TMS pain on good news?

[Joulegirl]

Hi all!
I am going about my life like normal even when I have my pain days to show my body that I am OK!! I applied for a new job two weeks ago and today I found out I got it! Yay! After I learned the news-I had pain and it hasn't stopped. I would usually associate bad stress with pain. But good stress and pain? This is nuts!

Also-I take two medications for pain. It's currently how I can function in my life and not be stuck with some severe symptoms. Quick question on that-it's hard to gauge my symptoms when I am on medicine. The medicine will sometimes help my symptoms and sometimes it doesn't make a different. When it is helping my symptoms should I assume TMS is "in control" and when I take meds and there is no relief I know that it is out of control. Since I take it four times a day it can wear off and then I get symptoms until I take my next dose. Has anyone had to deal with this before where you aren't sure if the TMS pain is going down because of the medication? I know that the medicine is a band aid and I would love to get off of it-one day (trying to not give myself a timeline...) I know we are not drs and I'm not looking for any medical advice. Just generally how do we handle it when we need pain medication and it could be fooling us if we are feeling better.

I hope that question makes sense. This is one of my "what ifs" that keeps going on in my head and I'm not sure how process this.

 

[Cactusflower]

Uh, yeah! My pain increases with a mix of anticipation and expectation. Anticipation is an excitable state which illicits the same nervous system response as anxiety.
I recognized this is why my getting gigs creates anxiety while I’m happy and excited sometime last year. For me it almost feels like social anxiety but I most certainly don’t have that.
A few months ago Nichole Sachs did a great podcast about this phenomenon. Her insight might help.

 

[Baseball65]

After I learned the news-I had pain and it hasn't stopped

Deep down inside every one of us, repressed, is a little 5 year old voice saying "I don't really know what the F I am doing so as soon as they find out I will be let go" Mine is actually no longer repressed....I outed that guy a long time ago in my 40's.

that is why I USED to get TMS pain on the first day of every new Job. I work in construction and back then, on Movies , so I might have ten new jobs a year...it got really old (the TMS not the jobs)

Also, many days when I do not have a job I am playing guitar, playing with dogs, exercising, going for hikes, laying around reading books for fun...I am like a child at Summer camp (Like Today!)

Getting a Job means the party is over and I resent it..not consciously. Inversely , too long off work and I get TMS for fear of financial destruction...so AWARENESS is always he best medicine. Sarno said

"I don't treat pain....todays awareness prevents tomorrow's TMS"

Many of the reasons Sarno sighted are 'positive'... Having children, getting married, Going on Vacation (Sarno himself had that one)

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Your brain is finely tuned to interpret every sensation of stress as a threat, and it behaves accordingly to give you symptoms designed to make you want to stay safely at home under the covers. It is not smart enough to distinguish between good stress and bad stress. You have to be rational enough to educate it.

Note that this is how the TMS mechanism is currently manifesting for you. It's not the only way it manifests, however! A lack of obvious outside stressors can also provoke symptoms in us if our brains are repressing shit and they decide that we're not being adequately distracted. It's extremely common for people who work all week to wake up with a headache on the weekend. I used to be one of those people - my old "5-ibuprofen headaches" were invariably on a weekend day when I had nothing planned. They didn't happen often - never on days when we had activities planned, and never during tax season when I worked seven days a week for two months straight. Apparently those things were distraction enough.

It is all, as I said somewhere else on the forum today, just TMS-brain BS. Designed to keep you confused. It's up to you to take charge and call out the BS.

I've never been on long-term pain meds, so I don't have any insights for you, other than to recommend that you not let up on your understanding that they are a temporary crutch, and they are not going to be necessary in the future.

Say it before you believe it, and believe it to make it true - however long it takes. No judgement here. Self-judgement also needs to be a no.

 

[Baseball65]

The medicine will sometimes help my symptoms and sometimes it doesn't make a different.

After I read Jan's response I realized you wrote more about the meds than the New Job.
I never took pain meds much when I was in pain because they did nothing.
LATER, when I was no longer in pain but was having spiritual pain because all of the truths I'd been suppressing were no longer hidden, I became addicted to them!

That is of course opiate's. I have no clue what other stuff they give out these days. It sounds like from your post, you're not even sure when they are 'working'. I'd lay off them if they are opiates.

Sarno was OK with meds for the acute portion of a TMS attacks, but also said 'don't expect it to last long and keep checking your ability to move', which implies the people on them are totally immobilized.

In the Back of Healing Back Pain, Sarno runs down all of the treatments he believes to be "Placeboes" and many meds come up during the chapter.

Whenever someone has a relapse, my first advice is always, "Get back to reading the texts and get back to focusing on your stressors list, and your anger/people close to you list"...Better than any pill I have ever taken.

