Update and more confused than ever

Update, because I was told to post after the stress from the holidays wss over, so here I am,

I quit my job last week. The pain is so bad in my right arm and wrist, as well as underneath the breast bone, (costochondritis) I was literally crying when I got home from work. I had the job for almost 8 months, but it was freezing in the building, I had switched apartments, thinking it would help with the stress, but alas, it did not. Every day, I would to work, and just push through the pain. I told myself over and over again that I was OK and that there was nothing wrong with me. However, it didn’t matter, because the pain would go from a headache, stomach issues, muscle issues, tendinitis, or rib pain, etc.

In fact, I have read about so many new members stories, and they fit mine almost exactly. It’s always something to do with what I find the most passionate about, which is writing. When I get on the computer, and I use the mouse, especially repetitively, I get these pains, into my shoulder down my arm, but sometimes it causes muscle spasm’s that are very painful. I keep reading that TMS stays around because of the big elephant in the room, and my brain is trying to figure out what that is. At first, I thought it was that I just didn’t want to write anymore and I was tired of it.

I did a number of career assessments to figure out what it is I’d like to do, and librarian was my number one thing, and then historian, and writer. Unfortunately, there are no jobs associated with those two and there are tons for writing. I then thought maybe it was the subject, I was writing on, which was everything to do with dental topics, which I already have a phobia about.

However, I still hurt. I’m on my iPad, but I’m not typing like I was doing for eight hours a day, and instead it seems like old pain in my ribs has come back. So now, I am beating myself up trying to figure out what it is that’s going on. I am doing daily mantras, telling myself Im OK, soothing myself, and just keeping on keeping on, going back to TMS books and journaling, all to no avail.

I feel like I really need to see a TMS doctor, but I don’t know where to look. I’ve tried three or four that are either not doing consultations anymore, or who won’t with me on Skype. Anyway, I want to get another job, but I don’t want to be in the middle of trying to figure out what ths pain or emotion that doesnt want to be felt that is keeping the pain going, and end up in the same situation I just did at my last job. What’s frustrating is that I'm very good at my job, and have the most experience. I can’t see myself being in retail, fast food, a receptionist, or anything else that deals with customer service directly. I just want to write something I’m passionate about, but not have the trigger every time I’m on the computer. I know that Alan did the tick with someone who was in the same situation I am in, having her typing while he was talking. I need smeone to do that with me to aid in getting my brain to accept the TMS diagnoses and the fact that there is nothing structurally wrong with me, because even though I accept it, my subconscious is putting her hands over her ears and throwing a major tantrum.

You’ve probably heard way too much from me lately, I am just desparate to kick this. If this was only months into this work, I would be more patient, but this is going on 5 years! Please, if there is anyone you can recommend, please let me know. I have a wonderful therpaist who believes in TMS, but she’s not a doctor. I can’t, no I refuse, to sit home and let TMS beat me. We are working on forgiveness, which she said was a huge aspect of healing, but that it could take awhile, but in the meantime, to keep just “doing it.” (Living as if TMS isn’t a thing...yeah right)

I would really love to add my success story in here.

TL, DR: quit my job that was triggering “RSI” and trying to figure out the big elephant in the room that keeps TMS going. Pain stays, even when not working on the computer, and becoming quite frustrated with this whole thing. Need a TMS doctor to kick this, but can’t find one in my state or one I can work with remotely.

I know this is nothing new to you all, and I appreciate any and all responses in advance.

 

Dr. Howard Schubiner M.D.

 

Jules, you feel stuck and I sympathize. You feel like getting nowhere. You are talking a lot about the job because your pain seems to be related to typing. But basically you like to be a writer? You are trying to find the elephant in the room. Maybe you should look at a different place? Maybe the elephant is not job related.
In a way I am in the same situation, though my pain levels are not so bad and I have periods without pain. But I also wonder why the pain comes back. Is there an elephant I don't want to see? But on the other hand: the elephant can also be how to implement all you know in every day life. I know that I am very good at the analytical and theoretical level but very bad when it comes to change practices.
A TMS practitioner is a good idea! There is a list on the TMS wiki website, you might have seen that already.
I cross my fingers that you find your elephant - and if not that it turns out that it wasn't an elephant after all but just a mouse that persisted ...

 

Jules:

I can relate to a lot of your experience. Regarding the issue of the symptoms striking when you are doing an activity that you are passionate about. It seems like unconscious fear is a likely trigger. On some level we are scared that we are going to get an episode and that triggers the episode. In Pavlovian terms "fear" is the bell and the fear can be totally unconscious or both unconscious and conscious. After all there is less to lose when we are considering cleaning the house but there is a lot to lose when we are about to do something we are passionate about.

Another thing that I can relate too is that it seems like you might be putting a lot of pressure on yourself and that this might be getting in the way. For instance, I've had my symptoms for 19 years every time I exercise and the only exception to this was when I tried meditation and self soothing 6 weeks ago. This took away the fear and so the "bell" couldn't be rung. After experiencing this I had huge improvement and got very gung ho about curing myself.

