Unable to lift weights, don't know what to do

[painkiller]

Hello. This is my first post here, and I'm not even sure if this is the correct place to post this. In that case I hope that someone notifies me about this. I have had a huge amount of issues regarding different types of chronic pain lately. People that I know in real life have no clue about TMS and I feel like I need some help and insights from people that use this forum and know about Dr Sarno and his books. This will likely be a lengthy post so please bare with me. I will only write about things that I feel are relevant in one way or another.

I had a pretty rough childhood. My father was gone most of the time and whenever he was home he used to drink all day and argue with my mother. This eventually led to a divorce. As a result I had to move to the other side of the country and leave all my friends behind. This left me devastated. I got bullied for several years in my new school and I barely had any friends. I also had some very painful experiences with women which made me feel like I would be single forever if I don't change. Eventually I got tired of this and decided that I wanted to change. I started weightlifting around 7 years ago and instantly fell in love with it. However, I didn't lift for long (about 6 months) until I started feeling a really sharp pain in both of my shoulders, and they would pop and crack very loudly when I moved my arms in any way. A couple weeks after my both knees would start to hurt, and then my hips etc...

My pain was progressively getting worse, so I decided to completely give up weightlifting, as I didn't want to seriously injure myself. I spent the next year or so doing PT but it didn't do much. I was completely devastated about the fact that I couldn't lift. It was the only thing I loved to do. I spent months googling for treatments and causes to my pain with no success.

After around a year and a half I stopped caring. I decided that I would never be able to lift again and decided that I would become a professional video gamer. I spent the next three years practicing the video game every day, all day. I put my hearth and soul into it. I wanted to become the best player in the world.

The third year that I played this game (2017) was extremely rough for me. I spent 6 months in the military against my will, since that is what you have to do in my country, and I absolutely hated every second of it. Right after I got out I started working at a very stressful workplace. The work pace was so busy that I rarely even had time to eat. After working at my new job for about 2 months i started getting wrist pain in my mouse arm. The pain got extremely bad very fast. I had to completely stop using my right hand and was basically forced to live with one hand. This also meant that I couldn't play anymore. I couldn't believe it. I was finally making progress at something I loved again and now I was forced to give it up for a second time. How could this happen to me? Why me?

I visited several doctors and pts. None of them could help me. But this time I decided that I wouldn't let my symptoms win. After having wrist pain for around 6 months the pain had spread to my left hand and both of my elbows. I found out about TMS, started browsing these forums and read Sarnos book. My pain was completely gone in 3 weeks. I couldn't believe it. This made me realize how powerful the mind was and completely changed my view about life.

A few months later I met my girlfriend and instantly fell in love with her. It was trough and online app, and we talked for about 1 month before finally meeting in person. Late at night when we got back to the hotel I suddenly started crying like I'd never cried before. In that moment I realized that everything that people had told me, that I was ugly, stupid, worthless and useless at everything was a lie. I was 110% certain that I would never ever in my life have a girlfriend. It was so emotionally overwhelming that I just cried and cried for an hour straight, but I felt absolutely amazing afterwards.

Fast forward to the present day, 3 months after my girlfriend of 2 years left me for another man. Worst 3 months of my life by far. The reason I haven't gone mad is probably because I have spent all my energy on self improvement, for the most part on lifting weights. The problem is that my symptoms are back worse than ever. Lifting has become an obsession for me. I feel like I will never be worth anything as a human being if I don't get muscular. The breakup completely ruined the little self esteem I had. I can't be like this anymore. I need to become successful, and muscular. I just have to. Otherwise I will be useless and nobody will ever love me.

I have pain in my both shoulders, knees and my lower back. I have no idea if this could actually be TMS and that is why I'm here. I know my form on the exercises is not perfect, but I practice it a lot and I use light weights, far lighter than most people. I warm up properly and I make sure to stretch afterwards. It was so easy for me to convince myself that using a mouse isn't dangerous and that my wrist pain was TMS. With weights, however, it's a completely different story. I'm seriously worried that I will injure myself for the rest of my life if I keep at this. Then again I'm wondering if its all TMS kicking in again due to the current circumstances in my life. I have no idea what to do and who to turn to. I feel completely hopeless.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Welcome @painkiller, and have faith - you have found the right place, and there is no reason you can't find recovery.

You've got a lot of mental garbage to overcome, but thankfully you've had a taste of the success that is possible. What I don't feel from you is any measure of self love. Determination, yes, but also a lot of beating up on yourself and high expectations that "must" be met. Determination is great. Beating yourself up is not, but beating ourselves up is something that our primitive fearful unconscious brains are REALLY good at - with the goal of keeping us beaten down and living in fear. THAT is what you want to overcome!

