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Update During Educational Program

C

CrabDiver

New Member
Hey everyone,

Some may remember I posted a few weeks ago about where I was at. I wasn't a book cure unfortunately, but my back pain definitely changed as I read the book in strange ways. The program is telling me now is about the time to get an update, so here I am.

When I first started reading Sarno, I couldn't get out of bed without uncontrollable back spasms. Took an MRI and found a herniated disc.

Nowadays, I'm walking a lot again (hours each day since I live in a European city with no car) and have been able to do my job much easier than several weeks back. Here are some victories that I would like to share:
  • I walk for hours everyday with minimal or no pain in my back
  • I have continued doing house chores that involve kneeling, bending over, or hunching over with minimal to no pain
  • I have continued to do physical therapy, but I'm framing it as a way to prove to myself I can move my body and that I'm healthy, rather than framing it as a necessity for a broken body.
  • I took a trip to a nearby town! Sitting in the car and having no place to lie down has been a constant trigger, but I was able to last week which was encouraging!

Quick story about the trip. Most of my back spasms have started during or directly after a trip, so for months I've stayed put. However, I decided I was feeling better enough to take a short day trip - just about an hour away by car and back again. I was feeling confident, but when I got the text that my friend's car was ready outside, I began shaking like a leaf. I was suddenly terrified of getting in the car. My legs were shaking out the door, and I could barely lift them to get in. It made me realize I was dealing with a very real phobia. I recently read The Way Out by Alan Gordon, so in the car I just practiced mindfulness and telling my brain that I was in a safe situation. And I overcame it. This moment really helped solidify that it's not necessarily something inherently wrong, but that I am very afraid of the pain which primes me to detect any sensation as pain.

Here are some things I'm still working through:
  • Planning a big trip back to the US for the summer and looking at jobs. I'm very fearful of anything that involves usage of my back - trying to bust through that fear
  • Mornings are still difficult for me. When I wake up I feel stiff and get worried I will have back spasms, so inevitably, I immediately hurt almost every morning for an hour or two. And sometimes do have tiny spasms that, thankfully, haven't yet turned into a spasm attack. It's hard to regulate fear thoughts or concern right when my alarm starts to ring. So I would appreciate any advice on that.
  • Benches, stools, and wooden chairs are still very difficult for me to use. Despite telling myself I'm safe, within 15 minutes or so, my back starts to ache.

And that's about it. Thank you for reading, for anyone who does. If anyone has encouragement, reassurance that this is the right path, or advice about what I'm still working through, I would be very appreciate. I haven't commented much because I'm still learning, but I'm reading a lot of what you guys say and am absorbing some of the info here. Thanks guys!
 
Thanks a lot for your update. it sounds like you are doing pretty well which is really great. i am sure that if you continue the work, your remaining issues will disappear as well. by the way, it is great to see somebody else from Europe here!
 
CrabDiver said:
If anyone has encouragement, reassurance that this is the right path, or advice about what I'm still working through, I would be very appreciate.
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Hi, @CrabDiver
You are doing great! You faced your fear and didn’t let it stop you. This takes amazing bravery! And every time you do something anyway, you are telling your TMS brain that you want your life back. I’m starting to believe this is the only way to win.

I have a lot of debilitating symptoms— not backaches like you— but similar reactions from my body. The fear and panic, the dread of doing things, feeling trapped and hopeless. Lately I started to do a little exercise program. I’m somewhat housebound. I was afraid to do the exercises because I thought they would make me worse. I thought my TMS would make me pay. It did make me pay a little bit. I got some pain. But I was determined I didn’t care what would happen. I just want to get free. And now it’s turning out for me. I’m feeling stronger and better and I’m also telling my TMS brain that I’m not going to live like this anymore.

You asked for encouragement and advice, and I would give you this— you are 100% on the right track! Keep doing things! If something is scary to you, that’s the thing you should do. And, while you are doing it, don’t be victimized. Instead, you be the aggressor. Pretend like it’s a battle between you and your TMS brain. And you are fighting to the death. How hard would you fight?

I think pain is such a prison. It’s a mental prison more than anything else. You start to believe that you can’t do anything and that your life is going to stay small. You give up your dreams. I’m starting to realize I need to dream much bigger. And I need to defy all odds and do these things anyway no matter how much pain I’m in—even if I pass out from pain, or faint from panic, or embarrass myself in public. Aren’t these honestly small prices to pay for freedom?

