Recovery Story: Facing Fear & Overcoming 25 Different Symptoms

hey hi everybody this is Jim prusak physical therapist from the painpt and I'm bringing with you today another success story which again I've been dropping a lot of them on you lately because it's so powerful to hear these success stories and I'm so lucky and fortunate to have Belle here today to share her story hi Bill how are you doing hi so great to see you and so uh thankful that you're willing to come on and share your story I know sometimes it's hard to do this we talked off it's nervous right but just now it's going to be so helpful for other people to hear your journey what you went through to get to where you are now so I'm going to turn it over to you and maybe you can start wherever you want but maybe share your history and what where you came from and then we'll just kind of work through to where you are now yeah sure um so I started with uh the long version of kovid unfortunately right at the beginning of the pandemic so it was March 2020 um and I just started with shortness of breath feelings that just became just more and more severe as the days went on and then also I start to have quite significant heart problems so I'd be lying down and my heart would just go up to like 160 just with me lying down and which was terrifying I've never experienced anything like that in my life um so an actor called an ambulance for me because I was having real troubles trouble breathing and with my heart things going on as well um and the paramedics came and they checked me over and they thought that there was an issue with my heart so they took me into Hospital and I think it's just like important to remember the timing of this as well because you know it was right at the start of the pandemic the hospitals were kind of in chaos I was put straight into a covered War so I was with a lot of really really sick unwell people and that was terrifying just in it in and of itself and they checked me over um they said that they there was a problem with my heart they said I can't remember exactly what it was but they said something like it was eptopic something like that um and they said I remember the the nurse saying to me that they would normally refer me to Cardiology Department but everything was shut down at that time so they couldn't do anything and I just had to be sent home and it was the message was very much um just wait and see and if it gets worse then just call the paramedics again call an ambulance and that was quite a scary thing to kind of hear that yeah there is a problem with you to come with your heart there's something going on that we can't help you we need to ship you out we need to make room for people that are more severe than you so no no reassurance they didn't reassure you they just sent you on your way left you hanging really yeah yeah and then um went home and obviously I was terrified the symptoms just kept getting kept getting worse um I was given inhalers to take they made no difference at all because it really felt like I was having multiple asthma attacks throughout the day that's that's the only way I can kind of describe it it was horrendous and often I wasn't sleeping through the night because I couldn't breathe um and yeah it was terrifying and uh I was obviously getting no help there was no support this you know the GP Services I've you know our doctors here that everything was shut down so there was nowhere to go nowhere to be seen um I ended up going to hospital again because obviously things were progressing and just getting worse and nothing was changing um and the same thing happened you know it's they they couldn't find necessarily anything wrong at that point they didn't find anything wrong with my heart and I just got sent home again it was from the covet at this point did you think it was due to that these these symptoms at the time yeah I think well it the lockdown got announced and I remember my children got myself see my daughter got sent home from Nursery straight away we have to go and get her it's when everything was like chaos and not anyone knowing what was going on and she actually had um a viral infection at the time I didn't think it would be covered and that I think it might have been and then I got a sore throat and I got like the classic symptoms but for me it just progressed into the breathing problems and then my heart and and and symptoms just kind of it was so it was the the most bizarre experience I've ever been through in my life it was like my my whole body went just Haywire I then got like digestive issues like reflux um it felt like gas bubbles were coming up and just got stuck in my chest and it was um had like nerve go things going into my back and it affected my bowels so I had problems moving my blood it was just everything there was just one thing after another and it just kept progressing and I would just remember being in such a state of confusion of what was happening to my body it was it was absolutely terrifying yeah yeah I remember all the symptoms you had and we we joked at one point that you you were running out of real estate in your body for symptoms yeah yeah I mean maybe share some of the other ones you had to me you'll get Tim I think as we walked through oh my goodness um I think it's I remember today can we go I think it's easier to kind of say what I haven't had rather than what that's had um so I've had had like severe head pressure I've had derealization depersonalization I've had um blood Vision I've had I had a lot of stuff going on with my throat so often it felt like um allergic reaction where it felt my throat was closing over that's that was a big one for me that was happening a lot I had pots obviously with the heart stuff so every time I stood up my heart rate would go to like 100 and 30 40s 50 you know it wasn't it was it wasn't normal um and that was terrifying I had chronic fatigue syndrome so four months into me having the Cove the covid and I developed chronic chronic syndrops chronic fatigue um and then post-exertion malaise as well I remembered that when um came actually back when I was working with you as like a an Extinction burst I remember that quite clearly but yeah so every time I tried to walk or go anywhere I could then just crash for for days if not weeks on end just feeling incredibly unwell and sick and like a really heavy malaise feeling and I had yeah I had good reflux I had um God what else bowel issue um yeah what about the leg stuff too what sorry the legs issues in your legs yeah so that