This caused a lot of pressure though because for all of these years there's been nothing I really believed could help and many years when I just excepted these limitations but all of a sudden it was all in my hands, which created a lot of pressure. There is also so much conflicting information on how to treat TMS that that caused tension because I wasn't sure what was best for me. Yesterday, with severe symptoms and feeling hopeless I had a huge meltdown about this but also became aware of how much I was pressuring myself and frantically flitting between books, treatment approaches, etc. So I am trying to slow down and see if I can rid of the anxiety about healing.

Do you think you might be putting too much pressure on yourself consciously or unconsciously? I'd like to hear what some of the veterans have to say about this issue.

 

Hi Jules,

I absolutely understand your frustration. My journey is also 5+ years and still going on even with successes but at this point i am fully aware this healing is not a competion.
You seem happy with being a writer and i am sure you know deep down inside this is true or not. If you are : i noticed you do not explain about the job : did you like it there ? The people ?
And also : you seem highly driven to be succesfull, i get that. this is one of my problem areas too . But : There must be some balance. If you are on the mission to be succesfull, and also in pain and very driven’ to fix it all : Well its hard in that situation to
have some balance isn’t it ? I mean : time to relax , time to also have some fun. For a long time i thought : Well i will have fun again after this is all fixed. Now i know this was wrong : you must do both. And if you allow yourself to also have that (Yes even with pain !) you create some space for yourself, to live a little more and from there its better to move forward.

 

What an important point you make Karinabrown! And I guess also important for Jules. I also thought I first shall fix everything and then I will have fun. Turns out that I don't have fun at all if I follow this recipe. So, I had to learn that it actually is the other way round, you need to have joy and fun in your life, and then you heal. Otherwise there is no balance, especially if you are ambitious with your work.

 

I have been struggling with issues similar to yours, Jules, for nearly nine years; I just learned about TMS and Dr. Sarno last June. At first, I thought, "Great! I'll be done with this TMS nonsense by July". Then August, September... now in January, I feel pretty crappy a lot of the time. I recently had a visit with a doctor, not a TMS dr. because there aren't any near me, but an osteopath who is very open to mind body 'stuff'. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something structurally wrong with me, as I had a mishap around Thanksgiving and I thought it damaged me in some way. Nope, it's just TMS and as you put it, The Elephant in the Room.

There's something I'm not seeing/dealing with/understanding and I know that when I do, this nasty patch I am in will dissolve and I will happily go on with my life. But it really, really sucks being in the midst of it.

I love your description of your subconscious putting her hands over her ears on not hearing the truth, that there is nothing structurally wrong with you. Mine is being a bratty b*tch right now, doing the same thing. Enough already!

 

Thanks for your response Cricket. I know it’s not necessarily job related, because I’ve had this pain for nearly 20 years. I do feel like that has a lot to do with the birth of my last child, which came with it horrible complications that almost ended my life, and could have ended hers. For some reason, I either have not been able to complete the process of forgiving my doctor or maybe even myself, and maybe even my daughter, for what happened. You see, I went into labor with her 6 weekd early. 42 hours later, I gave birth to her, only to have my uterus rupture into my bladder, which created a whole host of problems, including needing a blood transfusion and a hysterectomy, as well as bladder repair surgery. All in all, the recovery took months. It seemed about three months after she was born, is when the chronic pain began. It’s started to hit my ribs, with costochondritis, and major muscle spasms that would bring me to tears, and make it so I couldn’t hardly even breathe.

Next, I had horrific pelvic pain for years, and the year after she was born, I had to have with scar tissue removal surgery, because so mich had attached to everything, it seemed. Then, my hip started hurting and spasming, then my neck started getting tense and I started getting headaches, then it’s just snowballed into RSI off and on, for about four years, as well as tendinitis, thoracic outlet syndrome, and a number of other things. Being on the computer has definitely had its problems. I started writing about a year after her birth, and my first book was about mental illness. After that, I did freelance for 18 years, until I got a real job just this past May. After that, it seemed that RSI was constantly bothering me, as well as the topics I was writing for, and the environment. It was always cold in the building, the software we used had glitches all the time, it was very slow, and the department I was in, was a lot of stress to get things done, with not enough people working.

Anyway, I have another interview for ride position that has a lot less responsibility, better hours, and is very close to my home. I figure if I can get to the bottom of these triggers, that when I go back to work, typing will not be one of them. I do hope that I can find a doctor that will be of help. I got a hold of Dr. Schubiner but I understand that he is not doing consultations anymore.

At this point, I am just hoping it’s a mouse persisting and not an elephant.

 

Oh I understand about waiting for the future to have fun. I decided that I was not going to let TMS suck the fun out of my life. While doing this work, I have gone on cruises, road trips, theme parks, we painted our whole house, have done exercise, writing a lot, pretty much anything anybody else would do. I, just like everybody here, just wants healing to occur, so there is not having to battle this inner demon; yes it’s a protector, but it’s kind of like a avenging angel.

