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kristenl
USA
15 Posts |
 Posted - 09/09/2015 : 18:13:00
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Hi all,
I haven't posted here for a while. I've had many tms symptoms, a lot of weird and unusual ones. I've been successful at getting rid of some of them, but definitely not all. I have a definite personality quirk that I always considered to be just my personal weirdness, but it just dawned on me that it may be a tms equivalent. I always have to have something to think about. I have a history of hypochondria (also cancer, so that definitely didn't help my hypochondria!). And I understand that obsessive googling and research feeds into it. On the other hand, I always am looking for a new thing to be doing, trying to be, etc. For a long time it was changing careers. I would spend hours, weeks, months figuring out everything I needed to do, but then never do it. Then it was going back to school. Then it was how I was going to give up tv. now it's how the europeans have a more relaxed way of life and I should try to live more like they do, however that is. Or I spend hours researching diet and how I can eat healthier, live longer, be happier, be a better parent. But very few of these things do I actually follow long term because most of them are unrealistic in my situation. It's like I can't ever let myself just relax and be. I'm always looking for ways to fix things. Like I don't feel like I have enough time, so I think if I cut out tv I will have more time for things. But instead of not watching tv, I spend even more time researching how bad tv is for you. Or I research what they eat in France and eat only those things. It sounds super crazy and I really am a (mostly) normal person. Not even my husband knows the extent of these "quirks." I think its the act of research and planning that is distracting and somehow comforting to me for some reason. I'm just wondering if any of you have any experience with this or its just me. I'm just recognizing it may be an equivalent, but it's comforting on some levels, like if I can't do my research or planning when I'm stressed, I get anxiety, although it is disruptive and also upsetting that I cant just relax and be content as well.
I guess just treat it like tms? Any thoughts?
Typed on my phone. Excuse the typos!
Thanks!!
Kristen
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altherunner
Canada
511 Posts |
Posted - 09/09/2015 : 21:14:47
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| Hi - have you tried reading Eckhart Tolle, or other authors about mindfulness, or how you are not your thoughts? |
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tennis tom
USA
4746 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2015 : 07:06:24
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Not being a shrink, only a tennis player, it sounds like you fit the TMS personality traits from your post: perfectionist, goodist, procrastinator, and universal inferiority complex. Don't get freaked out over the inferiority complex thing since it's universal, I and most people on the planet are in.
The anxiety is a TMS affective/emotional equivalent but the rest of them are personality traits for TMS'ers which is pretty much the human condition. |
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Joy_I_Am
United Kingdom
138 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2015 : 09:01:55
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Dear Kristenl, thank you for sharing that, because I recognise it exactly! I'm always embarking on new schemes for 'self-improvement', researching them madly for a couple of weeks, then failing to follow through... exercise, study, diet... if I spent the time exercising that I do reading about exercise, I'd look like Madonna...
A perennial for me is sobriety. I'm genuinely not a problem drinker, but I can quickly convince myself that total sobriety will be the Big Thing that changes my entire life, my entire personality, even make the gods smile upon me when they see how 'good' I am... I order books and read blogs and hang out on forums for HOURS with the real alcoholics, people for whom it really a life-or-data decision... of course, after a couple of weeks of this, the thought of drinking is constantly in my head, and I 'succumb' to a glass of wine.. Then the whole sorry cycle starts again. I was sober for 5 months straight once, and the only thing that had changed at the end of it was that I'd spent five months dicking around on sobriety sites.
And what a lovely distraction it is! I have things I SHOULD be obsessing over, I'm in a creative industry and those hours could be going towards producing my work. And that's what I'm really afraid of, because it exposes me to judgment - worst of all, my own...
So I think it's a double-edged sword: this faffing around online distracts me from the real, 'scary' stuff, just as effectively as TMS does. And it's scary because I'm a goodish, perfectionist, and all the rest of it.
It could be a form of TMS, it could be common-and-garden procrastination... But again, I'm so glad you brought it up. As with TMS, it's good to recognise the patterns. And now I'm going to turn my mail and my google off and get on with something...
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Joy_I_Am
United Kingdom
138 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2015 : 09:04:11
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life-or-data decision...
I meant 'life-or-death decision', and of course, you guessed that, but I could NOT let it go...
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kristenl
USA
15 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2015 : 22:10:04
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Thanks for the thoughts, everyone.
Joy_I_Am, oh my gosh, a kindred spirit! I can't believe there's anybody else in the whole world like that, and now I know of someone. I even do the exact same thing with alcohol! I don't go on sites for alcoholics, but I do go through long periods of not drinking, thinking I should never have a drink, feeling guilty when I do. For me, if I let loose and have a good time with a glass of wine (my favorite!), I later critique everything I've said or done and feel worthless, even though I didn't do anything bad! But I can feel great and relax with it, and coming down off of it, I get really irritable. Like everything bothers me and I get depressed. It's like coming off a drug for me. Caffeine is similar. I think I just have a super sensitive nervous system. Anyway, thanks so much for sharing your story. I will usually have some weird thing I'm doing, then I'll burn myself out on it. Then I'll say, okay, I'm just going to be me, which never seems to last either! It's like I feel out of sorts with just being me, which is silly because I have a good job, lovely family, etc. That's why I think it may be something more than a quirk. I know its filling something in my mind. Your right, the hours I spend doing this could have been spent relaxing, reading, spending quality time with loved ones. It doesn't make sense!!
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kristenl
USA
15 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2015 : 22:13:21
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And that should have been "you're right." I couldn't let that one go either!#128540;
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RageSootheRatio
Canada
430 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2015 : 07:12:45
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Just in case you didn't know, you can edit your own posts ... click on the icon w/ the pencil.
>I'm just recognizing it may be an equivalent, but it's comforting on some levels, like if I can't do my research or planning when I'm stressed, I get anxiety, although it is disruptive and also upsetting that I cant just relax and be content as well.
I believe a distraction - whether pain or an addiction or numbing out or being busy-busy-busy, etc exists for a good reason. If you can't 'just relax and be content' does that give you a clue as to why you would want to distract yourself with all manner of anything else? If we can't be comfortable just being ourselves and have difficulty relaxing, then why WOULDN'T we want to distract ourselves from that discomfort ?
I also believe that 'relaxation' comes from the autonomic nervous system, not from the busy-busy executive functioning mind which searches endlessly for more theories, solutions, etc. which is what I tend to do.
I distract myself with all manner of things because of psychic / emotional pain I don't know what to do with, physical pain I can barely bear at times, etc.
If research and planning is distracting you in a way that provides comfort (ie temporary relief from your anxiety experience), then that makes total sense to me and doesn't sound 'super-crazy' at all, actually. |
Edited by - RageSootheRatio on 09/15/2015 07:14:51 |
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Weird mental thought patterns as equivalent?