that came a little bit later on actually when I was working with with you through that point um so I don't know if I want to sort of yeah let's let's just go chronologically because we yeah yeah I was pretty much bed bound for around about nine ten months and and I started to improve a little bit it was on a long covered support group and I could see that people were some people were getting better and I think that gave me hope that it was possible for me and I think I was I was so determined as well to get better but I was and there was lots of ups and down lots of crashes but I could I would see there was a sort of a general trajectory towards me making some improvements so after about a year I started to go try and go back to work so this was like the beginning of 2021 and I was going back to a really stressful job that I didn't was probably wasn't in hindsight right for me at the time and and I didn't really want to go back to um and then I developed chronic back pain and chronic neck pain within four days of each other um so that kind of took over from a lot of the the covered symptoms the sort of the more usual ones that I had it then was all about the back pain and the neck pain that I suddenly developed out of nowhere so it's switched over what we would call the symptom imperative it moved the locations in your body move move symptoms know a lot about the symptoms yeah yeah yeah um yeah so then um once I developed the the back pain and the neck pain I just was thinking to myself this just doesn't make sense like I really start to get curious about what the hell was going on in my body it just it was so severe So Random and all over the place and at that point I actually found um Alan Gordon's uh podcast tell me about your pain and um my back pain and neck pain went down by about 80 after listening to that podcast and I remember thinking okay like there's something in this um and a kind of my belief in the mind-body connection and what that was all about I was sort of educating myself then about it and sort of finding out more about it and I just at that point started to wonder if this long covered staff was uh TMS as well and and there wasn't much about any no one seemed to be talking about it no one seemed to be sort of suggesting that so I kind of went on for months hoping that that it was a tears um equivalent or symptom but not really knowing if it was and I think I can't remember where I heard some it might have been Nicole sacks I think she was maybe one of the first people to come out to say in her opinion long covid was um was TMS and that again gave me a bit more hope and made me kind of so to view it in that way which which kind of helped but there were still so many question marks like I hadn't still got got to the point where I had my lungs tested or you know my heart tested or anything like that and I needed to get those things done because I should say actually at this point I wasn't even able to walk two minutes down the road that's how bad the breathlessness was for me um I was you know I was sorry so I should have said then so it's a bit of a mixed story but um when the back pain and the neck pain went down this is why I say I know a lot about in symptom imperative all of the covered symptoms came back the breathlessness the shortness of breath came back just with a Vengeance and I ended up back in hospital again because it was so severe so that was again was a terrifying experience to a year on from getting the initial covert infection to them being back in hospital with the same breathing problems which again just made no sense to me what was happening I didn't know if I'd been reinfected I didn't at this point you know and there's so much uncertainty um but by the end of 2021 I I went privately and I got my lungs tested I had a CT scan I've had X-rays I'd had lung function tests I'd had um an echocardiogram on my heart so I started to get tests as things opened up I was able to get the testing done and of course all of it came back clear and I'd had blood tests and all the rest of it and it all showed no no damage to my heart no damage to my lungs so at that point I was kind of able to think okay this you know there isn't anything wrong with me which is just mad considering how debilitated I was right maybe just pause for a minute and everybody take this in that at this point all the tests were clear and you had had a number a number of debilitating very severe symptoms in your body that hospitalized you yeah you're gonna learn through a story that were not caused by the body so just to know your brain can cause you know as Bell knows a gazillion symptoms in your body straight up so just so you just so that sinks in for those that are doubting the power of the brain yeah I mean it's amazing what the brain can do I do you know you see I've seen obviously firsthand I'm sure many of the listeners can understand it as well the power of what the brain can actually produce in the body is is phenomenal um so yes I then I sort of the end of 2021 I knew I thought it was just a really sensible idea for me to kind of get some more help and I did some research and sort of was looking around um and I found Eugene and it just felt I'd watched a lot of your videos and it just made the way you conveyed things in the way that you made sense of things just really fitted with me and it made sense to me and I think I reached out to you the beginning of 2022 you know this is two years of really really struggling and being you know incredibly debilitated not being able to work not being able to function in my life in any way you know I have two small children as well I had a a one-year-old when I got sick and a three-year-old as well and that was incredibly difficult and you know I think thinking about the stress of that time as well you know being so unwell in lockdown normally when you're that unwell people rally around you don't they family come in Friends come in they support you and my partner was working full-time trying to look after me trying to look after our two children and do homeschooling and the whole thing was just an absolute mess and chaos and it just created you know so much pain and the heartache of not being able to be the mum that I wanted to be was was really was really the whole thing was was really really difficult um yeah so yeah um and then from that point so we we started in the beginning of 2022 we did yeah and maybe maybe take us forward from there because it was a journey it's you'll see it's a journey it was a journey it was definitely a journey and we started and you know I still remember I was reflecting back on this and I still remember the first session that we had together because I've given you my history um I taught you about what's going on and I remember you just really calmly were like yeah I think this is what's going on you showed me the um anxietycenter.com website and I think you showed me um the symptoms for like shortness of breath type chest all those things I remember reading this sort of description of what it was like and what people tend to describe and it was just it was just me it was just perfectly described exactly what was going on and how I was feeling and especially with the the breathing symptoms and I just there was no other option and I hadn't the medical side of things gave me no answers um and I knew at that point that it I had to take a leap of faith and and trust that that was that was that was true that was what was going on that this was underlying all of this even though it started off with the covert infection my brain had somehow carried it on from the anxiety and maybe the conditioning of of what I've gone through for so long um but it was that's exactly what it was it was it was then being driven by fear and anxiety and it made total sense to me when you showed me that and it was actually I remember it was like a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders that there was an explanation for it um you accepted that diagnosis or that made sense to you where yeah just for the viewers and listeners sometimes I will say that as well hey I really think that this is just anxiety and some people freak out more because they're so anxious and they go like how am I supposed to get hold of my anxiety but you but you or they don't believe that they don't think that's true but you took it in because it made sense to you uh on many levels you test for clear right and you said this this really always make sense now just accepting the diagnosis didn't solve the problem right I wish it had I've heard all these amazing people that just get better from the knowledge and unfortunately unfortunately that wasn't me I had to do quite a bit of work and because there was you know what I went through with covid was so terrifying and I was living in complete Terror for years actually for a couple of years at this point so to work through that took me took me some time and to to trust and actually I think in in the initial stages I don't think I had a lot of belief in myself but your absolute strong belief and conviction in what what was going on for me I think I almost borrowed that from you for a while while I was testing it out um and I was like well Jim says I'm fine so I'm gonna do it I'm gonna go for it and and and you know although my the journey was up and down even in the first month of me working with you I'd gone from only being able to walk five minutes down the road to being able to walk an hour around my local Lake and that wasn't easy that you know that was you know I was still getting the breathing symptoms it was still terrifying and I was scared shitless sometimes but did you get it and that's highlight that again I'm gonna like little ding the button here because I want everybody to know that you want you weren't symptom-free while you were getting back to an hour it's so important to understand this absolutely not and I even remember um there's a big lake near me and that's the one I wanted to walk around is one of my favorite walking places to go to and once you get around the other side there's no access to it so my fear was that I would I would stop breathing or my breathing would get really bad and no one would be able to get to me no ambulance would be able to get to me and so to really conquer a lot of those fears of being like in places where I wasn't going to be able to access help if I needed it because I'd created a lot of safety behaviors around how far I was able to go where I was able to go making sure that people knew I was going so they could quickly get to me if I needed it so you know there was there's lots of things that kind of had to work through to be able to to to to get there and to do that and it and it took me quite a bit of time to to get to a point where I was walking around that Lake and not even thinking that way right so for a period of time would you say every time you went out there and did your walks you were you had a lot of fear you had a lot of symptoms but you just continue to walk through it right reassuring yourself what did you what did you do what is helpful so the listeners can know what did you do personally during that time because it was hard it was hard and I think one of the things that I learned on a lot during that time and we talked about it in at least in an early session you told me about the Dare book um uh so it's an approach to anxiety and which I think is brilliant I think it's one of the best books out there for anxiety and what I liked about it was uh one that had a whole chapter on breathing anxiety which again reinforced to me that actually this is caused by anxiety these breathing problems severe incomes can't be caused by anxiety so that again reinforced that to me but it also helped me in a sense of giving me uh and a like a mindset towards how to deal with with with the fear or with the anxiety that comes up around these symptoms and I think that helped me so much like I did all the journaling and I did the somatic tracking and those things are great and and I use I I use them and I still use them but to me the mindset piece was the how I responded to symptoms higher reactive symptoms was the most important piece for me of my recovery because that was the bit that I struggled with the most I had a tendency to catastrophize to get to freak out a lot to get really concerned and worried and it was using the Dare kind of way of approaching anxiety and the symptoms that really kind of helped me to to kind of manage that in it or react and respond in a different way yeah and if those who aren't familiar with their d-a-r-e you can check it out very very good approach very much in alignment with the work I teach and with the TMS world for overcoming fear yeah yeah so I very much use like part of the step is that paradoxical intention isn't it and I think everything about healing from whether it's panic attacks anxiety or the TMS is is counter-intuitive and it's paradoxical and you've got to do everything opposite to what you kind of naturally want to do so that kind of idea like I'd be