avik
Well known member
Just writing that out gives me chills.
I just went through the most difficult, challenging, and traumatic experience of my life.
I got Covid on or around the last week of this past March. When it "began" I had a strong mindset and great faith in my body's ability to handle the virus.
I'm 46 (which is by no means "young")- I have 9% body fat, am an amateur bodybuilder, avid bike rider, lifelong snowboarder, and maintain a very clean/healthy diet.
Covid couldn't care less.
It proceeded to kick my ass...and put me in the hospital twice (once for possible blood clots in my legs and the second time for problems breathing).
The symptoms were varied and relentless. Body aches and pains like nothing I've ever experienced, weird rashes, sinus and chest congestion from hell, and weakness that made me feel like my soul had been sucked out of me. And the memory loss/mental issues/mania/anxiety/brain fog? I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Indescribable "brain pain" that scared the living shit out of me.
I can’t overstate how horrible I have felt through this entire process. I say this carefully and with no exaggeration: it's the first time in my life that at moments, I actually felt like I was dying. Like I might lose this battle.
Once week 4 rolled around I started asking myself "ok...why am I not healing"?
Unfortunately, like many others, I had gone into Covid with a laundry list of fears and concerns already planted in my head, from a year's worth of watching the news, following the death tolls, reading about it online and then ultimately learning about this "long haul" syndrome, which appeared to affect a large number of people who had had Covid.
Here's what’s interesting-at or around week 4 I remember saying to my fiancé (who happens to be a Sarno advocate and firm believer in TMS herself)..."I’m having a lot of symptoms I've seen before from TMS, albeit a lot more extreme".
I mentioned the above but didn't really give it much credence because when you've tested positive for a virus that's ravaging the planet, who even thinks to give TMS a serious look? It was clear to me that people were responding to this disease differently and that some people simply had it for a longer period of time than others.
Week 5 rolls around and I’m still in bed. The greatest distance I have walked up to this point was from my bedroom to my kitchen. And here I am in week 5…then 6…then 7…and things appear to be getting worse!
Yes, many of the symptoms had gone away but many others increased in severity.
How could this be?
Was the virus still inside of me?
I then went on a two-week run of google searching, various Dr. visits, blood tests, and overall PANIC.
Was Covid now living in my intestines? (as I have learned was a distinct possibility)
Had it crossed the “blood-brain” barrier and infected my mind and overall nervous system?
Fear and anxiety ensued unlike anything I had ever experienced and this coming from a pre-existing state of anxiety and panic. They were simply compounding each other.
Last week, I found myself at a very familiar point of desperation (or as some might say, having been given the “gift of desperation”). I was not going to sit back and let this long-haul situation run its course, which from research told me it could potentially last for up to a year.
I decided to Google “long haul Covid and TMS”.
By the grace of God/the Universe, I was served a YouTube video by Nicole Sachs, LCSW that shared the exact same title as my search, although the “the” was replaced with an “is”.
I listened to Nicole speak beautifully and eloquently about what this Pandemic has done to our collective minds, how we have been overcome with fear, and that ultimately she believed that these “post-viral symptoms” that many others like me were experiencing, were yet another (serious) manifestation of TMS. More specifically that my/our bodies were in a “sustained state of fight or flight” and that it was not normal for us to have been in this state for possibly months at a time!
I was floored.
Mind you I am a lifelong “TMSer” who has been propagating Sarno's message for the past ten years to virtually everyone around me. I never truly considered TMS as the culprit here or that it could “latch itself” on to Covid. I had a lot of questions:
1. At what point did Covid stop and TMS take over?
2. Was this “classic” TMS as I had come to learn and understand, in that my mind was diverting my attention away from painful emotions/rage/stress...or,
3. Was this a new iteration of TMS (in my mind) that was simply the body staying in this state of heightened “fight or flight” not necessarily as a diversion or an alarm but more because my system was fried, did not know how to turn off the alarms and simply needed to calm down and repair?
4. Or maybe the above two questions are one and the same. I don’t yet know.
Here’s what I do know:
I listened to Nicole. I listened to Dr. Paul Garner who wrote about his experience with long-haul in a blog that others graciously posted on these forums (I will link below all below). I began to think psychologically, much like I had done ten years prior to target my chronic pain/fibromyalgia and CFS at that time.
