Feeling like a victim may be keeping TMS pain alive

Today I will write about a powerful contributor to TMS pain which I (shamefully) still very much identify with - the victim personality. The adoption of this personality may be the very reason why the TMS method is still not very popular nowadays, as people have learnt to behave and think like victims in various life situations. Let me explain a bit better: in a lot of difficult circumstances, it feels ‘comfortable’ or ‘preferable’ to assume the role of victim, even if you may not be conscious about this.

How the victim personality develops

How many times have we felt a victim of our circumstances, perhaps rightly so? Although the helplessness and sadness that comes along with adopting this perspective is horrible, for a lot of people, it is still preferable to be the victim rather than the game changer. Why is that?, you might ask. The answer is simple and hard to swallow - we may not like to admit that you we have got ourselves into a bad situation in the first place, and/or we may not be ready to take responsibility to help ourselves and change things.

The TMS method works so well because it empowers the individual to take action, to believe that there is hope, and that the solution is inside of oneself. How beautiful is that?

Our backgrounds certainly don’t help with this. Some of us may really have been unwilling victims of circumstances, especially in our childhood. As children, we couldn’t do anything to change something we didn’t like - if our parents decided to separate, we felt helpless, if we didn’t like our school, we couldn’t just decide to change school. As adults, we have more control - we can decide to try and make things better in a relationship, and we can decide to change jobs if we’re stressed or unhappy. But unfortunately, by the time we are adults, we may have already adopted the ‘victim’ personality, and extended it to several aspects of our lives. And that keeps us from taking responsibility to change our lives for the better.

The victim keeps TMS pain alive

I could go on and on about how people constantly sabotage their lives because they actually prefer the role of victim - rather than master - of their own lives. But since the topic here is TMS, I shall focus on chronic pain and other recurring symptoms.

When victims get a flare-up, and it’s very bad, they feel very sorry for themselves. It’s the same with an injury, which progresses to TMS. Victims believe that they are unlucky, that the world has turned against them, and that there is nothing they can do. Unfortunately, in the case of pain, medicine doesn’t help much. We’ve been used to going to doctors for a solution to our ailments, and taking meds to make things better. Now although some meds do work wonders, and may be necessary in various circumstances, when we do take a pill for chronic pain, we are relying on something outside of ourselves to get better. We are not taking any part in the healing process. If the pill doesn’t have the desired effect (and it probably won’t if we’re dealing with TMS), then we once again feel very sorry for ourselves, and try and search for another cure - yet again outside of ourselves.

Being a victim has its advantages. The people around us will actually sympathise with us. They may offer to help us, ask us how we’re feeling, and may give us the attention we so desperately need. And here’s where I shall drop the bomb for you today:

The victim’s subconscious mind may prefer to be in excruciating pain if this pain is attracting other people’s sympathy, love and attention, OR if the pain is getting the sufferer out of a certain situation he does not want to be in.

This is the reason why I’ve been blocked on a couple of fibromyalgia support groups - and I didn’t even put it that bluntly, mind you. But as soon as you tell some ‘victims’ that they should be taking some responsibility for their health, that their symptoms are there to divert their attention from certain repressed emotions, or that their purpose is to get them out of a situation they don’t want (for instance, out of a relationship that’s stressing them out), they instantly reject this explanation. The truth does hurt, and we like to hide it, even from ourselves.

The TMS method: from Victim to Master

Thankfully, some people are willing to do enough soul-searching to actually realise what’s happening on an unconscious level. A lot of people who were open to Dr Sarno’s method, who have actually read something about it, and who have identified themselves as TMS sufferers have managed to shift their mindset from that of victim to that of master of their pain - and ultimately, of their lives.

Once you practise self-awareness and acceptance, once you actually accept the fact that you’ve been behaving like a victim and contributing to making the pain worse, then you can start working on changing your personality. You will start feeling in control, and look at your pain differently - simply as a strong signal that something is wrong, and that you need to get to the bottom of it in order to solve it, just like a puzzle. As you work with several techniques, you’ll start feeling so much less sorry for yourself, and much more empowered. The TMS method works so well because it empowers the individual to take action, to believe that there is hope, and that the solution is inside of oneself. How beautiful is that?

Once pain is no longer your enemy, once you see it for what it really is, there is no need to feel like a victim. You will stop worrying about how it may continue to ruin your life, how you may not be able to bear it any longer, etc, etc, and this new mindset will take its power away, so that eventually, it will fade and even stop altogether.

And even though there really are situations in life that we may not be able to change - I’m not saying that there aren’t - chronic pain doesn’t have to be one of these things. And that should be extremely good news to anyone who is suffering.