What else is there - Seriously

Thanks for writing this. Sometimes I feel like people are saying that to end the pain I've got to reach nirvana. I didn't sign up for nirvana. (Again, please don't take this to mean I'm dismissing the possibility of concepts like "acceptance" being helpful). I can't help but remember that Sarno said that you don't have to overhaul your life, restructure your personality, attain enlightenment to end the pain. But then again, Sarno's simpler prescription did not work for me either so I don't know. Honestly I don't think we're even still dealing with Sarno's theory ... I know everyone will says 'the theory has just evolved as we've learned more about how the brain works, etc but that we're still operating off his basic premise) ... I don't think so. The only common denominator seems to be the belief that the pain is not reflective of a structural problem. But all this ACT, CBT, mindfulness, neural pathway pain, physical manifestation of anxiety, etc is really not what Sarno said. That's fine - Sarno is no infallible deity. I sometimes just wish we could acknowledge that this "theory" is helter skelter all over the place and there's a lot we just don't know.

 

I love that! I feel the same way a lot of the time. First of all, I'm Catholic, so that doesn't quite work

 

What you're saying is basically Buddhism. I get that. You may be entirely right. I meditated for > 2 hours every single day for about 5 years. Silent retreats, the whole nine yards. I finally had to admit that it was making me feel worse, and I was no more accepting of the pain for all that practice. Now you may say that's because I wasn't practicing in the right way, using right mind, or that if the aim was to rid myself of pain then I didn't really understand mindfulness etc. I know. I get it. I do. That's all probably true. But believe me I was aware of and working with all that stuff throughout the 5+ years too. And again I'm still not ruling any of this out. I'm just making it clear where I've been and where I'm at ... damned defeated.

 

Lol well the Buddhists will say you can be a Catholic and a Buddhist but I'm not sure what the Catholics say about that

 

This may be something and I'm giving it some thought. That's all I can say right now. Thanks for writing

 

Thank you so much for not dismissing my reply. That means a lot to me.

One other thought I had... I've used the Curable app some. It's okay and can be helpful. But the one lecture that REALLY got my attention, and I've listened to it over and over, is called, "What does the pain mean to you?" That really got to me. I've got to run and can't say more at the moment, but wanted to throw that in the pot.

 

Inherent in both science and spirituality is MYSTERY. Some people believe medicine and doctors as if it were a religion. There is far more that the medical world and science still does not know than what they do know. Having belief or faith in something larger than yourself is not necessarily dogma either. Human psychology and belief and motivation and emotions like love are not things that can be measured or "proven" in a cause and effect way. As I stated before, sometimes people use science as a defense mechanism to defend suffering. If everyone used science for every decision in life no one would take leaps of faith to get married or have children for example. With TMS, what does one have to lose by choosing to believe?? Worst case scenario is nothing happens and best case scenario is one gets better. If I had a nickel for every misdiagnosis and misinformation I was given by "experts" in medicine and autism (un the case of my son) I would be a millionaire by now. There is a great deal of research coming out now in the fields of neuroscience so if that helps a person's belief they can refer to many of the books listed on the wiki.

 

Nothing at all is lost by choosing to believe. Lots of people have done so and have experienced relief, and I don't want to discount that.

But I think this thread is for people who have already chosen to believe — sometimes for years — and have experienced your worst case scenario; nothing has happened. I think in that case it's kinder to acknowledge to them that, like everything else, TMS isn't a panacea. Sometimes the pain isn't TMS. This gives them the freedom and permission to move on from it when it's not helping, because otherwise they (and I) will torment themselves about "not doing it right." The problem with that way of thinking is that there's absolutely no way to tell the difference between "it's TMS but I didn't accept hard enough" and "it's not TMS." If TMS cannot possibly be excluded — if everything is TMS — then it cannot be real.

 

I totally get how pain makes life miserable but what I had to learn was to become indifferent towards the symptoms and sensations (which were actually quite horrendous ....burning, stabbing, electrical pain, shooting, vascular type throbbing, neuropathy from hell and even visuals...swelling, redness, temp changes etc). This was a process and it took a lot of practice to become indifferent and maintain a mindset of outcome independence. It was one of the most, if not THE most important things I had to do though. The other huge issue for me was my life. I was miserable in my life way before I had pain. People think if their pain went away, their life would be great but the opposite is true. If they had been at peace with their life and content in all aspects , the anxiety would not have manifested as TMS (chronic pain).

 

I think if a person finds themselves in that state of mind then by all means, throw tms out the window. As long as one lives their life and stops thinking about the symptoms and all this crap (whether is physical or psychological), they will get better. Basically stop trying. If everything physical has been ruled out, one may as well forget about the whole thing. Decide there's nothing wrong with you. This can be done and has been done by many people even before there was a term called TMS. Belief is a decision. There was a president (can't find the quote and can't remember who) but he was having neck and shoulder pain and at a certain point he literally said "I just decided there's nothing wrong with me".

 

I think he’s saying when that doesn’t work. “Deciding there’s nothing wrong with you” and “forgetting about the whole thing” and “living your life” is (one variety of) the TMS prescription. But when that doesn’t work? Keep trying for another 8 years? 20 years?

 

I chose to believe TMS was the explanation for my symptoms a long long time ago and threw everything else out the window. I had nothing to lose and I got your worst case scenario - nothing happened.

 

Yes. A lot of what I discovered is rooted in Buddhism. When did the original Buddha become enlightened 2600 years ago? When he stopped trying.

I wish I could say it all more succinctly, but I’m at a loss for the words.

Lean into the defeat. Feel that emotion and what it’s all about.

It’s an internal surrender to what reality really is and an understanding that what YOU experience is clouded by bias from your ego, or use the word subconscious if you like. That surrender is freedom from everything you worry about. Worrying can simply no longer make any logical sense. That can become more and more your normal. Some people have a hard break and that becomes their new normal instantly.

You gotta be unbelievably honest with yourself. You get to the point that you could be in an argument with someone that got heated, but the moment you saw proof you were incorrect, you’d immediately admit to it. For most people that’s too damaging to their pride, and that pride is a key source to all suffering, which will induce TMS.

Turn the suffering into motivation. Not to not have to deal with pain. That may just be reality for the rest of your years. A hard life. Ok. Where should I focus now? Choose your inner state and mental health improvement as priority one. Magically the pain disappears and oddly seems like it was never important to begin with.

 

But if one think the same thoughts every single day and focuses on the symptoms day in day out nothing changes. These chronic, habitual thought patterns can be so ingrained we don't realize. Think the same thoughts, get the same results. As Tms Joe said you "have to be unbelievably honest with yourself". Can you honestly say you don't think the same thoughts every day , day in day out, over and over and over?

 

It sounds so appealing to me, it does. Which is why I started meditating in the first place and why one of the first therapies I tried was “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)” (which is basically just a mindfulness based behavioral approach). I appreciate you trying to convey what words can’t really capture. I’m genuinely not sure how to pursue this line any further though. I recently tried picking up meditation again and had to put it back down. It’s one of the surest ways to get me in a suicidal state. Some gurus have emphasized to me that that’s just more sign that I need to keep going or even that it’s evidence of getting somewhere. I stuck with it for a long time. Looking back it was not safe. I shouldn’t have listened to those folks. I was torturing myself.

It seems a lot of people get better w/o this level of coming to terms with suffering. Can it really be this hard?

 

Yes I can honestly say that I have not been thinking the same negative thoughts day in day out for all these years. I think you’re assuming I must have been because I didn’t get better, and if I didn’t get better it must be because I didn’t really change because for you everyone can get better. If I had changed I would have gotten better. But that’s assuming a lot. I’ve tried a lot of things and changed a lot of things. It just didn’t make any difference to the pain. A lot of this has been done under the direct guidance of the TMS therapists you’ve all heard of. I’ve given this my all. Nothing happened.

 

I'm not assuming that at all "because you didn't get better". I'll just leave it at that.

 

I suppose you’re alluding to the fact that we’ve talked personally and so you’ve witnessed my negative thought patterns first-hand. That’s fine, you don’t have to be circumspect about that. Not for my sake anyways.

I’ll just say that I wasn’t this negative after 1, 2 ... 5 years of trying this stuff. But 8 years? Who wouldn’t be dejected? Who wouldn’t be wondering if this is really the right approach? We here all think chiropractors aren’t really addressing the cause of pain ... but what if someone told you you just need to keep trying the chiropractor for 8, 10 years. Is that reasonable?

 

Is it reasonable to you?

What would the validation of the TMS community mean to you? I don't mean that rhetorically; I mean it literally. How would it feel?

 

I'm definitely not telling you to keep trying the TMS approach. Actually what I'm saying is stop trying. Let it go. Give up the fight with yourself. I'm not here to sell you on an approach. It has worked for millions of people but at this point you need to forget about it. By focusing on pain that is somatized anxiety (and has been ruled out structurally by many experts), you are wasting your life. How do you want to live the rest of it then?