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Uma
USA
31 Posts |
 Posted - 06/06/2011 : 20:06:54
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Hi Everybody,
Have been reading posts here for a few months but just officially registered and ready to connect.
I think I have what Dr. Sarno refers to as "a severe form of TMS".. For the past 12 years I've had symptoms that fit the description of fibromyalgia, and within the past year have been supposedly diagnosed (without official blood work) as having Hashimoto's and Lyme's disease. I don't buy it though because I've had too many "aha"s about TMS to give into an incurable diagnosis. So here's the lowdown:
• total body aching and burning, and if it isn't total body then it is moving from one place to another, it rarely rests. Actually when I do awareness/insight meditation it cues me into the fact that it is really always moving from one point to another (even if it feels like it's all over at once) and when my mind calms down so does the pain.
• chronic fatigue
• severe anxiety/panic disorder
• sometimes chest pain that is scary
• chronic headaches and severe TMJ problems
• skin problems
• chronic infections
• hormonal imbalances/hypothyroid & hypoadrenal symptoms
• used to have IBS but not anymore (although I would if I ate the way I used to eat! digestion still not the greatest but I eat simple diet)
I grew up a sickly child with chronic urinary tract infections from age 3 until around 20 when i started getting into alternative medicine and changing my diet & lifestyle. For many years I took a large amount of antibiotics including a few years of constant (every day) antibiotics as a child. Unfortunately from what I hear, this much antibiotics can really damage the system, although also from what I hear maybe my chronic UTIs even as a baby were TMS-related? (there was a huge amount of stress in the family).
Even from when I was in the womb, my sister (2 years older than me) was very ill after an aneurism at age 1, and had brain damage and seizures. They devoted a large amount of time to her and didn't have much time for me (my old medical records even noted that my bed for a while as a baby was a tiny car seat, and that i was exhibiting signs of delayed development, "probably due to lack of stimulation"). Then starting when i was 9 or 10 my dad became sick and was very ill the next 10 years until he died when i was 19 (in '94). Was a misfit, got into lots of partying/counter culture, health continued to get worse.
Before this I had had various aches and pains my whole life, off and on, nothing major. Then in '98 was in minor car accident, minor whiplash, neck problems started. Neck pain ever since. That began the whole series over the next 12 years of chiroractors, massage, acupuncture and TCM, naturopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda, raw foods, rolfing, hellerwork, alexander technique, feldenkrais, cleansing & fasting, etc.
Then 6 months after the car accident I inherited a chunk of money after my grandma died and it skipped my dad since he was already gone. This happened right after college and derailed any plans I had for graduate school or career training. Instead I went to India and took a meditation course, had a religious experience, didn't want to come home but did anyways and my whole life fell apart. I went through a traumatic breakup, moved to a new city, health kept getting worse. It was after this experience in India and after coming home with life in shambles, I believe that's when the pain really started spreading throughout the whole body.
Started getting more into diet, cleansing & fasting as a way to improve health and control my symptoms (pain, skin problems, etc). Had no emotional support. Became orthorexic (eating disorder of controlling food to control symptoms), lost weight, got down to 80 lbs, not doing too good. Met some yogis who offered to help me heal. They did this, I put the weight back on and got strong but also spent next almost 6 years in a small religious cult where after some initial growth and improvement, I really resented being there and was pissed at people there but was too scared to leave for fear I would get sick again. I did many things against my will and better judgment while I was there. I thought they knew what was best for me since they did help save my life, and I tried to please and do good like my whole life while secretly (or probably not-so-secretly to anyone with any kind of sensitivity) resenting and hating them.
Finally about 2 years ago I left the group and 1.5 yrs ago started Reichian-style therapy and after a year of talking and crying and all this am FINALLY starting to get a bit in touch with my repressed rage from the past. Just the tip of the iceberg. Crying almost always reduces the physical pain.
I have read a couple of Dr. Sarno's books, including The Divided Mind just recently. After I read this a few months ago, I was doing the journaling and the reading and really starting to catch myself -- a pain (or hot flash, or whatever symptom du jour) would start to come on and I'd realize I was angry about something and it would go away. I was flyin' high! I had maybe a week where things were really starting to get better! But then something happened--i did some traveling that maybe was too stressful, or maybe in that situation too much stuff triggered me at once and I couldn't process it all, I don't really know but it all came crashing down and that week of success seems like eons ago. But it was there!!!!!
My personality totally fits the description—do gooder, people pleaser, would rather suffer intensely and sacrifice my own well-being than even risk upsetting anyone else. Sound familiar?
Wow this got long! There it is. Thanks for reading and open to any feedback.
Uma 
p.s. I don't live near any TMS doctors so haven't gotten an official diagnosis. Maybe I should do that one day. |
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Uma
USA
31 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2011 : 20:29:17
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| By the way, since I started writing this I am experiencing an increase in symptoms that I actually haven't had for a while like dizziness and that chest pain. It's like just mentioning it is enough for my mind to manifest it in my body. ARGH!!!!!!! |
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Joy_I_Am
United Kingdom
138 Posts |
Posted - 06/07/2011 : 07:34:18
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Hi Uma!
I'm new to the forum too, so there will be other people with more advice to give than I. But I agree that you seem to be a 'classic' TMS personality (I recognise it as one myself!) I don't know about you, but I found it a great relief to recognise that - those 'aha' moments you mention!
