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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
 Posted - 04/24/2007 : 16:56:44
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Anyone get visited by TMS gremlin during or before sex? Has this topic been discussed before? I did a search but didn't find anything specific. Would love to hear replies. This has me completely stumped (or in denial). Why on earth would TMS be gone all day until bedtime, then I get the infamous " honey I have a headache".
(If I were a betting lass, I'm betting TT is gonna love this topic! )
>|< Penny
>|< Penny
Non illigitamus carborundum. |
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sensei adam rostocki
USA
167 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 17:12:17
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Sex and TMS are certainly common bedfellow (pardon the pun). Repressed sexual issues are very common for TMS patients. These issues can stem from past experiences or abuse, an unhappy relationship or specific issues relating to sexual preference, identity or guilt. Personally, I remember a horrible occurrence of severe acute lower back spasm which turned out to be the very worst of my life. It occurred shortly after sex with my then ex-wife. At the time I was baffled, but looking back it is now clear to me that marital issues, and the relationship in general, were powerful contributing factors to my pain. You live, you learn. Great topic! I can't wait for the rest of the replies...
CURE-BACK-PAIN(dot)ORG |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 17:42:35
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I have written some about this in previous posts. The obsession with sex serves, in my opinion, the same pyschological function as TMS. Take a look at this: http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2907
*************
Sarno-ize it!
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icelikeaninja
USA
316 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2007 : 19:28:32
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Penny, sex actually alleviated all my symptoms, before, during, and after.
No matter how bad the pain was it always went away at that moment.I beleive I have alot of repressed sex issues as well. |
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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 04:28:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny
Anyone get visited by TMS gremlin during or before sex?
>|< Penny
Can you get one of these on line?.......
actually smart topic. Ya might have pain all day, then you realize everything was fine for that 10-15 min when you look back. Helps ya diagnose the TMS bug for sure. (wow..10-15 min, must've been a good day!)
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 06:09:49
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Dr. Sarno also talked about difficulites coming to terms with one's sexuality or being forced to keep such matters hidden from others. For example, you may be gay but have not come out of the closet or if you are openly gay you may not have a partner.
But let me talk here about the person in the closet. The person may be aware that he/she possesses certain feelings which brings about internal shame and remorse due to particular upbringing which frowns upon such things. They may, as a result, feel sinful and dirty but at the same time cannot stop these feelings. The person may not feel confident enough to make the public leap forward as there is fear of social backlash or ridicule from friends or even loss of employment, status and spouce if they are already married. Thus, all these feelings stay bottled inside and over time anger builds up into internal rage. They are forced to live a lie and supress what is inside of them in order to please someone else.
In addition, there are people who are not gay per se, but have at times sexual attraction towards someone of the same sex. Again, for reasons listed above, they keep these feelings/ desires hidden from the public. Once again, rage accumulates over time as they are forced to supress a part of themselves.
These are just some of my reflections.....
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Sarno-ize it!
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Edited by - shawnsmith on 04/25/2007 07:29:39 |
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 08:07:45
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Thank you all for sharing. Shawn, your posts have helped me more than I can say. I find sex very difficult to talk. All I can say is that this past weekend I had a lot of sex with my husband, and my migraines were terrible. I think I had some sort of thing in my mind telling me that if I could enjoy sex, I could get out of the pain, but I think I understand now that intimacy (emotional AND phsycial) with him is major part of the problem. I was trying to use sex to avoid the fury of emotion I feel about him and to repress.
I can't believe this, but I think my major source of TMS is my relationship with my husband. How can this be? I've been journaling and in therapy for ages, how could I have not known? We have been married nearly 10 years. This is a horrifying revelation to me, but it feels true. I am in shock and don't even know where to begin to start to either fix our marriage or end it. I can't believe I am even typing this. The emotional terror I feel about divorce and everything that would mean to his life and my children is overwhelming. I am so dreadfully unhappy with our relationship though.
I know it takes 2 to tango, and I'm certainly a pain in the ass to live with at times ... over emotional, obsessive, too concerned about minuit details. I know this would drive ANYONE up the wall. But I feel he never gives me emotional support or validates my experieince.
OMG!!!!! A couple weeks ago when I had to go to the ER for the migraine I just realized that it really wasn't b/c I couldn't handle the pain, but it was it was to get away from him. He is not physically abusive, but since we had our children he is emotionally disconnected from me, and very unsupportive. He does a lot of physical things, like help with the kids, dinner, and laundry etc. but he does not hold me up when I want to fall. He won't read or buy into any TMS stuff, which is a mirror of all the other things that are important to me that he has no regard for, in fact almost beyond apathy, but a disregard for. He resents my therapist and never emotionally supports my discoveries from sessions, in fact he counters them constantly and says things like, "Well I know you better than he does." or "I've been telling you that for years!"
The week of my most recent gremlin I told him about something very shameful that happened to me when I was a kid; my dad did something that he shouldn't have, and my husband almost excused his actions and trivialized it.