 

Fear has been my catalyst for triggers, for a very long time. It was just last year, where I finally had to constantly tell myself that I was not fearful of the pain, like dozens of times a day. It worked for a while, until another TMS symptoms appeared, which brought the fear back big time. Some of this was because of a frozen shoulder that I literally could not get over my head or behind my back, and was spasming so hard, I was in tears. It’s hard not to be fearful of something that has taken a hold of you.

I’ve been told by my husband numerous times to be patient. I have learned a lot of patience over the years, but after 20 years of pain, I’m really getting tired of being patient. I have done everything that Dr. Sarno told me to do. I got so obsessed with healing, but I didn’t realize it was another manifestation of my perfectionist personality. I now will be consistent, and do things anyway. I’ve just come to the conclusion that my healing is going to take longer than the average Joe’s. I have a lot of traumatic events happen as a child, and as an adult; because of that, there may be some things that will take longer than others to process and forgive.

Thanks for the comment. We CAN do this!!

 

Hi Jules ,

Read your comment and you had some very rough things happen to you.
Great that you had the spirit to get past so many things already !

What i noticed that you mentioned : its hard not to be scared ‘when something has a hold on you ‘ : i have exact the same thing but now try to use outcome independece on that one : its not maybe the way outcome independence is suppost to be practiced ? (The ‘seniors here hopefully can reply on that )
But i came to the point that i was tired of fighting stuff like fear etc : so (and i had the @&€ shoulder
too) so now i think its natural to get scared when you already know what pain and limitation can do ; so not battle the fear. I try to go on as best i can and admit i have fear. I journall about the fear once a day. See if somehow accepting ‘negative ‘ emotions and start seeing these more as normal emotions instead of bad.
See : if you tell me you are scared : i think that perfectly normal : when i feel scared : i think i have to stop doing that because its weak , bad etc. There’s food for thought ...

 

Hi Cricket,
I joined this site about the same time you did. My issues are related to hip, back, shoulders mostly. I DO have structural damage BUT as Sarno has written, as well as others, the damage I have is NOT causing my pain, but my mind is creating pain signals around the sites of my known ailments to distract me from my own fears/anger, etc. My problem in letting go of the pain is still in my mind, but sometimes the persistence of the pain creates a wee doubt. This is what I am working on. Doubt begone!

Lainey

 

Hi Lainey,

I recently, well, right before Thanksgiving, did some damage to myself by moving my washing machine while it was running a full load. I panicked because my cat was behind the appliances and I'd already to had replace the flexible pipe they use for the dryer exhaust. Instead of waiting for someone to help, I just moved it. Since then, I've experienced a cascading series of shoulder, neck, back and hip pain. It seems to be getting worse. Right before Christmas, I moved a few boxes and that trebled the agony.

Before this, I would say I was 80-85% pain free. I know I can get there again but right now it feels like I'm walking through the valley of death. I actually went to a doctor to make sure I didn't have something structural going on. She is not a TMS physician but is very open to TMS theory.

Why my subconscious latched onto these events and ramped up my pain symptoms, I don't know. I wish I did, because then I would be able to overcome it.

Yes, the persistence of the pain creates doubts. I'm trying very hard to not panic and look at the positives - it moves around for instance, sometimes is gone completely. And some other unpleasant symptoms I used to have are gone. I know that this TMS can be healed. But it's really really really frustrating when it seems to go on forever.

 

Cricket
Agreed, frustration added to frustration. As a lifelong cat owner I understand the situations they often put their humans in. Hope your pain subsides soon.
Lainey

 

Thank you, Lainey. I hope yours does too.

 

Maybe I am mistaken, but the TMS approach is about psychosomatic pain. Chricket, your pain from moving a washing machine or putting boxes down might be a normal reaction to it, it will subside in due time. The more you think about it and focus about it, the longer it will take. I also have pain in the back and the buttock after gardening a lot. It vanishes after one or two days. And then I sometimes have backpain from the ileosacral joint. That usually takes some days, I do some exercises and after four or five days it is gone. Before I knew about TMS I started to worry and then I got anxious and I might even go to the osteopath. The anxiety and worry prolongs the process for me.

 

@Time2be, What has happened with me is that actual pain or soreness from overexertion turns into agonizing pain that worsens over time. Not the typical response to exercise or physical work. TMS latches onto anything it can get its grubby paws on...

 

Yep, and THAT’s the key: if it can convince you that activity is what’s REALLY causing the pain, it will continue to use the trick. When you basically say “Ah, f*** it, I’m doing it anyway,” and then don’t fear the pain, knowing that yes, it will come, but that it will also go away, I believe is the important part of healing. I started out slow, so my nervous system had time to get used to the activity, since TMSers typically hate change, and then act as if you are completely normal.(yeah, hard to do, but necessary)

 

Jules, Yep, I went from 0 - 60 with little adjustment period for my nervous system. It's a b*tch.

 

Yes i agree on this. This fear of getting normal muscle soreness is crazy. Long time ago before i had pain and long before i heard of tms : i never thought about pain from carying things or a new exersize : i knew it was normal to have that a couple of days : and it went away.
Now i am a drama queen of every little muscle thing , its nuts