 

[Joulegirl]

@Cactusflower @Baseball65 @JanAtheCPA Thank you all for your responses. It makes sense that good stress still affects my nervous system and could cause pain. But that really threw me for a loop-that hasn't happened before! And I while I am excited for this new job-there is a very small part that wonders if I can do it. Realistically speaking-yes I can! But those doubts do creep up.

And I appreciate the insight regarding the medication compared to what Dr. Sarno says. It's not an easy answer since its really TMS that is causing the problem. Nothing structural. (After 3 CT scans, colonoscopy, multiple biopsies, and endoscopy there is really nothing wrong!) Thankfully I'm not taking opioids! Just common prescription meds to help with IBS intense abdominal pain and other IBS symptoms I get. I feel like they work 1/2 the time. Which makes me think I should start weaning them down slowly to see what happens at some point. That will be the best way to get some answers.

I did have some insight last night. I have tried to focus on my childhood and I had a pretty good childhood in my mind. A while back I heard Dr. Clarke said if you were a butterfly on the wall would you let your daughter live your childhood? Could you watch it? And that broke my heart. No, if she lived in my childhood I could see her spirit breaking. What an eye opener for me! So fast forward to last night, I texted my mom about my new job. I never got a "Congratulations". Instead she asked if I could handle it, what if I don't like it, and maybe I should have stayed in my original job. Y'all I think I found something to explore. I long suspected it might be my mom (but I felt so bad even thinking that!), but last night was the clear answer. Wow.

Thank you all for your wisdom! It's hard to just start out on the process and try to heal yourself!

 

[JanAtheCPA]

I had a pretty good childhood in my mind. A while back I heard Dr. Clarke said if you were a butterfly on the wall would you let your daughter live your childhood? Could you watch it? And that broke my heart. No, if she lived in my childhood I could see her spirit breaking. What an eye opener for me!

OMG, @Joulegirl, this is an awesome breakthrough. I am sad for you, but also full of anticipation. I wish I could give you a big hug to make up for the support you never got, and to congratulate you for being vulnerable to the truth and to give you the strength to keep pushing through. You have so got this.

And Yay for Dr Clarke! Worth repeating:

if you were a butterfly on the wall would you let your daughter live your childhood? Could you watch it?

 

[Cactusflower]

“I never got a "Congratulations". Instead she asked if I could handle it, what if I don't like it, and maybe I should have stayed in my original job.”

Oh I totally hear you here!

My own Mum would have also asked what the hours were, time for traveling to and from to calculate how this would possibly impact her…

 

[Joulegirl]

@Cactusflower-Yes! I feel like I would have heard more except for the fact that I changed the subject. I don't think I have ever had that kind of support from her which was just an eye opener to realize yesterday!
@JanAtheCPA Thank you for the encouragement and virtual hug. That breakthrough gave me permission to write brutally and honestly about this and I know I have just scratched the surface!

 

[Diana-M]

Hi, @Joulegirl !

And I while I am excited for this new job-there is a very small part that wonders if I can do it. Realistically speaking-yes I can! But those doubts do creep up.

Congrats on your new job! See how brave you are to do something new?! People don’t know how hard it is to do things like this when you have pain and/or anxiety as a sidekick. That’s great you have inner confidence. You will definitely succeed! (one thing I’ve learned from Claire Weekes, the anxiety expert— I talk about her every five minutes I know! lol— excitement does bring up adrenaline. Good excitement and bad excitement. Adrenaline can tighten your muscles and then muscles that are tight cause pain.) It’s OK—as soon as you get calm again about it, it will subside.

“ Y'all I think I found something to explore. I long suspected it might be my mom (but I felt so bad even thinking that!), but last night was the clear answer. Wow.”
This is such a hard discovery!!! You are really brave and strong. Bringing a truth into the light is the way to freedom. And none of it is your fault. She has her issues.

I have read a lot of people with TMS on this forum who have taken pain medication. Usually their goal is to get off of it at some point. You could maybe do a search and see what comes up and read about other people’s stories. I wish I could think of one off the top of my head, but I can’t. If I think of one, I’ll let you know.

 

[Baseball65]

I have tried to focus on my childhood and I had a pretty good childhood in my mind. A while back I heard Dr. Clarke said if you were a butterfly on the wall would you let your daughter live your childhood? Could you watch it? And that broke my heart. No, if she lived in my childhood I could see her spirit breaking. What an eye opener for me! So fast forward to last night, I texted my mom about my new job. I never got a "Congratulations". Instead she asked if I could handle it, what if I don't like it, and maybe I should have stayed in my original job. Y'all I think I found something to explore. I long suspected it might be my mom (but I felt so bad even thinking that!), but last night was the clear answer. Wow.

That's powerful.
That right there is a KEY to a door that will set you free. It's all right there in that paragraph. Oh, I'm certain there's other things that need some poking, but that oughta' be enough to be free of TMS....not the event, the insight.
I also know our conscious mind avoids that stuff like the plague, so it needs a little push with a pen and some quiet time.