Day 8 Near brain explosion!

I had an interesting experience this morning while I was journaling about some stressors in my life. Towards the end of my session I could feel some emotions really trying to come out but being held back at the same time. I’m not sure exactly what the emotions were but it felt like could have been repressed anger/frustration. I was writing about the things that those around me do that frustrate me, however I think that what I was feeling anger from childhood that has been repressed. I had OCD as a kid which distressed me greatly and I think that distressed has been buried, which is probably one of issues causing my pain.

The best way that I can describe the feeling that I had is that it was like someone was blowing up a balloon inside my head, just behind my eyes in my forehead. I’ve had this feeling before when I’ve felt stressed out but this time it was more intense. The feeling built up as I was writing and all of a sudden it became really intense for a split second, like it was about to explode it out of the front of my head! But at the same time it felt like there was something holding it back – stopping it from exploding. It was almost like my brain wanted to vomit but dry heaved instead! After that happened the feeling was still there but at a lower intensity. At this point I decided to stop my journaling session so that I could calm down. My mind was racing! I tried to meditate to but it didn’t help to slow my mind down, nor did it help reduce the tension in my body that had built up. I had some new pain in my left shoulder and calf muscles too afterwards

This makes me pretty sure that there is something there in my subconscious causing my chronic pain. As I said it could be the OCD but I have to find out to be sure. This episode has scared me a little though but at the same time it gives me more motivation to keep going.

 

Hi Lepton, and welcome to the forum! This is a really interesting description of repressed feelings that are trying hard to stay repressed. This experience means that you are on the right track - because your brain is fighting back!

The only thing I would like to perhaps change your mind about is your OCD.

For one thing, Dr. Sarno, and many others, believe that OCD, along with chronic anxiety and many types of depression, are just TMS symptoms. They are what we call TMS "equivalents" because they aren't specifically related to oxygen-deprived muscle pain - but they are nonetheless very distressing symptoms that are invented by our brains to distract us against repressed emotional pain and rage. For me, it's been chronic lifelong anxiety, accompanied by a few weird OCD behaviors when I was quite young.

Therefore, although it will be valuable to forgive yourself for the OCD, you also need to figure out why you had the OCD. It's a very good bet that the OCD was a coping mechanism that you learned in order to distract yourself from the deeper pain and rage of something that you were, and still are, repressing.

By the way, you might try finding something positive to say out loud the next time something like this happens. I didn't used to believe in positive self-talk or affirmations, but in fact they do a really good job of cutting off the destructive cycle of negative thoughts and especially fear.

Keep posting!

Jan