

Be of good cheer. Before you go running off madly in all directions because of your high calcium score, familiarize yourself with some of the studies that show that calcium buildup is preferable to soft plaque, and to some extent protective. Also, if you're on a statin, it's been established that statins tend to cause an increase in calcium deposits. My readings are 3900, the first one taken around 15 years ago, and (fingers crossed) I'm still here.

Incidentally, the friend who urged me to have my first calcium scan had a score of zero and last year had a massive heart attack. Go figure.

 

This is the conscious fear. Dr. Sarno, Dr. Schubiner's psychological theories, EMDR, Family Systems and a host of other psychological schools would ask that you look beyond your conscious fears and obsessions to the subconcious fear, which is most likely more of the fear of LIVING - living life to the fullest because of all the "what iff's".

When I am contemplating what is really going on, I sit or sometimes walk in a contemplative mode of mind - quiet, somewhat unattached, focusing on body sensations and then I take a thought, or a fear and put it in the middle of a circle in my mind. Then I picture myself walking around it, looking at it from different angles. Things are usually never what they seem to be in our conscious minds where we often see the completely irrational as rational - which is a LOT of the TMS mind. Be curious and you might discover that our deepest fears or more specifically emotions (because fear without something actually attempting to eat you, is really just another defense mechanism) that we squash (which could be both "negative" like anger and rage or positive like joy (or both) are not what we consciously think they are because the TMS mind is protecting you from those.

Why not try some exercises like what is the wildest and craziest thing you'd like to do - the thing most out of your comfort zone that makes you scared but excited at the same time?

What is the one thing in life you thought you'd never get the chance to do, but you actually have already accomplished or done it?

To that end, I think I'm actually going to start a thread on these things!

 

Sometimes to get over TMS we need to force our noses INTO that because our unconscious is doing it without our permission. A Producer who was describing me to a publisher once said "He has a Humorous approach to the Macabre"... I suppose I have been preoccupied with death since a young age and it leaks out in my writing.

I lost my Nanny and Father in a few months time at age 5. I was certain it was my fault. I deserved to die. I went to more funerals before I was 10 than I can count....and then when I was 14 another teenager just like me (preoccupied with death) was hit and killed by a drunk driver while we were riding through Nova Scotia. The last thing he said to me was a joke about Death and Funerals...

That triggered some of the worst OCD and obsession. Only severe substance abuse made it go away. I have had a lot of help in the intervening time...mostly of the tough love kind and it works better than anybody trying to assuage my fears.

"Yep...you are going to die and soon...So. How are you gonna LIVE?"

I wasn't afraid of dying. I was really afraid of living. When I focus on the present moment, it disintegrates all of that Obsession...

I was having some OCD like chest Pain a few months back...I thought "Oh crap...I am having a heart attack and gonna die"

Then I 'inspected myself'...what was I afraid of REALLY? The only thought I had was "Who is gonna take care of Sophie?" (My dog).

Later when talking to my son, I obliquely mentioned that fear to him, and he told me that if anything ever happened to me, He would take care of her, no problem.

I am officially 'free to go'.... Life is fun, but what if the next thing is even better? I would have wasted all of that life worrying about moving into a better zip code!!!!...THAT would suck.

It's good that you talk about it...let it out into the light and see it for what it is..

 

Oh yes.
I had a poster of Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies A-Z on my wall.
A is for Amy who fell down the stairs.
B is for Basi assaulted by bears.
C is for Clara who wasted away.
D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.

All the way to Z.

Oh, boy, that has got to be triggering.

I had the reverse situation. Nobody died.
I've never been to a funeral and are petrified of them.
When my parents died my brother and I eventually put their ashes at my Dad's favorite beach.