walking walking and the breathing would come on um and it would be really tight and intense and shortness of breath and I'd be like come on then take me do what you want like I'm not giving up on this this is what I want to do just if you're going to get worse go for it and that took me a while to practice that yeah that's so important too about what you said it does take a practice some people say hell no I ain't saying that yeah but it is totally paradoxical and I just did an audio for my group on this I said do the opposite and it's truly exactly what you said the opposite and you said early on that you were determined that was the word I listened to that word and that's a very key word because you were like the say I'm gonna get over this right and so that you need determination and you need to have some conviction and even if you have to borrow it from me yeah or somebody and to get to that point where you say go ahead do whatever you want but that shows a lot of confidence in yourself even if you're scared internally right you're still approaching the symptoms that way and it and as I said it took a lot practice this times where I would turn around where I get so intense and I'd be like and I try it and then I'd be like I only got so far and I'd have to come back and and it just got easier and the more I just got more and more fed up and I think you have to find excuse my French like you're kind of moment where you're like I'm done with this I'm done with living like this I've had enough yeah um I'm fed up of you taking control of my life I've got stuff I want to do this I want you know we only get one life I want to live it and I think that energy of that empowered energy of and anger as well that you always said to me get angry don't be frightened like that's a healthier place to come from from anger than it is to to be in a frightened fearful place and that helped me definitely because that gave me the anger gave me motivation to keep moving forward rather than just collapsing getting really you know fearful and frightened and withdrawing yeah so tapping into the angle is really helpful yeah that's important for those of you listening that um studies show that fear is healthier than sorry anger is healthier than fear it's not that we want to be angry but when we're in high level fear we need to have like those words you use being powered being fed up being tired of this stuff so let's go you know come on I want to live my life you have to have that more than you have a fear and if you think about fear all the words that people use overcome fear from the researchers to famous people say you got to face the fear right you got to confront it you got to challenge it you got to move through it so you were you started to embody that yeah yeah and I kind of used um a little information I don't know but like saying I was safe made me feel more unsafe that my body is safe I'm safe I don't know why but it just did and but having that having a saying of like I'm okay I'm going to reclaim my life I'm reclaiming my life that just gave me that sort of burst of energy of yeah I can do this and just having something sometimes that gives you that stance towards it and for me it was just like I'm reclaiming my life and there's just no questions I'm just doing it yeah no questions see you're determined you're decisive that that's called facing state so when you get in this face and you say you're going to face this thing straight up right and and when you get into that mode you can do anything and that's what you proved you know now again we'll go through the whole story it wasn't like you did this one time and so that's it it's over with right and I think yeah so we got into started working I think February and by April I'd had a I got a big Extinction first I got post succession malays back and sometimes I could barely even stand for a couple of weeks I I felt so unwell and um it was so strong and I hadn't had that symptom for quite some time and I think it was because I was just confronting I was facing I was moving forward and then I just got knocked really big setback um and I kind of like we talked about it I kind of knew it was these things happen it's part of the course um and to keep my mindset still in a good place that was again the hardest bit but I knew I knew I could come back from it and I knew that if I came back from it then it would just make me stronger you know and make my my mindset stronger towards I'd always always had a goal in my mind that I was going to do this success story with you and I was gonna get there and it was just as I say determines and so that's it I can predict it almost with a hundred percent accuracy if you just listening who people when they talk this way hey I want to be a success story I create you're going to be I'm determined to get back because you're talking from a whole different space than you are from Fear yeah yeah yeah definitely yeah and I think I you know I had quite a few bumps along the way as I was working with you I got covered again in the June I remember we had it at the same time actually and then you know having going through that experience again of getting covered after the first time after what I went through previous was was terrifying um but I came through it and it only took me just over a week to get over it and feel fully better um and I remember you just telling me just keep reassuring your brain keep you know that you're gonna get there you're going to be okay and and it and it was and that gave me a lot of faith back in my body that I can get this infection again and I can get through it this time and it's not going to be the disaster that it was the first time around um yeah and then unfortunately a couple months later I found um a lump in my breast and um obviously that I went to the doctor and they said yeah we're gonna have to do an urgent referral and at that point that that really hit me hard like I I just I was so close to a couple I felt like I was so close to recovery at that point that we were almost I felt like coming to the end of our work and I and getting that that happen at that point I did I did go down at that point and I did think I did fall a bit more into a victim mentality and think oh my God why why now why me um and the anxiety just shot through the roof and having to wait for those test results and and go through that and luckily it was benign and it was fine um but very soon after that I got some very strange Sensations in my legs um and obviously it was that I can reflect on that