Day 1 Mental Tug-a-war

[EurypteridR]

Hi, everyone so just quick background on me. I have had what I now believe to be TMS for the past six years. With my symptoms including: anxiety, depression, dysautonomia (the most annoying symptoms of this are sever fatigue and brain fog), wrist pain, knee pain, stomach issues, and probably more that I can't remember yet. It's basically ground my life to a complete halt making me have less energy that my at this point pretty old dad. I haven't been able to do any of the things I've wanted to do with my life for the past around 4 years and frankly I need to get my life back.

So, I've actually tried this program before for my wrist pain didn't get all the way through before I decided other stuff was more important. My wrists are better they still hurt but I was spending an hour on them a day and now I don't. It's weird because I'm just now realizing I was willing to spend an hour a day on my wrists but I have a lot of trouble spending the same amount of time on TMS. Fortunately, yesterday JanAtheCAP gave me a much needed kick in the butt, so I'm here again hopefully until I can complete the 40 days. I'm hoping posting about it will keep me motivated.

I'm honestly having kind of a hard time with accepting the diagnoses because one part of my brain will give a reason about why TMS doesn't exist, it's like the same 10 things over and over again. I have to keep debunking them over and over again. It's very annoying. I'm also super worried maybe I'm going about this the wrong way maybe I'm doing things in the wrong order. I'm reading the Mind Body Prescription and now I'm super worried that I should be reading Healing Back Pain first. Or maybe I'm doing the wrong program. Then I have to say that no it's fine and that works for all of 2 seconds. If you can't tell my anxiety is bad, it will decide I need to spend 40 minutes a night making my bed. I'm semi-successfully working on that particular problem but there are more. So yeah that's were I'm at. Thanks for reading.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

LOL, I'm all about the butt-kicking, @EurypteridR - even my tax clients are not immune We all need our derrieres shifted on a semi-regular basis, after all.

I'm also super worried maybe I'm going about this the wrong way maybe I'm doing things in the wrong order.

This is also your brain on TMS! We see this concern all the time. It's the perfectionism in us, and perfectionism is one of the first things that has to be kicked to the curb. In fact, I was just about to post a link to an article that came across in my Pocket feed this morning - it's two years old, but the topic is never out of date - note the subtitle in the URL:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180219-toxic-perfectionism-is-on-the-rise (The dangerous downsides of perfectionism)

You're on the right track - stick with it, no matter how much your brain tries to resist! And definitely don't worry about doing things in some kind of order. As you originally illustrated in your first post, the danger lies in taking on so much that you end up frozen with indecision.

BTW - I never read Dr Sarno's first two books - my source had recommended The Divided Mind and that's all I needed to get going. But I did do the SEP.