You are already brave! I’m very impressed by what you’re doing— and inspired! Keep it up, brother! You’ll get free!

Here’s a good quote for you by John Sarno in The MindBody Prescription.(Such a great book, by the way! Start on page 139.)

“Fear is better than pain as a distractor. We must prove to our brains that we know what is going on, that we are not misled and, above all, that we are not intimidated or afraid. This is a contest, between our logical conscious and our irrational unconscious. It is truly a tale of two minds.”
 
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Diana-M said:
@CrabDiver
How are you doing now?
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Thanks for asking, that's kind of you! Since my post, I'd say I've taken a downturn in some ways but I'm not feeling totally defeated or anything yet.

I had a very up-and-down few weeks like never before. Pain was fluctuating from a 3 to a 8 from hour to hour. I started to notice patterns - worse in the morning, worse when going to bed (my bed in general is a trigger), worse when alone, better with friends, etc.. I've learned a few things, which I'm still in the process of figuring out:

1. I need to learn how to wake up without being terrified. The majority of my intense week-long muscle spasms that leave me crippled have come on in the morning. I'll wake up with them. This means that nowadays, when I wake up, I'm on high alert. Sometimes it takes me 15 minutes before I can work up the courage to try standing despite my fear and anxiety. I'm sure it can't be good waking up with my nervous system on high alert like that.

2. Journaling is good, but it's not the goal. I've done the 6 week SEP, but I realized I sat down to "do the work" in order to fix. Not to explore, but to fix. I certainly explored and have learned things about myself, but with the goal to fix, I feel as if I did not get very far with the program in that sense. Again, good thinking and working through some past experiences for the first time, but I can't say it was a flying success for my back pain. And I think that has to do with my "fixing" mentality.

3. My symptoms primarily come from pressure I place on myself. I'm still exploring this idea, so this takes some explaining, if you don't mind.

I took a daytrip last week. I told myself I was going to be okay. I did some relaxing activities beforehand. I did everything I knew how to in order to be prepared. The trip was fun, but I was also in pretty bad pain for most of the time. I even took a quick minute break lying down on a sidewalk in the middle of the city to try and reset my back because I was feeling so desperate for relief. I felt like I failed.

Then, just this week, I woke up one morning and for the first time in awhile, I was not terrified. I got out of bed quickly and after a few steps, I felt the intense electric shock pain in my lower back. I immediately fell and was terrified. I took note of the first thing that went through my head: "I'm letting everybody down." I was worried about all my coworkers and my customers that were depending on me and expecting me that day. And my partner. We are needing to take another big trip involving an airplane ride this week, so my mind immediately jumped to that - imagining that I was going to be in bed with spasms for the whole week.

But the most fascinating thing happened. I could barely make it down the hallway, so I opened up my email and, after some stalling, I drafted an email to my boss telling her I was not going to make it that day. Instantly, the pain subsided. I didn't even send but I thought I was going to. It hit me then. I put extensive pressure on myself to be the best at my job, in my marriage, and so much more. Even being okay for a trip. Yes, I'm excited to go on trips. Yes, I do all the self-soothing exercises. But I also think deep down I HAVE to be okay or else I'm letting her down. And it's that pressure, I suspect, that is delaying my healing. This week, when I went to work, I did not feel 100%. But I went from feeling 8-9 out of 10 pain when I moved minutely to 3-4 pain. Huge improvement! And it happened right when I took the pressure off myself.

So now I'm trying to balance what it looks like to take pressure of myself while still being driven, proactive, and accomplished. Maybe you have some thoughts about all of this. Thank you for giving me a place to write out these recent thoughts and revelations. I'm hopeful right now that I've made a breakthrough this week after a few weeks of stalling and, in some ways, getting worse. I'm still a little worried about my trip this weekend, but trying to take as much pressure off as possible!
 
