Relapse Recovery

[Ellen]

I wanted to let you all know that I have recovered from my recent relapse. I'm going to write about a few things I learned from the experience in case it helps others. I don't want to spend too much time here or discussing my TMS as I think it's important to not let TMS become too big a part of my identity. I believe the first rule of TMS Club is don't talk about TMS Club.

I'm a TMS Lifer. I've had TMS all my life in various forms and I always will. I first recovered in 2013 and have participated in this Forum since that time. My recovery was dramatic and miraculous and took about 18 months to become totally recovered. However, I have had a relapse in some form or another about every year since that time. Relapse is a very common phenomenon. I think I've only heard a couple of people who recovered from TMS say that it never returned. But since they haven't lived their entire lives yet, it is more likely than not that it returns for just about everyone. The good news is that I've found recovery from relapse is very swift. The hardest part for me is recognizing that what I'm experiencing is in fact TMS. I don't know why that remains so difficult after all this time, but it does. Once I realize that I have TMS, my symptoms usually lessen within the next 24 hours and then if I do "the work", they are gone in a week or so.

The trigger: Once I realized I had TMS, I was able to quickly identify the trigger. I had to do with my traumatic childhood which seems to be something I still haven't completely overcome. I don't know if it is possible to reach a place where I don't get triggered.

Main emotion: I went into a major spiral of shame. I'm not really sure if shame is an emotion or a dysfunctional thinking pattern, but they seem to trigger each other in an endless spiral. Every thought I had about the past was draped in shame. A psychologist, Chris Germer, says that shame is an innocent wish to be loved. That tracks for me. He also says, guilt is, I did something wrong and shame is, I am something wrong. My spiral of shame became so all encompassing that I imagined every future act as ending in shame. I finally realized how pathological my thinking had become.

The work: Once I finally realized I had TMS and needed to do something about it,I chose to read Nicole Sachs' latest book Mind Your Body and follow her practice of 20 minutes of Journalspeak followed by 10 minutes of meditation every day. She uses an acronym in her book ANSR, which is allow, name, stay, release. I found I could not remember what the acronym stood for and had to look it up like 5 times a day. This is not due to a learning disability or a bad memory, but was clear resistance. Journalspeak takes care of the ANS part but the R, release, is something that occurs organically from doing the work. This quote stood out for me:

The nervous system perceives your desire to be different than you are as fear. Desperation for release creates more inflammation and constriction in your systems and dumps more content into the reservoir. Release will come organically as you work through allowing, naming, and staying.

For this reason, it is important to limit your TMS work to less than an hour a day. I know we all have a tendency to think if some work is good, then more is better and will hasten recovery, but it does the opposite.

Recovery: The pain left after a week or so of doing the work. At first it felt kind of tenuous, as if I moved wrong, felt wrong, thought wrong it would return. This was fear. Eventually I was pain free without fear of pain.

I wish you all Happy Holidays and a Great New Year!

 

[Rabscuttle]

Go Ellen!

 

[Cactusflower]

What wonderful news Ellen.
Please let us remind you again and again that you are so valued and loved here.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday!

 

[Duggit]

I've had TMS all my life in various forms and I always will. I first recovered in 2013 and have participated in this Forum since that time. . . . I have had a relapse in some form or another about every year since that time. Relapse is a very common phenomenon. I think I've only heard a couple of people who recovered from TMS say that it never returned. But since they haven't lived their entire lives yet, it is more likely than not that it returns for just about everyone.

Even Dr. Sarno, as great as he was at treating his TMS patients, suffered from recurring repressed-anger TMS, usually in the form of heartburn aka gastroesophageal reflux.

I went into a major spiral of shame. I'm not really sure if shame is an emotion or a dysfunctional thinking pattern, but they seem to trigger each other in an endless spiral. Every thought I had about the past was draped in shame. A psychologist, Chris Germer, says that shame is an innocent wish to be loved. That tracks for me. He also says, guilt is, I did something wrong and shame is, I am something wrong.

