Help convince me re: sitting and posture

birdsetfree said:
Remember the purpose of tms is to prevent you from thinking psychologically and keep you focused on the physical. I assure you that posture doesn't matter at all. I sat upright for over a decade and it only made me worse. Relaxation when sitting is the key.

It might be interesting to you to hear of my experience. In the beginning of therapy, I could only sit in a chair that had a straight back at a particular coffee shop. I got to 30min sitting in a stretch. If I tried a different shape chair the pain would come in a few minutes. I used to think it was the different chair that put my back in the wrong position, discs pressed on my nerves etc. In reality, it wasn't that at all.....it was my mind because now after accepting that my body is fine I can sit however/wherever I want, including that different chair.

Depression/anxiety is another tms distraction. When I feel these coming on, I let them float above me, distract myself and let time pass. Picture yourself fully grounded until the storm overhead passes. Each time you do this you will gain control and confidence. I also try to catch myself if I am ruminating on something, step outside of myself and go into nature. Maybe a walk outside, cuddle a pet etc.

My tms therapist told me recovering from tms will be the hardest thing I will ever do. This helped me to accept that I would probably go through the fire to get to the other side and not be alarmed with the process. I was so disabled with pain for so long but now I am free. Don't give up.
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Golly, sometimes it's still shocking to find out others have had / are having extraordinarily similar experiences. What you described is so like my day to day at the coffee shop. Your post brought me a lot of comfort tonight, and is going right at the top of my daily reminder compilation... even above the one you posted earlier today!

Thank you,
E
 
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Ines said:
Hi, I'm so sorry you are dealing with depression. My husband had depression for a solid 15 years and I never understood it until I dealt with it this past year. My therapist recommended a book called The Depression Cure
https://www.amazon.com/Depression-C...466544598&sr=1-1&keywords=the+depression+cure
It helped me so much. It also helped me to understand my husband. It sounds corny and unbelievable but I tried a few things in the book that were simple and I didn't think would work but they did. I signed up for an exercise class and made sure to get sunlight. I already ate pretty healthy. Little by little it did make a big impact. The most important part of the book to me was the part where it talked about low self esteem in social situations. I would always get social anxiety and I never would have understood that it was from low self esteem so I'm working on that.

Hi Eskimo,

A book that really helped me was the Depression Cure.
https://www.amazon.com/Depression-Cure-6-Step-Program-without/dp/0738213888/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466544598&sr=1-1&keywords=the+depression+cure (The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs: Stephen S. Ilardi: 9780738213880: Amazon.com: Books)

Check it out. Maybe read the reviews and see if it can help you. I'm sorry you have depression so bad. Is Eskimo your nickname because you live in a cold climate? I only ask because sunlight exposure helped me so much. It took a few months but I really noticed the difference. It talks about it in the book.
Another part of the book that helped me was low self esteem. I never thought I had low self esteem until I read about it. I'm still working on that. I hope the fog lifts. It's a horrible place to be trapped.
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Ines,

I went to the library and got the book you recommended. Will start enacting some of its protocol. I have to be careful to not get too wrapped up in 'perfect' cures and regimens, as is my modus operandi, but I think there are some healthy, sensible recommendations in there that will be simple enough to incorporate.

'Eskimo' is awfully misleading, considering I live in one of the sunniest parts of the country. LA area. Even still, I've managed to hide away so much that I haven't gotten enough sun consistently. Will work on that. The sun's so scorching this week, a minute or two oughta burn the fog right out of me.

Self esteem is a major factor. Mine's always been low, and as with most things depression has taken what was low and sunk it lower, lower. Now there's a lot of chicken-or-egg'ness going on. Which is producing which, hard to say.

Thank you for your support and guidance. I'm happy to hear you were helped, and I take your counsel to heart.