Simply listening to Nicole’s video and letting it seep into my brain…and allowing me some subsequent joy at the thought of uncovering this new reality/truth contributed to 50%-75% cessation of all my symptoms, within about two hours.
Excuse the language but HOLY SHIT.
In the following 2 days (which were this past week), I began to walk my dog again outside, handle some basic chores around the house, sit up and work in my home office and just get some of my head back.
I’ve already had significant setbacks and even a day where the pain went beyond anything I had experienced at that point. This naturally messed with me and (for a short time) derailed the optimistic path that I had been on but…it forced me to realize that I could not expect an immediate and permanent reduction in all my symptoms and that TMS was likely making a last stand…as it had done so many times throughout my life.
I needed to step up my focus and overall approach to this thing.
I’ve started journaling and it’s doing wonders…but has also unearthed a ton of repressed anger and rage. Apparently, I have (subconsciously) applied many past traumas and emotions to this whole experience, which resulted in a fear-inducing scenario that lasted for almost two months straight and basically, fried my body’s ability to maintain a state of balance or homeostasis.
Full disclosure, I’m bawling my eyes out right now as I am simultaneously being reminded of how emotionally draining and terrifying this whole experience has been but also at the gratefulness that I feel that I am in this new state of awareness and that I can share it with you all.
I can likely write another 5 pages here but I will spare you and leave with this:
If you are suffering from some sort of chronic pain and you are still questioning whether or not your brain can really do this to you and create the level of pain you are experiencing…well I think you know what I’m going to say…damn right it can.
This has been an eye-opening experience for me and I still have a long way to go…
But I can tell you that if I do manage to get this under control using the techniques I’ve learned here, via Sarno and the host of other people contributing to this community, I will be on a mission to get this message out to other “long haulers”.
Thank you for reading.
Links to Nicole Sachs video (a MUST watch):
Link to post by Dr. Paul Garner: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/25/paul-garner-on-his-recovery-from-long-covid/ (Paul Garner: on his recovery from long covid - The BMJ)
I just went through the most difficult, challenging, and traumatic experience of my life.
I got Covid on or around the last week of this past March. When it "began" I had a strong mindset and great faith in my body's ability to handle the virus.
I'm 46 (which is by no means "young")- I have 9% body fat, am an amateur bodybuilder, avid bike rider, lifelong snowboarder, and maintain a very clean/healthy diet.
Covid couldn't care less.
It proceeded to kick my ass...and put me in the hospital twice (once for possible blood clots in my legs and the second time for problems breathing).
The symptoms were varied and relentless. Body aches and pains like nothing I've ever experienced, weird rashes, sinus and chest congestion from hell, and weakness that made me feel like my soul had been sucked out of me. And the memory loss/mental issues/mania/anxiety/brain fog? I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Indescribable "brain pain" that scared the living shit out of me.
I can’t overstate how horrible I have felt through this entire process. I say this carefully and with no exaggeration: it's the first time in my life that at moments, I actually felt like I was dying. Like I might lose this battle.
Once week 4 rolled around I started asking myself "ok...why am I not healing"?
Unfortunately, like many others, I had gone into Covid with a laundry list of fears and concerns already planted in my head, from a year's worth of watching the news, following the death tolls, reading about it online and then ultimately learning about this "long haul" syndrome, which appeared to affect a large number of people who had had Covid.
Here's what’s interesting-at or around week 4 I remember saying to my fiancé (who happens to be a Sarno advocate and firm believer in TMS herself)..."I’m having a lot of symptoms I've seen before from TMS, albeit a lot more extreme".
I mentioned the above but didn't really give it much credence because when you've tested positive for a virus that's ravaging the planet, who even thinks to give TMS a serious look? It was clear to me that people were responding to this disease differently and that some people simply had it for a longer period of time than others.
Week 5 rolls around and I’m still in bed. The greatest distance I have walked up to this point was from my bedroom to my kitchen. And here I am in week 5…then 6…then 7…and things appear to be getting worse!
Yes, many of the symptoms had gone away but many others increased in severity.
How could this be?
