Struggling with Triggers and Associations

[ARCUser831]

I have been on the TMS recovery journey for several months now, and have my good days and my bad days. Today, I am struggling with a worse day than I've had in a while...trying very hard not to let my fears overtake, but as we all know, some days they feels so difficult.

My issues include pelvic pain, genital pain/discomfort, frequent urination, sciatica pain, and fasciculations. I naturally feel embarrassed to talk about some of my pain as it is very personal areas of my body.

I am aware of certain triggers, both physical and emotional, but am having a hard time thinking about the right way to overcome them.

The current one I am struggling with is genital pain. My partner and I are trying to have a family, and while sex is not painful, I find that my genital pain increases afterwards sometimes. Emotionally, I think this may stem from a fear that we'll be unable to have children. In fact, two months ago, the pain went away entirely for a few couple weeks after I had gotten a positive pregnancy test. It ended up being an early loss.

Long story short, sometimes I feel like desensitization could help me - doing things that I fear will worsen the pain/discomfort to prove to myself that it actually will not get worse, it's not that painful, etc. But is that giving the physical component of the pain too much power? Is the best thing to do to continue to work through my emotional state? I also don't want to avoid the triggers as I feel that gives them more power in my head...is that the right approach?

 

[Baseball65]

But is that giving the physical component of the pain too much power?

I am a huge fan of that part of the strategy and YES it is part of a good recovery strategy as long as the Mental part is foremost.
Whenever I have something begging for my attention in the TMS symptom realm, I Immediately get involved in something to tell the TMS "I don't believe you and ...watch this!"
shoulder? Go throw a ball
Hip? Go Kick one
Foot? go for a jog
When I do these seemingly INsane things, I TALK to the TMS like it is a demon that has possessed my body. I don't just let my mind wander aimlessly, but , as Sarno said in his books, I consciously shift my attention towards a recurrent source of irritation,....and you have that one in your quest to have a Child and your feelings of frustration

Sarno was adamant about the need to return to full activity.

You use the word 'trigger' and I assume you mean an activity or association that brings on discomfort/pain? We should work through all of those once we have learned this work....and it sounds like you know this work.

I also don't want to avoid the triggers as I feel that gives them more power in my head...is that the right approach?

Yep.. the only one who can de-condition us is US!

...and I am a believer that a lot of the times the symptoms are a metaphor. My Back went out when I was worried about SUPPORTING my family alone. My Shoulder hurt when I couldn't play baseball.
One of my sons had recurrent pain in his privates..he got checked out for everything of course...and then I noticed it always happened when he was having relationship problems. I told him about TMS.
That was years ago...recently we were chatting about something and he brought up that he occasionally feels it, but it never last very long because he KNOWS it's TMS and ignores it..he even knows the causes.

Sarno wasn't on that train yet, because it was only anecdotal, but Louise Hay had a large encycopaedia of 'anecdotal' symptoms/causes from her patients and I still use it. This is the 'fast version' in a list alphabetically, but her book "You can heal your life" has more detail about people she worked with

https://www.heartlandhealingarts.com/blog/2018/6/19/emotional-and-mental-causes-of-illness-the-list-by-louise-hay (Emotional and Mental Causes of Illness. The List by Louise Hay — Heartland Healing Arts)

 

[ARCUser831]

Thank you so much for the reply! I am going to check out the link you sent right away. I definitely sense my symptoms are metaphorical. I have other experiences where I stopped doing things like stretching and trigger point therapy that I believed were “staving off” the pain, and started doing other things like exercise and wearing tighter pants again that I worried would cause a flare. All of those changes did not worsen my pain and I would even argue helped me lessen my focus and therefore my symptoms.

I think I was looking for confirmation that I’m thinking about this the right way. Today was the first bad day I’ve had in a while, which I guess I should consider a good thing. I know healing is not linear.

I love how simply you put it … telling the pain “I don’t believe you” by your actions. I’m going to keep that in my toolkit, so to speak.

thank you very much for the reply and the resource to look at!

 

[JanAtheCPA]

telling the pain “I don’t believe you” by your actions. I’m going to keep that in my toolkit, so to speak.

Constructive self-talk is one of my most-used and effective techniques (my particular phrase is "this isn't necessary").

Check out this website by psychologist and neuroscientist Ethan Kross: Ethan Kross - Author of Chatter and Acclaimed Psychologist, who recently published a comprehensive book about our negative inner voices - and what to do about them. Self-talk and what he calls "distancing" are two of the ten specific skills that he put together. Chatter is a pretty quick read (half of it is footnotes) and has a ton of important information as well as confirmation of the mind-body connection and the influence of negative inner chatter on our physical health. It totally fits with TMS theory. If you don't want to buy the book (I actually downloaded it from my library after three-months on a very long wait list - then I bought it) you can also get a free two-page PDF with the ten tools if you sign up for Kross's newsletter or take the quick and interesting quiz (I did both, not sure if the toolkit is available with either or both together).

 

[ARCUser831]

Constructive self-talk is one of my most-used and effective techniques (my particular phrase is "this isn't necessary").

Check out this website by psychologist and neuroscientist Ethan Kross: Ethan Kross - Author of Chatter and Acclaimed Psychologist, who recently published a comprehensive book about our negative inner voices - and what to do about them. Self-talk and what he calls "distancing" are two of the ten specific skills that he put together. Chatter is a pretty quick read (half of it is footnotes) and has a ton of important information as well as confirmation of the mind-body connection and the influence of negative inner chatter on our physical health. It totally fits with TMS theory. If you don't want to buy the book (I actually downloaded it from my library after three-months on a very long wait list - then I bought it) you can also get a free two-page PDF with the ten tools if you sign up for Kross's newsletter or take the quick and interesting quiz (I did both, not sure if the toolkit is available with either or both together).

I love it, an actual toolkit! The way that I’ve been thinking about this whole journey is that the books I read, programs I take, the times I visit this forum, etc. … they’re all helping me work towards one goal, which is feeling like I have the knowledge and tools to respond to my pain, and manage my inner thoughts without having to look externally. If I can reach a place where I have the confidence that I can handle and overcome whatever TMS (or anything else for that matter) throws my way, I think I’ll have succeeded.

I will absolutely sign up for that newsletter, thank you!