• Alan has completed the new Pain Recovery Program. To read or share it, use this updated link: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/
  • Welcome to the new TMS Wiki server! Things aren't finished yet: email is not set up, so notification and password-reset emails don't go out, and new registrations are paused until email is installed. Details and updates are in this thread (click here). Locked out? Email tmswikisignups@gmail.com from the address where you receive TMS Wiki notifications.

Speech getting "stuck" with TMS history - normal scans

C

Chen

New Member
I am 50 years old and have previous experience with TMS-related pain, but this time the situation feels a bit different. I would be grateful for any insight.
About a month and a half ago, I started feeling that words were getting stuck when I speak. Sometimes, at the beginning of a word in the middle of a sentence, the first letter gets stuck. This really frightened me when it did not pass couple of weeks. After consulting a neurologist I underwent a head CT scan, which was normal. After that, I also had a sleep-deprived EEG and a brain MRI. All of them were normal.
While waiting for the tests, the symptoms expanded. Sometimes someone says a word, and I replace one of the words in my sentence with the last word that person said. Sometimes I mix up words.
I should note that I am always aware of it and try to control it, sometimes even making a bit of a joke out of it. Strangely, people around me do not really notice it.
I started reading about FND, and it sounds to me like it belongs to the same family as TMS. Does it make sense that all of this could be emotionally based? What can be done? It is very frightening (to the point that it enters my dreams).
 
"t is very frightening (to the point that it enters my dreams)."

There's a big clue.

"It feels different" - why? Because it has gotten your attention in a new way? Because you are more frightened?


How do you sort this out - the same way you have done every other TMS related symptom.
If you'd like some guidance you can try Alan Gordon's work in the book The Way Out which is based mainly on fear reduction, or you could choose to follow the free Structured Educational Program offered here for free, which starts on day 0 asking you to read (or re-read) a book by Dr. Sarno https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Structured_Educational_Program

Lately I've been enjoying https://www.youtube.com/@Dr.Fanestil/videos Dr. Fanestil's very easy to comprehend (for a TMS resistant mind) videos as a reminder of the work.
 
Hi, Chen
One thing we always say here is how TMS can create ANY symptoms. You name it, people have had it. Unusual symptoms are especially scary. It’s just so hard to believe they’re TMS. But since you’ve been checked out, it’s safe to say you probably have TMS. At any rate, you could pursue healing through everything offered here. You might want to try the Structured Educational Program as a good place to start. I’ll also offer my own opinion, that there might be something in your life you wish you could speak up about, but are afraid to do so. Sometimes TMS manifests itself symbolically that way. Needless to say: you are in a very good place here to explore what’s going on in your life and what has caused your subconscious mind to intervene on your behalf to try and protect you.
 
First of all, thank you. This feels different, because until now I have been dealing with pain — in my back, in my leg — but pain nonetheless. I learned the pain mechanism.
Here, this feels neurological.
A different mechanism.
Is this TMS?
There is much, much less material in the literature about this, certainly in Dr. Sarno’s work.
 
I know how you feel doubtful. In the past, I had more physical TMS symptoms, but now I have mostly all neurological symptoms. It really threw me for a while, and I was extra terrified, which actually made all my symptoms worse. Having been on the forum for almost 2 years now, I have read so many countless stories of people with neurological TMS symptoms. It’s very widely recognized. And common.
 
@Chen
I actually had a similar symptom when my other symptoms were raging. My brain threw a host of “neurological” type of symptoms my way because I had very high anxiety.
I overcame all of those. Occasionally one pops up for a few hours, but after engaging in the work and knowing how to discover what threatens my inner peace and how to regain the inner peace, those symptoms leave.
We must engage in the work to make our brains understand the TMS mechanism.
 
Diana-M said:
I know how you feel doubtful. In the past, I had more physical TMS symptoms, but now I have mostly all neurological symptoms. It really threw me for a while, and I was extra terrified, which actually made all my symptoms worse. Having been on the forum for almost 2 years now, I have read so many countless stories of people with neurological TMS symptoms. It’s very widely recognized. And common.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much! In fact, all the recovery stories I’ve come across were about physical pain. If you feel comfortable sharing your neurological symptoms, I would be very interested to hear about them.
 
Cactusflower said:
@Chen
I actually had a similar symptom when my other symptoms were raging. My brain threw a host of “neurological” type of symptoms my way because I had very high anxiety.
I overcame all of those. Occasionally one pops up for a few hours, but after engaging in the work and knowing how to discover what threatens my inner peace and how to regain the inner peace, those symptoms leave.
We must engage in the work to make our brains understand the TMS mechanism.
Click to expand...
I would really love to hear what happened to you. I’m looking for neurological success stories, and if they’re related to speech errors, I would be especially glad to hear about them.
 
