New Here

[Ellen]

I think that for me at least it is a combination of past experiences, how my nervous system has been conditioned to respond to certain things, and chronic thinking patterns. I know being angry doesn't feel safe to me and I am sure how I deal with and express anger is at the root of this and although I am improving immeasurably, I haven't figured it all out yet.

Thank you, Anne, for sharing this. It summarizes so well my own assessment of the causes behind my TMS. I find your posts so illuminating and helpful. I'm so glad to hear that your symptoms have improved significantly.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Eskimoeskimo, believing 100 percent that my back pain was caused by TMS and not structural was also hard for me.
I was 82 when the pain began after I lifted something the wrong way (a case of 36 cans of beer!) Reading Dr. Sarno's
Healing Back Pain and learning about TMS I believed in it about 90 percent and still had some back pain. It took
several months of not thinking structural and I finally healed. Believing in TMS 100 percent is not easy for most of us.
Keep working on it.

 

[Tru B Leever]

Now, any tips of really assimilating belief? How does one achieve 100% belief? I've read all the materials, but it seems to me like 'belief' is so much more complicated than understanding. I feel like the switches that need flipping are very deep in parts of my brain that don't exactly take orders. What was that process like for you?
T

Eskimo.......Achieving 100% belief is not easy, I can tell you that much, especially since the pain is so real. We grow up experiencing real, physical causes for pain.........you fall and skin your knee, you feel pain........you bang your head, you feel pain......someone hits you, you feel pain, etc, etc. We don't grow up thinking that pain can be caused by our brains and not by something physical so it's a hard concept to fully accept. One of the things I did to help me was I tried to tell myself how stupid the pain I was in was. Sometimes, I'd wake up out of the blue with terrible back pain. I'd say to myself, "At the gym, I'm lifting 85lb dumbells off the floor, I'm putting a bar with 240lbs on top of my shoulders and squatting, I'm doing a hyperextension machine for lower back and using the entire weight stack, and I leave there and I'm fine. BUT, I injure my back while laying in bed sleeping????? Come on, what a load of BS!!!" I just try to realize how ridiculous the pain is and that helps me see that it must just be TMS. Laying in bed is not such a strenuous activity that I'd hurt myself doing it!! LOL
Good luck!! You can beat TMS!

 

[eskimoeskimo]

Come on, what a load of BS!!!

I think this is my new mantra!

 

[eskimoeskimo]

Particularly because I'm very active, but my pain is at its worst when sitting down doing computer work.

 

[eskimoeskimo]

I believed in it about 90 percent and still had some back pain. It took
several months of not thinking structural and I finally healed.

So do you feel like the conscious reminders sink in over time to the unconscious? I'd like to know how people feel about this... do surface level messages and repetition start to turn into belief?

 

[eskimoeskimo]

how my nervous system has been conditioned to respond to certain things, and chronic thinking patterns

Yes, I wonder if it's just a physical manifestation of lots of anxiety, rather than the physical manifestation of something repressed. I'm very aware of the anxiety, but maybe my brain uses the physical outlet when there's more than my floodgates can 'tolerate'

 

[Tennis Tom]

So do you feel like the conscious reminders sink in over time to the unconscious?

... do surface level messages and repetition start to turn into belief?

“Pity me that the heart is slow to learn / What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay