Severe Symptoms & Steve O's Book

I haven't read his book, but even Howard Schubiner's one has some apparent contradictions. Mistakes happen, every writer needs a good editor. Anyway, yes, some stories do look too good to be true. And they might be, but it backfires on the regular TMSer with an amygdala that won't stop fighting for survival.

One issue, I think, is that the writer, podcaster, coach etc. will come up with a method based on their recovery, and then try to fit it into all TMS symptoms and nuances. But we can clearly see here in this forum this is not the case at all. Journaling is a fantastic tool for everybody. It might point you to a good recovery path, but that's not guaranteed. Anger release... great tool, but look at all the people here who release anger on a daily basis and are still dealing with symptoms. Safety messages, great to reduce anxiety and fear. Is it enough though? I measure my stress levels and they're usually low. Ask me if the symptoms went away...

(By the way I really like when the person advocating a method gives due credit to where the approach came. Sometimes I see some of them say they created something out of their experiences, but there's clear Jung's methodologies in it).

You see, there's so much to be learned about mindbody symptoms and treatment. And people are giving a great effort into that. But this comes with contradictions, and we TMSers are in the middle of the storm.

What do we do then? How do we find a healing path?
I won't answer that since I'm in the middle of my own journey, but I suspect it's about discovering your true self, getting good at recognising your ego, personas, parts etc. and the traumas they carry, and learning to accept your emotions and sensations and give them space to be there without resistance.

 

It was not for me. Daily meditations, quiet time in seclusion/nature and letting go of the old memories (traumas) is working. No need to remember and write about old $#!t. It always re-traumatizes me. Just my experience...

Journaling helps others here on the forum. Good for them.

 

Journaling doesn't need to be about what hurt you, you can write about your good experiences too. I bought my anxious mom a fancy notebook and told her it's for her to write the good things that happened the day.

But my point was, journaling doesn't necessarily take everybody out of TMS.

 

Beautifully said, @feduccini !

 

Journaling has helped me. Just writing about whatever is on my mind each day—- good or bad.

 

This is a really good point, I started journaling again about two weeks ago, after implementing a lot of Dan Buglio’s methods and making good progress but stagnated and seeking a way to get over my seemingly ‘final’ hurdle. But I’ve been approaching journaling all wrong, being rooted in self imposed pressure that this is necessary to get better, the same pressure that got me in this mess in the first place. All these methods should be rooted in self compassion, not pressure, not out of desperation or belief that if I don’t do these things I’m screwed. I actually had a really profound journal entry today about how much pressure I put on myself in my early 20s and I started to sob and realized I’m doing the exact same shit to myself now, pressure to get better, to start working again, to get my own apartment, a relationship, pressure to do good in the world. At what point do I just hug myself and realize how much I’ve been through and to just take it easy? We all need to take it easy on ourselves.

 

Oh absolutely yes!!! I never realized how much pressure I put on myself honestly until my TMS work. I was taught self-pressure was admirable. It made me strive to be “best.” Something that could never be achieved anyway. What a nightmare.

When I first started journaling, I did it with so much pressure— Designed to heal me -do my homework -get healed. Hurry up. A year later, I can see now that it’s not going to hurry itself up. I’ve had to make so many changes inside— And to be honest, I like them. Some of them are still really hard to accept. The lack of putting pressure on myself feels literally bizarre to me. It’s so unfamiliar I can barely stand it.

I started journaling again after I took a break. And I tried journaling as described by Dr. David Hanscom. It’s called expressive writing. It’s really just a pleasant time to let your thoughts come out onto paper. It separates you from your thoughts, which is good for your anxiety level. Sometimes I only have happy thoughts, sometimes I have some angry thoughts— sometimes sadness. Sometimes I’m just musing over an issue and it gives me clarity. I found that I actually kind of look forward to this now every day. It feels good to me; not bad. Maybe this kind of journaling would feel good to you? But, like everybody is saying here, not everyone needs to journal. Our healing paths are all unique.

 

I know. I use other methods for this, a period of time for daily gratitude. It's wonderful.

...
Good for your mom!

 

And when you can stand it, when you can luxuriate in the peace and relaxation of it all, is likely to be the point when you will lose your symptoms.

 

I can’t wait for that day! Working on accepting the peace…then on to luxuriating in it.

 

Oh I love expressive writing. Having no script to follow, no pressure about what is and isn't written, no need to find something, no checkmarks, no nothing. It's like the jazz of writing methods.

This video is very good at explaining the mechanism behind our inner criticism:

 

Sarno would talk about the meaning of the pain (which in buddhism translates to the second arrow of suffering). It's not only the symptom that torments us. It's the expectation of it. It's the fear we will not be able to deal with it. It's the frustration that comes when it happens. It's our inner parent constantly saying we shouldn't feel happiness, because we're destined to suffer and will feel shame for having thought otherwise.

I've watched somewhere that the brain follows what the ego suggests. If that's so, then there's no escape from having to make some sort of peace with it. Self-compassion, acceptance, patience and perspective...
But the ego doesn't want to change. It's overprotective. It fears it's being killed, and without its protection we'll become food for tigers.

It is in fact a very strange place to put your thoughts in. We feel naked. Self-consciousness hits the roof. We feel the urge to accept ego's protection, which usually comes in the form of "give-up and don't hurt yourself" messages.

And through this storm we deep dive towards, and being guided by, our inner-self.

 

I’m not sure I understand the theory that the ego is protecting us from threats. For example, some of us are dealing with debilitating pain, say for example back pain. How does that help protect us from tigers when we are too disabled to flee, hide away or attack the tiger? To me, it makes more sense to think of TMS as a defect within the logical architecture of the brain ie it is misfiring messages as a result of trauma. There are lots of examples of defects within the human biology and if defects didn’t exist the entire medical industry wouldn’t exist. I believe those that healed themselves from TMS symptoms have found a way to exit from the defect loop of the brain. Our mission is simply to find the back door to exit the loop. For some it’s journaling, for others it’s reading Sarno’s book. Some struggle with pain for years as one persons back door is different to another. I love to live but I hate living with a human brain. Human brains, whilst a marvel of engineering, is too defective and if I was a quality test manager for human brains it would not be released into production.

 

Great post, @feduccini !
I call this, for me, “the wall.” I don’t want to go through the wall! And yet that is the exact place where the battle is. And it’s the only place where the TMS battle can be won. The more I can literally have the self-discipline to go through that discomfort of the wall, the more I’m doing things that are healing me. But it’s really hard to be strong and go through the wall.

 

Love this!

 

Interesting, ha ha. I know...it's not funny.

I think not taking it too seriously is the solution. Really. Not taking life, the pain, the emotions, traumas/dramas etc ... too seriously is the answer, the key.

 

It doesn't. And it's totally ok to call that a fault in the system. The limbic system is not our most sophistecated tool, it's just the one that made possible we got here.
But the ego is a protective mechanism, side by side with the construction of our image. It's made from what we should and shouldn't do to be accepted by our parents and their group.

Dan Ratner talks about how the unconscious is contradictory because it doesn't follow our cognitive terms. So I kinda stopped looking for the smoking gun for my TMS symptoms. I prefer now just to let the sensations be felt and trust my nervous system to do its work. Its the path that has brought me better results so far.

 

Well, there’s a lot of truth to it. I’ll give you a prime example. I’ve been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and a few weeks ago my inflammatory markers were super high which indicates a flare ie my colon is inflammed. However, I feel no abdominal pain or distress at all around there. Most of my colon is inflamed but yet I feel no pain. My doc says it can happen to some people. However, my legs/buttock hurts when sitting but despite several MRI’s and blood tests that show no tissue damage. My brain is generating pain where there is no tissue damage in my legs/buttocks but is NOT generating pain where there is tissue damage ie in my colon. If this isn’t a defect of the human brain then I’m at a loss.

 

Well if we were faced with a tiger, or a shark or another immediate life or death situation, I’d guess with near certainty that our symptoms would go away. The issue is that while the fear of predation and fear of starvation has gone away for many of us, our brain hasn’t really adapted to our modern world. And for what seems like all of us, whether it’s through an adverse childhood or life stress in adult hood, we seem primed for a heightened nervous system. Our emotional and physical realities are linked, and as you say the danger in one can create a feedback loop in the other, so stress can create butterflies in the stomach, TMS is this reality taken to an increase. But also being physically sick or injured can create emotional turmoil that causes us to hyperfixate on a body part and our heightened nervous, always on the lookout for danger thinks it’s protecting us by guarding and obsessing over a body part that has healed.

I also think a large part is that we just have so little understanding of our subconscious and the brain in general. I think it’s more likely that the brain and nervous system are misfiring and acting on poor information from the subconscious, but I also have to recognize the reality that these symptoms are meant to be a wake up call, a last resort from the subconscious, screaming ‘you need to change’. Because how many us were content, happy individuals showing ourselves self compassion prior to our symptoms? Because even when I could physically function I was a miserable jaded person, who couldn’t show myself a fraction of the empathy I had for other people. And I understand it can be hard to reconcile these ideas with the fact that people take their lives over these symptoms, but we must accept the possibility that the subconscious understands this risk and believes the current pre symptom trajectory is as ruinous.

We are on top of the species hierarchy of this planet, but aside from being able to manipulate our environment we have not evolved much in the past couple thousands of years.

 

I understand.

Some 20 years ago I had a very serious health issue (hospital, severe trauma etc) and then I had to recover for about 6 months at home. I was living in the US at the time (I was a new immigrant, legally there) but the doctor said: "You should go back to Europe (I'm from Europe) and recover at home, with your family around, parents, friends, go to the mountains/sea etc. It's important, do it!" And I did.

While living there ...during the 6 months...I recovered very slowly, but I recovered. At one point, I got a very nasty cold. Very serious. On top of my illness. And...for a week or so...I didn't suffer from my illness. At all. All I had in mind was the serious cold, fever, dizziness, coughing etc. My serious illness disappeared for that week entirely. Then, when I got over the fever/cold and I was OK, my serious illness returned. And I continued the recovery process. I was able to go back to the US, shaken after the whole experience/illness/recovery but functional.

The mind is indeed the 'thing' we have to be able to eventually Master.