cafe_bustelo
Well known member
It's about time I got around to giving an update -
I'm doing really well these days. My life is basically back to normal. Or scratch the "basically." It is back to normal! I still have symptoms sometimes, and sometimes they still bother me, but I have had so many days with next to no symptoms and things are continuing to improve consistently as the months go by (with ups and downs of course—that's why I say months rather than days). I'm writing this on a day with no symptoms, no pain. (Anyone finding this now: I had pelvic pain and symptoms of various kinds.)
So I guess this is a success story, even though I feel my recovery is ongoing. The context for my recovery has changed a lot as I've come to see it in a different way. Without making too much of it, I have found great power in looking at my TMS journey as an important transition point in my life, from one way of being which was not sustainable for me to another, which I much prefer, even if I was to have symptoms forever (and I don't think I will).
I did work with two providers during all this time; one was a local PT who trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy, but hadn't experienced TMS herself and as a result was only helpful to me in a limited capacity. The other, after consulting with a few coaches, was our own @Adam Coloretti (coach) (I hope I can say this without some kind of conflict of interest), who had had a very similar experience of symptoms to me and was very helpful in eradicating my fears one by one. That said, while the coaching was invaluable, the work had to come from me.
I tried a lot of the various TMS protocols. I read a good bunch of the books (I'd recommend the Sarno ones and Steve O, and that's probably enough). I did a little of everything. But I think my recovery didn't really take off until I kind of let those go and stopped doing anything specifically to recover. It really is true that as Steve Ozanich wrote, the number one mistake in recovery is trying to heal. I know that sounds insane but eventually it started to make sense to me.
I found Dan Buglio's videos really helpful, especially putting on his success stories while doing something else, making dinner or whatever. I started to see patterns in the way people recovered and common themes that I could internalize. You can't do exactly what someone else did to recover, as we're all different, but as I heard lots of different perspectives, a lot of things became clear. Recovery started to seem simple and as others will say, inevitable.
I've posted about it before but a major and essential shift I had to make was to work on my negativity bias, to stop expecting that life was a series of disappointments and gut punches and start actively countering that by expecting good things and making plans that reflected what I actually wanted, instead of just avoiding what I didn't want. I started to see that as the reason I had gotten into pain more than any particular onset. I realized if it hadn't been the minor injury that set this off, it probably would have been something else. I feel this aspect of TMS work isn't spoken about enough. For me it was the thing more than any other. Though of course there was no one key.
At times I found all of this very intense and worried that my life would have to change completely in order to recover, that I'd have to leave my job or my relationship and move cities or some other catastrophic change. Turns out, none of that was the case. It was just more fear; it was the fear moving around as my brain looked for new ways to keep me safe, to prevent what it perceived as dangerous changes. I did end up making some changes in my life, but they were all subtle and internal enough that from the outside probably nothing looks different. I just had some friends visit after not seeing me for a year or two. We didn't talk about TMS at all; I didn't bother sharing my story about my mystery pain. Why would I? It's not even that interesting. We talked about life, and hung out, and played games, and rode bikes and went out for drinks. It was nice. I'm trying to give you a sense of how much things have changed for me lately.
I did pick up a couple of new/old hobbies like running and reading. I hadn't run seriously since I was sixteen and back then I could only run like a mile and a half. I'm thirty now and I'm regularly running four or five miles. I like it, and I keep doing it because I like it, not because it has anything to do with recovery (even though I started running because I wanted to prove to myself that my body was OK). Maybe it helps me with having the mindset that my body is healthy and strong. My friends started a book club this past year and I took that as a call to get back into reading, which I admit I hadn't really done much lately despite being an avid reader through my childhood and teens. I felt some of the books I read were really helping me to recover, in a weird way; they provided perspective on life that I needed. I've shared quotations from some of them on this forum: The Alchemist by Paulo Cuelho, Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch, A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr, among others. I'll also again shout out the healing power of Howl's Moving Castle, the movie—I was just talking to a friend who said it helped her recover from recurring panic attacks!
And so on. I now understand why success stories are often either way too short or way too long. There's just no easy way to sum up everything that goes into someone's recovery. I hope this is helpful to you if you're finding it now.
I need to say thank you to everyone on this forum who encouraged me when I came on here early this year in January. It was a really bleak time for me and I was trying to show up with hope and optimism when I felt none. It took months to realize that that was exactly the mindset that would get me out of this for good. Early on I read @HealingMe 's success story, which I credit for inspiring me to get back to reading. @BloodMoon and @Cactusflower and @JanAtheCPA of course showed up right away and helped me to see I was on the right track. And some others @Rabscuttle and @HealingNow - you guys were on parallel tracks and from what I've heard it seems like we are all getting there! I'm sure I'm forgetting others. Thank you all so much for sharing your perspectives and stories.
Early on when I consulted with a coach I did not end up working with, I was told "this approach doesn't work for everyone." Sorry, but I disagree. I think everyone can get better, and it's simpler than you think. I'd even venture to say it might be easier than you think: sure it was challenging at times, but it started to get easier as I started to change my mindset around challenge. I started to say to myself, actually, this isn't hard, it's too easy. I think that helped too.
Well this has been scattered and I feel like I have so much more to say but it's time for me to go on a run and get on with my day. I have been finding it feels better to me to stay off the forum more than not, but I'll try to respond here as I'm able.
Edit: Oh and I almost forgot to add, I went on a trip to the UK a month ago—international travel, jetlag, drinking too many pints, walking thousands of steps—all with basically no symptoms. This was a big turning point for me!
