Timothy007ish
New Member
I want to touch on emotions but first a a little background on my pain symptoms.
I've struggled with depression for as long as I can remember.
I suffered from migrate headaches in my twentys. (I'm 58 now.)Eventually they stopped as I began a serious drug habit.
After I got clean & sober, I was doing some teaching in recovery groups for people who had been sexually abused as children. Every time I was scheduled to teach I would get IBS. Diarrhea. I was able to eventually stop this by telling myself the nervous reaction to fear of public speaking was all in my head. (I didn't know about TMS either)
Then I became very involved in serving the poor. This requires lots of physical activity as we(my wife and I) were serving in various capacities distributing food. With this came back pain.
I tried chiropractors, & a tens unit, I couldn't afford an MRI but ex rays didn't show anything dramatic. I finally settled on drugs. In short order I was addicted to opioids...again. After several long months of internal conflict I kicked them. The pain hadn't abated so I went to see a neurologist. He told me to read a book by John Sarno. He told me the pain was real and that the origin of it was all in my head. I bought the book and frankly didn't read hardly any of it and the pain vanished.
Shortly thereafter I began experiencing greater depression. I found that physical activity was the best treatment for me. So I was hitting the gym and running...a lot. Last summer I had built my running milage up to 65-70 miles a week. Virtually no pain beyond tired muscles. Then I broke a toe. This sidelined me for about 6 weeks. When I started back up running I began experiencing pain. Mostly in my shoulders but sometimes in my back and legs. Finally it got so bad that I went to see my old chiropractor. I had forgotten about TMS and any way I was sure that I had caused a repetitive use injury. Like it said it in the article today (Day2):
"I do know that your brain chooses the handiest, most acceptable distraction. The one that you are least likely to recognize as tension-induced."
So that's the shorter version of my history, I seriously left out lots of the juicy parts.
So, on to the emotions and some responses to the reading from today.
First quote from the reading :
"At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, most people have no idea how angry and/or scared they really are. After watching the TMS pattern in myself and my clients for many years, I've learned something. If a person's immediate reaction is "I'm not upset about anything," it means one of two things: a) they know what's bothering them, and they just don't want to talk about it with me or b) it's something too uncomfortable to even admit to themselves." (Unquote)
I feel like I've denied my feelings for so long that I am self deceived. That is to say...I lie to myself so effectively that I actually believe me(at least on the surface level). It occurs to me that I have feelings that I don't want to admit. I am a Christian and it is required of me to be nice and have nice feelings. I am starting to see that what appear to be slight resentments at the surface may actually be just the tip of the iceberg with regard to repressed feelings.
For example, I went through a nasty divorce back in 2001. My ex was rather hostile and deliberately tried to alienate my son from me. I have always struggled with the fear that because I was sexually abused as a child that I would grow up to be a child sex abuser. It is tied to the fact that the man who abused me called me his protégé. Any way I had disclosed this fear to my ex. Consequently, after she had filed for divorce she used this fear against me,basically inferring that I was a child molester whenever I came to pick my son. This had the desired effect(from her perspective). I started to avoid the situation and resulting confrontation by not seeing my son. Today my son won't have anything to do with me.
Sure, I feel angry and I feel sad and I feel guilty. But these feelings are all in my head. There's no real emotion connected to them.
Second quote from the reading :
"In order to completely eliminate all symptoms, you must identify which unacceptable emotions are threatening your self-image. The physical symptoms are present for a reason: They distract your attention away from the unacceptable emotions. Once you acknowledge the threatening emotions, the symptoms no longer work as a distraction, and they go away. Quite dramatically, I might add. You don't even need to eliminate the source of the stress--you just have to become aware of it." (Unquote)
I'm thinking that the unexceptable emotions are rage and fear of rage, hatred, and resentment. For a start.
Funny, but I feel interestingly better for having said that.
I've struggled with depression for as long as I can remember.
I suffered from migrate headaches in my twentys. (I'm 58 now.)Eventually they stopped as I began a serious drug habit.
After I got clean & sober, I was doing some teaching in recovery groups for people who had been sexually abused as children. Every time I was scheduled to teach I would get IBS. Diarrhea. I was able to eventually stop this by telling myself the nervous reaction to fear of public speaking was all in my head. (I didn't know about TMS either)
Then I became very involved in serving the poor. This requires lots of physical activity as we(my wife and I) were serving in various capacities distributing food. With this came back pain.
I tried chiropractors, & a tens unit, I couldn't afford an MRI but ex rays didn't show anything dramatic. I finally settled on drugs. In short order I was addicted to opioids...again. After several long months of internal conflict I kicked them. The pain hadn't abated so I went to see a neurologist. He told me to read a book by John Sarno. He told me the pain was real and that the origin of it was all in my head. I bought the book and frankly didn't read hardly any of it and the pain vanished.
Shortly thereafter I began experiencing greater depression. I found that physical activity was the best treatment for me. So I was hitting the gym and running...a lot. Last summer I had built my running milage up to 65-70 miles a week. Virtually no pain beyond tired muscles. Then I broke a toe. This sidelined me for about 6 weeks. When I started back up running I began experiencing pain. Mostly in my shoulders but sometimes in my back and legs. Finally it got so bad that I went to see my old chiropractor. I had forgotten about TMS and any way I was sure that I had caused a repetitive use injury. Like it said it in the article today (Day2):
"I do know that your brain chooses the handiest, most acceptable distraction. The one that you are least likely to recognize as tension-induced."
So that's the shorter version of my history, I seriously left out lots of the juicy parts.
So, on to the emotions and some responses to the reading from today.
First quote from the reading :
"At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, most people have no idea how angry and/or scared they really are. After watching the TMS pattern in myself and my clients for many years, I've learned something. If a person's immediate reaction is "I'm not upset about anything," it means one of two things: a) they know what's bothering them, and they just don't want to talk about it with me or b) it's something too uncomfortable to even admit to themselves." (Unquote)
I feel like I've denied my feelings for so long that I am self deceived. That is to say...I lie to myself so effectively that I actually believe me(at least on the surface level). It occurs to me that I have feelings that I don't want to admit. I am a Christian and it is required of me to be nice and have nice feelings. I am starting to see that what appear to be slight resentments at the surface may actually be just the tip of the iceberg with regard to repressed feelings.
For example, I went through a nasty divorce back in 2001. My ex was rather hostile and deliberately tried to alienate my son from me. I have always struggled with the fear that because I was sexually abused as a child that I would grow up to be a child sex abuser. It is tied to the fact that the man who abused me called me his protégé. Any way I had disclosed this fear to my ex. Consequently, after she had filed for divorce she used this fear against me,basically inferring that I was a child molester whenever I came to pick my son. This had the desired effect(from her perspective). I started to avoid the situation and resulting confrontation by not seeing my son. Today my son won't have anything to do with me.
Sure, I feel angry and I feel sad and I feel guilty. But these feelings are all in my head. There's no real emotion connected to them.
Second quote from the reading :
"In order to completely eliminate all symptoms, you must identify which unacceptable emotions are threatening your self-image. The physical symptoms are present for a reason: They distract your attention away from the unacceptable emotions. Once you acknowledge the threatening emotions, the symptoms no longer work as a distraction, and they go away. Quite dramatically, I might add. You don't even need to eliminate the source of the stress--you just have to become aware of it." (Unquote)
I'm thinking that the unexceptable emotions are rage and fear of rage, hatred, and resentment. For a start.
Funny, but I feel interestingly better for having said that.
