The Six-Week Cure

I just had a possible revelation. Curious as to anyone’s thoughts. I was re-reading my manuscript about my myofascial pain (aka TMS) journey for the millionth time and in it I talk about the time in 2009 when I had what I call my Six Golden Weeks. —For 6 weeks, I was nearly pain free after 4 years of misery. I thought my brain finally caught up to my body after 2 years of knowing about the mindbody connection.

I was cured!! I was envisioning going back to work (after stopping 4 or 5 months earlier). I had my life back!!

But after six weeks of feeling remarkably better, I slipped back into pain. Now, almost 10 years later(!!!), I still haven’t gotten back to that state.

The Six Golden Weeks started when a friend told me that Sarno’s Divided Mind had cured him. So I immediately read the book. When I finished it, I read Scott Brady’s Pain-Free for Life: The 6-Week Cure for Chronic Pain. (I had already read The Mindbody Connection 2 years earlier.)

So it just hit me today, maybe my brain misinterpreted Brady’s book title!! “... The six-week cure...”

Did my subconscious read that as I’d be cured for only six weeks??? (Instead of it taking six weeks to be permanently cured??)

It took only about a day for my brain to shift in 2009 when my friend told me that The Divided Mind had cured him. I felt the shift even before I got the book. But I immediately got it and read it, determined to maintain the near state of painlessness I was feeling. Then I read Brady’s book. I was so excited and determined to keep the shift alive. ... It lasted for 6 weeks, then it was gone.

I’ve blamed it on me catering to someone else’s needs. Because the moment I felt myself slipping back into pain, I had catered to someone else that day—something I figured my subconscious didn’t like since it probably wanted me to take care of myself more instead. But maybe that wasn’t it (or not all of it).

I know my subconscious is incredibly powerful so maybe if there’s any merit to this realization about the book title, I can only hope that bringing it to the light will disempower it. Hey, I feel like I’ve tried everything else! So why not hope for this to work?

Maybe by writing this down, my brain will realize the book was talking about a permanent cure, not a 6-week cure!

Anyone else have really quick shifts like this? Note this “quick shift” in 2009 was after 2 years of doing Mindbody work and I had already dramatically reduced my pain in 2007. But I had a car accident earlier in 2009 that spiked things up again. So in the bigger picture it wasn’t really just a one day thing, but there definitely was a dramatic change in one day.

 

Hi Healingfromchronicpain,
I am by no means an expert, but could the 6 week cure have been more of a placebo? The hope/belief of healing might make the pain stop the same as a surgery or a pill, but if the real shift in thinking that Sarno talks about hasn't taken place, the pain will just come back if it is "doing it's job" of distraction. If you are "re-reading my manuscript about my myofascial pain (aka TMS) journey for the millionth time," it sounds like the pain is still working pretty well as a distraction even if that distraction is focusing all of your time and effort on feeling better. Maybe focus on emotional healing but not as a means to physical healing. Hopefully that will happen by itself once you take care of yourself. I am sorry that you have been in pain for so long.

 

Healingfromchronicpain,

I know you've been on this forum for a long time and are quite familiar with Steve Ozanich. When I read your post, this thread came to mind. I have it bookmarked so I can read it as often as I need to.
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/seeking-the-grail.529/ (Steven Ozanich - Seeking the Grail)

I hope you find lasting relief soon.

 

@HattieNC
Thanks, yes I love Steve! His first book was a seminal work for me. I come and go a lot on this forum so miss a lot. Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out!

 

@NYCfamilyguy
Thank! You make a very good point. I have focused many many hours (years) on emotional healing and am still stuck. To be perfectly honest, part of wanting to publish my book was in hopes that it would finally let me “let go” of the emotional stuff that might be holding me back. Because nothing else seems to help with this final bit of pain.

But the perfectionist in me wants the writing to be decent enough not to be embarrassing if I actually publish it. I have no training in creative writing beyond whatever I learned in elementary school and junior high. So every time I re-read it I edit it more and more.

I’m also a bit stuck because it involves sensitive family issues, and am also scared to publish it for that reason. But I decided I can’t let that hold me back anymore. Just writing it for me and getting it out in paper hasn’t seemed to be enough. Someone once suggested maybe I should just burn the manuscript to make it all go away. But that just keeps the secret alive—the secret that took 32 years to finally come out.