E
 
eskimoeskimo said:
Ellen,

Your post here was very generous. Sorry for taking so long to get back, it's been a whirlwind of a week, all away from the computer. My parents visited (more of a rescue mission than a vacation). Hadn't seen them in a year and a half, we spent the week driving around So. Cal. in the sweltering heatwave, and I've started taking antidepressants (for the first time really, except for a few highly uncommitted short trials early on in this whole thing 10 years ago), and an old friend who was my roommate when my apartment burned down 3 years ago surprise visited. So, as a TMSer, it's been a quite a time.

Driving around with my folks reminded me what outcome independence really means. I had no choice but to keep moving, despite symptoms. The pain was up and down, of course, but on average much less (and more importantly much less disconcerting), than it is during my usual routine. The day before the visit, and now today, the pain is back up high and my focus/concern with sitting and posture is back way up. Also, anger and sadness were welling up all week more than usual. Thank goodness for sunglasses, because I was crying sporadically and frequently throughout the whole week, in public and private. I say routine, but really I mean anxiously doing my computer work while hoping and praying that the pain just evaporates in response to my persistence. I'm sure you can see the issues all over that. I realized just how much I want people, and especially my parents, to think that I'm interesting and charismatic. Often I can scrape together a personality from the rubble and get away with faking it. But this week my brain just said no way. I think it recognized the opportunity to relinquish, and make it clear to my folks that I need help. I could barely even speak, and when I did my voice was quiet and my sentences short and vacuous.

I started antidepressants yesterday and, after years of stubborn resistance, I think it's a positive step. The unrelenting fog is making recovery impossible. I have no foundation from which to build. I can't even see the issues clearly, let alone make progress. It's clearer than ever before that I've been sick for a long time and depression isn't leading me to profound insight and breakthrough, it's leading me to destitution and an early death. Also, the toll it's taken on my parents is upsetting and further motivates this new step.

Back to your question, I've tried:
- physical therapy
- acupuncture
- cortisone injection
- massage
- chiropractor
- read Sarno, Steve O, Amir, Claire Weekes over and over again
- journaling
- SEP twice
- saw TMS practitioner
- walking, swimming, running
- mindfulness meditation

As always, looking forward to your wise insight. Please let me know if you see any missing pieces in my past attempts at recovery. Nothing has ever quite connected and gotten to the bottom of things, and certainly nothing has sparked recovery. Things have consistently gotten worse over time, from the start, despite all attempts.

I hope you're well

Thank you,
Eskimo
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Hi Eskimo,

I didn't realize you weren't taking an antidepressant. I'm glad to hear that you are now taking one. I think this will be a very important turning point for you. I've suffered from depression since about 12 years old, and it can become very serious if I don't take medication. When depressed, I can't imagine anything being helpful and I lose all hope that things will ever change. After discovering TMS and having success at recovery from pain symptoms, I thought I could get by without an antidepressant too, and lowered my dose gradually over a few months. I never even got to zero before I realized that I was not doing well at all and stopped doing the things I needed to do to keep the pain at bay. Soon my pain symptoms came back. I also had a huge increase in anxiety. So I went back on my full dose and have been doing pretty well and back to pain free. So I came to the realization that for me right now, I just have to take an antidepressant if I'm to have any quality of life.

Give it some time to work and realize that sometimes it can take awhile to find the best one for you. I hope you are working with a doctor that you like and trust, as that can make a big difference. Since you also have a great deal of anxiety, hopefully you are taking one that also helps with that symptom. Some are better at that than others.

I believe you've done all the essential TMS strategies. I think once your antidepressant is working, you will start to have success with the TMS. The world will be a brighter and more hopeful, joyful place. Things will begin to fall into place.

Keep us posted on how you're doing. Once your mood is improved, we can look again at fine tuning your TMS strategies, but I have a feeling it won't be needed. You just need to be in the right frame of mind for the techniques to be beneficial.

I look forward to hearing of your progress. I know I feel hopeful, and feel that soon you will too.

