I did the 10K thing

Rusty Red

Rusty Red

Well known member
Not going to lie, I was really hoping finding out my body could do this (and shaving 2 min of my time from last year) would change something. Symptoms came right back after though.
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Rusty Red said:
Not going to lie, I was really hoping...
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I see your disappointment and feel your frustration, @Rusty Red. I just read the following in a different post from our dear Diana, which I think is relevant
Diana-M said:
I’ve had a few chances to push myself and do something that feels impossible with my symptoms and it always delivers a big high for me and a temporary dip in symptoms—but not a cure. It’s also followed by a let-down afterwards.
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Diana-M said:
I think I’ll keep going for some of these highs, now and then. And I also think I will go with the daily baby steps.
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You may have set up your TMS brain up for the perfect letdown.

Years ago, during a very emotional breakup and what I thought was a great loss at the time, I was told "Expectations are the road to hell". It actually helped me get over him almost immediately, as it was quite an asshole thing to say in the circumstances, but I never forgot the essential truth of that statement.

The essential dysfunctional nature of expectations is an excellent breeding ground for the TMS brain to thrive and sow chaos. Expectations are by their nature doomed to result in some level of disappointment.

Let's be clear about the parameters of expectations. Finishing your race was a perfectly reasonable expectation, because it was completely congruent with the fact that you were conditioned and physically capable of doing so.

Shaving two minutes off your time is an awesome achievement AND it was perfectly reasonable to expect that you could make an improvement - again, because it was congruent with the physical fact that you trained hard, maybe harder than ever.

And... you know where this is going, right? This is blunt. You had this other agenda, which was an expectation that by physically completing this race, you might achieve a significant change in your completely unrelated, emotionally-based, and unconsciously-produced TMS symptoms.

This is what unrealistic expectations look like. It's also thinking physically instead of psychologically. And you know intellectually that TMS just doesn't work that way.

Having said all that, please DO NOT fall into the trap that your TMS brain has so carefully laid for you! That trap is for you to completely discount this achievement and consign it to the trash heap as a failure. You know that your brain will use this to try to convince you to give up altogether on TMS recovery (that's a given) but it could possibly also try to get you to give up on running. It will try to do this because that is its job. Your job is to call BS on that tactic, and take the win and celebrate like you believe you deserve to.

And, by the way, that is an absolutely darling photo, damn it!
(I guess I'm a bit worked up at your TMS brain being such a butthead to you :mad::oops:)

Now, re-read that quote from Diana, especially the second part.
 
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JanAtheCPA said:
The essential dysfunctional nature of expectations is an excellent breeding ground for the TMS brain to thrive and sow chaos. Expectations are by their nature doomed to result in some level of disappointment.
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Absolutely agree! From my own experience, my progress occurred when I didn't expect it. I got on with my 'baby steps' expecting nothing, just with the desire to feel better about myself for getting on with what ordinary things in life I could, as best as I could, despite the TMS symptoms because I was at rock bottom. And while I was doing that, my symptoms faded and a lot of them have died. For a long time I couldn't stand long enough to have a proper shower and when I look back I can't tell you exactly the point when that changed, but it did.
 
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BloodMoon said:
I got on with my 'baby steps' expecting nothing, just with the desire to feel better about myself for getting on with what ordinary things in life I could,
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Thank you dear @BloodMoon ! You are my example and I am so thankful for all you have taught me. I love what you say here because I think I’m finally getting to the point where I’m just happy from the pure accomplishment of something tiny and simple. I’ve changed my expectations!
 
JanAtheCPA said:
The essential dysfunctional nature of expectations is an excellent breeding ground for the TMS brain to thrive and sow chaos. Expectations are by their nature doomed to result in some level of disappointment.
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Love all this! I fall into this trap a lot, but I’m getting a little better at Not.
 
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