Obsession

Hello everyone, I’m having a lot of trouble breaking my obsession with my symptoms as well as treatment. I am certain that my hand/arm pain is tms and I’ve extended a lot of my activities since learning this, however I’m still scared of my pain and I end up working myself up constantly about making sure I’m doing the right things to get better. I keep playing the same loops in my mind, I stress when my pain is here and wonder when it’s coming back when it’s gone. I question whether I should be journaling more, or trying to keep my mind of the pain, or trying to get angry at it to make it leave. Basically I think I’ve read too much about treatment and I can’t seem to stop getting myself into a panic about not doing it correctly, as well as stressing about not being able to keep my mind off the pain. Some days I’ll feel very confident, and then the next I’ll panic and get discouraged. Has anyone else dealt with this? I don’t know how to break this obsession and fear, it’s overwhelming at times despite any progress I make.

 

Welcome Victoria!

There are many ways to go about this. An effective way is to focus on want makes you so excited about the future that your mind will trivialize the pain and you take control.

If you had only one week to live, what are some exiting things you would do that make you really excited?

Take a few minutes and write them down. You can even write them as a reply here. They could include going shopping, a trip to the beach or mountain or a lake, calling a friend, eating ice cream, and so on.

Then start working on as many of them as you can and see what happens.