Day 1 My Long Story

Thinking....ok....I have very flat feet) as a kid I had to wear those god awful Claude hoppers orthopedic shoes. I felt really self-conscious wearing those things.... When I was in about 5 or 7th grade I would steal shoes to wear instead of the prescribed shoes... I would hide them in a bag and change when I got out the door....Here’s this little skinny girl with flat feet prancing around in platform shoes! LOL OMG! .....


About at the age of 12-13 I was taken to the funeral home and told this is your Grandfather. I never knew I had a Grandfather. Afterwards over the years we had to hear how my Grandfather abused my father and left him on the streets as a 5 year old that ended up in an orphanage. My Dad never abused me but always brought up what a life he had. I think that was about the time I decided I wasn't going to have kids. Mainly because I felt if I did I might become an abuser myself. My other brother although he had children he said the same thing.


Most of my pre-adult life I've had some sort of pain. Thinking back my pain started when I landed my first job. I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home washing pots and pans. I can remember being bent over the sinks with stomach pains. The doctor would say I had gastritis and said to take Mylanta. That went on off and on for a few years.


The stomach pain was I would say replaced by foot pains....I needed to have orthotics so I didn't have achy feet.... To this day I still need to wear orthotics...During the job above I would have fainting spells...Doctor said I was anemic so I had to take iron pills off and on and still do...


Speeding up the years.... I met a guy and got married. He had a real thing with pulling telephones off walls and throw them from one end of the house to the other. I started getting stomach problems at times.....During this time my oldest brother died....I have guilt because he came over to visit me and I was too busy studying for biology class.... that was the last time I seen him.


A couple of years after my brother died I divorced my husband and met another guy who was a high school sweetheart... Little did I know he was as nuts as my ex-husband. He was a drug addict and weekend alcoholic (I don't drink, never have, mainly because my Dad was a drinker and didn't want to be like him) He had major problems that came out during his acid trips and killed cats! Long story short I got pregnant by him had an abortion for obvious reasons. Got away from him and once he found me he harassed and stalked me. I had to charge him and move away...During this time I developed hypoglycemia


A short time later I met my now husband who had a 9 year old girl. The morning I woke up after getting married I had headaches above my right eye...Every few weeks I have and still get these headaches for 2-3 days...


The day of our wedding my father says to me "there's still time" meaning are you sure you want to get married? OMG you have got to be kidding me Dad?!?! I was furious. the day of the wedding was awful, it was the hottest day of the year, I had my Dad asking me if I thought I was making the right decision, my step-daughter thought I was made at her, my mother-in-law decided she was going to split in the middle of the pictures being taken, my sister-in-law who no one likes showed up and a god awful dress, I was totally embarrassed, I never did the father daughter dance...why would I? Mom was furious at dad, they sped off. What a day! Some months had passed and I began hearing rumors that my husbands brother had been a convicted killer! I did some investigating and yes he was, it was confirmed by my step-daughters Mother. (yes we get along)

My step-daughter was 9 when I met her she’s now 27. Our relationship was hard until she was about 23 now we get along as long as her dad doesn’t get into our picture.

Out camping and a German Shepard attacked our dog, almost killed him but he survivor. I now have fear of big dogs near our dogs.

After that my left foot started really giving me pain. I could hardly walk on it. Then one day I bent over and got a terrible pain in my right lower back, it made me cry out in pain. I yelled upstairs to my husband who in turned yelled out at me. He has no bedside manner btw....I started going to the chiropractor for magnetic therapy treatments for my foot and lower back...


Then my Dad found out he had cancer 82 years old....my brother and his wife where over and my brother was disrespecting my mother and Dad told him to never come back...and he didn't. My husband and I live and hour away and had to take Dad to his cancer treatments and appointments for the next 3 years. My brother lived a block away and so did my nephew....My dad passed away and none of them showed up at the funeral home. We haven’t seen them since early 2009. We ended up selling our house and moved closer to mom to look after her....Sometime during this cloud I started having off and on diarrhea.


I had a food intolerance test that come back as potato and peanuts....So I stopped eating them and no more diarrhea!


Mom decided she was going to put the house up for sale after 2 years.... hubby and I moved her into a retirement setting she loves it but I’m the one how has to hear everything that she hates about it!..... Then 3 months later I'm bedridden with lower back and leg pain in Feb. 2015 I went to see the doctor who sent me to the Physiotherapist. She pressed onto where my neck and shoulder meet.....I freaked out it hurt so much! I never went back to her, the next morning my ear started draining clear fluid..... Later that evening I laid down, didn't feel right and every single muscle in my legs went into spasm..... Went to ER and nothing was found....All within a matter of days this happened... I broke out in a odd itchy rash on my stomach doctor gave me cream.... Then my back and right Leg pain started..... I went to a chiropractor who used active release...... She diagnosed me with a little herniation I thought she said L3-5 and myofascitis, and a little piriformis.....

My doctor, Chiropractor, and new PT all agreed no MRI or CT is needed. .I had nothing but time so I started doing research and asked the doctor to do a MAG RBC, IRON, B12 blood work......All this was done in ER but the MAG RBC...long story short the MAG RBC was low end of normal.....b12, iron was low to. The Doctor didn't catch it until I made him aware.....Anyhow the MAG is slowly coming back up and iron and b12 is too.....

Fast forward I started reading about John Sarno and I'm fully convinced my pain is TMS.....I was able to have maybe 2 weeks with hardly any pain this summer.....until I tried some Hanna Somatics then it started up again!..... It's strange because since it started in Feb I've had pain in my right leg....pins needles, tingling, pulling, cold spots, burning, I've had pain in my left leg.... Both upper buttocks...waist pain...Hip pain...I could go on and on! Most recently I’ve started having upper right foot pain when walking that’s new! Also, last night I almost jumped out of my chair with a shock like sensation in my left foot. Itchy soles of feet a couple of weeks ago, this is all along with the leg and back pains…weird!!

A life without TMS OMG I would love it! I would most like to deal with my anger in a healthy manner instead of keeping it in and not dealing with it. My husband is the type of person that doesn’t say a word about what’s bothering him, I’m sure I’ve learned this from him! I just want this pain to be gone, out of my life, go somewhere else not in me! We live near trails I'd love to be able to walk them with our dogs without fearing other dogs. Be able to go on day trips walking, let alone walking thru a shopping mall without being in pain! Being able to clean the house, unpack from even moving!

There's other crap in there I haven't gotten to but there you go!

I’m pretty darn sure I have TMS what do you all think?

Sorry for the long, long post!

 

Hi, Wendy. I'm sorry you have had such a rough life so far but I do believe your pains are caused by TMS emotions and are not from anything structural. The good news is that by believing in TMS, you are going to be rid of your pains and be healthier and happier than you ever imagined.

Your father sure was a cause of a lot of your TMS pain, as were your first two husbands. Your present husband sounds like a friend of mine, a stoic. It's not easy loving someone who does not communicate their inner feelings.

You may get a laugh out of me telling about my sister, a year older than I. Our parents divorced when I was 7 and she was 8, and for security reasons our mother married a man who had a house. But he also had a sister who hated Mom and was terrible to my sister Mary. Mary needed a new pair of shoes but the sister who kept living with us made Mary go to school in an old pair of her high heels. Sis was ashamed to wear them but had no choice.

The fact that your pain moves around means your subconscious needs to know that you know the emotional causes of your pain. JOurnaling in the SEP will help you to discover them.

Read the success stories in the subforum of this web site to be reassured that your will heal and do all the things you now wish you could do in your fisrt day of the program.

I encourage you to practice deep breathing, meditation, and using mantras that tell you that you are going to heal.

You have to "feel" the anger and anxiety that your life so far has caused you to have. But don't dwell on the feelings. Just recognize that you have them, and your subconscious will get the message and your pains will start to go away.

The following may help you to believe in the SEProgram, from another in the TMS community here who says it healed him 95 percent. He posted again a few days later he was now 100 percent pain-free.




ealed 95 % from SEP


Welcome to the SEP and to the path of recovery. I am on my final two days of the program and I can say with complete confidence that I am a changed man. I started after 6 months of nasty low-back/butt/leg pain, could hardly walk, stand, etc. was in physical therapy, chiropractor, acupuncture, pain medications, etc.. the usual. My MRI showed 3 disk bulges/herniations touching nerves, so that is what I believe it to be....that is until I read Dr. Sarno and found this site.

I encourage you to really get involved, follow the instructions, do the journaling, take time to read all the suggested readings, and watch the videos. I'd say I'm 95% cured. There is still some very light lingering "annoyance", but I still have some work to do. I've been walking miles with hardly any pain these last few weeks. But even more, if the pain comes on now, it just doesn't bother me like it used to, I sorta just see it, acknowledge it, and go about my business. It took working the program to get to that point, but 6 weeks compared to 6 months is nothing! I made more progress in the first week than I did from two months of PT!!! It's going to challenge you and your "beliefs" in medicine, but you have nothing to lose. We generally wind up here when all else fails.

So give it a shot, especially before considering anything invasive like surgery. If you put the work in, you will get better. Have you read Dr. Sarno yet? I assume you have since you're here, but in case you haven't, definitely readHealing Back Pain. Again, it will challenge everything you've believed about your pain, and backs in general. You'll be encouraged to resume life as normal, i.e. stop ALL "therapies" (PT, chiro, etc.), stop taking medications, and most importantly, stop thinking STRUCTURAL problems are the cause of your pain and shift to psychological as the reason.....again, this can be difficult and takes some time to sink in, so be patient and kind to yourself.

It was a process for me. A few of the bigger moves in my case were: I ripped up and threw out my MRI test results (I found myself obsessively reading over them and comparing them to other results I could find on the web and even here on the TMSwiki site...); I got back to the gym and stopped using a weight belt; and I even cancelled an appointment I had made with aTMS doctorbecause it was more than a month away and it was hindering my recovery (that is, my 100% belief in TMS was lagging because I had this pending appointment, but as soon as I cancelled it, my recovery sped up significantly). Everyone's journey is unique to their situation, but I've found that really committing to the program and brining what I learn from it into my daily life has had profound results. Also, sharing along the way here in these forums has been extremely helpful - there's something about knowing that you're not alone in your TMS recovery that really helps. I encourage you to look through my past posts for some insight into my experience with SEP. Like I said, I'm just now finishing, tomorrow is my final day, and I feel like a changed person. It's amazing. And I feel as though it is something that one carries on with, not just like a one time 6 week thing and that's that...it has helped me to get to know myself and taught me tools to "deal" with my emotions. Learning and accepting TMS is a life changer for sure.

 

Hello Walt, thank you for the reply!

I'm glad someone here took the time to respond, I was thinking maybe I shouldn't have spilled my guts like I did and may have offended some here but I needed to get it out there ...well for me, a lot of what I said I've told no one before!

Yes I agree, I do feel I have TMS. When I read any book about the subject I'm on almost every page! I have my own business and sometimes dealing with people is just down right hard! Last night I had to deal with a customer overseas about her order..... I was beside myself trying to deal with her.... I was ready to throw something across the room....Suddenly my left shoulder started to ache..... I managed to finally get the problem sorted out..... Once I did about an hour later my shoulder stopped aching!

This morning coming down the stairs my left foot started aching .... Just coming down the stairs! This is funny...the next time I came down it was the right foot hurting! LoL

That's quite a story about your sister and the shoes, I can relate!

What are mantras?

Thanks again