now and see it was just like a I guess an outlet from all the anxiety and the stress that I went through for the two three people coming out of your body yeah yeah um and I got to the point where my legs went really really stiff where I couldn't almost and heavy that I couldn't I was really struggling to just kind of walk um and that was terrifying and then alongside that also I had experience of where I was like struggling to kind of lift my foot up yeah so just tell people this is again the power of the brain you really couldn't really look it felt weak right almost as if you had it what drop or something yeah exactly yeah yeah and and that was confusing I was either getting the stiffness or the the foot drop you know or the the kind of feeling that I couldn't lift my foot um and that was a really challenging thing to go through I had never experienced anything like that and it was just a whole new symptom that was just something to scare you right because the other stuff you had gotten through I'm like well I'll give her a foot shot that'll really go out that'll put her in place if I can take a break for a month or two because she'll be worrying about that for a while yeah exactly exactly and I and again I did I you knew that you that it was TMS I was like 98 sure it was TMS because I could see it fluctuate like I kept it in an Evidence sheet and I could see how it was fluctuating and one you know I'd be walking for 20 minutes and then it would completely disappear for the next 20 minutes and I could see all the variations so if I knew it was TMS but I did get tested I did have some nerve conduction tests and an MRI and of course it all came back clear um but didn't didn't one of the doctors early on scare you more about saying we they thought it was peripheral neuropathy yes yeah on the phone and for an initial assessment and that's what he came out with yeah it was like peripheral neuropathy which is quite a scary thing to to kind of be told so um yeah yeah that was yeah I forgot about that but yeah yeah so it kind of all added to the fear um of what was happening um so yeah and then I came through that took a little while to go away but I don't have any of those problems anymore that's completely all gone um so yeah and it was just using the same processes as I had before really of of the kind of the mindset stuff and I do I did quite a bit of somatic tracking I I don't tend to do that much journaling but um it was more the mindset stuff for me that was that was that was the piece that I really needed to work on yeah so that you're highlighting the fear the anxiety was the main motion that you needed to work with to get over and like I said it moved around your body in fact I think after the legs didn't it go somewhere else did it go to your arms or something for a little bit I think yeah I had some weakness down the arm as well yeah yeah and that's that's all gone now and that was scary because I actually got to the point where I was struggling to kind of lift a cup up or type or anything so it's just again what like what we said at the beginning just what the power of what the brain can do and producing the body just no longer the crisis so um because I've just had about you know everything really just experienced most things you had so many symptoms and so went to your arms and then I believe uh correct me if I'm wrong you you started running right you wanted to get back to doing more and then the the shortness of breath came back a little bit too right because you had were challenging it at a higher level yeah I started to get back to doing what I really wanted to because that's what I used to do before um and every time I tried I'd start trying I wanted to get back to doing it three at least three times a week and I remember I try and do it the first time and then my legs would either go weak or stiffen up or you know I'd get pain somewhere and I remember that sometimes a lot of the time that would put me off from from trying so I was I was scared you know of having a reaction from from trying to do weights but I just kept on trying I kept getting attacked and back and it took me a long time there was many times I couldn't do one a week and then I might have to skip a week and then I tried to move it to two twice a week and then I'd have to go back to one a week because of the reactions I was getting it was a really long drawn out process but again it was just the determination of this is what I want to do I want to get back to doing weights I want to get back to to biking and running and walking and all those sorts of things and just kept on going and I am I'm doing weights three times a week now and I don't get any reaction in my legs my legs is that amazing so just again to highlight the people because I get this question all the time Jim this approach isn't working for me I still having these crazy symptoms I'm trying to go back to XYZ and I always say keep going yeah yeah I'm going along enough yet and not only keep going you have like you said that mental state has to be strong you were determined you as bad as it was you said I'm going to keep going back keep going back and um that was a highlight of another success story I did recently is that the the determination and the consistency over a period of Time how long did it take you again with that gym to get back to not having symptoms three months yep of persistently keep on going back and lots of ups and downs with it working and not working and just yeah you didn't give up because a lot of people what happens they give up they pull all the way back like you pull back a little bit and kind of paused just recollect right and then move forward again so I think that's really key for people to hear yeah and I think that's one thing I really I remember you saying to me and that really stuck with me is is Paws don't stop and I think every in the early stages of when we're working together if something did come up or got really intense I'd just stop I'd stop everything and get really down on myself and be anxious again and just start catastrophizing and that's that whole spiral sort of sets off and it was it's just getting to you know a point where you know I was able to kind of see actually that doesn't get me anywhere and actually just takes me longer to get back and it's it's it is pausing it's sort of taking stock of what's going on recognizing what's going on seeing it for whatever is and having that determination to go no you're not stopping me I'm gonna keep going I'm going to keep moving