Invaded by symptoms

Incluso antes de encontrar esta wiki, mi miedo a los síntomas en los brazos ya había disminuido. Sabía que si sufría un ataque de pánico, experimentaría un brote de 10/10 en los brazos: un dolor muy intenso, propio del sistema nervioso. Me sentía extraño, y todavía me siento así.
Cuando encontré esta comunidad y leí sobre personas que se habían recuperado, lo que hicieron y cómo perdieron el miedo a los síntomas, comencé a aplicar el mismo enfoque. Mucha gente decía que perder el miedo era clave. Desde una perspectiva científica, tenía mucho sentido.
Sé que probablemente cometí el error común del principiante: asumí que una vez que comenzara a hacer el trabajo y viera que otros habían mejorado, eventualmente yo también comenzaría a notar una mejora clara: tal vez más días "normales", algunos días buenos, algunos días malos, algunos días con menos dolor.
Lo que no esperaba era que los síntomas se extendieran por todo mi cuerpo. Antes tenía sensaciones ocasionales, pero nada parecido a esto. Ahora siento que me invade todo el cuerpo. Ha pasado de afectarme principalmente los brazos y piernas a otras zonas. A veces siento como si todos los síntomas que había superado hubieran regresado a la vez.
Aunque creo que los síntomas pueden aparecer y desaparecer, y que la recuperación aún es posible, no esperaba que se extendieran a más partes de mi cuerpo mientras luchaba por perder el miedo. No sé qué pensar.
He visto algunas publicaciones de personas que describen algo similar, pero no han publicado actualizaciones recientemente, y eso me hace preguntarme qué sucedió.

 

Hey,

Let go. You just need to let go. Dont let your symptoms set the mood. These changes wont happen overnight. Just decide on doing a couple of things that feel nice; maybe some others that you think are good for you, and let go. You post every single day talking about symptoms. Please let go. We need to grow stoic; to decide that our worries aren't worth breaking our heads over.

Dont do this because you want the symptoms to go away quickly, do it because you believe its good for you. There'll be better and worse days, but you need to convey to yourself that you will be okay one way or the other.

No one is gonna make your pain go away. This is a slow process of healing, to find a way to support a sustainable way of life, not just to get rid of the symptoms. Dont forget that your symptoms are there for a reason.

 

To expand upon that:

Reading old healing stories is fine, we need to have a certain understanding of tms and have some faith and evidence that its gonna work. At some point however, its much more of a compulsion than actually TMS work. What if you read about 100 people not getting better, would that affect you? At some point you just have to decide to stick with it.

I had health anxiety, specifically rabies ocd. I had taken a couple of jabs and at a point i realized that these jabs werent ever gonna make me feel safe, they were just a compulsion for temporary relief.

We need to stop feeding this part of our brain. Stop constantly giving in to these little panic attacks. Just learn to be with your feelings. Okay you have doubts and fears, so what? Are you gonna get better if you stop doing tms work?

 

I had symptoms spread too when I started doing the work. Was it because I was doing the work or was it because they were just shifting around anyway? At one point I had an entirely new symptom in a part of my body that had not previously had any pain. Then that happened again differently. Trust the process. For me it was helpful to stop calling the symptoms by name, to stop describing them and instead focus on what I am scared about, what I am feeling. I can only recommend you start the SEP if you haven't yet—no one can force you to do anything, but I really would highly suggest you start there. Doing something regularly will give you a sense of safety and you'll get some practice journaling, and read some of the best material I've read on TMS.

 

@café_bustelo
Gracias por compartir tu experiencia y por hacerme saber que no soy la única que pasa por algo así. Hoy también sentí dolor en una zona que nunca antes me había dolido: en la parte superior de las piernas, como un dolor muscular profundo. Es un síntoma nuevo, además de los otros que con el tiempo habían desaparecido.
Empecé a hacer el SEP, pero de forma intermitente, y me he quedado en el día 10, que leí ayer. No sé si realmente funciona, pero voy a seguir con él. Gracias. También quería preguntarte, ¿cómo te sientes ahora en comparación con la primera vez?

 

Maybe this is getting lost in translation but do you mean how do I feel compared to when I began doing mind-body work or compared to the first time you asked me?

Either way the answer is so much better, in body and mind

I've been having an amazing week recently and I feel I'm on my way out of this. I truly believe you will see improvements too, you just have to begin and do something every day consistently, whether that's the SEP, journaling, meditating, or some combination. Try as hard as you can not to obsess over the work either, although you inevitably will in the beginning. Once you're in a place where you're experiencing less fear around the symptoms your path will become clear—but the first step is to reduce that fear with more and more evidence and continued nervous-system calming.