Stuck In Fear

The last time I posted, I was struggling because I was struck. I was using the Curable app and instead of seeing relief, my symptoms would just change and move. I got some excellent advice from y'all and did see some improvement and even days were I could feel pain free! It was wonderful!

But now I'm stuck again in that loop again (and in a pretty big flare that did have me laying on the couch Saturday!) and I've realized some things about myself. I can't shake the fear I have for a longer periods of time. I go back to the same patterns of thinking. In my head, I keep thinking if my life was less stressful, then I could tackle this 100%. But this is not realistic because life is going to have stress. It's my response to it- that is hurting me. For example, my son has earned his Eagle Scout rank in Scouting. Tonight is his Court of Honor and we are providing food for everyone and decorating the hall. I'm stressing that we didn't order enough food, that his cake decor will be messed up, etc. I cannot turn my mind off. I do try to interrupt the ruminations as soon as I catch them. But I think this is why I can't get rid of my pain completely. After his Court of Honor, I'll move on to stressing about his high school graduation. After that, I will be stressing about going to Nationals for my daughters dance competition in another state. The stressors will not stop. And while meditation does help me short term, I can't help but feel a tiny bit discouraged that I can't break out of my fears in the long term.

I never like talking about my symptoms, but one symptom in particular that I struggle with is IBS. I've worked on incorporated different foods and drinks into my meals after thinking that food was causing my issue. I had been told so long that certain foods were bad by medical doctors. I still have some foods I have to work on-thankfully the list is small now. And sure enough, if I eat or drink anything my brain thinks it *might* cause pain, it does. I've tried baby steps and that has worked on some foods. Not on others. I think that is also what keeps me stuck in this loop too-this belief that MAYBE some foods could still hurt me. And it's a self fulfilling prophesy when the foods do hurt my stomach.

I have officially been on this forum for a year now! And I have grown so much and when I think back to last year at this time, I was in a really bad place. The pain was intense and all the time. I had no hope. So to fast forward to now, I can look back over last year and see the improvements I have made! I'm just feeling that this I cannot shake the fear and talking to my brain, meditations, and using the Curable app is helping, but maybe not addressing something? I'm just curious what y'all think and if there was anything that helped you dig a little deeper.

 

Sorry joulegirl for your struggles. For me, maybe for you as well, when we’re making progress and then have a ‘setback ‘ there’s an element of added pressure and a sense of failure. Am I fraud, was that progress even real, maybe I’m misremembering my success, maybe it was just luck, why aren’t I getting better quicker, I’ll never be able to overhaul my whole life ( which isn’t necessary!). Etc. and combine this with general life stress and we reenter that fear loop.

…..

but the flares always end, right? As long as we continue with our work and make (some) adjustments we’ll see more progress, because as you mentioned, you have already seen massive progress. This is just a lull compounded by the overwhelm inherent to life. Our stressors are all unique, I’m a single childless 32 year old, I couldn’t really fathom going through what you’re going through and raising kids. It’s commendable and heroic. I know it’s probably not possible to adjust your current immediate plans with your kids, but in the future is it possible to be mindful and maybe take a step back with some of this stuff while you’re dealing with your own stuff. I can imagine that’s tough as a parent, but you need to make sure you’re treating you right, and that may entail a difficult conversation with your kids. I assume your kids are young and may not have a full scope of the situation, but if they were fully aware I’d imagine they want their mom to be healthy and happy, and when they’re older I’m sure they’d appreciate her looking after herself in this moment.

The handling of stress is important and should be worked on. That isn’t going to be something that is fixed overnight. But I think acknowledging when things are getting overwhelming and slowly taking steps to acknowledge the stress and look after your self while simultaneously accepting and believing that things return to a baseline, but it’s our thoughts and behaviors when things spike that are especially important.

I wish you the best.

 

I had 'IBS' - what haven't I had, eh?! Mention a symptom and I'm sure to appear! lol

I followed a low-fodmap diet and that got rid of the symptoms. A part of following that diet is that you gradually reintroduce foods. I eventually did that (re-introduced) but still reacted to some of them. My husband cooks, so I asked him to start putting a little bit of a suspect food stuff that I'd reacted to into something where I wouldn't notice it... in a stew or curry or whatever. I said to not always do it and for him to keep a record and we'd see what happened. And lo and behold, I didn't react (even though I knew something could possibly be in my dinner that my body/brain wouldn't like). This is harder to do though, of course, for pungent things like onions or garlic.

