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Success Story without Repressed Emotions

If we've journaled and can't find any repressed emotions (I think that's rare), our TMS may be from
our personality -- perfectionism, "goodism." That an generate fear and anxiety just as much as
repressed emotions.

We just have to let up on ourselves and not try so hard to do everything right and fast,
or not want to please everyone so much. Do they try to please us as much as we want to please them?
I doubt they do. If we try a little less to be liked, we will still be the great, caring person we are.

I had to say NO MORE to a cousin and a neighbor who both wanted me to be at their beck and call
all the time. Neither of them gave me any sincere indication they appreciated what I already did for them
and yet they wanted more. Some people, if we let them, will eat us alive. In both cases, with my cousin
and the neighbor, they were just too lazy to do the things themselves that they wanted me to do for them.
Pardon the French, but that sucks.
 
bikebum said:
My lady and I did our 100-mile bike ride last Saturday! I had some tightness in my lower body the first 40 miles which I think was TMS related, but it did not slow us down. We had a blast! The 2-hour drive home afterward didn't bother me too much either. Awesome! :woot:
Click to expand...
WHOO-HOOOO! Great job on your bike ride!!! I also did a ride this last weekend - lots of hill climbing - did it with no pain or pain afterwards. It felt wonderful. Then came home and there was something wrong with our dog's back legs. They just gave out on the poor guy. I had a TMS attack immediately with the feelings of fear, anxiety and worry about him. I don't think I need anymore evidence that its psychological!
 
Hi bikebum,
Thanks for posting your experiences. I find your whole story very inspiring. I have just commenced 100% commitment to accepting that my symptoms are TMS so every story I read helps me endlessly...yours especially as I used to do alot of mountain biking but haven´t been on my mountain bike in about 7 years and can´t wait to be able to do it again. Take care.
 
As a highly active person, I found your story inspiring! I also feel like my TMS is more the result of my fear and anxiety than any deep repressed emotions. Watched the video you referenced last night and found it very helpful. Thank you!
 
Hey everyone! For some reason I stopped getting email notifications so I haven't been here in a while.

Leslie735: I'm glad you like my story. I think for some of us, the fear and anxiety from the pain can take the place of whatever started it first. I hope your recovery is going well!

Walt: Thanks for the good advice. I'm kind of a perfectionist; well, only with certain things. Although I don't feel a strong need to please people, it does bother me more than it should when someone thinks negatively of me. I feel a strong need to defend myself, even though most of the time it is silly and I shouldn't care. I'm getting better at that. Good for you for drawing the line with them.

nowtimecoach: Thanks! It's interesting how certain things can set off TMS so quickly; it makes sense though when you think about how quickly our emotions can change. I hope your dog is doing better. Congrats to you for your ride too!

slowena: I'm happy my story can help you. Congrats on accepting TMS! Have you been mountain biking yet? If not, I bet you will soon. The hills await your return!

sarah430: I'm glad you like my story and the video. I have watched it a few times to refresh my memory and squash any doubts that crept in. I don't have doubts anymore. Nice picture; looks like some good TMS medicine!

Every time someone gets something good from my story, it makes me more happy I decided to share it!
 
Congrats and great job. My issue is that my HLA B27 is positive but no signs of AS on XRays and MRI's. However, you know, it's hard to get it out of my mind!
 
This is a good story as it highlights the ubiquitous nature of Mindbody syndrome, everyone has some form of it. It is essentially the Human condition. it also highlights(and Sarno would be first to admit) that the TMS description is a ''best guess'' effort that whilst very helpful to many has yet to fully comprehend entirely all that happens within the brain/body complex.
 
What a great story.
Thank you for taking the time to share it with us with so much detail.
It is very inspiring!!
 
Hi Bikebum,

Thank you for sharing your story! I am struggling with very similar symptoms right now (which I believe can be related to anxiety/fear) and have a few questions that I hope you can answer:

1) Did your painful muscles spasm? Did your muscles normally feel really tight/rope-like?

2) I was also diagnosed with SI joint dysfunction, and my PT says that my SI and sacrum are sometimes out of alignment. Did you ever experience a hot, burning type of pain in your SI? Any numbness/tingling in your buttock?

3) I too have a lot of pain with sitting, and standing for extended periods is also very painful. I've tried to "practice" sitting for short periods, but the pain always comes back and I experience increased pain for the rest of the day. How did you segue back to normal activities such as sitting and standing?

Hope to hear from you, and thanks again!
 
Hi bikebum,

Thanks for sharing your story, it's great. I was suffering from hip and leg pain this past year until I was told about Dr Sarno several months ago. I still have some pain and fear of the pain, but the pain is mostly gone. Your return to weighlifting, biking and other exercises is inspiring. It's something I'm looking forward to doing too. Various TMS symptoms (pretty sure they're all TMS symptoms) have stalled me that way, but I'm really interested in seeing where things will lead now that I know about TMS.

