Day 1 My acceptance of TMS diagnosis

Hello!! Newbie here with my first post.
I definitely overall accept the TMS diagnosis. I have been struggling with reoccurring lower back pain over the last 7 years or so. Which started one day by simply turning my body to get something out of a pocket. And has been triggered by simply bending over to pick up something off of the floor, rolling over in bed and walking on a treadmill. Also by heavy lifting but mostly those small things that really don't make a whole lot of sense. So one can imagine the level of fear I had of doing any sort of movement. I mostly avoided anything particularly strenuous because there must have been a connection. Anyways after trying many different remedies, lumbar supports, posture corrections, medicine, massage, accupuncture, different pain creams, cbd oil, etc. I found a reference to John Sarno's book on a reddit sciatica page. I'm pretty open to natural remedies and the like so was more than happy to try out this strategy. And just by reading part of the book I started to feel better, my 3 persistant back pain was gone. Then I had to join a reddit page for TMS which led to this forum. And I'm so glad I found this because I definitely have almost all of the personality traits and am not good at dealing with my emotions, taking care of my inner child, loving myself, the works really. I'm looking forward to trying out this educational program and continuing to read Healing Back Pain. Reading through the TMS Recovery Program by Alan Gordon and listening to the provided sessions really helped me feel like I'm on the right path.
I have realized I have many other issues that may be caused by these traits, but it's hard to be certain and that's where the doubts/worries come in. I worry that those may be physical and I don't want to miss a diagnosis if something is physically the matter with me. Which makes me think back on the fear I've read about, which really is so insidious.

 

Welcome @AelinG77 - and I do think you're in the right place!

Maybe it will help to think of it this way: Every human has this TMS mechanism built in to our brains. It's a primitive survival mechanism that simply does not work at all well in the modern world. For anyone prone to stress and anxiety, the mechanism goes haywire, or into overload, or into overdrive - however you choose to characterize it.

We ALL experience doubt (I still experience it, every day). The fact is that the doubt is created by our TMS brains in order to keep us stuck, fearful, and always watching out for sabre-tooth tigers. You can see why this is not useful in today's world where you are probably lucky enough to be physically very safe.

Your job is to do the work, and learn how to talk back to your brain, calm the doubts, and reject the irrational fear.

My favorite talk-back phrase has long been "Hey brain, thanks for trying to protect me, but THIS (current symptom) is NOT NECESSARY".

Good luck, and keep us posted!

~Jan

 

Thank you so much for your response and I love your talk-back phrase, I will have to try that one out! I've definitely found that talking back to my brain when I start to feel the pain coming on has helped so much. I was so afraid to carry something heavy or bend down to pick stuff up, which I have to do both at my job. Now I'm like nope, I'm not afraid of you pain, or when I feel that twinge telling it nope I'm not falling for that.