Obsessed with TMS?

[KiwiSunshine]

I think I'm thinking about TMS too much...
39yo female, have had chronic pain for almost 2 years now and found out about TMS about 6 weeks ago. Everything resounded with me. Have made some progress, pain quite minor now & moving round heaps. Can't wait for it to go away completely, but maybe I'm too fixated on being pain free? Have been reading 'Healing Back Pain', on the Wiki a bit, and doing the structured educational programme. I am mainly a stay home mum of 4 kids so my work is quite menial, leaving me with a lot of brain space. I find I'm analyzing everything, like every little blip of pain I'm trying to think psychological, what's going on with me emotionally right now? and now, and now? TMS is the first thing I think about in the morning and last thing I think about at night. I work one day a week and have noticed that the days I'm at work I don't notice the pain at all, because I'm distracted. I think I need to distract myself more and not be so focused on my TMS? Does this make any sense?

 

[Baseball65]

Yes it makes sense, No you have nothing to worry about.

Everything you are experiencing is normal. TMS has a strong OCD connection (Sarno evens uses that as a comparison in HBP). I have always described it as a sort of 'ocd of the body'... instead of an intrusive thought you have an intrusive symptom....same mechanics. I would rather wake up to thinking about TMS than feeling pain!

As our pain goes away we begin to see how LOTS of things if not ALL of the things in our life were conveniently timed to distract us from the realm of unsavory thoughts and emotions.

we all know there is nobody more enthusiastic then a recent convert. The only caveat I share with recently cured people is "Careful about getting preachy"...most people in the world need their pain and sending them inside is too scary for them.

Eventually you will settle into a new way of looking at things and it will become stable.

I have been pain free 20 years now. Any outbreak of distraction (pain of obsessional type) is always just a polite nudge to have a look

 

[BloodMoon]

I find I'm analyzing everything, like every little blip of pain I'm trying to think psychological...

From what I've read about recovering from TMS, I believe that - as long as you're not examining the pain itself, i.e. judging how intense the pain is today compared to yesterday to kind of 'chart your progress' - then it's great that you're regularly reinforcing the 'it's psychological, not physical' message when your pain blips or shifts around. (I say this because it seems that for most people the recovery progress is not linear and so it can feel disheartening when you've been doing TMS work only to find that one day the pain is more intense than the previous day or you've got pain or another new symptom popping up elsewhere...It can make you feel that you've done something wrong or that you're not suffering TMS after all - when that's not the case.)

...what's going on with me emotionally right now? and now, and now?

I also understand that with TMS it's good to 'check in' with yourself and ask 'how am I being, right now?' regularly throughout the day because it's by doing that that you can notice any tension in your muscles and then you can choose to consciously release that tension by, for example, saying to yourself 'let go, let go, let go', taking a deep breath in - and an even longer breath out - as you do so - in order to calm the nervous system...

I know only too well what you mean about having too much 'head space' though (I'm retired so I too have a lot of time to think) but something I find helpful that you could perhaps consider doing instead sometimes would be do the chores that you have to do 'mindfully', i.e. attend to them as a meditative process...For example, as you put the dinner plates away in the cupboard notice the pattern on the plates and notice the colours of the clothes as you fold the laundry - that kind of thing. I find that it stops my mind/thoughts racing about and obsessing about things. I also do visualisations which help, e.g. I visualise and 'feel' what it would be like to be completely pain free and I also consciously 'take in the good' as Rick Hanson recommends https://www.rickhanson.net/take-in-the-good/

I work one day a week and have noticed that the days I'm at work I don't notice the pain at all, because I'm distracted. I think I need to distract myself more and not be so focused on my TMS?

Another aspect of you working might be that you are finding something uplifting and joyful in it; I don't know, but maybe you could look at what you like about your job and see if you can in bring any of that into other parts of your life that you might not enjoy as much...In relation to this I love this Eckhart Tolle quotation: "Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible."

I feel slightly awkward replying to you post as I'm not pain free myself (and you seem to be doing far better than me too) but I just thought I'd share what I am finding helps me and what I've picked up from all the reading I have done about recovering from TMS (from postings on here and in numerous books).

All good wishes.

 

[BloodMoon]

TMS has a strong OCD connection (Sarno evens uses that as a comparison in HBP). I have always described it as a sort of 'ocd of the body'... instead of an intrusive thought you have an intrusive symptom....same mechanics.

Thank you for mentioning this as it has made a 'penny drop' for me...when I look back to when I didn't have pain, I can see that I had some OCD-ish tendencies...but then I got chronic fatigue and so called 'fibromyalgia' and became too exhausted and disabled to be particular with how things were done or to be repetitive with any of my actions or activities.