I'm doing really well these days. My life is basically back to normal. Or scratch the "basically." It is back to normal! I still have symptoms sometimes, and sometimes they still bother me, but I have had so many days with next to no symptoms and things are continuing to improve consistently as the months go by (with ups and downs of course—that's why I say months rather than days). I'm writing this on a day with no symptoms, no pain. (Anyone finding this now: I had pelvic pain and symptoms of various kinds.)
So I guess this is a success story, even though I feel my recovery is ongoing. The context for my recovery has changed a lot as I've come to see it in a different way. Without making too much of it, I have found great power in looking at my TMS journey as an important transition point in my life, from one way of being which was not sustainable for me to another, which I much prefer, even if I was to have symptoms forever (and I don't think I will).
I did work with two providers during all this time; one was a local PT who trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy, but hadn't experienced TMS herself and as a result was only helpful to me in a limited capacity. The other, after consulting with a few coaches, was our own @Adam Coloretti (coach) (I hope I can say this without some kind of conflict of interest), who had had a very similar experience of symptoms to me and was very helpful in eradicating my fears one by one. That said, while the coaching was invaluable, the work had to come from me.
I tried a lot of the various TMS protocols. I read a good bunch of the books (I'd recommend the Sarno ones and Steve O, and that's probably enough). I did a little of everything. But I think my recovery didn't really take off until I kind of let those go and stopped doing anything specifically to recover. It really is true that as Steve Ozanich wrote, the number one mistake in recovery is trying to heal. I know that sounds insane but eventually it started to make sense to me.
I found Dan Buglio's videos really helpful, especially putting on his success stories while doing something else, making dinner or whatever. I started to see patterns in the way people recovered and common themes that I could internalize. You can't do exactly what someone else did to recover, as we're all different, but as I heard lots of different perspectives, a lot of things became clear. Recovery started to seem simple and as others will say, inevitable.
I've posted about it before but a major and essential shift I had to make was to work on my negativity bias, to stop expecting that life was a series of disappointments and gut punches and start actively countering that by expecting good things and making plans that reflected what I actually wanted, instead of just avoiding what I didn't want. I started to see that as the reason I had gotten into pain more than any particular onset. I realized if it hadn't been the minor injury that set this off, it probably would have been something else. I feel this aspect of TMS work isn't spoken about enough. For me it was the thing more than any other. Though of course there was no one key.
At times I found all of this very intense and worried that my life would have to change completely in order to recover, that I'd have to leave my job or my relationship and move cities or some other catastrophic change. Turns out, none of that was the case. It was just more fear; it was the fear moving around as my brain looked for new ways to keep me safe, to prevent what it perceived as dangerous changes. I did end up making some changes in my life, but they were all subtle and internal enough that from the outside probably nothing looks different. I just had some friends visit after not seeing me for a year or two. We didn't talk about TMS at all; I didn't bother sharing my story about my mystery pain. Why would I? It's not even that interesting. We talked about life, and hung out, and played games, and rode bikes and went out for drinks. It was nice. I'm trying to give you a sense of how much things have changed for me lately.
I did pick up a couple of new/old hobbies like running and reading. I hadn't run seriously since I was sixteen and back then I could only run like a mile and a half. I'm thirty now and I'm regularly running four or five miles. I like it, and I keep doing it because I like it, not because it has anything to do with recovery (even though I started running because I wanted to prove to myself that my body was OK). Maybe it helps me with having the mindset that my body is healthy and strong. My friends started a book club this past year and I took that as a call to get back into reading, which I admit I hadn't really done much lately despite being an avid reader through my childhood and teens. I felt some of the books I read were really helping me to recover, in a weird way; they provided perspective on life that I needed. I've shared quotations from some of them on this forum: The Alchemist by Paulo Cuelho, Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch, A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr, among others. I'll also again shout out the healing power of Howl's Moving Castle, the movie—I was just talking to a friend who said it helped her recover from recurring panic attacks!
And so on. I now understand why success stories are often either way too short or way too long. There's just no easy way to sum up everything that goes into someone's recovery. I hope this is helpful to you if you're finding it now.
I need to say thank you to everyone on this forum who encouraged me when I came on here early this year in January. It was a really bleak time for me and I was trying to show up with hope and optimism when I felt none. It took months to realize that that was exactly the mindset that would get me out of this for good. Early on I read @HealingMe 's success story, which I credit for inspiring me to get back to reading. @BloodMoon and @Cactusflower and @JanAtheCPA of course showed up right away and helped me to see I was on the right track. And some others @Rabscuttle and @HealingNow - you guys were on parallel tracks and from what I've heard it seems like we are all getting there! I'm sure I'm forgetting others. Thank you all so much for sharing your perspectives and stories.
Early on when I consulted with a coach I did not end up working with, I was told "this approach doesn't work for everyone." Sorry, but I disagree. I think everyone can get better, and it's simpler than you think. I'd even venture to say it might be easier than you think: sure it was challenging at times, but it started to get easier as I started to change my mindset around challenge. I started to say to myself, actually, this isn't hard, it's too easy. I think that helped too.
Well this has been scattered and I feel like I have so much more to say but it's time for me to go on a run and get on with my day. I have been finding it feels better to me to stay off the forum more than not, but I'll try to respond here as I'm able.
Edit: Oh and I almost forgot to add, I went on a trip to the UK a month ago—international travel, jetlag, drinking too many pints, walking thousands of steps—all with basically no symptoms. This was a big turning point for me!