Was the virus still inside of me?
I then went on a two-week run of google searching, various Dr. visits, blood tests, and overall PANIC.
Was Covid now living in my intestines? (as I have learned was a distinct possibility)
Had it crossed the “blood-brain” barrier and infected my mind and overall nervous system?
Fear and anxiety ensued unlike anything I had ever experienced and this coming from a pre-existing state of anxiety and panic. They were simply compounding each other.
Last week, I found myself at a very familiar point of desperation (or as some might say, having been given the “gift of desperation”). I was not going to sit back and let this long-haul situation run its course, which from research told me it could potentially last for up to a year.
I decided to Google “long haul Covid and TMS”.
By the grace of God/the Universe, I was served a YouTube video by Nicole Sachs, LCSW that shared the exact same title as my search, although the “the” was replaced with an “is”.
I listened to Nicole speak beautifully and eloquently about what this Pandemic has done to our collective minds, how we have been overcome with fear, and that ultimately she believed that these “post-viral symptoms” that many others like me were experiencing, were yet another (serious) manifestation of TMS. More specifically that my/our bodies were in a “sustained state of fight or flight” and that it was not normal for us to have been in this state for possibly months at a time!
I was floored.
Mind you I am a lifelong “TMSer” who has been propagating Sarno's message for the past ten years to virtually everyone around me. I never truly considered TMS as the culprit here or that it could “latch itself” on to Covid. I had a lot of questions:
1. At what point did Covid stop and TMS take over?
2. Was this “classic” TMS as I had come to learn and understand, in that my mind was diverting my attention away from painful emotions/rage/stress...or,
3. Was this a new iteration of TMS (in my mind) that was simply the body staying in this state of heightened “fight or flight” not necessarily as a diversion or an alarm but more because my system was fried, did not know how to turn off the alarms and simply needed to calm down and repair?
4. Or maybe the above two questions are one and the same. I don’t yet know.
Here’s what I do know:
I listened to Nicole. I listened to Dr. Paul Garner who wrote about his experience with long-haul in a blog that others graciously posted on these forums (I will link below all below). I began to think psychologically, much like I had done ten years prior to target my chronic pain/fibromyalgia and CFS at that time.
Simply listening to Nicole’s video and letting it seep into my brain…and allowing me some subsequent joy at the thought of uncovering this new reality/truth contributed to 50%-75% cessation of all my symptoms, within about two hours.
Excuse the language but HOLY SHIT.
In the following 2 days (which were this past week), I began to walk my dog again outside, handle some basic chores around the house, sit up and work in my home office and just get some of my head back.
I’ve already had significant setbacks and even a day where the pain went beyond anything I had experienced at that point. This naturally messed with me and (for a short time) derailed the optimistic path that I had been on but…it forced me to realize that I could not expect an immediate and permanent reduction in all my symptoms and that TMS was likely making a last stand…as it had done so many times throughout my life.
I needed to step up my focus and overall approach to this thing.
I’ve started journaling and it’s doing wonders…but has also unearthed a ton of repressed anger and rage. Apparently, I have (subconsciously) applied many past traumas and emotions to this whole experience, which resulted in a fear-inducing scenario that lasted for almost two months straight and basically, fried my body’s ability to maintain a state of balance or homeostasis.
Full disclosure, I’m bawling my eyes out right now as I am simultaneously being reminded of how emotionally draining and terrifying this whole experience has been but also at the gratefulness that I feel that I am in this new state of awareness and that I can share it with you all.
I can likely write another 5 pages here but I will spare you and leave with this:
If you are suffering from some sort of chronic pain and you are still questioning whether or not your brain can really do this to you and create the level of pain you are experiencing…well I think you know what I’m going to say…damn right it can.
This has been an eye-opening experience for me and I still have a long way to go…
But I can tell you that if I do manage to get this under control using the techniques I’ve learned here, via Sarno and the host of other people contributing to this community, I will be on a mission to get this message out to other “long haulers”.
Thank you for reading.
Links to Nicole Sachs video (a MUST watch):
Link to post by Dr. Paul Garner: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/25/paul-garner-on-his-recovery-from-long-covid/ (Paul Garner: on his recovery from long covid - The BMJ)
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