@JanAtheCPA would love your opinion on this too.
Okey dokey... you asked for it!
We started by focusing on repressed emotions, which I’ll be honest I do not feel applies to me in my situation.
I can't even begin to count the number of times I've seen this claim over the years. It's a lot, so you are not alone in believing this. And it's BS. IMHO, everyone who says this is suffering from not just typical repression, but excessive repression. The truth about reality is that repressed emotions apply to EVERYONE. It is a natural function of any brain that is operating at and above a basic intellect. It is literally how we are wired by evolution, and when I talk about the "TMS brain mechanism", this is what I'm referring to - the repression-distraction mechansim.
I have really tried to identify repressed emotions to find a correlation with my pain. Again, I don’t see a distinction for me.
You are putting all of your focus and energy on your physical symptoms, which just keeps the TMS mechanism operating exactly where it wants to you be - focused on and
distracted by the physical, and thus avoiding the psychological. Distraction is Sarno 101.
Although I have significant rage dealing with these symptoms.
Yeah, duh. EXCEPT that you are wrong. You are describing shallow, distracting anger. It has NOTHING to do with the real rage you carry, which we all carry. Even without conflict or adversity, our first rage starts when we're forced to mature instead of being nursed and nurtured for the rest of our lives. This is the kind of rage that Sarno is talking about (he wasn't the first, but he's who we study here).
The kind of rage we develop and repress starting early in our lives is born of deeply unconscious emotional conflict which we learn to repress in favor of maintaining favorable relationships that give us what we need to survive. Emotional conflict is always based in relationships. One of those relationships is with ourselves, but the first conflicts are always with others, which is how we also develop our relationship with ourselves.
I am a deeply emotional and fearful person. I have lived in the confines of my fear, my entire life, which I believe has potentially caused my symptoms. No history of trauma, no abuse. had a wonderful upbringing with great parents. Just wired fearful and scared to be alone and trust myself.
Yes, your fear is at the root of your symptoms. So you need to figure out where that excessive fear came from. It didn't just happen by chance. It came because you did not feel safe at some early and crucial stage of your development. You have to go there.
Even for those of us with those loving, nurturing, and protective families, we are still exposed to parental anxiety (I was literally born with it, thanks to the circumstances of my mom's pregnancy) and we're eventually forced to deal with the normal relationship competition of human life - siblings, for example (I was the highly-desired first kid, then three more came along and I suffered a bit from lack of attention in the chaos). I can't imagine what kind of crippling mindbody symptoms I might have ended up with if there had been any actual abandonment or, worse, emotional or physical abuse. I have personally seen the suffering of adults who grew up with controlling parents, or mentally unstable parents, or alcoholic parents, never mind the trauma of those who lose a parent for whatever reason. The amount of adult suffering correlates with the degree of childhood dysfunction that existed, and it is all up and down the scale.
Bottom line: from my observations over many years, anyone who had a parent with debilitating TMS symptoms has a very high likelihood of ending up with similar symptoms. And although I am not in any way qualified to diagnose any kind of mental health condition, my observations of many years have resulted in a belief that OCD, in particular, is the result of loving but fearful parents who try to control every aspects of their children's lives and experiences. The term "helicopter parent" was created to describe an obsessively over-protective parenting style that became very observable starting, I think, in about the 90s. It's not healthy and it creates extremely fearful children and I think it has resulted in a generation of individuals who suffer excessively from OCD.
To repeat myself: yes, your fear is at the root of your symptoms, but you need to figure out where that excessive fear came from. It didn't just happen by chance. It exists becauseyou did not feel safe at some early and crucial stage of your development. You have to go there. Don't waste energy blaming your fear and anxiety for your symptoms, because that's the wrong focus - and it's a distraction.
I don't care how great your parents were, you have to go back to what caused the fear and anxiety. And to do that, you are going to have to take a huge and terrifying risk and become emotionally vulnerable.