I don’t think there is widespread agreement on shame and guilt. Famous psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (the late) Willard Gaylin in his book Talk Is Not Enough wrote: “One way to look at our own feelings is as signals to us, valuable signals. Even painful signals such as guilt and shame--generally dismissed by self-help books as useless and destructive--are priceless assets directing us to a good and rewarding life. Guilt, for example, tells us when we have betrayed our own standards; shame, when we have violated the community standards.” Psychiatrist Nat Kuhn wrote in his reference manual on ISTDP that guilt is outward looking--“I did something bad to someone I care about”--while shame is inward looking--“I am bad.” Whether the criterion of “bad” is one’s own standards or community standards is unclear. Either way, perhaps Kuhn’s view of shame meshes with Chris Germer’s view of it as an innocent wish to be loved and thus becomes “I am too bad to be loved.”

The trigger: Once I realized I had TMS, I was able to quickly identify the trigger. I had to do with my traumatic childhood which seems to be something I still haven't completely overcome. I don't know if it is possible to reach a place where I don't get triggered.

I think John Bowlby’s attachment theory tells us that it is not possible. The basic idea of attachment theory is that we are genetically hard-wired by evolution to need attachment with others. An attachment bond of course requires two people: the caretaker and the person being taken care of. Our genetic need for attachment facilitates both the caretaking part of the relationship and the being taken care part of it. Gabor Maté recently provided an admirably clear and concise explanation of attachment theory in his latest book The Myth of Normal (the italics below are his and the underlining is mine):

“For the human infant . . . the need for attachment is mandatory. Without reliable adults to take care of us, we simply could not survive—not for a day. . . . In infancy our dependence is an obligatory and long-haul proposition. Everything from crying to cuteness—two unignorable cues babies transmit—is an inbuilt behavior tailored by Nature to keep our caregivers giving and caring. But the need for attachment does not expire once we are out of diapers: it continues to motivate us throughout our lifespan. . . . What distinguishes our earliest attachment relationships—and crucially, the coping styles we develop to maintain them—is that they form the template for how we approach all our significant relationships, long after we have outgrown the do-or-die phase. . . . We carry them into interactions with spouses, partners, employers, friends, colleagues: into all aspects of our personal, professional, social and even political lives.”
​

Coping styles can vary depending on one’s earliest attachment relationships. Here is Willard Gaylin in Talk Is Not Enough regarding that (the italics are his):

“The developing child is prepared to try all means of satisfying the parent and gaining his or her approval. Remember that in the prolonged dependency period, the child is helpless and finds solace only in the knowledge that powerful adults are there to protect him. These strong adults, however, must love him in order to protect him. This is the early lesson of dependency that we all sustain throughout life. If the child finds that being cute, charming, ingratiating, or cuddly invokes a response of approval or forgiveness for wrongdoing from the parent, he is likely to use these means more and more as a means of handling confrontation and conflict.

“If, on the other hand, the parent responds to such ingratiation and charm with distaste because she cannot tolerate it, the child will find alternative means of winning approval. The way to a mother’s heart may be through ‘being a good boy’ and doing all that implies: tidying his room, playing quietly by himself, attending to the ‘work’ of his specific age period. This child will obviously see performance and achievement as a primary means of gaining approval and will tend more and more to use these to please the parent."​

For some of us (e.g., me), one coping style was the repression of emotions that we learned were too dangerous or painful to experience, and another coping style was perfectionism (actually for me, performance and achievement) or was goodism (not me).

For the reasons stated above, I don’t think it is possible to go without a relapse ever being triggered. I am happy too say, however, that I went from 2013 until earlier this month without any TMS pain, and I was able to end the relapse I had earlier this month very quickly.

 

[Rabscuttle]

Even Dr. Sarno, as great as he was at treating his TMS patients, suffered from recurring repressed-anger TMS, usually in the form of heartburn aka gastroesophageal reflux.