Also, I've been thinking a lot lately about the family as a source of TMS symptoms. I definitely believe that children can get TMS - just think how we are fully dependent on our parents, and how terrifying/enraging it is to realise that our upbringing is not secure for us. I remember feeling terribly trapped and hopeless (and getting excruciating stomach pains) as my parents screamed and fought and took their unhappiness out on me. As a child, you sense that there is something wrong when your parents' needs take precedence over yours - the natural order is that our parents care for us; even animals do that. And I've heard that, even in the womb, the mother's stress hormones can flood the developing foetus. It sounds like you were marinated in stress, and then born into it...
It also sounds like you simply weren't looked after as a child, and that much of your life since has been an attempt to find that 'looking after'. I think, if we missed good parental care in our childhood, we keep up a search for it in adulthood, trying to make up for that lack. And I think Sarno's work is a lot about realising you can/have to be your own good parent, that you can look after yourself. Even people-pleasing, I think, can be part of that search for someone outside yourself to approve of you and make you and the world 'ok'.
And yes, I am currently finding my TMS symptoms flaring as I try to fight it! I have banished many years of 'back pain' through Sarno, but am now fighting abdominal pain (which I've had for eight years), and this has flared up horribly lately, as well as pseudo-cystitis and thrush, as I try harder to fight it. I am trying to see this as part of the process. I think Sarno talked in MBP of a woman who had been abused as a child, and as she came closer to a breakthrough, the pain became excruciating (but she broke through it!)
I think it's great that you have seen how TMS can work, even if you've had a relapse - the mind-body will fight for its protective mechanism, but hopefully the memory of your success will be there! I suggest you write it out when you've had success, so you can go back and refer to it.
As for getting a TMS diagnosis, I haven't had one from a doctor, and don't feel the need for one. Of course, as I think everyone on the site would agree, you need to get a proper medical check up of new or worrying symptoms. But part of the process, for me, is to stop looking to authority figures to 'confirm' things or 'make things better', but realise that ultimately, we can be our own authority, and have the power to self-soothe when the rage or fear threatens to overwhelm us. It's something I'm trying hard to do, but I think it will be worth it! Or rather, that it won't be a 'passing the finish line' situation, but a daily journey of self-affirmation and independence.
This doesn't seem to be a very busy site, it can take a few days to get a reply, but for me, just writing this stuff out seems to help, as well as reading other people's posts. I hope you find you feel better and better; I think, when you 'find' Sarno, you just know when it's right for you!
Good luck, Joy |
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Uma
USA
31 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 09:42:24
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Hi Joy,
Great to hear from you. It is really nice to be reading this board and seeing so many people that can really relate to what I'm experiencing. Phew.
I agree that not getting enough attention as a child probably had a profound impact on me/people. I have even had a bit of regression experience so far in the therapy -- screaming/crying with the feeling that i am some baby someone just set down and left there for example. Ah the rage. My therapist has said that people who were neglected can be some of the most challenging to help heal because there is no concrete abuse (physical/verbal) to remember. More just an ongoing sense of nonspecific terror I suppose. I'm also starting to get in touch with the bodily experience of bracing my body/tensing up as a way to hold in feelings from being expressed (like the scream) and how this probably started very, very young once I realized it was not safe/approved of/welcome to express anger towards the parentals.
Of course, what probably also didn't help was the huge book my dad had called "SYMPTOMS"-- 2 indexes in the back: an index of symptoms and an index of diseases. I would spend hours pouring over that book, looking up all my symptoms and finding out how many serious diseases I could have. Nice that my parents even noticed or cared how I was self-educating towards severe hypochondriasis.
Oh and I forgot one of the best/worst parts: I was potty trained OK but then at age 3 for some reason I lost it and was having accidents day and night and then eventually only at night but still, wet the bed until I was TWELVE--treated of course with years and years of antibiotics... but come on, that was going on and not once did my parents consider that the cause at least partly might be psychological? Even in my old medical file when it started, the doctor reported asking if there could be an psychological causes and my mom said no. I have been starting to feel some anger about my parents' total idiocy with regard to my health care.
[But this brings up another issue: feeling guilty about having anger towards my parents, when after all I think they did their best, meant to be as loving as they could, and just had a lot of **** to deal with and were out of touch with themselves anyway/not very present people.]
And then there was the one time my parents DID bring me to therapy, when I was a preteen I think, for ANGER. Unfortunately my mom (as she told me recently when I asked about it) pulled me out of it quickly as soon as the therapist started inquiring about things to my mom like, "Does the family eat dinner together in the evenings?" My mom said she didn't see how that had anything to do with it, that we were a very busy family with different schedules and it was none of her business. What seems to me is that she pulled me out of therapy because the therapist wasn't telling her what she wanted to hear (that there was just something wrong with me, not our family).
Wanting outside approval/to be taken care of is a big one for me. Probably has contributed a lot to many unhealthy experiences with men.
Yeah I think I remember about the woman whose pain got worse before her breakthrough. That is comforting.
In general I try to avoid doctors and didn't go to one for many years but a year ago things got really bad after some severe emotional stressors.. including hair falling out and being dizzy all the time so I tried the doc thing again. Failed again. Refuse to take prescription meds so... oh well. I had been really worried for a while because 2 different alternative healers told me there might be something wrong with my heart and I had been having a lot of chest pains plus the dizziness so I almost got a workup. But really time and time again my experience points to TMS, and addressing anything medically seems to make my symptoms snowball in a downward spiraling direction!!
Thanks a lot for replying, it is good to get to know you. And you're right, it feels good to write this stuff out--I found myself writing about some things in a way that I wouldn't write in my journal.
Uma
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Hi all (introducing myself & my brand of TMS)