But to start with, you need to have compassion and love for yourself. I have always, always said, that in order to find healing from TMS, you must love yourself enough to know in your heart that you deserve to heal.

Think about that, and maybe repeat it to yourself, reading it out loud, every day.

As for the specifics, it sounds like you know about TMS, and that you had what we often describe as "the book cure". Which most of us now know does not last. But it's a start! It's a lot better than where most of the rest of the world is coming from, right?

We have two free programs right here. There is the Structured Educational Program on the main wiki, and Alan Gordon's Pain Recovery Program here on the forum. The SEP is more structured, and pretty easy to get into. Neither program requires any kind of sign-up or commitment. Just start doing one of them and see how it goes.

The most important requirement for doing this work is to be completely honest with yourself. Your brain will try to convince you to skip doing some things, or to not write something down, but you have to fight against that and do it anyway. That's how you will have the most success.

If you suffer from anxiety, I can also highly recommend reading Help & Hope For Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. It's a compassionate little book that has helped many many thousands of people to recover from crippling anxiety. It was the #2 book that saved my life after Dr. Sarno.

Keep posting and keep us posted - you're in the right place, and we're all in this together.

~Jan

 

[Baseball65]

The breakup completely ruined the little self esteem I had

When I was 22 or so, the best looking , buffest guy I ever knew confessed to me that he used to want to move UP to some Low self-esteem. He had zero self esteem. That's why he wasted all of that time body building and grooming. He thought it might overcome that problem. It didn't.

He also pointed me in the direction of the truth. The secret to overcoming Low self esteem is to ....STOP ESTEEMING. Yep. That is just the part of us that judges and makes distinctions and the Carpenter told us that with the judgement you make, so will you be judged.

I too grew up ugly and unwanted and went to great lengths to try and overcome being the fat, bed wetting misfit to being the 'rock star'. ...and it worked....or NOT. I ended up in Rock Bands dating Models and beautiful women but I was so fucked up in the head and self-obsessed I didn't enjoy a second of it .... miserable. They say don't pray for stuff cause you might get it? I say don't pray for stuff because you WILL get it... God loves us BUT he also has a Gnarly sense of humor.

Ok..

The problem is that my symptoms are back worse than ever.

That is easier to fix than the self esteem thing-a-ma-bob. Of course your symptoms are back... You are in a rage. You have been rejected. That self-improvement thing is natural because we think "Oh, I'll get really good looking and then she'll miss me and come back to me" OR "I'll get good looking and she'll see what a horrible mistake she made leaving me"
These are all normal responses to rejection. I have had them and been through it. However the TMS is proof positive that what goes on on the inside is far superior to any ripped abs or ridiculous swollen biceps we could acquire. Also, if you attract as mate based on the external, don't act confused when it feels shallow

I think the carpenter called us 'white washed graves'... people go by and know not what corruption they pass(eth)

If you can open up and give a voice to that guy you were before you started lifting weights, you can have a fairly speedy recovery from the pain. That guy in your second paragraph with the F-d family life and the rejection and hopelessness is still there. In fact, he's more real than the buff guy with the girlfriend. Find him and realize what your motivations are for your actions.... look at it particularly when you catch yourself paying attention to symptoms. You can lift weights. In fact, I would encourage it... but ultimately if your doing it for anybody but yourself you will get 'there' and still wonder why you feel empty.

If you really want to feel better, Read the literature, do the work and when your pain subsides see if you can't be of service to some other person/people/entity that needs help. Being of service to others is the ONLY thing that has ever given me respite from that emptiness. It turns your whole karma around... doesn't raise my self-esteem...makes me stop esteeming and start being grateful for the gifts God has piled under my tree.

As Jan said, you are definitely in the right place. We are here to support ya.

peace

 

[painkiller]

I really appreciate the fact that both of you took the time to read my rant and even reply to it. It felt good just to write this and get it all out of the system.

I'm well aware that I seriously lack self love. I have been working on it these past three months. It's just an extremely difficult thing to do at the moment since everything seems to go wrong. The reason im beating myself up all the time is the sole belief that everything that has gone wrong in my life is my own fault. I'm sick and tired of living a life like this and I feel like I need to change if I want my life to change for the better.

As for what Baseball65 wrote, it seems that we have had quite similar experiences. What you wrote about my my reaction to rejection was spot on. It was also interesting to hear that achieving your goal of becoming a rock star barely helped. I have always thought that being really good at something and/or achieving a major goal would help with things like self esteem.

Thank you for your replies, they really cheered me up.