My healing journey continues...

[veronica73]

Hi everyone,

I feel like it's been forever since I posted something here!

I'm pretty much pain free now. I sometimes have tight sensations in my head (headaches were my main TMS symptom) but I'm usually able to work on the emotions involved and the sensations go away. I'm occasionally even grateful for those sensations because they bring me back to a point of awareness of my emotions.

My anxiety is a lot better too. I have been having really intense scary dreams lately but have little to no anxiety during the day.

Some of the things that seem to have helped me the most (in no particular order):

• learning about TMS/reading Sarno books over and over again in the beginning
• journaling was helpful at first and then it felt like it was getting too intense and too much like "psychoarchaeology" as SteveO and some others call it.
• support of everyone here
• working with my TMS therapist
• allowing myself to feel feelings and know that they will not cause me to "go crazy" or whatever I feared would happen
• Learning to be compassionate to myself--one of the ways I am NOT compassionate to myself is my sometimes crazy schedule. I'm now allowing myself to take on less and have more downtime.
• Letting up on the need to control everything and also learning to deal with other people's disappointment when I can't do everything perfectly for them or pick up the slack.
• I no longer see myself as having a problem (TMS) that has to be fixed...I think of this as part of my life path of learning to be more compassionate to myself and others.
• I believe that isolation (real and perceived) might be part of why we have so much TMS and disease nowadays. I find myself being drawn to more positive people and letting some old toxic connections fall away.
• Positive self-talk and affirmations

I am letting myself write this here even though part of me is saying, "how do you know you're not going to have some major relapse or that this is just temporary? You still had a day of pain two weeks ago." A friend of mine is very involved in AA/recovery, and one thing I've learned from that is the value of taking "One day at a time." All I have to do is deal with today and accept this present moment, not be worried about being the Perfectly-Recovered-TMS-Person-For-All-Eternity.

Veronica

 

[dabatross]

thanks a lot veronica for posting the stuff that has been helping you. seems like we're both doing the same types of things trying to get better. glad to hear the last pain day you had was two weeks ago. my longest time with less pain has been 2 days so far but im going to be increasing that more and more. i think one of the reasons i fall back into pain after having 2 days with less of it is that i fear it will come back. subconsciously im thinking/worrying that the pain is going to come back tomorrow and it does. are you doing any kind of anxiety treatment right now, are you reading any other books, and did you get to the point where i got to in journaling where you dont know what else to write anymore?

 

[Michael Reinvented]

Congrats Veronica, the self belief and hard work are being rewarded.

I found you post inspiring, Considering it's been 7 mths since you joined, it put my relentless impatience (one mth) into perspective.
Last 2 weeks has been a geyser of emotion and symptoms which has had me rattled, but reading of your recovery has wrapperd my body in a salve of hope. The symptoms are a lot better this morning than this time yesyterday.

More healing to you, and all who read this.

 

[veronica73]

Dabatross,
As far as journaling goes, I stopped when it was making me feel worse--basically just making me feel like I was picking at really old wounds and feeling really isolated with sad stuff that I was intentionally dredging up. I'm doing better talking it out in therapy and with other people, but the journaling was a good jumping off point for me.

Anxiety worried me less than pain because I had had it and dealt with it successfully many times in the past and I knew it was not a sign of some structural problem. I did a lot for anxiety when I had panic disorder 10 years ago and I still fall back on those tools (self-care, meditation, realizing anxiety is not the sign of some other physical condition for me, etc.)

Michael,
Thanks, I'm glad my post helped One of my issues with recovery programs is that there seems to be this inherent focus on how much time has passed (it's day x...how come I'm not better yet??) Over the summer I had no pain for a month then I had pain again one or two days and had a headache, which isn't really a big deal to normal people, but to me was, oh my god, I'm going to start having pain every day again! (that didn't happen, I haven't had much pain since then).

I think recovery takes as long as it takes...some people read Sarno's books and are healed right away but I think for most people it's a gradual process. What created TMS in me--my workaholic tendencies, perfectionism, stuffing down feelings, etc.--grew in me over years so it makes sense that it wouldn't leave overnight.

Hope you are all having a good day.

Veronica