psychophysiological dizziness syndrome

Hi everyone,

I am a life long TMSer and haven't written on this site in a while, but a new current of some pretty tough symptoms have brought me back to doing some structured education program work, so here I am posting about it.

I am currently dealing with feelings of dizziness, nausea, headache, as well as periods of anxiety and depression, which can be linked to the mind body syndrome I put in the subject. I am almost completely sure my symptoms are TMS related (though I did have a few days of googling and attributing it to other things)

I am really feeling low. but check out my current stressors - I just had my third baby! he's two months old, and I have a four year old and a seven year old. so that alone is a lot. I had post partum depression with my first and felt euphoric with my second, and this one is somewhere in the middle. I actually had a really solid six weeks until these symptoms showed up. although that isn't true - I have had a ton of health anxiety since the baby was born about my c-section incision, blood pressure, etc. so I suppose I have been having a ton of anxiety. and health anxiety is a top issue for me.

In addition I continue to be come face to face with my really tough personality where I am just so hard on myself about everything. I'm beating myself up about losing baby weight faster than I need to, about keeping the house tidy, about my aging agedness (I turned 40 in July) and just really lacking self-compassion in so many ways. I feel a lot of loneliness. I have very difficult parents who are popping into my life more than usual because I just had a baby. I feel an undercurrent of fear and sadness nearly all the time and always have, no matter what I do. I have tried it all - therapy, religion, meditation, medication - do I just accept my melancholic nature? it feels really good to write here because I think most of all I have just been feeling really lonely and really afraid and like there is something really wrong with me for having all these thoughts and feelings and experiences. and I don't really know what to do with that. but there is a catharsis in putting it out there. so that is where I am.

 

Hi @Stephanie71
Congrats on your new baby!
Since you have a strong knowledge of being hard on yourself, consider how hard you are being now - you are struggling and not being the "perfectly" recovered postpartum Mom. Here's a big heaping helping of grace to you! It's not easy have two young children and an infant - and all the body and hormonal AND psychological changes a new Mom has.
My suggestion is to drop any idea that you have some sort of a "syndrome". The group of symptoms you are experiencing are very common TMS symtpoms reported here - either alone, clustered or accompanying other symptoms. I had many of them myself along with my other main symptoms and have recovered from all of them.
Going through the SEP again is an excellent idea, and perhaps you are a person who would benefit from journaling fairly regularly, since it seems like you internalize a lot of stress.
There is NOTHING wrong with you. Being a mom is HARD!! The human brain is kind of pre-programmed to be a little negative - it's part of the primitive coding of safety - always looking out for the predator ... you can change this - not really change it, but judge those thoughts less by just letting them float by and giving them less space - don't believe them. Believing them is actually a conscious choice we make. I think some of what is really going on here is that you feel a bit of a victim: a bit of a victim to the "Judgement" of "others" re: your housekeeping choices, your parents personalities, your weight, and the fact you are aging - some things that seem beyond your control.
Don't believe that all of this is beyond your control. Your housekeeping choices are yours - who cares if someone else judges it! Eg. My sister and I nicknamed our Mum the "White Tornado" (which was the nick name of a cleaning product in the 60's/70's) - EVERYTHING had to be spotless and in it's place at all times yet we lived in a modest home where nothing was really updated (it was pretty ugly) and nothing very new. My parents were extremely frugal, because they needed to be. My sister's way of coping with all of this was to not care one whit about having a clean home. Her place is dirty and messy and she is absolutely not apologetic because she has other priorities. My suggestion is to journal about your priorities and think about them in relation to the personality traits that Sarno lays out for us are often part of a TMS mind. Become confident in who you are, your current beliefs and priorities. You have gone through attempts at doing this with meditation, religion etc. but it sounds like none of those were "you". Find you and then work on loving the you that you find. You are in control about how you think about yourself.
Your parents are difficult, begin reading about creating boundaries and practice boundary skills. Journal about your feelings and thoughts about this because it's hard to start saying "no" when you are a people pleaser - you've most likely been trained to please your parents - and feel a whole lot of emotions and most likely have deep subconcious rage about "having" to do so. YOU are in control here - they want you to believe you are not, because it's easier for them and it's simply habit, they probably dealt with similar parenting. You can be the one to break generational habits and cycles.
Aging is a common TMS "rage maker" - our inner subconscious does not have any idea of how old it is, and still behaves like a naughty 2 year old however, as a conscious, responsible adult you know the score - we get older. It happens - start cultivating ways in which you can appreciate the aging process. Enjoying being a child again through your children, lavishing in the freedom you have to make your own decisions and do things like change your perceptions and judgements. To learn to be confident in your own skin. Explore your fears, face them.
I think loneliness goes along with not loving yourself. Once you love yourself, there is a difference in loneliness of wanting to be with others and being OK with being alone. Keeping working through things, and this sense will pass (it did for me). When I want to be around people I simply go to the grocery store! When you feel a bit better perhaps you can join a Mom's group (when I was a Nanny, I attended one for my community in a local community center once a week, the local library has one here) or go to Story Time at the local book store or do anything you can to be with others but have control over your schedule (no big deal if you can't make it that week)...find no pressure activities to join.
As for anxiety: there are many things that can help you. Know that you've got a zillion hormones doing a fancy dance inside of you as a new Mom, so don't worry so much about the anxiety. Just let that be there. Don't worry that it's there, don't freak out when you feel the physical sensations of anxiety. Claire Weekes has loads of great advice about anxiety so I suggest any of her slim little easy to read books. There is a lot of new approaches to anxiety lately, since it's so prevalent in our world today - the latest is to just let it be. You have anxious thoughts, let them be. Don't try to judge or change them - remind yourself they are just THOUGHTS and you are a rational human being that doesn't act on them.
Another suggestion has been (it's an oldie from this forum) to "think clean" and that is to at least temporarily break free from news, media, perhaps social media, get out of all "groups" on social media, no more Dr. Google, to keep your watching of movies, TV, books etc. to gentle things. You can't avoid all stress but you can keep a lot of unnecessary stress inducing stuff out of your life. When I need to "hear" things, I enjoy things like free audio books from my library on the ap they use. You could even listen to children's books with your kids.
I think that there are some personality traits that Sarno never explored with his patients. Perhaps they are less common and avoidance or the feeling of malaise etc. is a big one. This society pressures people to stand out of the crowd, to feel like we have to be extraordinary or be a failure. That being "ordinary", or even in some parts of the country to have values and beliefs that aren't common is bad or unsuccessful. This is a load of crap. You will always be the extraordinary mother to your children, and you most certainly have talents and skills that are unique just to you.
Keep up the SEP and know that you will keep growing as a person.

 

This is awesome. Thank you. The victim thing of these pressures being about what others might think is SPOT ON. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. Thanks for such a great reply

 

This is awesome. Thank you. The victim thing of these pressures being about what others might think is SPOT ON. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. Thanks for such a great reply