This is the biggest problem with the modern medical view as I see it. The focus is on the symptom, and stopping that symptom, by any means necessary. Rarely is environment considered. This is evidenced mostly by the fact that nutrition, which is a big part of the body's internal environment, is barely an afterthought in medical school. Only the very basics are required. If you want to learn how to heal a body, shouldn't the fuel the body is using be the first consideration?
But I digress, back to environment.
This is essentially what Sarno 'discovered' although it has been known in various ways for millennia. The body's internal, persistent environment is what allows dysfunction to persist in most cases. Substances, food, chemicals in the environment all contribute to the body's internal state. They are important, but in my personal experience with healing myself, and helping others to heal, the psychological/emotional states are the most critical.
This is where the idea of the emotional addictions come into play. I have plenty of info on how/why this happens, and if you'd like it, just DM me and I'll send it to you. But the details are beyond this discussion.
You said you've had anxiety and depression since your teens. I'd say the process that caused them was probably existing for quite some time before that period. Something gets the ball rolling, and eventually it surfaces. Like a cancer, it is found one day, but the environment that created it has usually been there for a long time before it starts growing.
In pain cases, the body is usually stuck in a state of tension, restricting blood flow to nerves, muscles, etc. The pain is therefore neuropathic, but the underlying environment is what keeps it going.
So now, I've written all this to lead up to this point, and I think this might the one thing you are missing. BTW I mean that in the most loving way possible, as I completely feel for you, having been there myself! If the environment is allowing the dysfunction to occur, and the mind/emotions contribute most of that input, how do we change that? For some people, reading Sarno's books was enough (this happened my first time). Again, I think healing occurs in these cases because people lose their stress/fear about the pain, thereby taking the body out of it's tense state (i.e. changing it's environment), and homeostasis can occur.
But other people like you and I, who have far deeper roots in this, it will require more. Some people can get help/healing from therapy, meditation, and any other technique you can can name, but when TMS reared it's head on me again several years ago in a far more severe form, none of those things helped, but now I know why. And reading all of your posts multiple times, I think this might be the case for you as well.
I wrongly assumed that if I read enough, convinced my subconscious enough, meditated enough, or anything like that enough, that my severe TMS symptoms would just go away. Understandable, considering my bad back pain went away at 23 years old after reading TMS books several times.
But for deep cases, that usually won't be a correct approach. I don't know how to say this other than to say that in order to change your internal environment (which should be your goal, and healing is just an effect of that), you have to change who you are as person, for a majority of the day.
It is the recurrent thoughts and feelings the produce the environment, and they need to change. The problem is we wait for the problem to be gone to change how we think and feel about it, or about anything for that matter.
So as TMS people, are taught to not focus on the pain, because it is a stress. And if we don't focus on that stress, the TMS should stop. But what very few people talk about is what are are thinking and feeling about ANYTHING the rest of the day.
So for example, I decide I'm not going to complain about my pain. Great! It still hurts, but I'm going to push through it, right? It'll just go away! But if I'm being aware of my own mind, am I complaining about something else now?
The thing you are complaining about DOESN'T MATTER. The complaint matters, because with it comes chemical releases, which skews the internal environemnet and feeds the cycle yet again.
Worry, fear, depression, anxiety...this list goes on. These feelings come with biochemical states that alter your perception of life in general. But we unconsciously habituate them, and end up thinking and feeling the same, over and over, without realizing we are doing it. The environment remains skewed, and the dysfunction persist. Then we wait to feel better, for our lives to change, our depression, pain, headaches or whatever to go away to feel differently about all of it. Or we sit in meditation, go to therapy, and feel good for a little while......until the old 'you', with all of its thoughts, feelings, and maladies resurfaces, so we immediately fall back into thinking, feeling, and being exactly the same. And it's groundhog day, over and over. We practice it unconsciously, over and over, and the dysfunction cements itself in.
To break this cycle requires 24 hour awareness. It is not a game, and can't be taken lightly. All familiar, shitty thoughts about your pain, your life, your diagnosis have to be thrown out. This is harder when you're smart, and as I noted before, I know you are
. But it's not impossible. Books, forums, counseling, meditation, etc can all help, but unless this is taken on daily as creating an entirely new state, it usually won't fix the problems.
I had a severe stress happen recently, and after years of being symptom free, had a minor TMS re-occurrence for a couple weeks, but got rid of it quickly doing exactly what I'm about to tell you, and I know it sounds very weird. But at this point, you've tried everything else, so why not give it a shot?
You can do this right now, or sit down in meditation to really get into it. But ultimately, you have to think and feel as clearly as possible as if you're pain free, anxiety free, or whatever you want to call it. What would that feel like? How would you think differently? Do that now, as if it already happened, and try to maintain that throughout the day. This will feel very weird, and not 'you'. But if it was familiar, that would mean you've done it before, and if that were the case, you can expect that same state of being.
Don't wait for the pain to be gone. Change the thoughts and feelings now, immediately, about EVERYTHING. Again the subject of the thoughts and feelings isn't important, it's the thoughts and feelings themselves that are important.
If I've lost anyone at this point, here is the simplest way to state this: Most of us are living reactively. Experiences happen in our lives that shape how we think and feel, and we think that's just 'who we are.' If we keep thinking and feeling things repeatedly, it functions like an addiction in the body. Our brain will try to keep us in the familiar state of being, even if it's awful, but it's only concerned about survival. If it knows what to expect, it has a better chance of keeping you alive. So it's invested in resisting change. But the same thoughts and feeling produces the same chemical releases over and over, which re-influence the thoughts. The 'hamster wheel' starts, and if nothing changes, nothing changes. We are taught from the time we are born to change the exterior (how we look, what type of things we own, etc) to change how we feel, but that is a losing game. Sooner or later, the 'you' resurfaces, and with it all it's physical and mental states.
Change yourself throughout the day, and you change the environment. If you meditate, go to therapy, or whatever, you will have a change for a little while. But most of the time, our typical way of thinking and feeling comes right back, and we are back at square one.
This is why this has to be taken on with all seriousness. You may not think about your pain, but if you're thinking and feeling stressful things the majority of the day, you will just keep yourself in that skewed internal environment, and nothing will change.
This is exactly what Hillbilly did, and exactly what I did to fix these problems. You have to make yourself anew, every day, in thought and feeling. Stop living reactively and start creating an entirely new state of being INDPENDENT of what is going on in your body, or in your environment. After that, it's repetition until it becomes who you are. No excuses, no wishy-washy, no 'but' or 'I can't' Create the new with ferocity. With an intention so firm that nothing will prevent it. And stop thinking so much (as Alan Watts liked to say 'sooner or later, all you have to think about are thoughts themselves, and where does that get you?)
And with that comes far greater physical and mental health, I assure you, because that is exactly what happened to me.
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