Hi Everyone, I am new here and new to having any type of support for my fibro. I have also had Fibromyalgia for 35 years. I was wondering if anyone has come across the neuroscience of pain which involves unlearning your pain (e.g. Dr Howard Schubiner’s research) and brain retraining (e.g. Dr Caroline Leaf’s research)? If so, have you tried any of the recommended methods? Have you had any success for your Fibromyalgia? I would love to hear your feedback on this.
Hi SophieJo, great you’re here, reaching out, sharing and asking!
I’ve delved into and mostly tried out everything there is, so of course “unlearning pain” too.
There are a few protocols to “brain rewiring” that are often touted for fibromyalgia.
For those open to try mental techniques, it will definitely make a difference. Done properly these at last take all the edge out of the pain. Whilst it may remain, it can’t get to us anymore, it doesn’t drag our lives down. In that sense it is similar to CBT and especially ACT - acceptance and commitment therapy. Studies confirm that CBT can help. And ACT specifically can “halve” the pain, cos we lose the pain about the pain.
So the main hindrance for this is when people feel that working on “brain matters” implies they “are mental”, because they don’t see the big difference.
Now most of the brain rewiring stuff applied to fibromyalgia assumes that it is a CSS, a central sensitisation syndrome, and that the pain type is nociplastic pain, so neither nociceptive (cell injury) nor neuropathic (nerve injury) pain. This is something some of the major researchers like Clauw assume. I do think that there are people it applies to, esp. those that have reduced pain tolerance, hyperalgesia and allodynia. I have none of these.
As I overreact to chemicals like anaesthesia, on Friday I got a big filling done without and was completely relaxed, just it gets to my system in other ways than pain.
Actually Frederick Wolfe, the head of all the ACT fibromyalgia criteria, 1990, 2010/11 and 2016 did not support the central sensitisation theory, said it’s much more complicated than that and we have a long way to go and need much more detailed research.
Me: So for local pains I identify and localise each and work on the source of each local pain separately, often tendinitis, often with the help of youtube physios.
Then I get overall pain that comes along esp. with “fatigue”, as in “post exertional malaise”, but also other triggers than “exertion”: chemical, social, media stimuli. These are for quite some part from MCAS, post-vac and some kind of ME/CFS, but I had a big part of it before the vacs from (maybe) “just fibromyalgia”.
I have a load of supps, loads of mental training, incl. mindfulness and radical acceptance, and precise pacing: pushing thru slower lets me do more with calculable backlash…
So you gonna try this, then? Why not!
Hi JayCS,
Thanks for your feedback. It is nice to have a connection with a fellow FMS sufferer.
There is so much in what you have said, I am struggling to know how to reply. I am quite interested in your journey, which may be able to be discussed in a thread I may start under treatments… another time.
From your response, am I able to safely say that you have found that you mostly suffer pain which is associated with physical issues, which means that going the “unlearning your pain” route has only a little impact? Sorry, I struggled to work it out.
In my life journey, I have experienced neglect and abuse in varying degrees, most of my life… in childhood and in a 20 year marriage. It has left me with tremors, PTSD, fatigue and pain produced as a result of triggers. As far as the pain is concerned, I feel the pain in my body in response to thoughts, triggers and my own physical acts, which are triggers in and of themselves due to PTSD. Our brains are there to protect us physically and emotionally. I can see how my brain could have been appropriately warning me by filling my body with pain, fatigue and shakes. For a long time I was unable to respond to those warning with the necessary changes needed, in a reasonable time, therefore the signals become out of control and become louder in intensity. It makes sense to me that my brain is now stuck in a loud alarm mode, and that I need to learn to train it to warn me in a more proportional way. Being a carer and very busy, I am struggling to work out how I can successfully do what it takes to unlearning my pain and rewire my brain. It is certainly my goal. I suppose in having necessary counselling for the past and trying to learn boundaries along with that, I am preparing the way for all of this to be successful. Then I can truthfully tell my body that it is in a safer place, because I am now protecting myself mentally and physically.
I haven’t heard of ”Clauw.” I hope to look at it sometime when I have the opportunity.
I have heard that Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (which can be a part of fibro.) are included in the list of psychogenic (originating from the brain) pain, but I find that I don’t even have to smell certain troublesome toxins to react to them. My body’s feeling of being strongly intoxicated occurs when I least expect it. Sometimes when I mention to the right person that I had an issue, I find that yes, something toxic was sprayed in that building. I also find that sometimes I smell toxic smells in a building, and I don’t react. It all depends on the toxins and their effect on me personally. It makes sense that my brain warns me of danger, because these things are toxic and dangerous to my body. My body then tells me in a way that I will hopefully respond by moving to safety.
Does any of my journey ring a bell in anyone else?
Great answer, SophieJo, and I can relate to all of it.
Don’t know if you’ve seen my “fibro blog” here I’ve been writing down for over 4 years now. But that’ll be too much, and wherever you wanna start, I’ll be there if you want.
Your summarizing question back about my pain being mostly from physical issues is a good one and allows me to go into more detail.
Just starting without the neglect and some abuse I also have been thru, I’d readjust: I do (since fibro started 2019 and even more so since the jabs) get pain from mental exhaustion (like social and media), not just physical exhaustion. But I’m sure this has a physical origin and is not due to the oversensitisaiion of my central or periphery nervous system. Instead my triggers/symptoms suggest that something on cellular / mitochondrial level has broken down. Just medicine can’t find it yet, and won’t be able to for quite some time.
Also 2nd re-adjustment, or actually just agreeing explanation: I think my body often learnt pain after severely overreacted to various things since my childhood. But I was always very much on my toes to find and solve the physical and mental causes, differentiating multiple triggers for certain symptoms. So I kept working on everything before any learnt pain could habituate. And aside from preventing the learning, I’ve also been unlearning it all the time. My blog shows how diligent I still am. People call fibro a whack-a-mole game. And yes, it is, but when I wack, I solve, whilst others can’t manage to whack quick enough.
For me it’s actually spinning plates, and watching that I always catch the important ones in time.
So like you, abusive relationships that could have lead to trauma. But I went to therapy fairly on and regularly and worked hard myself, mainly on social phobia, but also on dissociating my thoughts, memories and activities from th past abuse. Still there, but I focus on the present. Ironically the biggest most radical deepest improvements cam around 10 years ago, when the first inexplicable pain waves came, often from cold and wind, at the time without fatigue. But luckily in that irony lies the key to not letting fibro or the rest get to me.
From the way you’ve described it, I can well imagine that unlearning pain will help you, alongside unravelling the mental and perhaps also physical issues leading to it.
You say you’re a carer and very busy. That was me too. But fibro came with a bang despite being prepared for it and kicked me half out of it, whilst the CoV-jabs all but finished it off. But I’m still managing to be a carer in different ways.
It’s - as we of course know all along - a great paradigm shift to not just “know”, but actually get round to doing it: To get busy first and foremost with self-care, - cos we are worth it, - cos we will be able to help better once we do it, - cos if we really truly mean it honestly that we want to help people who need it in the best way possible, then we should start with ourselves, - cos we need to show all people we care for, incl. loved ones, that martyrdom and sacrifice is not always good and right, that people shouldn’t trample on their own health and sanity… Yeah, but we learnt and knew all that didn’t we… ;-D
Clauw: Is one of the primary fibro researchers Daniel Clauw - a very good researcher, but too convinced that fibro is mainly caused by central sensitisation for my liking.
MCS I wouldn’t be too quick to stick the psychogenic label on to, And I definitely wouldn’t say it can be a part of fibro, I’d say some people can have both - and I don’t think it’s many.
Reacting to toxins the way you do by the way also brings MCAS to my mind, praps an even more common co-morbidity with fibro than MCS.
But I can very much follow your reasoning that your reactons to toxins may be a combination of physical and mental triggers. This would be something to learn to identify in more and more detail.
The problem could likely be that you’re still a carer and still busy, and it won’t be that easy without a big crash like mine to “turn around”. Altho it isn’t really turning around is it, it’s taking your caring for people in need more seriously. 
