Oh you look so great! (???)

hi everyone, maybe some of you have similar experiences to mine: when I am in terrible pain ( like now), often people tell me : “but you look so great”. I am really fed up with this. Like most of us, I want to be seen as I am - suffering from chronic pain since years. Maybe people consider me as hypochondriac? And I don’t know how to react. Most of the time I tell them that I am very much in pain but one can‘t see it etc.
How would you react to this „compliment?“

 

You want THAT to be your identity? Yuccchh...

This post only caught my attention because I USE that exact phrase to head off the Litany of gripes and complaints that come from a certain Girl I know. Yes it is manipulative, and NO it hasn't worked.

Since this is a relatively anonymous internet forum I figure I'd let you be pissed at me rather than risk a real life friendship. Go ahead.. I'm your huckleberry

Most of the people that pissed me off when I was in pain were the ones telling the truth. The ones who were 'loving ' and 'compassionate' only prolonged the deal with drugs, useless treatment and patronizing cold comfort.

 

Baseball65 I‘m not pissed at you, you made me think about my sentence „I want to be seen as I am - suffering from chronic pain since years“. And you‘re right!
I have footpain since 8 years and since three years I know it is TMS, I don’t take any drugs or have therapies any more, read most of the books about TMS, followed the „pain recovery program“, had a session with Steve Ozanich and TMS-therapists, do everything they recommend and I am still in pain like before. And I don’t know what I am not doing wrong. Sometimes I want to give up because it seems so hopeless...
Some ideas Huckleberry?

 

My First Idea would be yours. Give Up.

I would give up whatever your doing/thinking/believing so you have an open mind to trying something new. The old non-working idea's and stuff are just burning up the time and and energy the new idea's and stuff will need. Whenever I help anyone the first thing I promise them is that we wont waste any time doing stuff they have already tried. Why keep it around? It's just wasting space in your head.

Having the right information (It is TMS and there is really nothing wrong) is only a piece of truth. For some people simply that truth is enough to dissolve the symptoms. Remember in 'Healing Back Pain' Sarno said that 5% of the people need something more.

Most of the treatments they gave me when I was in the 'system' made no sense at all.... and yet, I was willing to try them because I was desperate. We need that same degree of desperation tearing into the fabric of our being. Calm, cool collected reasoning obviously isn't working. Break something. Scream. Do ANYTHING.

Most important powerful instigator of change I know of and have worked with is Questions. I don't need answers. My brain supplies answers before I even want them.... I need the right questions. The Answers the medical world gave me for why I was in pain were poor answers.... Sarno's Queries were far more accurate.

Here's Some; Why Do you need your pain? What place does it have in your perception of yourself and the world? If it was gone, what would be different about your life? What activities, self perceptions and beliefs would you have to let go of? How is your life designed around your pain?

Most of the 'stuck' people I have met and listened to NEED their pain. It has been around so long it has it's own name, bedroom, bathroom and mailing address. They speak about it as if it were an entity in it's own right.... like a peer they are negotiating with. If it moved out they'd be lonely and lost.
"If this pain went away then I might have to face the fact that I really hate my parents" "If this pain went away I might have to face the fact that I fucked up ____" or for me it was "If this pain went away I might have to admit that this Norman Rockwell Family life I am in SUCKS and I feel used and exploited" "If this pain went away I would realize I owe 80K on a degree in art and there is no way I can ever pay it back"

That is NOT secondary gain. There is NO injury. There is No benefit.... just a well conditioned Daemon living inside the person

...and lastly, and it would negate my entire existence if I left it out.... It has a lot to do with God. Not some fuzzy new-aged-BS-paperback-astrology-feelgood but good old fashioned GOD.
Long before I had TMS I was interested in religion. I was raised in a snobby atheist home (all of them have TMS) so it was virgin territory. I read the Bible, The Tao-te-ching, buddhist themed writers (the buddhist scriptures are miles thick), snippets of the Bhagavad Gita and other esoteric 'stuff' and tons of exegetical pontification.

Than, I actually ended up in a situation where if GOD didn't show up , I was fucked. ..and God showed up...and has again and again and again....

