Progress, but fear

It's been a couple of weeks since I started this TMS trip, and on days like today, when my pain has increased, I feel almost panic-stricken. I've been fighting acute anxiety all day - all week really. So I'm trying to take a step back and look at the big picture, to help silence the negativity in my head. At the beginning, I was limping and/or on crutches due to the pain in my right foot. I tried to walk my dog every day, but some days I'd turn back after half a block, because the pain was so acute I was worried I would hurt myself further. I was going to physical therapy twice a week but had stopped making progress, so my therapists sent me for an MRI. I occasionally took pain meds in the evening.
Since then, I walk every day, pushing through any tightness. I find that I get looser and smoother the further I walk. Today I did a mile. I jog part of the route, which gets my dog very excited! I do some simple weightlifting when I get home using a theraband, so I have muscle tone for the first time since June. I also have plenty of pain, which has increased since the MRI results (a false positive for issues with my healed ankle bone), and that does get me extremely anxious. Weird thing is, the pain is moving all over - inside of the ankle, top of the foot, toes, arch, and since the false positive, outside of the ankle. And the other foot has started hurting in all those places too - what the heck, brain!
So, today is rough. I'm starting to realize that my focus on the physical is distracting me from some pretty heavy emotional burdens: loneliness, anxiety, worry about family, the pain of rejection. No wonder the pain keeps coming back.
I hope, I feel, I'm on the cusp of a breakthough in this journey. At least tomorrow is chocolate chip pancake day.

 

Isolation and abandonment are big issues for us humans. Our actual physical survival initially depended upon community. Now that we live for decades in a relatively safe world, it seems that our emotional survival still depends upon community.

Physical survival in the primitive world also meant repressing the emotions surrounding abandonment and isolation, and replacing them with symptoms to keep us on our toes. Emotional survival in today's world means fully-facing and acknowledging these emotions, accepting them, and accepting ourselves.

 

What Jan said above is so true, and universal to all of us who had ever had TMS! Might I also add that it's a positive sign (however uncomfortable) that your pain is moving around...this happened to me when I started my TMS healing journey too. Hope you've been feeling encouraged in the last few days and that you enjoyed the pancake day (we also do that on the weekends )

 

I believe it's a positive sign too . . . but ow! It's so discouraging to have a good day and then a truly miserable one. Plus it's hard to keep the anxiety at bay when that happens. This is a roller coaster of a ride and I'm hangin' on with all my might. The pancakes (yes, they're delicious!) help.

 

I'm with you birder.... I am also feeling discouraged and struggling with being patient. I try to just ignore my symptoms--and not care that i have them, but if I am honest with myself I am simply desperate for a real break from them! I have been doing better with my anxiety by listening to meditations with the unlearn your pain program and some others that I have found online. Right now I am trying to see a decrease in anxiety as a big step in the right direction. . .and believe that my symptoms will let up.... And thinking about your roller coaster comment-- I wonder what would happen if instead of hanging on (which I am doing too!) we simply threw up our hands and screamed? The thought of that makes me laugh...

 

Hahaha! Here goes nothing . . .
For me, there's an immediate, direct connection between my anxiety level and my symptoms. I never connected the dots, though, until I joined the wiki. Now it's like, "Oh, jeez, of course!" I find online meditations really helpful too, although I get a little impatient with the whole "Breathe in to a count of four" stuff, because I'm in such a hurry to get relaxed.

 

My symptoms and anxiety have been directly correlated too..... such a vicious cycle! I am grateful that I am getting better at feeling the symptoms without it triggering fear... Now I think the next step for me is having fears without it triggering symptoms....... and I am trying to figure out what is psychologically at the root of it all....