Take care,
Ellen
 
I only just saw this post, and can definitely relate. My TMS was most active when I was sitting for long periods, and when I was lying down (asleep usually) on 'the wrong surface' (he says in quotes, because I now realise that's utter bollocks). I too was taught that sitting is evil; the human body wasn't designed to sit for so long; sitting ruins your posture; poor posture is the cause of your back pain; do flexibility exercises to improve the posture; do self-massage on the trigger points to ease the pain, and whatever you do, don't sit for too long. I changed my work desk to a standing desk, and I made a point to go to the gym at lunch times so I could do flexibility exercises.

It makes no difference. Once I learned about TMS, I made a deliberate point of sitting at my standing desk for as long as I could tolerate. Over time, these periods became longer and longer. Today I'm at the stage where I'm almost embarrassed I made my work supply me with a standing desk, because I spend all my day sitting at it comfortably.

What have I changed physically? Nothing. I've just made mental changes. And yet something that once drove me to take painkillers is now almost completely gone. I hope this experience helps you reinforce in your head that sitting is not causing your pain.
 
gitch said:
I only just saw this post, and can definitely relate. My TMS was most active when I was sitting for long periods, and when I was lying down (asleep usually) on 'the wrong surface' (he says in quotes, because I now realise that's utter bollocks). I too was taught that sitting is evil; the human body wasn't designed to sit for so long; sitting ruins your posture; poor posture is the cause of your back pain; do flexibility exercises to improve the posture; do self-massage on the trigger points to ease the pain, and whatever you do, don't sit for too long. I changed my work desk to a standing desk, and I made a point to go to the gym at lunch times so I could do flexibility exercises.

It makes no difference. Once I learned about TMS, I made a deliberate point of sitting at my standing desk for as long as I could tolerate. Over time, these periods became longer and longer. Today I'm at the stage where I'm almost embarrassed I made my work supply me with a standing desk, because I spend all my day sitting at it comfortably.

What have I changed physically? Nothing. I've just made mental changes. And yet something that once drove me to take painkillers is now almost completely gone. I hope this experience helps you reinforce in your head that sitting is not causing your pain.
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So great!
 
Ellen said:
Hi Eskimo,

I didn't realize you weren't taking an antidepressant. I'm glad to hear that you are now taking one. I think this will be a very important turning point for you. I've suffered from depression since about 12 years old, and it can become very serious if I don't take medication. When depressed, I can't imagine anything being helpful and I lose all hope that things will ever change. After discovering TMS and having success at recovery from pain symptoms, I thought I could get by without an antidepressant too, and lowered my dose gradually over a few months. I never even got to zero before I realized that I was not doing well at all and stopped doing the things I needed to do to keep the pain at bay. Soon my pain symptoms came back. I also had a huge increase in anxiety. So I went back on my full dose and have been doing pretty well and back to pain free. So I came to the realization that for me right now, I just have to take an antidepressant if I'm to have any quality of life.

Give it some time to work and realize that sometimes it can take awhile to find the best one for you. I hope you are working with a doctor that you like and trust, as that can make a big difference. Since you also have a great deal of anxiety, hopefully you are taking one that also helps with that symptom. Some are better at that than others.

I believe you've done all the essential TMS strategies. I think once your antidepressant is working, you will start to have success with the TMS. The world will be a brighter and more hopeful, joyful place. Things will begin to fall into place.

Keep us posted on how you're doing. Once your mood is improved, we can look again at fine tuning your TMS strategies, but I have a feeling it won't be needed. You just need to be in the right frame of mind for the techniques to be beneficial.

I look forward to hearing of your progress. I know I feel hopeful, and feel that soon you will too.

Take care,
Ellen
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Thank you so much Ellen.
 
If anybody has any excerpts, articles, or quotes regarding the harmlessness of sitting, please post. The SteveO excerpt on sitting is excellent; any additional reinforcement would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
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