@CrabDiver

You are doing great! That intensity of pains, how it shifts makes no sense, right? So TMS-y!
I absolutely experienced your #’s 1-3
I got over #1 by using short meditations and “tapping” in the mornings and that helped so much! I could explore the psychological while distracting myself from some of the fear while doing the tapping. It might help you to explore some things that can help you deal with the nervous system during those times. After that I moved on to listening to audio books while getting up and ready. Distraction while acknowledging the fear..later I added some simple bed exercises to get movement in before getting up. I just tried to find some creativity while working on the fear.
 
@CrabDiver
Thanks for your update! I really appreciate all the things you are learning and sharing with us. You have a good way of absorbing all of this information and putting it together clearly. And even if you can’t see it— from here I can see that you’re moving toward healing. I’m so impressed by your willingness to do things that might cause you problems— you might end up lying down on the sidewalk!— but you do them anyway. I know this is what’s helping you.

I can totally relate to the feeling that you don’t want to let your wife down. you don’t want your TMS to get in the way of her happiness or you as a couple having fun. this is a horrendous amount of pressure! I don’t know any real way around it because all that could really fix it is if the TMS would go away, or if you and your spouse would completely ignore it together. (neither I, nor my spouse, can ignore it!)

I like how you writing the letter to your boss made you recognize your feelings of pressure and immediately lower your pain level. pretty cool discovery!

I have to tell you I was really blue this morning. you know one of those super anxious down and out mornings…. and then I checked the forum which I often do first thing in the morning. in here you had responded a month after I had written you one of my cheerful little peptalks. And it was as if I were speaking to myself from the past! it kind of pulled me out. it made me remember that I have hope.

Was it serendipity? a Godwink? whatever you wanna call it —an angel intervention. :) It was good to hear from you this morning! Your big brave healing steps are such an inspiration!
 
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This is great, @CrabDiver! Very illuminating description of the internal struggle between your rational brain and your irrational unconscious TMS mechanism - which is still convinced you're in imminent danger of being eaten by predators!

The reason your primitive brain mechanism thinks you're in danger is because that's the only way it knows how to interpret your stress response. It's a vicious cycle which you have so beautifully described.

I'm going to agree with you that your 6 weeks doing the SEP weren't wasted, because you clearly learned enough to have your TMS brain fighting back so intensely. I'm going to take a page from @Baseball65, and suggest that you keep a copy of Healing Back Pain near you and just read a short bit out of it every time you're feeling stressed out, to remind yourself of the truth of what Dr Sarno taught us. There's something about the way he writes that is very reassuring and soothing and deceptively simple.

As for how you're waking up in fear, a powerful tool is to do a very short meditation and visualization when you go to bed. You set your intention at bedtime that you can see yourself waking up in the morning without fear and without pain and ready to live up to everyone's expectations as you would like to do. This visualization truly doesn't need to be more than a few minutes, accompanied by deep vagus nerve breathing. And here's the really important thing to recognize, which is that your brain will resist! Try to talk back to your brain and say "it's okay, there's no danger out there and I'm perfectly safe".

Always remember that your fear is activating your body's normal physiological stress response, which tells your brain to go into protection mode so that you stay safely at home away from the predators. It's up to you to convince your brain that there are no predators!

It feels like you're right on the edge of being able to do this, and we're here pulling for you! I'm glad @Diana-M checked in with you!
 
JanAtheCPA said:
As for how you're waking up in fear, a powerful tool is to do a very short meditation and visualization when you go to bed. You set your intention at bedtime that you can see yourself waking up in the morning without fear and without pain and ready to live up to everyone's expectations as you would like to do. This visualization truly doesn't need to be more than a few minutes, accompanied by deep vagus nerve breathing. And here's the really important thing to recognize, which is that your brain will resist! Try to talk back to your brain and say "it's okay, there's no danger out there and I'm perfectly safe".
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Jan I have trouble in the morning too. I can’t wait to try this! Thank you!
 
@JanAtheCPA I will be trying this, too! Thank you! I wake up early each morning with anxious sensations. They are better than they used to be as each morning I take them as an opportunity to practice allowing. But this intention/visualization may help things along!

At times in my life writing these things out right before bed or in the middle of the night has been very helpful. 'I am safe, my children are safe, and I am a good sleeper. I will sleep peacefully all night and wake up comfortable." Etc.