I don’t think there is widespread agreement on shame and guilt. Famous psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (the late) Willard Gaylin in his book Talk Is Not Enough wrote: “One way to look at our own feelings is as signals to us, valuable signals. Even painful signals such as guilt and shame--generally dismissed by self-help books as useless and destructive--are priceless assets directing us to a good and rewarding life. Guilt, for example, tells us when we have betrayed our own standards; shame, when we have violated the community standards.” Psychiatrist Nat Kuhn wrote in his reference manual on ISTDP that guilt is outward looking--“I did something bad to someone I care about”--while shame is inward looking--“I am bad.” Whether the criterion of “bad” is one’s own standards or community standards is unclear. Either way, perhaps Kuhn’s view of shame meshes with Chris Germer’s view of it as an innocent wish to be loved and thus becomes “I am too bad to be loved.”



I think John Bowlby’s attachment theory tells us that it is not possible. The basic idea of attachment theory is that we are genetically hard-wired by evolution to need attachment with others. An attachment bond of course requires two people: the caretaker and the person being taken care of. Our genetic need for attachment facilitates both the caretaking part of the relationship and the being taken care part of it. Gabor Maté recently provided an admirably clear and concise explanation of attachment theory in his latest book The Myth of Normal (the italics below are his and the underlining is mine):

“For the human infant . . . the need for attachment is mandatory. Without reliable adults to take care of us, we simply could not survive—not for a day. . . . In infancy our dependence is an obligatory and long-haul proposition. Everything from crying to cuteness—two unignorable cues babies transmit—is an inbuilt behavior tailored by Nature to keep our caregivers giving and caring. But the need for attachment does not expire once we are out of diapers: it continues to motivate us throughout our lifespan. . . . What distinguishes our earliest attachment relationships—and crucially, the coping styles we develop to maintain them—is that they form the template for how we approach all our significant relationships, long after we have outgrown the do-or-die phase. . . . We carry them into interactions with spouses, partners, employers, friends, colleagues: into all aspects of our personal, professional, social and even political lives.”
​

Coping styles can vary depending on one’s earliest attachment relationships. Here is Willard Gaylin in Talk Is Not Enough regarding that (the italics are his):

“The developing child is prepared to try all means of satisfying the parent and gaining his or her approval. Remember that in the prolonged dependency period, the child is helpless and finds solace only in the knowledge that powerful adults are there to protect him. These strong adults, however, must love him in order to protect him. This is the early lesson of dependency that we all sustain throughout life. If the child finds that being cute, charming, ingratiating, or cuddly invokes a response of approval or forgiveness for wrongdoing from the parent, he is likely to use these means more and more as a means of handling confrontation and conflict.

“If, on the other hand, the parent responds to such ingratiation and charm with distaste because she cannot tolerate it, the child will find alternative means of winning approval. The way to a mother’s heart may be through ‘being a good boy’ and doing all that implies: tidying his room, playing quietly by himself, attending to the ‘work’ of his specific age period. This child will obviously see performance and achievement as a primary means of gaining approval and will tend more and more to use these to please the parent."​

For some of us (e.g., me), one coping style was the repression of emotions that we learned were too dangerous or painful to experience, and another coping style was perfectionism (actually for me, performance and achievement) or was goodism (not me).

For the reasons stated above, I don’t think is possible to go without a relapse ever being triggered. I am happy too say, however, that I went from 2013 until earlier this month without any TMS pain, and I was able to end the relapse I had earlier this month very quickly.

Great post. Myth of normal is so so good.

 

[Filipe2025]

It's fear.... Forget the inflammation. There is nothing wrong with you structurally...

 

[Ellen]

Thanks to everyone for your comments and support. As always @Duggit brings considerable knowledge to shine more light on the topics.

Yes, I have an attachment disorder. My mother had an attachment disorder, and her mother, and so on.....
Fortunately, my son doesn't, nor his daughter, so perhaps the chain of intergenerational trauma has been broken. I hope so.