I do believe though that even when you don't consciously fear consuming something your body/brain can react. For instance, I took a one-a-day multivitamin tablet for a couple of days, not dreaming that my body would react badly, next thing I know I'm experiencing a flare, but not in the gut, it manifested as severe stiffness and some pain of my haunches. Candace Pert in her book Molecules of Emotion showed that the gut talks to the brain through peptides and that this makes the gut a 'second brain'—her concept of neuropeptides as emotion molecules flowing bidirectionally explains these whole-body psychosomatic flares. So, what I believe was happening was my 'gut brain' was saying to my brain... "This is new, not sure that's good for me!... danger! danger! danger!"

It's all fear (as you say in your heading to this thread).

What self-soothing are you doing? — If you're doing some, my suggestion would be to add more to it...

Sarno talked about the importance of self-soothing creating balance in one's life. Without it I wouldn't have progressed.

 

Hi Joule, you've made a ton of progress!

You seem to be pressuring yourself about the constant fear, but you know, you're dealing with TMS... your nervous system is sensitized right now. It's such a hard task to reduce fear in these conditions, specially with the limited access we have to our rational thinking when symptoms are happening. So I'd say to stop fighting it a little. If it's there, it's because of sensitization. It's not your fault. With time you'll cope with it better and better, as you already have.

 

“It's such a hard task to reduce fear in these conditions, specially with the limited access we have to our rational thinking when symptoms are happening. So I'd say to stop fighting it a little.”

Bingo!
I have learned to let flairs happen. Instead of worrying if I can cope with them, will I ever succeed at this.. I looked at those thoughts which were negative, lack of confidence and began flipping to the truth.
Truth was, I do handle flairs with grace and ease. This too months to learn. There is the reaction time, the “oh no” and I began learning to limit my time in that phase. This is where the nervous system also reacts. As @BloodMoon recently said: find something calming to do at these times. For @BloodMoon it’s tea. For myself it’s my audio book (a gentle one) or music and meditation.
Then I remind myself I know what to do. I am my expert, even when my mind wants me to call my TMS coach or my PT for words of encouragement - I stop and give them to myself. I remind myself that it is normal and expected to be kind to one’s self especially on hard days.
Over time I see so many inconsistencies in relapses that it does help to see that I’m not doing anything “wrong” - the inconsistencies show that I am doing things right.

Hugs this flare will get you to a new level of confidence that you can do hard things!

 

This is why I love this forum! I wasn't sure what to do and y'all have chimed in on observations and what has worked for you.

@Rabscuttle Yes-flares always end! I think I was more frustrated cause I had a lot to do on Saturday and my body literally said no. I obviously need to ponder that more-I'm probably doing too much.

@BloodMoon my self soothing is reading, meditation, and walking. I definitely need to add some others to use during flares. I love that you were eating foods that your brain deemed "bad" but if you didn't know about it your body wouldn't react. That is definitely more proof that our brains can associate the weirdest thing to foods.

@feduccini Thank you for the encouragement. I have come a long ways! Getting frustrated about my fear won't help my fear. But it is something I felt today for sure!

@Cactusflower Yes! I need to let myself not react as much when a flare does pop up. I'm pretty good at avoidance and that is my next step when a flare happens but then that shows my brain I'm avoiding it and it attaches meaning to it. I need to be indifferent to flares and that can be hard. It's a balance for sure!

I'm going to my sons Court of Honor tonight and going to enjoy it-whether in pain or not. I think a lot of that stress caused my flare-among other things. But kids definitely cause stress but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Both of my kids know what TMS is and I've even seen it on my daughter a couple of times and helped her through it. Thankfully, if I have to sit on the couch it doesn't seem to bother them!

 

I agree with @feduccini! Learn to let go of the pressure.

Who cares if there’s not enough food? You’ll be fine either way. And if the cake is messed up? Oh well, laugh it off.

My mantra has become “Thanks for that worry thought, brain, but I did my best and I deserve to rest and enjoy life. I'm going to get up and go do something else now."

But anyways, you don't have to perfect with this. Just show up for yourself in small ways. The minute you notice yourself worrying, decide "I'm not doing this again" and go do something to distract yourself. You're not repressing. You're acknowledging and breaking the loop. Essentially coming off the treadmill. This is how you break those habits and rewire your brain until one day soon it feels effortless.

I hope you feel better soon. I know you will.

 

"I'm stressing that we didn't order enough food, that his cake decor will be messed up, etc."
You CAN turn your mind from this, it might try and go right back, but like HealingMe says, you don't have to be perfect about anything at all. You practice turning your mind away - and it can take a MILLION and one times. Mine will turn away from the negative now but it runs wild with it's interests (which can change daily) and that's OK. That is exactly where I can meet it in the moment. Eventually, this monkey mind shuts off when the fight/flight is reduced.
For myself, I'd ask why I'm freaking out about the cake and food. Who am I trying to please and why? We all get caught up in this kind of thought cycle one time or another (chronic symptom person or not) and stepping out - zooming out to see the bigger picture is really helpful to take the pressure off. Just focus on the incredible achievement of those Eagle Scouts!