Another thing when you can't get yourself to state an affirmation that you don't believe is to just consider what it would feel like if it were true. So instead of "I am pain-free each morning when I awaken" you can ask yourself "What if I were pain-free each morning...what would it feel like? What would I think? What would I do? What would I see/touch/hear/taste/smell in the morning?"

That seems to bypass the brain's defenses sometimes because you keep it in the conditional...but it still regulates your nervous system. My favorite for insomnia is "What if I were a great sleeper?"
 
Thank you guys for such amazing support on this forum. Haven't seen a group quite like it!

Quick update. I’m on the trip right now. Yesterday, I was absolutely ASTONISHED at how my back was doing. I worked on taking pressure off myself and caring for myself more. After a couple hours of walking, a train ride, metro ride, plane ride, bus ride, and a taxi ride, I got to my destination with hardly any pain. Some discomfort? Certainly. Sharp pain? None. It was certainly a first in months and months.

At the hotel I got really nervous. One of the most uncomfortable beds I’ve ever lied down in. This has been a known trigger for muscle spasms and acute pain for me. But I decided to take the pressure off again - accepting that there is a reality where I wake up with spasms and the world would still spin. And balancing that with care for myself and hoping for a positive outcome. I woke up with zero pain.


today I've walked for around 10 hours and sat in uncomfortable chairs for around 4 hourd in total. I had zero pain until the very end. We did a small night excursion and the pain really has hit for the past hour. I think the thoughts of "I'm almost there please just a little bit longer!" may have added some unnecessary pressure.
Still currently in a decent amount of pain (5 out of 10 maybe) but I just wanted to update on that and to use this almost as a journal entry to say that, despite the pain I'm feeling now, I cannot BELIEVE I walked so much (practically hiking for some of it) and I felt as good as I did for the vast majority of the day.


I'm hopeful for another great day here. Wish
me the best! And thanks for caring for a strangers experience, for anyone reading this.
 
@CrabDiver
Woohoo!!! I’m so glad to hear how amazing you are doing! And it sounds like despite your pain being at 5, you were able to LIVE and not be controlled by fear. Surely, this is going to crack open your jail cell. Your TMS brain will have to give up. Thank you so much for your bravery, and for giving us this report on your trip. I’m scheduled to take a trip in a week—the first in a long time. I hope I can follow your example. Don’t doubt yourself for one minute! You are winning! Congratulations!!!
 
Quick update.

The next day went pretty well! I took it easier because I let myself believe and know that, of course my back muscles are going to be sore. I've been babying and resting them for months, so this is the biggest workout they've gotten in a long time! So I let myself alter my activities somewhat in order to allow some rest to the muscles while also still being active. Still lots of walking that day. Mild pain sometimes, but I could ignore it pretty easily. Then, that evening, we had to go back - the whole train, bus, airplane, metro shebang. And although I was fairly uncomfortable on the plane seat in particular, I did quite well! I have to remind myself that even before these back spasms and TMS, even as a kid, my back would get sore easily. But I'm trying not to let myself interpret soreness as intense shooting pain.

I got home just fine and went to bed with no pain. And, for the first time in months being in my bed at home, I woke up with no pain either yesterday. Same thing today. However, a little bit of a setback: my back pain has returned a good bit worse than it was on my trip. I've heard of this phenomenon often on this forum - being pain-free during vacation and it coming back when you're at home. Despite some emotions and traits I've been working thru as part of the healing process, I'm somewhat stumped. I love my job here and my life and have had a couple days off too, so it's not like all my responsibilities have piled up. I don't feel stressed or sad about my situation here - I am actually feeling ready to be back from vacation-mode. So what could be the reason that my symptoms come back stronger after a trip? A bit of a mystery to me right now, but I'm trying my best to do all of the journaling and meditation that I've learned to see if I can uncover anything.

I'm also moreso on the brain pathway camp rather than the unconscious emotions camp (I believe it's a mixture, but brain pathways have been more helpful for me personally), so I'm also considering my house and life here might be a correlation trigger. The TMS started full-swing shortly after I moved into this flat, so I'm wondering if that may be it - a learned response.

Anyways, I just wanted to share. Thank you for everyone rooting for me. During my trip, I read your messages everyday to give myself motivation to envision myself being okay while also taking off the intense pressure I put on myself. So you guys have been incredibly helpful in my journey this week!
 
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