forward right and in those pausing moments that's when he did some somatic tracking he did a lot of calming yeah yeah exactly that yes checking maybe a bit journaling just just seething myself but also like saying tomorrow I'm getting up and doing it again yeah that's it that's the key I think hopefully all you're getting this message from from what Bell's saying and what the previous success story said that look I have it it's in my diary it's ready to go this is what we're doing there wasn't a hesitation which is another word for that is doubt in other words you didn't let the fear get so strong that it was gonna stop you yeah right you were determined yeah yeah and I think it's just that decision again it is that you know no this is my life I'm not letting you take control I'm taking back control now and I think that's you know that's a really powerful message to kind of stick by is that idea that you are in that you are in control of this you do you can move through these difficult things and there will be lots of ups and downs and setbacks and it's really picking yourself up and dusting yourself off and sometimes that's really hard and sometimes yeah you do need to take a little bit of a pause and just relax and soothe and do something enjoyable and just watch some trashy TV or just but then it's knowing that tomorrow I'm gonna get back up and I'm gonna keep moving forward because you know it's my life and that's what I want you know it's yes it's amazing because like your story with all these different setbacks not just the same symptom you get over one and then like I'd talk to you again and say how you doing oh you won't believe it I got you know another one is we're like man this is keeps keeps coming at you but you didn't give up and I think that's so important to understand you had like how many different symptoms did you have that tried to scare you to stop and in a way right yeah absolutely yeah I think I I think I can't I did calculate at one point I think it was well over 25 different symptoms so it was a lot it was hard and so that last bit of you get back to the gym getting back to running doing more remember taking trips with the family right taking some holiday trips is a big deal too that was a huge yeah that was terrifying to me going away with the family and again it's just like leaving your comfort zone you create a little when you're when you're ill and you're ill for so long you create this little you know Universe almost like this little comfort zone and just leaving that and taking stepping out of it it can feel so scary and so intimidating and it's there's a lot of a lot of facing and confronting I'd say that was that if they were the two words that I could say was my journey with you and doing all it was facing facing fear and confronting it was just that that was that's and that but that's what you need to do you need to be able to to kind of keep facing fear and moving forward and doing it in spite of of how you feel sometimes you know yeah because the fear the anxiety was the that that's what was creating the symptoms in the first place so you're overcoming your symptoms but really what you're overcoming is the anxiety and fear yeah yeah like jujita get back to exercising going for those Walks Like You know I'm kind of okay with the emotional side of things and that the you know feeling my emotions and doing that it was the behavioral stuff for me that was really difficult that's where the most fear was was getting back into my life and that that's where I've had the most success the more I do and the more I enjoy my life and the more I put myself out there and do all the things that I want to do that's what I noticed that the symptoms aren't there that's when I noticed that they go down and and that's where I have the biggest success is just getting back into my life again yeah that's the Paradox here everybody is that the fear the purpose of fear is to make you avoid everything and pull back because there's danger and safety but remember this is anxiety not real fear but we can see how this manifested from that covet that really kicked this thing off and if you go back you know maybe just share a little bit about your previous uh life history that maybe what shaped this reaction to be so strong around the covet yeah so I had I had a medical trauma when I was um around about 13 um and that was really scary so it was to do with my eyesight and I lost quite a bit of my eyesight and my sensual vision and that was a genetic condition um and that was a really challenging thing to go through as a teenager um and I don't think I really had the support of the time to help me deal with the emotional aspect of that and the grief and the fear of of going through that that was never really addressed or supported so that manifested into an eating disorder and um it was just you know looking back on it now it was just a way of numbing the the big feelings that I just didn't feel like I could handle when I was a teenager with with what I was going through and so yeah I struggled with an eating disorder for many many years and I was actually I almost died from it when I was 18 I was in intensive care for four months so you know there was um a history of trauma there definitely of of not being able to feel the feelings or not being able to process the trauma that I went through um and that obviously manifested in the eating disorder and actually I'd recovered from the eating disorder really really well but I still knew that my relationship with food wasn't where I wanted to be when I was in my early 30s and so I did intuitive eating model and I recommend that to anyone that has difficulties with with eating or um disordered eating because it's brilliant it really is a brilliant model for recovery and it was when I was at the final stages of sort of finishing off that work that actually was when I got long covered maybe another thing maybe this is a long symptom imperative right over oh very low yeah it's interesting when you look back and you sort of see that you know you see the connections and you see how it came to be really um so yeah there's definitely a big connection there yeah yeah it's very interesting when you go back and you look at the deeper threads or the root to this going back further and further and I kind of want to sing around to the empowerment piece again because we talked about that just not only with dealing with the fear but about your life too right about stepping up speaking up being more empowered uh maybe speak that a little