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What if I had a non-traumatizing childhood?

lucieG

lucieG

Peer Supporter
I've had sciatica issues for 6 months (pain in lower back, left hip, left buttock, left leg, radiating down to my left ankle). X-rays suggest nothing beyond wear consistent with my age (52). Working is physical work outdoors and I have been able to keep doing most of it. Resting (sitting or lying down) is when I experience the pain mostly.

I stumbled upon the TMS concept two weeks or so ago. I saw some improvement after I read Dr. Sarno's The Mindbody Prescription and started talking to my brain. And maybe it's because I was enjoying a bit of a break from outdoor work until a big ice storm hit our region.

I had big pain flare-ups the last few days. I might have overdone it outside trying to clear the trees and limbs that came down in the ice storm we just experienced. Or my mind is playing tricks and just trying to prove to me I am confused about the source of the pain. In part because I feel imposter syndrome maybe? I had a good childhood (I keep digging there but I don't see much) and I can't identify any major trauma there. Growing up, I always marveled at how lucky I was.

I think my adult life has been much tougher than my childhood. But will working on "just" that help alleviate the symptoms? Thanks for your thoughts and ideas! I am enjoying the strength I sense in this forum.
 
Any traumatic experience, from the childhood or adulthood, can trigger chronic pain. Sarno was mostly relying on Freud and his theory of childhood trauma, but neuroscience since had made enormous progress and those concepts, while still true in some cases, were expanded to other experiences. I spent few months digging into my past experiences and was not able to identify those specific few events that triggered my condition. I concluded that it was a constant drip of smaller stressful events, multiplied by my extra sensitive nervous system, that broke the camel's back. I started meditating and being very mindful about how I respond to the stressors of life - and that worked like a charm!
 
Hi @lucieG and welcome! I had an excellent childhood, with no trauma, but I think I had anxiety from birth (maybe before). It was doing this work (the Structured Educational Program) that allowed me to piece together clues and conversations from long ago and realize that my mother - who never appeared to me to be anxious - was experiencing extreme anxiety while pregnant with me, having been married for three years, approaching age 30, and with a miscarriage before I finally arrived. She also had no experience with small children having been an only child raised in English boarding schools. I had my parents to myself for almost 2 years and then three more kids came along, resulting in several years of isolation when I was about 4 to 8 years or so, and that affected me as well. My lifelong TMS symptoms came and went for decades without severely impacting my life, until I turned 60 when multiple symptoms started piling on and reached a point where I was actually on the road to being housebound. Until I stumbled upon Dr Sarno and turned my life around. That was in 2011, 13 years ago, and it was the "rage of aging" that was the trigger. Unfortunately, the reality is that this doesn't get better with age, but even approaching 73, I'm better off today than I was in 2011.

Check out the SEP on the main tmswiki.org home page - it's free and doesn't require any kind of registration. Feel free to check out the list of resources I've compiled on my profile page.

There is an essential element to doing this work, which is being willing to be emotionally vulnerable. That's a tough call for most of us, because our TMS brains are incredibly resistant to it, but it's what led to my recovery.
 
TG957 said:
I started meditating and being very mindful about how I respond to the stressors of life - and that worked like a charm!
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and what worked for you, @TG957. I love the idea of meditating but have had limited experience/limited success. Any tips on where to start? :)
 
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JanAtheCPA said:
I think I had anxiety from birth (maybe before). It was doing this work (the Structured Educational Program) that allowed me to piece together clues and conversations from long ago and realize that my mother - who never appeared to me to be anxious - was experiencing extreme anxiety while pregnant with me, having been married for three years, approaching age 30, and with a miscarriage before I finally arrived. She also had no experience with small children having been an only child raised in English boarding schools.
Click to expand...

Thank you, @JanAtheCPA. Your history and discovery are fascinating. I am re-reading your answer for the third time and there is a lot here for me to think about.

JanAtheCPA said:
That was in 2011, 13 years ago, and it was the "rage of aging" that was the trigger. Unfortunately, the reality is that this doesn't get better with age, but even approaching 73, I'm better off today than I was in 2011.
Click to expand...

I hear you about the "rage of aging". I've been suffering from this for sure! I will examine that.

JanAtheCPA said:
Check out the SEP on the main tmswiki.org home page - it's free and doesn't require any kind of registration. Feel free to check out the list of resources I've compiled on my profile page.
Click to expand...

I absolutely will. Thank you for pointing me where I can do more reading and research. :-)
 
Thank you to all who responded here. What a wealth of support and thoughts I have received from you.
 
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Start with one minute.
Our challenges with sitting quietly with ourselves are often anxiety, and tolerance of ourselves. Basically what people describe as accepting yourself.
You just start small.
Maybe three deep breaths and I minute with your eyes closed.
That is where it started with me.
My ability to sit and length of meditation times wax and wane. Every time I can be alone with myself is a success.
If you don’t like it, experiment with breath work or sitting quietly in nature or going for a solitary walk.
All you are doing is learning to separate from your thoughts and chilling out the nervous system.
 
lucieG said:
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and what worked for you, @TG957. I love the idea of meditating but have had limited experience/limited success. Any tips on where to start? :)
Click to expand...
I quickly learned that meditation techniques developed by healthy people may not work for chronic pain. My meditation regimen was more intense. Everything I know about meditation is in my recovery story I published.
https://www.amazon.com/Defying-Verd...n+book&qid=1706012277&sprefix=,aps,601&sr=8-1
 
JanAtheCPA said:
Hey, @Cactusflower, how about the Healthy Minds app you found last year? Affiliated with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, it's still going strong and still free and I think it's a really nice educational tool for meditation.
https://hminnovations.org/ (Healthy Minds Innovations | Science-Based Program & App for a Healthier Mind)
Click to expand...
True!
This teaches you the basic skills and recognizing what is “normal” or what to expect.
I thought I was doing it “wrong” but a few lessons on this app taught me all is normal.
Right now I’m in a period when I fall asleep meditating. again, it’s not uncommon. It is a form of resistance the same as wanting to get up and leave..a mind/body tactic of the mind to avoid being with myself. I simply shortened my sitting times for now and smile at my brain for its creativity.. and keep on practicing.
 
lucieG said:
Ordered!
Click to expand...
Feel free to ask questions if you have any. You can also check out the website @miffybunny and I created. It is dedicated to a specific diagnosis of CRPS, but everything there applies equally to any TMS diagnosis. Each of our blogs has a new entry every other month.
 
Cactusflower said:
True!
This teaches you the basic skills and recognizing what is “normal” or what to expect.
I thought I was doing it “wrong” but a few lessons on this app taught me all is normal.
Right now I’m in a period when I fall asleep meditating. again, it’s not uncommon. It is a form of resistance the same as wanting to get up and leave..a mind/body tactic of the mind to avoid being with myself. I simply shortened my sitting times for now and smile at my brain for its creativity.. and keep on practicing.
Click to expand...
As a veteran insomniac, I view sleep as a way for the brain to rest and get rid of negative junk it accumulates. I usually welcome every minute of sleep I would get!
 
TG957 said:
As a veteran insomniac, I view sleep as a way for the brain to rest and get rid of negative junk it accumulates. I usually welcome every minute of sleep I would get!
Click to expand...

Pretty much exactly what my EMDR therapist said. When asleep your brain is pretty much processing everything, but I know the difference now between needing sleep and avoiding being alone with myself. The key is not to get anxious over it, if I fall asleep I usually wake up with the gong on my guided meditations, and if I have been able to relax some, extra bonus. My TMS brain will grasp onto anything I think is a "problem" so, no problem! And if I don't sleep well later because of a few extra winks in the day, I just put my earbuds in and listen to another meditation, meditative music or an audio book.
The key is not to sweat any of it, something @TG957 's book taught me!
 
Cactusflower said:
Pretty much exactly what my EMDR therapist said. When asleep your brain is pretty much processing everything, but I know the difference now between needing sleep and avoiding being alone with myself. The key is not to get anxious over it, if I fall asleep I usually wake up with the gong on my guided meditations, and if I have been able to relax some, extra bonus. My TMS brain will grasp onto anything I think is a "problem" so, no problem! And if I don't sleep well later because of a few extra winks in the day, I just put my earbuds in and listen to another meditation, meditative music or an audio book.
The key is not to sweat any of it, something @TG957 's book taught me!
Click to expand...
Thank you, @Cactusflower ! Another totally weird thing about sleep and meditation. There are days when I don't sleep well, feel very tired and warn out. Then I sit down and meditate for 40-60 minutes, not sleeping at all. But when I am done meditating, I feel refreshed and full of energy, as if I had couple hours of sleep. Catching a nap for the same duration does not refresh me as much as meditation! Go figure!
 
@TG957
I mentioned your book (which she bought) and your meditation to my EMDR therapist. EMDR is though to work similarly to REM sleep - and that eye movements (it’s found to also work just by stimulating left and right sides of body) is the physical process of our brains processing information. I wonder if this is true?
I’m curious if when you meditate for long periods if the body has something it does in the same way?
I still don’t even know if EMDR truly works as they think it does or if the psychological suggestion of how it works makes the mind believe it works!

Not important, just a curiosity.
 
Cactusflower said:
@TG957
I mentioned your book (which she bought) and your meditation to my EMDR therapist. EMDR is though to work similarly to REM sleep - and that eye movements (it’s found to also work just by stimulating left and right sides of body) is the physical process of our brains processing information. I wonder if this is true?
I’m curious if when you meditate for long periods if the body has something it does in the same way?
I still don’t even know if EMDR truly works as they think it does or if the psychological suggestion of how it works makes the mind believe it works!

Not important, just a curiosity.
Click to expand...

I have never tried EMDR myself, but I read some raving reviews about results that other people achieved. The entire interplay between the brain and biomechanics of the body is so complex that neuroscience is still trying to figure it out, so us, lay people, should only scratch our heads and try whatever works :=). I read a wonderful book Cure (recommended by our very own @Duggit ) about the power of placebo, and it only reaffirmed my belief that our minds can create a virtual reality so intense, it can make substantial physiological impact on the body.

When I just began experimenting with meditation, I read somewhere that meditation should be at least 20 minutes, and it led me to my discovery of a 10-15 minute transition period (I call it a surf break) when the brain finally is able to switch off the racing thoughts and get into those quiet waters. Once you get past that surf break, you are in a true meditation state, and healing begins. The time to get into that state depends on the mental state I am in, the degree of anxiety I am in, the level of external distraction, and varies now from 5 to 15 minutes. This is why I do not believe that short meditations can start the healing process. Only after I was able to meditate for 45+ minutes I started seeing reduction in symptoms.
 
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