Also, I can relate to your experiences with health experts of various styles. It is rare to find someone who really knows how to heal. Almost always I've found practitioners whose treatments didn't work, or provided some temporary relief. Some of these people I've liked, others have really put me off. I gathered that one, a massage therapist, was particularly interested in the steady income stream he foresaw because of my excellent health benefits plan. When I chose not to see him again after the first visit (because I didn't feel any better) he was really upset, and was going on about how my shoulder/neck/upper back tissues were of poor quality - what a bunch of nonsense! Then there's the sports medicine doctor who confidently asserted several months ago that I need/will definitely need hip replacement surgery. I know he's heavily invested in his paradigm, but at what point does this become unacceptable (I don't mean to argue with you here, I just find this an interesting issue). I feel he had no business giving me an ignorant diagnosis that left me feeling hopeless. A somewhat uncharitable view is that he is a bit of an arrogant jackass. When I read of your experiences with practitioners it really struck a chord. The issue of bad diagnoses and harmful recommendations from practitioners who don't know what they're doing would be a good forum I think, because they are a big part of the problem.

I've started standing at my desk too, when I feel the need. It really works when I start getting restless for a change. It's great to hear someone else talk about it. I don't know how everyone else manages, I just feel chained to the desk by mid-afternoon and in need of an escape. Standing is an option that really helps.

Cheers,
SB
 
Hi ricecakes,

I'm glad to answer your questions:

1) My muscles did not spasm. They would feel very tight though, and when I would massage sometimes they would feel unusually hard and sometimes like a rope. I would also find a lot of muscle knots. I'm not sure how significant it was though, as I still get muscle knots/hard spots and they don't bother me. And although the muscles felt tight, it didn't seem to limit my range of motion past what is normal.

2) Yes I experienced hot, burning sensations. It's hard to say if it was precisely in the SI joint, but I know it was in the muscles around the area. I don't recall numbness, but I would get tingling sensations along with pain in my butt muscles.

Once I started feeling better I stopped trying to correct my SI joint alignment. It may still be crooked, but I haven't checked. Maybe squats and deadlifts straightened it? I bet it is still crooked though, because when I balance on my bike seat with no hands it feels like I have to cock my hips to one side in order to stay balanced. Other than that I don't notice anything. I still lift heavy weights (well, heavy for me) and sprint and it doesn't bother me. I don't mean to encourage you to ignore your PT, just want to give you my story so you can decide if it applies to you.

3) I used an adjustable keyboard tray and would switch between sitting and standing at work. It was still uncomfortable but it helped a lot. I'd also take breaks to walk and lie down on the floor. This next part may sound kinda funny, but here goes: Sometimes I would have to sit for longer (meeting, car ride, etc.) and this would seem to mess me up for a while. So, I started trying to forget when it would happen. If I sat in a car for 4 hours to go on trip, once I got out, I'd try to forget it had happened and act like it was just a normal day. It seemed to help quite a bit.

Now that I don't have pain anymore I've gotten lazy and sit all day at work. I still exercise a lot though. It was a slow process to go back to doing things normally. I think it helped to think about the pain less over time. At one point I thought of it constantly. It never abruptly went away, I just thought about it less and less as it faded and one day it was gone and I didn't even realize it for a while because it had become such a small part of life.

Hope that helps, good luck!
 
Hi SB,

Glad you learned about TMS and that most of your pain is gone, that is great! When getting back into exercise it really helped me to ease into it. Start really small and just keep adding a bit when you feel good. You can get where you want to be pretty quick, I'm almost 30 and I'm in better shape than when I was 18, before all the back trouble.

I definitely agree with you that healthcare professionals cross the line sometimes. The ones I saw seemed to have good intentions, but it sounds like you got at least two that just wanted your money. Too bad, but I guess there are people like that in every field.

Standing really helped me too. Although as I got better I would stand less and less, and now I sit all day at work, haha.

Good luck with your continued recovery!
 
I love this thread. "Thinking psychological" can mean many things. Sarno's consultants in NY went to classical Freudian theory of the repressed. Not surprising in New York! There are also humanistic theories and cognitive behavioral theories. There are systems theories, attachment theory, gestalt approaches, dialectical behavior theories...and on it goes. "Thinking psychological" lends itself to a wide range of approaches and meanings.

For me, repression of affect is not the main thing. (My husband says it doesn't seem to him like I am repressing any feelings!) For me, exploring the meaning of pain and illness in my family of origin has been a scaffolding. I internalized what I saw and learned from my parents' responses to pain.

Anxiety is also critical. I believe that anxiety is a TMS equivalent, and the muscle tension involved in anxiety has had serious effects for a lot of us. So there are a couple of ways to go. One is to lower our anxiety as close as possible to ZERO. The other is to use therapy or journals or art to get an idea of the MEANING of the anxiety.

I have been trying for my whole career to figure out what works. Experiencing 3 0r 4 years of TMS and reading Sarnomade the whole thing come together.
 
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