bit how that applied to you yeah it's a good point actually I think you know again we focus so much on the kind of the techniques and the tools of what do we need to do you know I'm certainly like that's like tell me what I'll do tell me what I need to do a journal smashy chat brilliant I'll do it all I do it perfectly and but that's part of the problem isn't it and I think one thing I think trauma going through trauma um gives is as as as children as adults is we learn to it kind of gives us coping mechanisms going through trauma that I think like the people pleasing the perfectionism that ultimately is what kind of again can create and manifest a lot of these symptoms as well as a way of dealing with what we've been through you know we learned people please we learned we learned to adapt to our environment don't we um and I think yeah I think working there's lots of things I had to do I had to speak up to certain members of my family um I had to articulate some of the be more assertive definitely um that was a big piece for me I really struggled with that it wasn't so bad with within my family I've got quite a good relationship with certain members of my family but it was more with people outside I was I really struggled with being assertive sort of outside of my family unit with with just friends or colleagues or you know that was where I kind of struggled because I had a big people pleasing problem um so yeah there was lots of other things I had to work on the perfectionism I had to really learn how to kind of uh tame that a bit more and focus on progress rather than perfectionism you know it's yeah there's lots of different things learning to say no assertiveness piece it was so many other different aspects that that I really had to kind of step back and really think about as well in terms of how I was relating to people and myself and and what other pressures were um creating the symptoms and the sensations as well or keeping them going or at least fueling them yeah yeah we talked about that so you did like a you know multi-pronged approach in addition to facing the fear we've worked a little bit on these other things and you were doing a lot of that work on your own with the feelings and so forth I still remember one story um that you said remember it was one time you had gone I think it was to the park or something and you were talking to a friend and we had seen that connection where it happened with some of the emotions coming up right about I think somebody had said something and you didn't say something yeah and swallowed it and the symptoms went up yeah so that kind of highlighted some of these emotions as well definitely like actually I've met mine and I hadn't had time and they they'd been they taken advantage of my the friendship and it um brought up a lot of very difficult feelings and I didn't express it I just went straight into people please amazing oh hi it's nice to see you and I was thinking I hate you you were awesome hey how's it going yeah exactly yeah and you're like and that's kind of like yeah I need to work on that like because I need to you know we weren't friends there's nothing there like why am I why am I doing that why am I thinking that epic and it's those kind of things and you're right it did bring up symptoms um and so those are things that I still have to work on now at you know and I think that's just the lifelong process as well of catching yourself doing that and and and trying to do things a bit differently absolutely yeah and you are and that's helping you as well but that fear you know like we can see all these emotions can cause um symptoms physical symptoms and what we're highlighting for you is that that fear or slashing really anxiety man did it light up your body with a whole host of symptoms that I want people to take in again that that was all just anxiety everything that Bell's mentioned today severe symptoms that put her in a hospital to crazy stuff that seems so physical so real yeah right they were real symptoms they weren't fake they weren't just in your head they were very real um but the cause was coming from anxiety absolutely yeah and I think that com actually the website is really helpful actually because I remember after I found out I was okay from from the cancer scare I remember sitting and watching my son he was leaving he's leaving school and I was watching the recital and it was just my vision was like this heat wave thing going on in the corner of my vision it was terrifying I was like what the hell is that am I having a straight and I remember going onto that website and I saw this like example of you know this heat wave type thing is is a normal symptom of anxiety and I just thought okay that's fine and it literally went and I just think it's sometimes it's really helpful as a resource to kind of go is this a common sense and if you know it is then I just watch it for for a little while and and then obviously you know when you relax and you kind of think that's what it is it goes away often you know it goes away yeah and I think that's why I really want to highlight that because I think anxiety is one of the biggest causes of TMS symptoms and people don't believe it recognize it doctors don't know it and it gets misdiagnosed I I just today was on anxietycenter.com website with a client so it's is how commonly I have to do it and she had what appeared to be what she thought was a TIA right a trans little mini stroke because she lost she couldn't and it turns out it wasn't and even the doctor said you know this could be anxiety and she goes oh yeah yeah she gotta get anxious all the time so it can cause these severe symptoms now yeah we want to get them getting checked out of course right but if you know you're prone to them there's usually good chance that that's what it is unless you know something else is causing him absolutely yeah I totally agree yeah awesome Belle that's so cool so maybe share is there anything else you want to share that was helpful on your journey I think you hit a lot of the highlights uh is there anything else that you want to share with the audience I think you know me I needed one-on-one support and I think I know that's maybe some privilege in that that I think that really helped me that moved me along a lot and I think you know it's a lonely place to be sometimes in in not many people understand this and understand what you're going through especially when you found this approaching it so still not mainstream unfortunately and I think working with someone that that