Rant about slow progress

Hi all,

I am grateful for this community as it is a great place to connect over our shared experiences. I'd just like to complain about my experience since I feel that I usually don't allow myself to. I'm frustrated that I haven't made progress in eliminating my glute/leg pain and anxiety in a good while now. I remember reading the Healing Back Pain book in October 2019 and thinking that I was going to eliminate my sciatica issue forever and fast and that that would be the end of it. My pain shifted more to right glute muscular pain and has since stayed with me even though I stay active (play soccer/walk/run/lift things). I have been seeing a TMS doctor since about March 2020 now and I am grateful to have access to one, so my problem is for sure 100% TMS. It just sucks that I have all this knowledge and support towards treating this, yet the pain can still be intense at times. I also plan on being a physician that helps people with TMS, but I sometimes feel bad because I want to be able to eliminate my own symptoms before I reach that part of my career.
I also worry that my struggles with anxieties are a roadblock as well since they affect my daily function (struggle to focus on reading/talks, memory is affected). Yet, I don't necessarily fear the anxiety in most cases. Such a struggle!

Thanks for reading!

 

Hey, @jorgem12 - I'm sorry to hear this, it sounds incredibly discouraging. Question: you're seeing a TMS doc - how about emotional work? Is it time to switch to a TMS therapist? Did you ever do the SEP, or Alan Gordon's program, or the work in, for example, the Curable app or maybe Nicole Sach's program?

 

Hi Jan, yes it is. I have been doing emotional work and I have seen improvements. Just my symptoms have been like a roller coaster (moments of very little pain and anxiety and moments of a lot). So, I have made progress, I just haven't eliminated my symptoms like others on here yet and it's been over a year that I've personally been doing TMS work. I have done the SEP and gone through the Alan Gordon program. They're all great and maybe doing them over again can help. I will eliminate these symptoms! I just wanted to vent my frustrations a bit.

Thanks!

 

jorgem12

Rant away!! I am glad you're letting yourself do this. Sometimes it can be very helpful to get angry at your pain, and angry at TMS, and angry at your situation.

One reason it helps is that you're more clearly being angry not at yourself. Being angry at yourself can be subtle, and pernicious. Here I wonder in what ways you pressure or blame yourself for your "lack of progress." You've got a lot riding on this.

Not sure, but thought I'd point out my question for you. Hope you can have self-compassion.

Andy

 

I can ditto everything jorgem12 says. I've working on myself for a couple years. The improvements are almost not worth it when the flareups happen! That's where I am. I'm wondering about the idea of getting angry at my pain. I'm trying to love myself in spite of my demanding and critical superego. How do I get angry without... what am I asking?... without hurting someone (me) that I'm trying to nurture?

 

In my experience Jeather

I think it is quite healthy to get angry at conditions which cause suffering.

TMS is partially caused by me being a "good boy" and not being able to discern my needs from what I think I have to do for the "other."

Anger is the most basic way to establish/inhabit boundaries. This is why Rage is such a thing here. It arises in us in order to help us find safety and peace. And superego activity is rage turned inward. We're deeply enraged, and for parts of us it is "safer" to turn it inward, to fix what is perceived as wrong inside, vs the danger of outward expression. And by outward here I mean toward the pain.

So, really getting clear about what you're angry about outside yourself ----being clear that it is not you, not your behavior---- can help you develop the inner boundaries needed for TMS work. What you describe is this edge between being angry at a situation and the subtle ways we turn that natural anger toward ourselves. So I think it does take awareness and discernment to know when we're acting out on ourselves with anger, and then instead directing it outward.

Getting angry at our situation is not the end-all perhaps, but when anger arises, or perhaps we notice it as frustration, or even superego activity, shouldn't we give ourselves permission for "healthy anger?"

 

yes, I think I understand. I am beyond angry and frustrated with my situation!!!! Just saying. And now I start to cry. I cry at everything. Is that okay? Do I go in the bathroom and cry til I’m done? Or try to calm myself down? You know, I have a hard time feeling what anger feels like. I just go to tears. What does this mean?

 

I do the same thing, @Jeather. I do go in the bathroom and cry. I don't want to burden my hubby with it since I can't explain it anyway. Its my private let go time. The car is also a good place to express my rage at not feeling well when I feel like I have done EVERYTHING...and bursting quickly into sobbing because I suddenly feel so powerless and ineffectual and alone in my misery. Like God has abandoned me. I have never allowed myself much-needed expression so I think it's a good thing. It makes me feel better at the time at least. I also think it helps overall. I am getting better and I wish it was a faster journey but this is the one I am on and I am so appreciative of this forum where we can rant and encourage and support each other. Best to you!

 

Maybe anger needs to be converted into determination. Frustration to gratitude. Tension to conscious, nurturing, dynamic movement

 

Just

Accept what emotions you feel without agitating it more. Let it pass. If your timing is off, you can feel a big wave, but stand your ground by shifting your attention ever so slightly.

 

Hi Andy,

Thank you! It's good that you mention what ways I pressure or blame myself. That has definitely happened. And, I definitely believe that reinforces the symptoms. I have taken on an approach of just seeing the symptoms as false signals of the brain/mind. This has helped. Sometimes the pain will get really intense, but if I trust enough in them being false signals the pain then subsides. This is progress whether my mind belives it or not

 

I agree with this! Before discovering the TMS theories, I'd almost never let myself cry over things or feel anger. Now, on occasions when I do stay aware of my anger, frustration, loneliness, and/or sadness I'll let myself cry and it definitely feels as if I released something that needed to be released. On occasions it's immediately reduced some symptoms. Tell yourself you trust even though your mind may not believe it!

 

Nice technique!

Such a great discussion. As for crying, I think I cried more in 2020 than any other time in my life, perhaps even 2012 when I lost two really important people in my life who died way too young. The RA diagnosis really upended my life and how I perceived myself. It didn't help that I blamed myself, since stress is really the only thing I can attribute it to. Giving in and just crying was very therapeutic when it got really bad. It's a powerful form of self-compassion and self-nurturing. And as silly as it may sound to those of us who think of ourselves as rational and controlled, I let go and let myself want my mother. Who has been gone since 2014 and who at 93 had lived a long and quite wonderful life. So there I am, age 69, crying for my mom, and sensing how she would have tried to comfort me. I can't emphasize enough how allowing for that vulnerability is really very freeing. It's often recommended, but it's not easy to do, I know.

 

@JanAtheCPA oh, jan did you ever touch me deeply with your comments about crying as self nurturing and wanting your mother. I had a rather emotionally distant mother because she was so busy trying to keep a roof over our heads by herself. Long typical TMS story but point is when I needed her a few times she was there and I so cherish those moments. She also died in 2014 at 97. And here I am at 73 still trying to be strong and in control. You reminded me of that love that we so seldom get anywhere else and also that I don't have to be strong all the time.

 

I've always cried as a response and while it has short term benefits I'd rather be mostly happy than holding onto baggage and generating more anxiety and other problems from that.

 

Thanks Jan for sharing this. I really appreciate how this touches me. Sometimes I am called to cry, and in this there is a place of safety and love. I am glad you found such a profound connection with your mother after all these years. This, our human love, may know no bounds...