Two weeks before I hit bottom and read Sarno and began to recover I was soooo desperate for help, I let a bunch of Pentecostals Pray over me...and I think they are fools and insane....and I found Sarno and got better!!!

The idea of God is anathema to us modern day, rational educated people. We hear of terrible things that people do in the name of religion and we flush the whole thing down the toilet....and we should. However , God doesn't have anything to do with Religion. God stands in direct opposition to our self-satisfied know-it-all egos ...... the same ones giving us all of our symptoms!!

My favorite guy is the one who came out and spoke against religion and formality and lack of integrity and showed us a way to develop our own relationship with God....and they killed him and made a religion around him. He also healed a lot of people but always told them it was THEIR faith that healed them, but to thank God.

Right before they killed him he said the truest 'truism' that I know. "It is as you say" My experience has confirmed this a thousand times over. I assume it works for everyone because I am not special. So.... what are you "Saying"?

Spirit leads. Mind follows. Body is just along for the ride.

there's some idea's, none of them original and they have all worked for me.

Peace....

 

Thank you so much Baseball65 that you took the time to write such a detailed reply! I appreciate your honesty. Yes I have tried the same things over and over again - with little changes. They didn’t work, or only for a short time.
I often looked for reasons why my foot hurt right now: anger, stress, anxiety, weather....but that does not help.
I also thought about reasons that prevent me from healing. And I found out that I am afraid of the „emptiness“ afterwards. I have lost my job and my partner, and although I have plans what I want to do when I am free of pain it frightens me. Telling myself that everything will be ok doesn’t work.
And I believe in the all-embracing love of a higher being of whom we are part of.....

 

Baseball65
I LOVE your response. It should be posted on the City Gates. You were raised by atheists that led you to your aHha moment, I was raised by christians that led me to this path. Yet you have pulled all of our stories together, making complete sense, to me and I am sure to others as well.
Thanks
Lainey

 

Courage doesn't mean not having fear. It means being afraid and doing it anyways. How long has that foot been 'conditioned' in your brain. maybe it's time to do something anyways?
Empty has gotten a real bad name lately. I love empty. Every time I am 'full' I think back to the times I was empty and realize that those were the most amazing times in my life. Full knows too much. In fact, full is a know it all and is bound by all sorts of rules and responsibilities. One of my favorite prayers is about setting aside everything I think I know....and it works, and I get empty. Empty means anything can happen and the excitement of the possibilities Is like a drug.
That lonely old person theory is something that Hallmark TV is marketing. I 'lost' my partner too. I was lonely for a minute. . . . and then I play with my Dog, write a song, play baseball and hang out with my friends, my sons.... all stuff I couldn't do as much as I wanted to when I was playing 'partner'.
I have also always felt closer to God when I am alone... lots of spaciousness to listen. Jesus 40 days in the desert, Moses in Midian, Buddha under the Bodhi tree, Muhammad in the cave.... all alone...
I left my glamorous (sic..lol) career in Hollywood and moved to nowhere to be nobody...I am nearly invisible.
It was prompted by the Satori's I had AFTER embracing Sarno and I couldn't imagine a more beautiful life... I am grateful every morning for losing that career
I still have a few dumb idea's I'm trying to lose. Hopefully by the time I go I'll be totally empty.

"freedom is just another name for nothing let to lose" -Kris Kristofferson

 

You might stop thinking about what causes the pain? And start thinking about what you would really like to do? Not just preferences like whether you want strawberry or vanilla ice cream - more in the league with: how do I want to spend the rest of my life. And maybe also: what kind of person am I really?
My situation is a bit different than yours, it seems that I have an embedded infection that has to be cleared (some will say that this also might be TMS - however, I don't care, this is my decision and I feel good with it). But what dawned me is that I have to make my own decisions, following my own intuitions. And I stopped looking for the elephant in the room. There was no elephant, or, in case there is one, he will appear anyway. I scrutinized myself in therapy for many years and I know a lot about myself. I didn't really help to analyze myself over and over again. Building the future and being honest with myself is what helps me best. And being kind to myself!