Issues on accepting and facing fear

[Pietro Carloni]

Goodmorning everyone
I'm sorry to say, but it's a difficult period, after about a month free from symptoms (or with very tolerable symptoms) here I am again looking for support, advice, looking for a safe place where I can compare the experiences of recent times .

As I read for many of you, dealing with TMS can be a truly amazing, difficult and daring undertaking because it is not about taking a pill and passing pain or even "treating" back pain; what I have experienced on my skin in recent times is that the awareness of my attitudes to face life (or the present, if you prefer) has led me to a real discovery of myself, of my reactions to problems, of my mood, of my thoughts hidden among thousands of small and big fears.

Face the fear for me means to find out who I am and all these pains are the barrier that I imagine I have to overcome to gain a minimum of inner peace and confidence with my more kind and joyful side.
What I have discovered in recent times is that whenever I was faced with difficulties (I speak of important emotional difficulties) my instinct advised me "warmly" to change context, change lifestyle, change partners, change jobs, or to immerse myself in discovery new experiences.

This is really a great suggest! But what happens when, as in my case, it is not possible to escape? What happens when we decide to change strategy and try to face, accept and understand the situation in which we find ourselves?
What I want to say is that when there is a family, a more or less stable job, I feel the weight of precise responsibility towards life choices (made in a moment of great courage) and I understand that time to escape is finished and has arrived to accept thoughts and emotions hidden by fear and rage.

I am living days of great difficulty and despite having consciously chosen to have courage and not to fall back into fear, fear manifests itself in a thousand ways that until now I had never known, and you surely know how persuasive they can be.
Fear makes me feel sick, away from the world, far from emotional bonds, it makes me feel weak and insecure, increases the anger and resentment towards everything that I could not be and I realize only now that I have faced the difficulties of life only through anger, looking for an external culprit to all that badly happened to me.

In this period I realize that if I do not let "distract" from the symptoms, despite everything, I still can not live peacefully, I feel lost and almost regret those symptoms so familiar to my life. It seems a masochistic speech but sometimes all this freedom leaves me displaced and then the symptoms start again, as if the worry is the most natural way for me to get out of this impasse.

after all this preamble I would like to ask you if you have started to reprogram your ways of reacting to the difficulties, if you have had these difficulties and how you have overcome them, especially in the moments when the conditioning of pain has always been present.
A sincere thank you to all those who will have time and desire to respond.
solar smiles

 

[Andy Bayliss]

Hi Pietro,

What it sounds like is that you're facing yourself more deeply than you ever have before. Bravo! I love this meditation from Neff

https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/self-compassion.break_.mp3

I want to say that it is important for me, when I am suffering ----in whatever form, that I don't allow my self-rejection to go unnoticed. That is, embedded in my suffering is almost always a self-blame. I need to see this self-hate, and defend my right to my own unique, individual experience, including whatever form of suffering might be arising. This includes my right to experience anger, hate, hurt, confusion, and even being lost in my suffering.

Andy B

 

[Pietro Carloni]

Hi Andy,
thanks for the kind response and encouragement. You do not know how useful it is for me right now.

In this regard I would like to bring my own reflection that concerns me closely:
From what I started this adventure, I got very close to myself, especially to that part of me so anxious and so scary of everything, that side of my character that could be labeled as "weak". Now I recognize that I have kept this fragile side of my personality hidden from the world, masking it through decidedly more aggressive emotions (and in this aggressiveness I recognized my attempt to defend myself from the "threats" of the world).
For some time now, as I said before, I have chosen to accept this anxiety of mine too and it often happens to me, within the family, to manifest this discomfort.
The problem is that while I try to accept and deal with this kind of emotion my partner criticizes me because she thinks that I see anxiety everywhere and in whatever speech we do.
and at this point I come into conflict, on the one hand (through the symptoms) I understand I'm anxious and I want to express this feeling, but on the other I feel criticized for this and, when it happens, in addition to anxiety is added a feeling angry at her.
I do not know how to mediate this thing which, I think, has long been my biggest problem in relating to others and, above all, with her.
I would like an advice from all those who will respond, especially to those who may have lived and faced this type of situation.
Good day everyone

 

[Andy Bayliss]

The problem is that while I try to accept and deal with this kind of emotion my partner criticizes me because she thinks that I see anxiety everywhere and in whatever speech we do.
and at this point I come into conflict, on the one hand (through the symptoms) I understand I'm anxious and I want to express this feeling, but on the other I feel criticized for this and, when it happens, in addition to anxiety is added a feeling angry at her.

Hi Pietro,

I believe that you need to defend against your Inner Critic, and with your wife your right to experience anxiety. If you are learning to treat your anxiety in the best way you know how, then her criticism is not helpful. Also, she may be asking you to not express your feelings of anxiety. Perhaps there is a difference between you knowing you are anxious, feeling and letting this be, which is helpful for you, and expressing this to her, which may not always be helpful for her.

I am not sure, but there might be a place where you have a right to your anxiety, and she learns it is not her fault. Perhaps she sees your anxiety as her fault, and she does not want your anxiety to activate her feelings around it. Again, it seems to me there could be a way where you have your anxiety, and she has whatever she has, and it is OK.

I tend toward being anxious myself, and I react to others' anxiety in a negative way sometimes: it activates my anxiety because I think I need to fix their anxiety. It is helpful for me to know that I don't need to fix another's feelings.

So, there are some ideas you might find helpful. I am only writing based on very little direct information. Your anger at being told to "not be anxious" is understandable.

Andy B

 

[Pietro Carloni]

CAro Andy,
you have hit the issue; I believe that my partner feels responsible for my anxiety, and the fact of warning her when I feel anxious, awakens in her a sense of guilt towards my propensity for depression.
We talked about this in the last days, I tried to explain how the mechanism of TMS works, and I recognize that it is not easy to understand, just as it is not easy to live alongside a person who transposes his emotional tensions on the physical side.
But it is so and not wanting to see it only increases the problem (and the symptoms).

However, I agree with you when you say that it is not necessary to adjust our anxieties, but only to observe them, to cross them, to make sure that, like clouds in the sky, they can quickly dissolve in the altar. I'm trying, not to judge the successes by measuring myself with the pain that comes back under different forms, to recognize that the conditioning compared to situations in the past can act as a trigger for the relapse of symptoms.
I am trying to recognize anger and fear, to feel them as legitimate and universal emotions to all mankind and to remind myself, continuously, that I am healthy, strong and brave. Even when the events of life rally against you.

P.S. taking a step back and seeing my previous experiences (unconscious) with the TMS I discovered that every time I felt some discomfort my first goal was to change life (habits, interests, relationships, etc. etc.), now that I have a family and a stable job to change life is more difficult (because in some way it is bound to escape from something) and so I find myself today changing my way of seeing the world. A radical change of perspective that is bringing me more and more to know myself and I think this is the great gift that makes our experience with TMS truly unique, fascinating and extremely interesting.

Thank you, as usual, for sharing your point of view with me. I appreciate it. really.