gets it and understands it and can support you and just having that safe space to go and talk about it and and get that support and have someone believe in you and believe in your recovery I think is really powerful and I think yeah absolutely because we worked for um how long do we work just so people know it wasn't like we worked for a month or even two months we worked for it so we started in February and session at the beginning of May now the following following year so it was over a year just so people know that because I like to put that out there because it does not always a quick recovery we all want that but um a lot of the people I see and work with again it's not quick recoveries but the idea is you keep going you know and you have that support and I want to finish up with what you're doing now because I want to highlight your work now and and that last piece of the puzzle that was a hurdle like of getting into this work to maybe share how that came about what you're doing now yeah so I'm actually um a clinical psychologist um and interestingly enough before I got covered I just started a job working in pain management so I was working with patients with chronic pain but in a very medicalized way and this this approach was not on my radar at all um so actually when I went through the chronic pain and I found about the Mind Body approach I really struggled to to to go back into that system knowing what I know it just felt very unethical to me so um I decided to go off on my own and start set up my own private practice which is what I've been working on for the last few months and yeah and I'm just finishing off my website and setting up so that's that's where I'm at now and that's yeah it feels really great and empowering to kind of be doing my own thing and doing something that I really believe in as well and I think so many people say this but when you've gone through something like this yourself and you you know the power of it and you know what you know how it can transforms people's lives it's transformed my life and you can't not do it especially given the career that I'm in as well I'm you know it's just like I can't not do this it's I'm just it's become a passion now for me to kind of pass this forward and support other people through it yeah and we'll go ahead once you have that website done I can link it to the YouTube so people can check you out if you're interested and learning more about you because your story is amazing like I always say to everybody when you live it and you've experienced it and you've gotten through it it's better than any kind of training you could have done in school oh God yeah yeah absolutely like I look back on my training and we had like some lectures on unexplained symptoms and it it really it was really poor it wasn't great at all and I think you know learning what I've learned now is in and what I've gone through personally has given me much much more than my training could have ever given me so it's a privilege in that sense yeah and it's a privilege that you to come out it's almost like a a greater good has come out of this or a silver lining is that now you're moving into an area you're passionate about and you're already working in in a field of right pain as a psychologist but even there you weren't doing the same stuff that we did here right it's even there it's not working in the same way yeah nowhere near what we were doing nothing like it so yeah yeah it's really amazing so I'm really excited to see where you're going and uh that you're going to be out there helping other people as well with these conditions because we need more and more people doing it this it's a ton of people out there that are suffering um any last words of wisdom for people that are struggling that are um having a difficult time not sure what to do or having a hard time the important thing that I did that really moved me forward is kind of what I said before I reached out I reached out for help and that's just what I needed to do I needed to be supported by someone like you I needed you to tell me that this is what it was I needed you to believe in me and believe in my recovery and that was the most powerful thing for me that's what moved me on more than anything and I think you know sometimes we all need support in this area and I think you know for me personally it was I needed your support gym I need that that helped me more than anything so he was fantastic and I can't thank you enough for all the support you gave me yeah thank you it's always an honor to help people and that's why I love this work and you know I get people telling me off air emails and I don't even know who these people are so it's just such it comes back so strongly to me so I appreciate you and your dedication to this and your determination that's the word and your ability to just keep going even in its darkest moments uh not not to give up on the process and see it through to the finish line and like you said there's always stuff to work on so I'm still working on stuff too and as Nicole sack says it's a human condition so it can strike at any time right even even that's the other thing I guess is is normalizing that Sensations I think when I was February was never to feel any Sensations ever again um and that's just not true I don't get chronic Sensations now but I still get Sensations every so often and that's they come and they go and it's right that's that's normal and I think that took me a you know to realize that actually it's not about complete no Sensations ever it's it's about you will get things you know we have bodies they do weird things sometimes and right we have emotions yeah exactly emotion shop and our bodies are symptoms so of course yeah I think that's really important to highlight that it's not like oh my God I'm just completely free I never had a sensation since that exactly that yeah yeah it's about The Chronic ones exactly it's definitely yeah awesome Bell well thank you so much again for sharing your story and being courageous to come on here and and share it helps so many people it really does I'm trying to do more of these so you're just a great example of this work and now going on to help other people recover so I'm so proud of you and what you've done see thanks Jim okay we'll see you next time okay bye

Channel: Healing Chronic Somatic Symptoms- The Pain PT

Views: 11,611

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Id: Z4GNHOOntnE

Length: 52min 10sec (3130 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 15 2023