But do I really have to publish it?? I don’t know, but somehow I feel compelled to. It’s the only thing that I can see giving meaning to what I’ve been through. Am I over intellectualizing all this? Probably. Is it just more distraction? Maybe.

But publishing it gives me purpose. Gives my life purpose. But what if it hurts someone else in the process? But do I still have to hold it in so as not to hurt the person who hurt me? (Even if that person didn’t hurt me out of malice, but out of his own trauma?)

So as you can see, I feel stuck. But my perpetrator even told me I should do what I need to do, and write the book if I need to. So do I NEED to?? I don’t know. I REALLY don’t know. I feel like I do. But I still worry about him.

PS... in 2017, when I first published my website that tells a little about my story, I had a bit of a drop in pain. So now it’s like my belief system says that maybe if I get the whole story out the rest of the pain will go away. I’ve acknowledged all this crap going on in my head, but my body remains stuck.

 

@healingfromchronicpain - I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to put this, so I'm sorry if it's not. I wish I had more insightful information into what you may have experienced with taking the title of the book so literally, but I do not. I do absolutely feel that it could be possible that you put too much emphasis on the idea of "The Six-Week Cure," which in turn put too much pressure on the process and took away from the true healing power of what you were unfolding. But that is all I can offer, the rest of what I have to say I am hoping gives you some joy.

I just thought you should know that you are supported and thought about often. I haven't logged-in in quite a while but did tonight, in hopes of feeling connected...not so alone. I clicked on this discussion because honestly I was hopeful when I saw the title of "The Six-Week Cure," as I've been feeling so depressed and hopeless as of late. When I saw your screen name after I clicked on the thread my face lit up and I felt less alone. While it pains me that you are still suffering, I just want you to know that your story has stuck with me. You are the reason why I found this work in the first place...without your blog who knows when or if I would have come to know of TMS work on my own, or if I would be willing to accept it. My journey of chronic pain began as so many do, with desperately searching for answers online for hours upon hours, day after day, when I stumbled upon your website "Healing From Chronic Pain," only at the time I was not ready to accept the idea of a mind-body diagnosis such as TMS. But yet something on your pages deeply resonated within me...I felt a deep connection to you, yet I couldn't understand why. And even then, early in my journey and not accepting TMS at all, you gave me hope...something kept bringing me back to your site. You were there for me in my darkest moments. I felt like if you were still hanging in there living life, then so could I. You were a beckon of light in a very dark time. It took many more months of suffering and going the conventional Western route with countless doctor appointments, etc. before I came back around to the idea of TMS, always with you at the forefront of my mind. I then joined the TMS wiki page and was delighted to see you were a member, but hadn't been on in a while, I was hopeful that meant you were fully recovered. Again, my deepest sympathies that you are still trying to get rid of the last of your pain, but I really wanted to take this time to let you know that you are often thought of, and without you I may very well still be lost. Although I still have pain, I have made incredible progress and continue to do so, all because of finding your website. I think it's important for you to know, and others on this site to feel the connectivity between us all, we are not alone. We are supported and loved. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I wish you complete healing on this journey.

 

Thank you so much!!! You have no idea how much this means to me. I always said if I can help just one person it’s all worth it. And you have confirmed that for me! Thank you!!

Here’s to our continuing paths to healing!

 

Steve O says not to focus on a timeline for pain to subside. Instead, live your life. Go read towards the end of his book about Am I Healed Yet?

 

@mbsgal85
Yes, exactly! I think my brain likes to hold on to timelines. I’ve always liked to track things and measure things. Thanks to SteveO I stooped recording and graphing my pain level every day. (Which I did for 7 years!!)

And when I read his book and talked to him he said it took 1.5 years for him to really heal, I think that was in my head too.

But I feel I’ve definitely let go of that timeframe (since its been ... let me see, I actually have to calculate it since I don keep track anymore...7 or 8 years since I read his book).

Anyway, I am living my life, but honestly it’s still a modified one. I did finally look up Alan Gordon’s program and started feeling much better after the day 4 video. I was reminded of the many insidious stories my brain tells me. And I really felt good for a day and a half. I keep reminding myself that I’m safe and not in any real danger, but it seems so hard for my neural pathways to change.

But I’ll keep working on it. I understand and accept that our nervous systems are neuroplastic, so I continue to believe that my years of ANS reactions can be re-programmed.

Thanks for your reply!