Day 4 Question To Ponder: What was the most disheartening thing a doctor has told you about your symptoms?

I guess I'm feeling pretty lucky in all of this, because I don't feel like TMS pain has been ruling my life. The only time I ever felt the need to contact a doctor in all this was during my initial back pain, 15 or so years ago. She talked about things like needing to be careful the rest of my life and possible surgery, which was scary then.

But it was just prior to my coming across Sarno's book, and studying the book led to the pain disappearing pretty quickly. That initial bout of pain was pretty severe--there were times I was unable to get up or down or even roll over without help--but the time between onset and the end was a matter of several weeks. But after realizing what the pain really was, I've never had any real fear of it since then.

And while lesser pain or some equivalent has reappeared at times, it's been years in between episodes and they've only lasted a day or maybe a week at a time. This latest bout has been going on about two weeks, longer than usual, but is already subsiding.

The difference for me, this time around, is recognizing that I've been taking the easy road all these years when the pain would recur. I'd read a chapter or two in a Sarno book and do just enough work to get the pain to go away, and then I'd stop. No deep dives into my repressed emotional state, because the pain stopped before I had to do that.

And while the pain is subsiding again, my commitment is to do the deeper emotional work whether I'm experiencing pain or not, to really look and search around in the dark scary places I've always avoided. And I'm actually a little excited to do that--my first therapist meeting is tomorrow. Of course, I'm also anxious, thinking about it, too. But willing to move forward. I feel like opening myself up in these new ways holds the promise of a more joyful and exciting way of living, pain or no pain. The latest pain is just the wake up call that has me walking down this path.

 

"Tom, it's NOT TMS, it's significant arthritis of the hip. Get a hip-replacement sooner then later." Told to me by two TMS Sarno trained docs, Dr. David Schechter of Beverly Hills and Dr. Bruce Eisendorf of Santa Cruz, CA.