Chen said:
Thank you very much! In fact, all the recovery stories I’ve come across were about physical pain. If you feel comfortable sharing your neurological symptoms, I would be very interested to hear about them.
Click to expand...

No, I don't discuss symptoms much here. They are meaningless - because they are only an expression of TMS. Every single symptom of any kind in one person is equal to any TMS symptom in another person. Focus on the education and work, which I mentioned in my first response to you and not the symptom. Focusing on the symptom is focusing on the physical and a distraction from the true cause of TMS. One thing I find true is that you can read a little bit about the TMS work but sometimes it takes a lot of reading - bits at a time on and off to really get the whole TMS thing in your mind.
It is always psychological, anxiety and fear based. Always.
 
Cactusflower said:
No, I don't discuss symptoms much here. They are meaningless - because they are only an expression of TMS. Every single symptom of any kind in one person is equal to any TMS symptom in another person. Focus on the education and work, which I mentioned in my first response to you and not the symptom. Focusing on the symptom is focusing on the physical and a distraction from the true cause of TMS. One thing I find true is that you can read a little bit about the TMS work but sometimes it takes a lot of reading - bits at a time on and off to really get the whole TMS thing in your mind.
It is always psychological, anxiety and fear based. Always.
Click to expand...

The reason I’m looking for a similar story is to understand whether this could even be TMS, or whether it might be neurological.
As mentioned, I previously dealt with severe chronic pain for about two years—pain that was so intense that I couldn’t believe the brain could generate such pain without a physical cause.
At the time, I did a lot of work: I read extensively and practiced various techniques. Part of the work involved “talking to the brain” and encouraging it to send blood flow to the painful area.
I’m now looking for similar stories to see whether this could indeed be TMS, because up until now I’ve only been familiar with its manifestation as pain.
 
Chen said:
The reason I’m looking for a similar story is to understand whether this could even be TMS, or whether it might be neurological.
Click to expand...
The basic advice on this website/forum is to first get yourself checked out medically. Once you’ve had the all clear from your neurologist — and in my experience, neurologists more than most doctors recognise when symptoms that look neurological may actually be psychosomatic, often diagnosing FND when appropriate — you’ll likely feel more confident about the verdict and more open to trying mind-body techniques for your current symptom(s).

In general, both FND and TMS are great mimickers of a wide range of symptoms that can appear physical or neurological in nature. Two people can have the same or very similar symptoms: one might be experiencing TMS or FND, while the other has an underlying neurological condition. So finding someone with similar symptoms or even exactly the same symptoms whose symptoms were/are FND/TMS won't confirm what’s happening in your case — it only shows that it’s possible, and we/you already know it's possible because, as I've advised, FND and TMS can imitate so many other conditions symptoms-wise.
 
Last edited:
Chen said:
The reason I’m looking for a similar story is to understand whether this could even be TMS, or whether it might be neurological.
Click to expand...
Nope.

If you want neuroscientific certainty, that is a determination to be made by a qualified professional, not by us.

However, another way for us to answer this is that TMS is a normal brain mechanism based in our survival response, therefore it IS completely neurological by nature.

Take your pick, but our responses will be as above. Your desire to compare specific symptoms is very common, but in our lengthy experience, the people who insist on doing that are the ones who are never satisfied with the answers, and they end up wasting all their time and energy on a pointless search. Do yourself the biggest favor of your life, and get off that merry-go-round. Get checked out, but also do the work suggested by Dr Sarno, and also read some updated books like The Myth of Normal, by Gabor Mate, MD, or Mind Your Body, by Nicole Sachs, LCSW.

Our Structured Educational Program on the main TMSWiki.org is free of cost, and has no ads or registration requirements. At this point you have nothing to lose by trying it!
 
Last edited:
@Chen
Check out the first post by @Cactusflower in this thread (it's the 2nd post overall):
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/sciatica-pain.28142/#post-146075

This is a simple way to describe how we can get away from the focus on physical symptoms.


Chen said:
I started reading about FND, and it sounds to me like it belongs to the same family as TMS. Does it make sense that all of this could be emotionally based? What can be done?
Click to expand...
As for "What can be done?" -- What did you do & how did you deal successfully with symptoms in the past?
And, this forum is filled with suggestions on how to address symptoms when they show up.

Wishing you well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top