 

Like @HealingMe said, who cares if there's enough food or not? You'll be ok either way

I think you need to ask yourself is this your stress or is it really for your son? Because growing up I cared about whether my mum listened to me or not and I cared about whether she was proud of me, I couldn't give a stuff if she didn't get my cake right when I was 10 (maybe she did, I don't remember and that's the point). The fact that you're there for your daughter at Nationals will mean the world to her and it's the only thing she will remember when she grows up - you've already won just by being there (so little things around the logistics and getting the preparation perfect don't really matter). Applying the same logic to your son, all he cares about is that you're proud of him for his accomplishments (if he postures that it does matter to him like the cake, it's likely just tactics) - the cake and the catering is likely a "you" problem.

If it's true that it's your fear and your insecurity (I'm not judging as I have similar fears/insecurities) and you can admit that to yourself, then there's a massive scope to do something about it. It is true in a sense that there will always be some form of stress, but that doesn't mean that certain things need to stress you out. By all means wait for something that deserves more of your energy (I say that tongue in cheek), you are perfectly safe here

 

Maybe try this rule of thumb… what if a good friend had written what you wrote in your first post? I reckon you’d tell them they’re almost certainly doing too much, expecting too much of themselves, and need to take the pressure off — you'd advise to ease up and be a lot kinder to themselves (including suggesting to make a practise of thinking of some ‘workarounds’ to ease/reduce the load to help make that happen, to include asking for some help from others). With TMS, I’ve found that it’s not about ducking out of life (as Sarno always reminded us), but about pacing oneself on our recovery journey — steady as you go!

As @HealingMe and @Adam Coloretti (coach) say - who cares about whether the cake and catering are perfect (probably only you)? The cake and catering not being perfect would either be forgotten in favour of remembering that you were there supporting your children, despite your pain... and/or... maybe it hasn’t happened to you, but often the best moments are when things go a little bit pear shaped (British for 'not as planned') and maybe others pitch in to help sort things out and/or alternatives are found. For instance, the best wedding I ever attended was when something went wrong with the gas supply to the venue's stoves and the food couldn't be cooked... and so a takeaway (takeout) of fish and chips (fries) for everyone was bought by the venue's owners! Everyone enjoyed having a laugh about it, eating our fish and chips with mushy peas (the latter sounds horrible but is delicious!)... and one of the wedding photos (that the happy couple have framed and displayed in their home) is of them eating their fish and chips with big smiles on their faces.

I hope you had a good time last night.

 

I relate to this a lot, especially your mind immediately latching onto the next thing to worry about once one stressor passes. To me, that’s often a sign that the deeper issue isn’t just the specific symptom or even the specific fear. It’s that the brain has gotten very practiced at scanning for “what’s the problem now?” and then attaching a lot of meaning to whatever it lands on. One thing that has helped me is remembering that the fear showing up doesn’t automatically mean I’m back at square one or “still stuck.” Sometimes it just means my brain is doing what it has gotten used to doing. What seems to matter more is what happens next:

Do I go into monitoring, discouragement, and trying to urgently solve it?
Or do I catch it a little sooner and say, “Ah, there’s that loop again”?

Catching it sooner has made a big difference for me.

Also, the fact that you can look back over the past year and clearly see real progress matters a lot more than what this particular flare is trying to tell you today. Fear is noisy, and it loves to argue that a bad day is the truth and that progress somehow doesn’t count.

I wouldn’t take this as proof that you’re missing something important. It may just be another chance to get a little better at recognizing the pattern without getting pulled so far into it.

 

Yep. I always think of it as being like a meerkat that just can't stop being on sentry duty.

 

Thank y'all for your kind answers and great insight. When I wrote that post yesterday, I was very vulnerable-which I hate to be. I want to be fine and say everything is fine! And I just wasn't fine. Mentally, I was dealing with a lot and physically I was still dealing with the flare.

But with that said, I want to give you an update. First, my pain melted away about an hour before I had to pick up the cake and food. I just laughed when that happened. I had made peace that I might be in pain for it. Second, the Court of Honor went well! The ceremony itself was great, my son had to do a speech and he thanked me in which brought tears to my eyes. Can you believe we had enough food and even some leftovers!?! The cake turned out so good! Everything that I was worried about was absolutely fine. It was a great night and I was so happy to see a good turnout to celebrate his achievement.

I like this quote! It's acknowledging the thought and then moving on. It's not avoiding it the thought which is what I think I was doing.

This question is hard for me to answer. I think I'm trying to make sure everything is perfect. It would be a reflection on me if something was messed up or didn't go well. So in a general sense my brain was thinking it was trying to "people please" a whole crowd. I wanted my son to feel love and the people attending to enjoy their time together.

