TLDR: Known TMSer, mild foot injury November 2022. Crutches a year and a half until MRI showed it was healed. Got back to walking (with limitations) until last Sunday when I rolled my foot and now I’m back on crutches. Looking for comments on my situation or people who can relate, particularly on the extremely difficult relationship between an actual injury and TMS. And also about the weird “healing through loving attention” thing I describe below. Thank you so much if you read or comment on this!!
(I WROTE A POST BELOW WITH ALL OF THE DETAILS WHICH HOPEFULLY ISN'T TOO MUCH!)
I started having bad back pain in 2015 when I first went to college. A year later I read Sarno’s "Healing Back Pain" and got my life back. After that, the pain slowly spread to my whole body, popping up in random places, but it never fully stopped me from doing anything important.
But back in November 2022 I slipped down a couple stairs and got a mild-moderate bone contusion on my foot. The doctor said it should've been 6 weeks until I was walking with no pain. Here's where it gets a little bit interesting.
So, in my own personal journey with managing my emotions I learned to basically hold them in my attention and experience them directly until they dissipated, and this is the same thing that I started organically doing with my foot pain. I would hold my foot in loving attention, some of the pain would come to the surface and hurt really bad, and then afterwards my foot would feel just a tiny bit better. In doing this I sort of felt like I was at the same time healing the actual injury and also making the foot feel "emotionally safe” to deal with the TMS pain. I spent basically a month and a half on a couch doing nothing but this process, holding my foot in loving attention all day long.
And, it basically worked. After the first two months of no improvement (to my doctor’s confusion), through this process I was slowly increasing functionality to the point where I got off my crutches. But then, I overdid it seriously with walking one day and put myself BACK on crutches. And, at this point, I no longer had the time (b/c of life circumstances) to do the whole “attention healing” process again.
I went back on crutches for basically an entire year after this. Then, I got a second MRI that showed the bone contusion had healed, and this gave me the confidence to start walking again, which I’d been doing (with limitations) for several months. But then, last Sunday, I rolled my ankle on a walk (which I could tell was not serious at all and would’ve had no effect on my other foot) and now because of that I’m back to being on crutches and laying in my bed.
So that’s where I’m at.
I’ve already booked an orthopedist appointment to try to get assurance on the medical end, but it’s really messing with my life and feel worried about this putting me back on crutches for a long time again. For me, it’s pretty easy to deal with TMS in an area where there couldn’t logically be any injury, but when you have an actual injury combined with the TMS that’s when it gets incredibly difficult.
A part of me still feels like if I had just completed my original “attention-healing” practice this problem would've gone away. That perhaps there’s some emotional holding pattern, or subtle aspect of the injury, that can only be resolved through that process that my body seems to want to organically do (but that I no longer have the emotional bandwidth to do anymore) and that this won’t fully go away until that is completed. But, this is so difficult because this “attention healing” process is something that I just started doing organically and I haven’t found anyone who can offer guidance on it or even relate. At the same time, I really just want to get back to at least limited walking as soon as possible because of how this derails my life.
So, obviously this is a lot, but I’d love any comments on my situation or if you relate at all. Comments/stories are particularly welcome about the extremely difficult relationship between an actual injury and TMS, or about the “healing through loving attention” thing I was talking about. Thank you so much if you read all of this and I really look forward to hearing your comments!
(I WROTE A POST BELOW WITH ALL OF THE DETAILS WHICH HOPEFULLY ISN'T TOO MUCH!)
I started having bad back pain in 2015 when I first went to college. A year later I read Sarno’s "Healing Back Pain" and got my life back. After that, the pain slowly spread to my whole body, popping up in random places, but it never fully stopped me from doing anything important.
But back in November 2022 I slipped down a couple stairs and got a mild-moderate bone contusion on my foot. The doctor said it should've been 6 weeks until I was walking with no pain. Here's where it gets a little bit interesting.
So, in my own personal journey with managing my emotions I learned to basically hold them in my attention and experience them directly until they dissipated, and this is the same thing that I started organically doing with my foot pain. I would hold my foot in loving attention, some of the pain would come to the surface and hurt really bad, and then afterwards my foot would feel just a tiny bit better. In doing this I sort of felt like I was at the same time healing the actual injury and also making the foot feel "emotionally safe” to deal with the TMS pain. I spent basically a month and a half on a couch doing nothing but this process, holding my foot in loving attention all day long.
And, it basically worked. After the first two months of no improvement (to my doctor’s confusion), through this process I was slowly increasing functionality to the point where I got off my crutches. But then, I overdid it seriously with walking one day and put myself BACK on crutches. And, at this point, I no longer had the time (b/c of life circumstances) to do the whole “attention healing” process again.
I went back on crutches for basically an entire year after this. Then, I got a second MRI that showed the bone contusion had healed, and this gave me the confidence to start walking again, which I’d been doing (with limitations) for several months. But then, last Sunday, I rolled my ankle on a walk (which I could tell was not serious at all and would’ve had no effect on my other foot) and now because of that I’m back to being on crutches and laying in my bed.
So that’s where I’m at.
I’ve already booked an orthopedist appointment to try to get assurance on the medical end, but it’s really messing with my life and feel worried about this putting me back on crutches for a long time again. For me, it’s pretty easy to deal with TMS in an area where there couldn’t logically be any injury, but when you have an actual injury combined with the TMS that’s when it gets incredibly difficult.
A part of me still feels like if I had just completed my original “attention-healing” practice this problem would've gone away. That perhaps there’s some emotional holding pattern, or subtle aspect of the injury, that can only be resolved through that process that my body seems to want to organically do (but that I no longer have the emotional bandwidth to do anymore) and that this won’t fully go away until that is completed. But, this is so difficult because this “attention healing” process is something that I just started doing organically and I haven’t found anyone who can offer guidance on it or even relate. At the same time, I really just want to get back to at least limited walking as soon as possible because of how this derails my life.
So, obviously this is a lot, but I’d love any comments on my situation or if you relate at all. Comments/stories are particularly welcome about the extremely difficult relationship between an actual injury and TMS, or about the “healing through loving attention” thing I was talking about. Thank you so much if you read all of this and I really look forward to hearing your comments!