What do you do when you realize the only thing you have in common with your spouse is your love for your children? How the f%# did I get here?
>|< Penny
Non illigitamus carborundum. |
Edited by - Penny on 04/25/2007 08:11:56 |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 08:22:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny
....he is emotionally disconnected from me, and very unsupportive.
Penny
I read that that you have had a lot of sex this weekend with your husband yet at the same time you feel he is emotionally disconnected from you, and very unsupportive. This has got to be enraging as the few times he cozies up to you is when he wants to satisfy his needs but the rest of the time he is totally emotionally disconnected and unsupportive. Many people - especially men- fail to see that the real foreplay begins outside of the bed with being kind and attentive to their wives with no ulterior motive other than loving feelings. This is what you want in your life, isn't Penny? To be loved, admired, appreciated, and taken care of. In return you will give all of yourself, including physically, but when he does not live up these expectations you begin to see him as selfish- only looking out for himself with no consideration for your needs. Yet you feel bound to him and have no way of escape. You give yourself to him physically with the hopes that he will love you more and become more caring, but outside of the bed he cares little for your feelings and will not open up to you. The internal anger builds up over time yet you remain in a state of denial that all this is taking place, hoping that the next weekend of passionate lovemaking will solve the problem.
Is this anywhere close to your reality?
*************
Sarno-ize it!
************* |
Edited by - shawnsmith on 04/25/2007 08:24:27 |
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 09:13:21
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quote:
The internal anger builds up over time yet you remain in a state of denial that all this is taking place, hoping that the next weekend of passionate lovemaking will solve the problem.
Is this anywhere close to your reality?
Yes, unfortunately it is, Shawn. When I have all my physical problems and need to depend on him (or needed him to show me he was doing something to compensate for lack emotional support) he could not and would not accept the that emotional reasons were the culprit. He constantly poo-poos any upset I feel. I had a bad cust serv exp a couple weeks ago, and he kept telling me how ridiculous I was and how much I was over-reacting.
I am so unhappy and feel so disloyal to say such terrible things about him and my relationship, of course I am to blame in this too. I can't believe I am only NOW piecing this ENORMOUS piece in my TMS puzzle. I mean, I'm a savvy, sensitive, probing person. I feel such a fool.
>|< Penny |
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 11:38:19
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Penny,
In the face of anger and resentment, the very first thing that goes for many women, and many men as well for that matter, is sexual desire.Thus, it's very often the canary in the relationship coal mine.
Please don't beat yourself up for not seeing this sooner. You actually did, hence the sexual cool down and the TMS. But denial is a powerful force and something that has nothing to do with intelligence or character...
I urge you to follow your heart, where ever it takes you. Life is short and you deserve to be happy. |
Edited by - art on 04/25/2007 11:40:26 |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 15:18:54
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Penny
I also wanted to discuss some of the issues surrounding what your father did to you as a child. Could it be that after these many years that your husband's touch is associated with what happened to you so many years ago?
Again, I am just asking because for people with severe TMS, sexual abuse in childhood is quite common but only shows up in adulthood as the issues surrounding the indicent(s) have not been properly dealt with.
I concur with Art that you should not blame yourself. Your feelings - no matter how rotten they make you feel, how embarassing they are or how much your husband poo poos them- are 100% valid and I hope you can face them head on.
*************
Sarno-ize it!
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 16:20:20
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I really don't know the answer to this, Shawn. I hadn't thought about it in years. In fact I intentionally never told anyone about it. The feelings I have about it now (which I may bring in therapy next week) are that I didn't speak out against it, and the fact that my mother was in the room and saw what he did and never said anything to him about it, that really upsets me. Now I have children of my own, I see how incredibly inapparopraite the entire situation was, and all these years I've made excuses for my dad, like "he didn't know better" or "he was curious" but now as an adult and mother myself, I cannot imagine EVER being quiet and letting such a thing happen to my daughters. I don't ever think that my husband would hurt our girls or do anything inappropriate, so that's not an issue to me.
I think my sex issues and TMS are more to do with my suppressing my rage at my husband, and perhaps over this issue his seeming defense of my father just added to my fury. I can list 100 things I'm upset with my husband about, and if I look at them individually they sound ridulously trivial. It's just the collection that is overwhelming to me.
I dropped the kids off at a neighbors this afternoon, and came home and shared my perspective with my husband. I had no expectation about how it would go, but it didn't go well. I feel dreadful about all this, and my timing may have been inconsiderate, but in our life there would never be a good time for me to tell him. I took 50% responsibility for all our problems and asked him to go to marital counseling together and he said he wouldn't.
Part of me is thinking ... OMG what have I done? But the other part of me feels some relief that I didn't shrink away or bow to the physical pain.
I look back on my past year with TMS and realize that a lot of my anxiety and pain syndromes stemmed from my unhappiness in my relationship with my husband. My marriage is the most important relationship to me, and I want to try desperately to save it, but he didn't make any similar noises so I am just letting things be for now.
