This is what happens when health anxiety and TMS become friends

[microstar22]

Dear friends,

I am new here. You might have noticed. It is so nice to see a group of people who are dedicated to finding the answers to each persons unique journey. The abridged version of my story is below. I welcome any and all comments, suggestions, or feedback that could help me along my way.

Sincerely,
Jason

My story:
In my early teens I struggled with the separation of my mother (bi-polar, heavily medicated, hypochondriac) and my father (very regimented, but compassionate). My mom taught me how to be a hypochondriac and I began to have panic attacks and anxiety from a very young age. I was able to successfully manage the symptoms for the most part for the next 20 years. 6 years ago my wife surprised me with a divorce out of the blue and it caused the re-emergence of the anxiety. I met my second wife a year later and she is bliss (heaven in a person). However, even since the divorce of my first wife my health anxiety has gotten to a very high level. This was made worse in 2021 when I started to have dizziness and tingling in my left arm and leg. I visited a neurosurgeon in 2022 and had a cervical fusion surgery to correct "the herniated disc". My symptoms are so varied and they bounce around everywhere. Neck tightness/ache, shoulder tightness ache, butt pain, leg pain, stomach pain, dizziness, tinnittis, trouble swallowing, allergy type symptoms. The list goes on and on. As soon as one gets better a new one comes by in its place. It has been like this for years, it's just been worse since the neck surgery. The feeling of being broken is really drilled into you by a surgeon. You won't be able to do x,y, or z.... The feeling of being broken led me into so many doctors appointments!! Can you believe I had over 50 appointments each year in 2021 and 2022! So many tests that all seemed normal. Many doctors told me "your blood tests are better than mine".

Anyways, so the neck is recovering well from the surgery..although I wish I hadn't gotten it as it truly wasn't needed, but I cannot erase the past.

My questions begin with... where do I go from here? I have read 10 TMS books, dived deep into the recovery material, but the moment a symptom goes a new one comes. It is so hard to not focus on the symptoms when they are so constant, varied, and unrelenting.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

dived deep into the recovery material

Hi @microstar22 and welcome. So, what does this mean, specifically? In order to receive the best answer for your needs, it's helpful for us to know what you've actually done, and the focus here is always, always, always on the psychological and emotional work.

 

[microstar22]

So far I have read all of the Sarno books, I have done some journaling, meditation, trying to be more active.. unlike many on here typically my pain is usually very light 1-2/10 and tends to be more neurologic in nature. I also started using the curable app a month ago.

I understand the focus on the emotional and psychological, I was just listing my symptoms to give an idea of the diversity of them.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

That's helpful! Are you following any kind of structure for your writing? I prefer to use Dr David Hanscom's phrase "expressive writing" rather than journaling, since what he and other experts (eg Nicole Sachs) recommend is to write without editing, and to write knowing that you're going to throw it out - thus it is not at all like keeping an ongoing journal. The reason for this is to try to counteract the intense desire of your fearful brain to edit and repress what you write about.

Our SEP (Structured Educational Program on the main wiki) has a structure for working up to writing about deeply emotional topics, which is where the real work can take place. I assume that Curable has this as well, and I think it's important to follow some kind of guidance for finding the issues you really need to work on.

In your case I'm going to guess that your deep issue is abandonment, and that the dissolution of your first marriage was the catalyst for the fact of your original childhood abandonment, along with rage towards your parents, to come dangerously close to full consciousness - thus the anxiety and worsening of symptoms since the divorce.

There are a number of members on the forum with experience in IFS Therapy: Internal Family Systems, which may be be something for you to look into. Maybe one of them can jump in with some more information.