Yes-when you said insecurity, it made total sense to me. I don't think I could of verbalized that! In fact, it was hard to even answer who I was trying to please and why in the last question above. So how does one work on insecurity? Working on brain retraining and thoughts is pretty self explanatory. But working on insecurity? Would I start that with giving myself more compassion? Not caring what others think?

Even reading my post a day later, I can tell I was in high alert. If I friend had told me that, I would have asked how I can help. I'm absolutely terrible at asking for help. It is way easier (to me) to just do it myself. But I know that it's not entirely true-as it is creating more stress for me. Thanks for pointing that out.

Yes! I was thinking it was general fear and I was missing something. But this make a lot of sense that it's my brain conditioned to scan "what's the problem now?" and then I move onto the next thing. This is definitely one of the things I need to pay attention to when my brain starts on a thought and I can stop it. This was a great insight!

I can see a huge different in myself from this year compared to last year. But this also shows me I still have more work to do. It makes a lot of sense to me when I do get some relief short term (from my brain's thoughts or symptoms) but for the long term I need to address some behaviors and thoughts that have just become "me" because I've had them for so long now.

 

Adam will reply better than I to this question...

But I just wanted to say that I have found that insecurity thrives when doubts overshadow your real skills. Looking back on your life with regard to things that you have done with aplomb—proving and affirming to yourself, "I am eminently capable"—rewires this by tapping neuroplasticity—your brain learns through repetition that you've handled events before (or can learn fast). Stuff like some wonky piping on the top of celebration cake (if that were to happen) is mere peanuts in the great scheme of things of what you are doing really well to nurture your kids and give them a great upbringing.

From a mind-body view, this knowledge releases dopamine and oxytocin, easing tension in your chest or gut, unlike fretting which spikes cortisol and symptoms.

 

"This question is hard for me to answer. I think I'm trying to make sure everything is perfect. It would be a reflection on me if something was messed up or didn't go well. So in a general sense my brain was thinking it was trying to "people please" a whole crowd. I wanted my son to feel love and the people attending to enjoy their time together."

You have to go deeper. This isn't about this event.
What is happening is that most likely you don't want to look bad in front of anyone and you can't control how people will feel or perceive you. You want to represent your family well, you want your family to love how you can manage this.

That is perfectly normal and natural and probably dates back to how you felt at some point in the past. Since the subconscious doesn't know we're now adults, it is still stuck in 2 year old type feelings. There isn't anything you can do about that: can't control it, can't fix it - all you can do is recognize that these feelings come from the past and accept them, recognizing that you are now a rational, reasonable and well loved adult. If you need a sofa day, it is what it is, no biggie. Rest! (which your body certainly recognized you needed), letting yourself do just that and giving up the "fight" was your win!

I went through a similar process when I was traveling to see my sister for the first time in 10 years. Lots of symptoms up to the travel day which was long and grueling but I had no symptoms the day of...even when things didn't go as planned at all. Nothing was in my control so I had to let it all go.

Personally, I don't think you give yourself enough credit for all you do for your family: having an Eagle Scout - a child with that much devotion to get to that point is amazing and takes a really good parent to support such an endeavor. You work tirelessly to do all the things all week and then it really never stops because there is the weekend too. When do you stop this scanning to just let go and chill out? When do you give yourself some equal time in the week as you do for everyone else? I think you deserve it!

 

⬆️

 

@Joulegirl not sure I could put it better than this! It all comes down to fear and bravery. Insecurity is simply fear - so you're right in not caring about what others think (and that's self-compassion), but that only really works if you're ok and can handle people thinking badly of you. People try to "not care what other people think" through force - but if you have to prove it then you clearly still care (it's a trap I still fall into).

It always comes back to bravery and courage (the courage to be disliked - great book)

 

Hi Joule. In my opinion you sound a lot like me (except that I have completely conquered years of TMS). Let me tell you what I think Dr. Sarno would have told you.

In his final book, The Divided Mind, Sarno set out the advice he gave his patients on dealing with stress due to their personality traits. I added the bracketed material.

“Patients are routinely advised that they need not strive to change their personalities in order to be successful, since so much is made {by Sarno} of the perfectionist and goodist traits as well as other problematic personality characteristics like feelings of inferiority, narcissism, and dependency. One cannot change one’s inherent traits, though they can be consciously modified. For example, the person who feels perpetually compelled to make a doormat of himself and do nice things for others can take stock and decide to curb the tendency.​

“Another important therapeutic reality emphasized in the lecture {Sarno gave his patients} is that the unconcscious will resist change so that one must work on the program consistently, and be patient.”​