I'd appreciate hearing any experieinces about marriage resussitation. Are there any books that would be good for us, given the bloody fact that he won't see a counselor?
As ugly and raw as all this emotion is, I can understand why my gremlin (subc. and TMS) has been working overtime.
I'm sorry this is so long. I really feel so flipping full of myself to tell so many details about my marriage here. This is probably not appropriate, but I feel like everyone here is my lifeline, and definitely you all have been catalyst in a lot of self-discovery: Like online group therapy. I do SO appreciate you all, and thank you for being here.
Penny |
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miehnesor
USA
430 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 16:50:04
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny
I dropped the kids off at a neighbors this afternoon, and came home and shared my perspective with my husband. I had no expectation about how it would go, but it didn't go well. I feel dreadful about all this, and my timing may have been inconsiderate, but in our life there would never be a good time for me to tell him. I took 50% responsibility for all our problems and asked him to go to marital counseling together and he said he wouldn't.
Penny
That is not a good sign that he didn't care enough about your happiness to try and go to therapy and work on his issues and improving your marriage.
Your case reminds me somewhat of another forum member here -Laura- who finally at least partially recovered from her severe TMS when her true feelings regarding her husband came out after over a decade of repression.
Good work on discovering this- although incredibly painful. |
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 17:01:19
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Mienhnesor, No, it's not. Thanks for the support and telling me about Laura. Did she share her story here? Do you know any threads, I'd love to connect with her.
My husband told me I was giving him an ultimatum. I told him I wasn't ... I just cannot continue in our marriage if WE don't change. Is that an ultimatum? He told me he wasn't going to beg me to stay and that I could leave anytime I wanted. I told him I wasn't leaving until we tried to change, but that we both needed to get on a new page together. I think he realizes how serious I am, but I don't think he cares enough to change or even to help ME change (yes, it takes 2!). I've been asking him for months to help me address with several emotional things (i.e. my recent miscarriage) but he does not.
Perhaps after 12 years together, it's time to end it? He's not going to beg me to stay. That really pisses me off! If he told me he was hurting HALF as much as I tried to convey to him today, I would jump off a cliff to stop his pain. I would and WILL modify my behaviour in anyway I could to save our marriage. But he won't beg me to stay. Puhleeze! God, this makes me crazy angry! |
Edited by - Penny on 04/25/2007 17:02:25 |
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miehnesor
USA
430 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 17:19:32
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Penny- Laura divorced her husband, who was emotionally abusive, and then never contributed again to the forum so nobody knows what happened. You can read her many threads by using the search function. Select her from the forum member list and you can even put a "*" in the words to search for to get many of her posts. Her main symptom was dizziness so you can search for that as well.
Has your symptoms lifted as you are feeling the anger towards your husband? |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 17:30:24
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I highly recommend Byron Katie's book "Loving What Is," but get the recording of the book as it is very powerful. She addresses many of the issues you discuss here.
*************
Sarno-ize it!
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 17:52:24
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quote:
Originally posted by miehnesor
Has your symptoms lifted as you are feeling the anger towards your husband?
Symptoms? What symptoms!? HA!!! Yes, they have lifted, but my psyche hurts like a mofo. |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 17:59:47
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny
Symptoms? What symptoms!? HA!!! Yes, they have lifted, but my psyche hurts like a mofo.
Ok, that is a very good sign. You can at least deal with these conscious emotions. Try to systematically write out what you are feeling and then go back and read what you have written down, go over each point and ponder as deeply as you can over each point as much as you can. I so wish you had Byron Katie's book to guide you along the way.....
*************
Sarno-ize it!
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Edited by - shawnsmith on 04/25/2007 18:01:30 |
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 18:53:09
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| Thanks Shawn. I will go to B&N tomorrow and get it. Will it help my husband too, or just me? I feel so much guilt going thru me, and regret. I wish this didn't have to hurt him. I've been putting up with his apathy for me for so long, he is stunned and his eyes were full of tears as he drove to work tonight. I know--even though his actions are aloof--he is really upset. I don't intend to hurt him for anything, but I personally can't take the hurt anymore. When he gets upset at me, he explodes and swears ... but always counters it with "I'm not swearing AT you!" but it's one of my biggest things, and he did it in front of the children about 6 weeks ago and it devastated me. I don't know how I overlooked all of this. He has never done anything physical to me, but emotionally I feel so beat up. |
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Paul
134 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 18:59:17
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The advice above is perfect for you...read "Loving What Is" and apply "The Work" to your feelings, your beliefs about your husband.
Being a divorce person myself, I think you shouldn't just jump to the conclusion you will feel better by divorcing. True, you might. But you need to think through the "cloud" of emotions first...give it time.
Give yourself some time, some reflection, and I HIGHLY recommend this website as well...
www.marriagebuilders.com
Just some things to think about. |
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skizzik
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2007 : 19:20:33
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Don't give up Penny, you've already dropped symptoms because of your bravery.
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Topic |
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Sex and TMS
