Thinking psychological is mentally exhausting!

Probably sounds a bit over the top, but I feel like I'm going crazy constantly thinking about emotional reasons for why I am having pain at a given moment (which is a lot of moments!) it's making me also get angry about this whole concept and the fact that I have to keep trying to do it in order to recover. Am I doing something wrong here?

 

Hi, it sounds like a break from thinking psychological is due. Just a suggestion, but sometimes I also get tired of the TMS "work" and I just focus on doing something enjoyable like playing the guitar, reading a good book, watching a movie, etc. I've also recently started meditating daily, just 8 minutes per day, but that has been a calming experience too. You can come back to the work, the program, or the SEP when you're mentally more ready and motivated.

 

Guava, While healing from TMS it's important not to try to hard to heal. Just go about your daily life. Do things you want to do, head in a new direction, ease up on yourself, let more go. It's a work in progress. Psychologically, TMS tells you that you're not heading where you want to, that there's something you want to say or do. It's a message. Your sensation is only an alarm that deep inside you is not happy where you are. Remember, happiness first, and TMS healing will follow naturally without being aware.

 

Thank you so much for your replies (+ the good advice). This forum is really great. I wish I found it sooner! I'm sorry i'm the one constantly being a bug and asking for help! I wish I had some good advice to give too.

 

The problem is I don't know how to get on with my daily life. In all honesty my life has completely collapsed. I had to leave my university course because of the unbearable pain, and i was so unhappy with this, and am so unhappy now that I don't know if I can go back. I sit in my room all day mostly, isolated from my friends as they are all at uni and getting on with their lives. My family are all busy too, so I have no one to really talk to, and if I do talk to them its just about my mishappenings. Everyone on here must be so much stronger than me to be able to keep up with their work/goals (even if they arn't exactly what they wanted them to be). I wish I could do that. I really do. Ive tried to move on, I started to exercise (some swimming) and going out more, but it hasn't improved my situation that much really. I do think this is impacting on my healing, but I don't know how to progress. It seems an impossibility atm!
Sorry for the rant

 

Thank you so much Anne for taking your time to write this post for me. Your words have been encouraging, and your advice very useful.I shall be brave!

 

Guava, I was in a similar position to you back in February. I kept reading about how I was supposed to ignore my pain, think psychologically, gain "outcome independence," etc., and I was so far from it it made me really sad and frustrated. I was constantly, constantly thinking of my pain. Even as I was teaching my classes, half of my brain was thinking about the pain, wondering if it was getting better or worse, checking on it, fearing it, etc.

"Thinking psychologically" was not really working for me, at least not how I understood it. I was starting to ruminate constantly about sad things in my life. Rather than lessen the pain, this only really added another component to my misery. I finally gave up on this and started using Claire Weekes's "face, accept, float, let time pass" method. This didn't immediately work, but at least I wasn't ruminating anymore. I continued to journal, but not every day. After about four weeks, I started to feel a decrease of pain.

At that point I started to, very slowly, get back into life. Throughout the winter I had virtually trapped myself in my house, afraid to do anything "extra" than just what I needed to do to survive, afraid to increase the pain. But in March I started to see friends again, even though I knew I wouldn't be pain free. I also started to take walks again, which was really scary and painful. I would walk for five minutes, repeating "It's only TMS" to myself as soon as the pain started. I continued taking 5 minute walks for about a week, then moved up to 10.

Now, in July, I am up to walking 40 minutes a day. I am able to drive up to two hours. I took the bus for the first time the other day! I still feel pain, but I know now that my biggest hurdle is fear. I am not brave enough to go charging back into life, so I do it slowly, a little bit at a time. It's working, but I know the fear/pain will be with me for sometime to come. I try to concentrate on all the things I can do now that I couldn't do six months ago, and I try to have faith that more of my life will be given back to me as time passes.

Hang in there, Guava. Have faith.

 

Hi Guava,
What jumped out at me in your post (and I wish I knew how to make it bold) is that you are trying to think about emotional reasons for having pain *at a given moment*. That would make me crazy too! I'm pretty new here, and to say to myself "My elbow is hurting. What's bothering me right now that might be causing it?"....that would really frustrate me. I'm still getting in touch with things that cause me strong emotions from my childhood, present life and personality traits. I'm nowhere near ready to make connections to specific pains yet, even though perfectionist me thinks I should! I really think it's enough to say to myself "I hurt. That means something is up emotionally. This is just TMS." Sometimes the connection might be really obvious, but if it isn't, I just trust that it will probably become clear in time.

I don't know if you are going through the Structured Educational Program, but I highly recommend it. Maybe that's the "university course" you will benefit most from right now. And it will keep you from being isolated because you can "talk" to people here who understand. Hang in there!

 

Guava -
I love your screen name!
Like you, I found that mentally exhausting too... Even though at first I just kept repeating to myself "it's not physical, it's psychological" every time a pain would come, rather than thinking of specific reasons. This helped with my "new pain" (sciatica and knee pain) but not with the "old pain" (lower back).
So I was convinced that I have to "dig deeper" into some mysterious childhood trauma I might have tucked away because it's too painful. I spent an entire week obsessing about it and trying to figure out if there is something I deleted from memory (which is odd, because I remember a LOT of very painful childhood stuff, even though I wish I didn't). That didn't really lead me anywhere either so for now I'm just trying to live my life as normally as possible and dedicate time for reading about the disorder to understand it better, and journaling so I can gain insights into what's going on in my life and with my pain.