jokeysmurf
Well known member
Hello all,
I have been off this forum for a while. I have been back at living life but I wanted to drop in and share my coffee experience. I hope this can help some people, since it’s not really about coffee.
I have had TMS for, well a long time. I have been recovering from it for 3.5 years and I would say I’m doing very well now. I don’t like putting percentages because it encourages obsessing. However, when I look back at my life, I would say I am so close to doing all the things I once did. Fear has been the biggest obstacle and it is slowly losing its grip. Life feels expansive and more beautiful than I remember, I feel like a teenager at times.
As part of TMS I have had anxiety for a long time. It became a disorder about 6 years ago and I have had some ups and downs with it. Coffee,for people like me, was always a problem. Except that it never was before I was anxious. I started thinking maybe somewhere down the line I developed a belief system or rather fear reaction toward coffee. I mean we all know it’s supposed to give us the jitters or something. So I decided to try and take up drinking coffee again.
I wanted to see if my brain was conditioned to respond with fear. I bought some regular coffee and some Swiss water decaf. I would ask my wife to make a cup but not tell me which she used. Well, I had anxiety every time, even with the decaf! That is very clear what is happening.
When I would knowingly drink regular coffee I would get the typical sensations, spinning, distant, spacey etc. The same thing happened when drinking decaf! What happens when we look for exceptions is we start to realize what’s at play. It didn’t immediately remove the sensations just because I knew I was experiencing a conditioned response. It gave me the ability to keep on however, knowing that this would happen and also more important maybe not happen...but when?
I decided to continue my experiment until I was no longer sensitive to it. If that would ever happen. It would be 2 months of feeling spinning, distant and Spaciness ...until one day I felt fine. It was odd! I remember being totally engrossed in a project I was doing and drinking coffee, like I always did. I caught myself feeling normal and because of that, it produced the sensations I was expecting, but they subsided quickly.
today it’s been 6 months since my experiment. I still get the “spins” every now and again but I allow it to happen and I know it will pass, and it does and other times the sensations don’t come at all or last a minute at most.
I’m not sure how many people have done this for themselves. I think it should give some people hope out there if they love coffee.
I realized that it’s all the same things we do with our mind. We label something “safe” and “unsafe.” I have friends with TMS IBS who believe if they eat Mexican food they will be in trouble. I eat Mexican food and have had IBS and it never produced any I’ll effects. It was because I had no fear, rather I felt comfort when eating certain foods. Once I did feel I was TMSing because I ate Thai Food level 4 hot, I was in pain. It did retract when I reminded myself with visualizations that in the past I had eaten Thai Hot food which is not recommended plus have had ghost peppers etc. What had changed was that I had become fearful of the possibility. Within hours I was fine.
I hope this can provide some insight for some people out there.
I have been off this forum for a while. I have been back at living life but I wanted to drop in and share my coffee experience. I hope this can help some people, since it’s not really about coffee.
I have had TMS for, well a long time. I have been recovering from it for 3.5 years and I would say I’m doing very well now. I don’t like putting percentages because it encourages obsessing. However, when I look back at my life, I would say I am so close to doing all the things I once did. Fear has been the biggest obstacle and it is slowly losing its grip. Life feels expansive and more beautiful than I remember, I feel like a teenager at times.
As part of TMS I have had anxiety for a long time. It became a disorder about 6 years ago and I have had some ups and downs with it. Coffee,for people like me, was always a problem. Except that it never was before I was anxious. I started thinking maybe somewhere down the line I developed a belief system or rather fear reaction toward coffee. I mean we all know it’s supposed to give us the jitters or something. So I decided to try and take up drinking coffee again.
I wanted to see if my brain was conditioned to respond with fear. I bought some regular coffee and some Swiss water decaf. I would ask my wife to make a cup but not tell me which she used. Well, I had anxiety every time, even with the decaf! That is very clear what is happening.
When I would knowingly drink regular coffee I would get the typical sensations, spinning, distant, spacey etc. The same thing happened when drinking decaf! What happens when we look for exceptions is we start to realize what’s at play. It didn’t immediately remove the sensations just because I knew I was experiencing a conditioned response. It gave me the ability to keep on however, knowing that this would happen and also more important maybe not happen...but when?
I decided to continue my experiment until I was no longer sensitive to it. If that would ever happen. It would be 2 months of feeling spinning, distant and Spaciness ...until one day I felt fine. It was odd! I remember being totally engrossed in a project I was doing and drinking coffee, like I always did. I caught myself feeling normal and because of that, it produced the sensations I was expecting, but they subsided quickly.
today it’s been 6 months since my experiment. I still get the “spins” every now and again but I allow it to happen and I know it will pass, and it does and other times the sensations don’t come at all or last a minute at most.
I’m not sure how many people have done this for themselves. I think it should give some people hope out there if they love coffee.
I realized that it’s all the same things we do with our mind. We label something “safe” and “unsafe.” I have friends with TMS IBS who believe if they eat Mexican food they will be in trouble. I eat Mexican food and have had IBS and it never produced any I’ll effects. It was because I had no fear, rather I felt comfort when eating certain foods. Once I did feel I was TMSing because I ate Thai Food level 4 hot, I was in pain. It did retract when I reminded myself with visualizations that in the past I had eaten Thai Hot food which is not recommended plus have had ghost peppers etc. What had changed was that I had become fearful of the possibility. Within hours I was fine.
I hope this can provide some insight for some people out there.
Last edited:
