What if symptoms are not caused by anger or emotions?

[BloodMoon]

For me my symptoms just come when I do anything ambitious.

A new job, promotion at work, college course, a new challenging hobby, working two jobs etc

Those are literally the only times I get symptoms.

I find life boring, but the second I step out of that boredom, the symptoms come, my body shuts down and I can barely function.

It seems to me that the fact your symptoms are tied to specific situations, rather than being there all the time, could be something to build on. That doesn't make them any less real or difficult, of course, but it does suggest you have a symptom-free baseline to work from.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I've found that 'the work' has been to gradually do the things I want to do despite the symptoms. Not by throwing myself into something overwhelming like a new job, but by choosing challenges I can control, such as a hobby, and introducing them in small, manageable steps.

My own symptoms were extremely severe for many years—I was bedridden and housebound—so I know how hard it is to keep going when your brain is screaming at you to stop. But what has helped me is discovering that the symptoms don't have to make the decisions for me. The more I've been able to continue with meaningful activities, even in very small doses, the less threatening they've become.

I'm actually very similar to you in that anything new or challenging can trigger symptoms. But for me, avoiding those situations only reinforced the pattern. Gradually facing them, at a pace I could tolerate, has been what started to break it, and continues to do so.

That's just my experience, of course, so take from it whatever is useful, if anything.

 

[Diana-M]

It sounds like you have a hypersensitive nervous system. Many of us get this in childhood from traumatic experiences, or even from nervous parents who never taught us to self regulate (calm back down when we get excited, in a good way or a bad way.) as life goes on our nervous system becomes even more stressed and unable to cope with anything new. It considers change to be dangerous. This is where @BloodMoon ‘s technique of doing baby steps works, because it retrains your primitive brain that things are safe without being too threatening. All these concepts are found in pain reprocessing therapy. Your brain can be reprogrammed to allow these changes, but it takes time.

 

[Mani]

The problem with dickheads like you

Lol, seriously? Come on man

 

[Mani]

I've just been cracking up for a good 10 minutes about your terrible attitude. That was so uncalled for. You indeed have not hit rock bottom yet. I think I've said this before but with an attitude like that— it's just so inappropriate to start insulting people when you're the one reaching out for help. Stuff to think about: if you talk to strangers like this, how do you treat yourself? You don't sound like you're having a lot of fun

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

The problem with dickheads like you is when the therapy doesn't work, you can't seem to accept that, you have a need to blame the patient, you'd be better off accepting it doesn't work for everyone

The thing is Lee that, at least to me, given TMS it means that chronic symptoms are always explainable. They are, for the most part, either structurally caused or they are TMS. Hybrid cases do exist, but they are rare.

Everyone here believes, assuming you have TMS, that there is a solution for you. Sometimes there just needs to be some tweaks in the specific strategy/therapy, which is why there are a number of TMS strategies and ways of doing it, but they all converge on basic principles. Belief in the diagnosis and living life accordingly based on the fact that nothing is structurally wrong + nervous system regulation and emotional work through self-compassion.

If you want to say that TMS recovery doesn't work for you, then I don't think it's arrogant for anyone here to disagree (you're taking that as meaning that people here are blaming you, that's not the case). You may not have found a method or explanation that works for you, but clearly you haven't given up or you wouldn't be here.

I don't believe in incurable chronic symptoms - in the absence of a terrible accident or specific disease - but those are clearly explainable structurally. I don't believe in incurable TMS. If you do, then that's fine and that's a difference in opinion, but I think everyone here is acting on that basis, and your mistaking that belief (that there's no incurable TMS) as arrogance in the method and principles. I guess if you look at the methods and principles more broadly then you could take it as that - but do you disagree?

If you're saying that TMS recovery doesn't work (and it wouldn't work with tweaks or different ways of looking at it), then what's the solution for you to recover? People are only responding here because they don't believe the answer is "there is no solution".

 

[Cactusflower]

So I am very confused.
You discuss that you get symptoms when eg. you take on two jobs but then you mention that was a long time ago.
Perhaps the need is to focus on the here and now. Not the past, not the future but your needs right now. Your reaction that there can't be a "solution" as @Adam Coloretti (coach) mentions above and the fact you can't wrap your mind around the idea that there *MIGHT* be a solution could be that reactivity. I like your idea that you wrote earlier to step away from the whole TMS thing.
That might be where you are at. It's OK to stop doing this. Actually it's recommended to stop focusing on the fixing, the "solution" etc. because the basic premise of TMS is that there is nothing wrong with us. It's simply another angle to try.
Don't talk about symptoms, don't think about success or failure, don't worry about if you can become pain free or if you can't. Don't worry about anyone judging as to weather you feel therapy did or did not work for you. Don't worry about finding answers, don't dig psychologically. Just do your best to get out there and live life. See how it goes.
What I think isn't working for you is to have one foot in each camp, which (I could be totally wrong about it) seems where you are at right now. Making up your mind to follow a path and just do it is very empowering. Choose a way and go for it.

 

[BloodMoon]

Many of us get this in childhood from traumatic experiences, or even from nervous parents who never taught us to self regulate (calm back down when we get excited, in a good way or a bad way.) as life goes on our nervous system becomes even more stressed and unable to cope with anything new.

Exactly right imo -- either that or, in some cases, parents that taught us to over self-regulate. My parents, for instance, made me behave in an 'adult way' all the time, like I was 70 when I was 7; behaving like a child was unacceptable and I was told off and/or punished if I wasn't 'sensible' all the time.

Some parents too won't let their kids take any risks... e.g. I wasn't allowed to ride a bicycle, not even on the pavement/sidewalk in case I fell off and injured myself. I also wasn't allowed to wear open-toed sandals because my mother once saw a kid trip up over a rock and rip off her big toenail. Danger! danger! danger! The irony is that when I became an adult my mother used to criticise me for seeing the downsides to everything, when it was she who trained me to be like that! (I felt like strangling her when she'd say about it, but, of course, I said nothing, which was also bad for me!) As the English poet Philip Larkin wrote...

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats."

 

[Ybird]

I've tried breathing exercises but I didn't enjoy them

One thing that people with chronic illness tend to do, when they don't enjoy something that seems to be working for other people is it try harder. Healthier people tend to just go f--- it and don't do it.

Having said this though... I made what I thought was a full recovery from CFS this way, but was unable to continue over the long term.

One of the problems with living your life totally according to your own enjoyment is that other people kind of freak out about it, in my experience at least. They get upset that you are not 'helping' them to control themselves, they think you are about to commit a crime, think you are trying to seduce them etc etc
Or, if you are financially dependent on them, accuse you of exploiting them, say you were faking being sick all along etc etc.
Among other problems.

 

[Bonnard]

For me my symptoms just come when I do anything ambitious.

A new job, promotion at work, college course, a new challenging hobby, working two jobs etc

Those are literally the only times I get symptoms.

Sarno wrote about this quite a bit. He talked about stuff we push down b/c it's inappropriate to express it. Like being disappointed and depressed over getting a new job--or a new hobby. He talked a lot about resenting one's own kids. There's a corollary here--how do you express frustration over your two jobs when folks around you have no job or are struggling to make ends meet?

There can be many ways symptoms develop out of this.

>With the new job-- on the surface, that's 'supposed to be' a purely positive thing. But it can be triggering; it can bring up unrealistic expectations you have on your own expected performance; it can trigger childhood stuff/trauma/negative views on responsibility, etc.

>With working two jobs--the question of why I have to work two jobs could come up; the frustration over all the things you might be missing when working all those hours, etc.

>The new challenging hobby--self-defeating thoughts and repressed stuff might come up.