Help!

Hi All,

I’m looking for a bit of support. There is an awful lot happening in my life at the moment.....impending job change, divorce, 7 year old son, I’ve met someone new, money is tight....... the list goes on!
I’m not new to tms. I suffered with chronic back pain for many years, which culminated in a particularly bad episode. I discovered Dr Sarno and my tms went. I’ve suffered many other pain issues which I have always managed to sort by using Dr Sarno’s method (also Steve Ozanich’s book).
This one is very painful and debilitating, lower left back pain. I am quite frightened by it!!!
Any help and support is much appreciated!!

Thank you

 

The good news is that you know it's TMS that you have conquered it before, so this is just TMS rearing its head again. The bad news is that your brain is trying to distract you from an overwhelming amount of stressors. It's much easier to focus on your back than a job change and a divorce, worries about your child and finances and a whole new relationship. What you are afraid of is not the TMS, but change and uncertainty in your life. Right now, fear is running the show and driving the pain strategy. The key is to be unconcerned about the the pain and remind yourself there's nothing wrong with you physically. Be ok with feeling fear and anxiety and tell yourself that you are going to handle situations as they come. And you will. One thing at a time. Take satisfaction in the fact that you are making these necessary changes to have a better life and be a better father etc. Let go and allow things to unfold with your new job and relationship. It all comes back to your life and shifting your focus from your body to your actual life. Whenever you are caught up in the pain and worrying about your back etc., what you are really doing is repressing emotions. The goal is to get out of repression mode, allow yourself to feel the emotions and then go about the business of living.

Life is complex and ever changing but the more you practice shifting from the physical to the psychological, the more you communicate to your brain that it can stop sending you pain signals. Remind yourself that the pain is temporary and so are your thoughts.

 

Thank you for your kind reply. It is just what I needed to hear. I have got a lot on at the moment and I thought I was handling it all. I’m not. I need to get back to living a day at a time and stop worrying about the future because it will work out, it always has. Sometimes I can’t see the wood for the trees, so to speak.

 

@Acjax, I posted the following response on the duplicate thread that you posted in a different subforum - then I saw this duplicate, which is confusing for users, so I deleted the duplicate (which had no responses) and I'm copying my reply here. This is the correct location for a request for support, anyway!

Hi @Acjax, and I'm sorry that you're relapsing. Before anyone can offer advice, have you seen a licensed health professional lately? We need to be sure you've been checked out before we can help you assume that this is TMS. Although that being said, I almost invariably diagnose myself - and a couple of times I've experienced very debilitating new pain that, when I "treated" it as TMS, eventually went away. But still - new scary symptoms should be taken seriously and we need to be up front about that.

My personal techniques in a crisis are aimed at clearing and soothing. This means writing, exercising, and meditating. Slowing down, clearing my brain, and breathing.

Do you ever write? Did you ever learn any of the writing exercises by doing our Structured Educational Program? I keep coming across articles telling us that therapists and researchers are convinced that just writing shit down, every day, is an amazingly powerful way of dealing with negative emotions. I have stopped calling journaling, because that implies keeping a formal journal and looking at it later, and what we are talking about is just writing stuff down, putting it on paper in order to help stop the harmful ruminating in your brain - and then throwing it away.

Nichole Sachs is a huge fan of journaling in this way (she actually uses a blank computer document which she erases and re-saves as blank each day). She is also really good at describing how to acknowledge and process some of the bigger "life changes" issues such as the ones you're going through, particularly parenting and changing relationships. She has a book, a web site, a podcast, and a paid program, and I would recommend that you check her out, and just plunge into it. I suspect you need something more structured than just reading a book at this point.

That's just one resource. Others will certainly add more.

~Jan