But instead of a crash, taking the warning signs seriously like you obviously are may just mean taking a more and more appropriate portion of your own life for self-care. Which will grudgingly mean becoming busy with being-less-busy… I can’t say I was good at that, it was my big crashes that forced me to make mindfulness a big part of my life and be busy in a different way…
Hope you can manage it better than me…
Yes JayCS, I have seen your blog 
and I find your presenting character to be quite intriguing, as I see elements of your personality in me; maybe not quite to the same extent though. How you present certainly fits in with the common personality traits apparently found in FMS sufferers. I like lists, but find that they can cause me to be too intensely focussed on my circumstances; hence increasing my anxiety and other symptoms. The problem is, that not having them can cause my life to be less on track and more in disarray. This too can cause issues in going forward. Somehow, I suppose, a balance needs to be made.
Your comment on fibro being a “wack-a-mole game” is new to me, and I find the idea exhausting to think about. From my experience (which backs up the science on this), I do wonder if an element of your plaguing symptoms or their intensity is being retained due to your continual intense diligence and hypervigilance. It is just something to think about… I find that I can (for example) go into an intense mode of trying to succeed in having a good day of rest because I am in desperate need of it. All sorts of others’ needs try to take that from me, and in the battle to protect the day, I think that my intensity is doing more damage, and causing my brain to warn me through undesirable symptoms. Somehow, I think I need to learn to just quietly prepare the day in advance, with good boundaries set down, so I can just quietly and calmly stand my ground on those boundaries, without triggering my brain’s protective infliction of symptoms caused by an annoyed, reactive, diligent fighting for my needs to be met.
You said,
“Ironically the biggest most radical deepest improvements cam around 10 years ago, when the first inexplicable pain waves came, often from cold and wind, at the time without fatigue. But luckily in that irony lies the key to not letting fibro or the rest get to me.”
What was your approach to gaining those improvements? Was it as a result of your work done during therapy?
I am an in-home carer of my adult child, and I have other children with big needs. It does make it difficult to put myself first when there appears to be no other way they can get the help, but being in a perpetual state of burn-out and still somehow managing to keep on going (an art form I have managed to have almost down to a tee, unfortunately) is certainly detrimental to me; certainly, a cycle I have to learn skills to get out of. I kinda had a mini crash before Christmas. I don’t want to end up becoming totally incapacitated for longer than those 4 days. I am trying to work through those unhealthy patterns with help.
Thanks @JayCS for your caring warning. I am far from managing all this well.
Just wondering… are others in our community, here, struggling with properly looking after themselves; finding that they struggle with burn-out?
Here again I’ve waited a bit, like in the personality and fibromyalgia thread…
Here you’ve decided that I have the personality traits you were asking for… I won’t say that’s wrong, but do think that it isn’t that easy. And I get the impression that people with fibro have quite a variety of traits, and that I don’t fit in that well at all.
“Whack-a-mole game” is one image used by some people, another is “pain jumps around”, meaning roughly the same thing: Alternating local pains, where you treat one and as soon as that’s gone, another starts up. Not really supposed to be something exhausting to think about, it’s just an expression of frustration - if it doesn’t fit in your case, good for you.
Your wondering whether my diligence and hypervigilance is partly causing my symptoms is a bit old hat. One doc warned me of this right at the beginning and my wife also once asked it, but everyone - especially my psychologist - quickly saw that this doesn’t hold true for me in anyway. I agree for some people, like praps you, this can increase anxiety. For me it doesn’t at all, it decreases it. What I note I no longer have to think about. Having worked thru all this stuff I have managed to tackle and cope with all of it and become happier than ever at the same time. If you look the entries of the last year or so, the actual notes I enter into my template are now only 2 to 5 lines per day. The voice notes I record for this take about 5 minutes per day. They have become so unimportant that it’s OK to have a backlog of 6 weeks cos it’s still a big help to see mid- and long-term changes, but my 100s to 1000s of photos a day are just too much fun to work thru and share here and on bird forums.
Just again goes to prove that I don’t fit in with your expectations and those traits… 
And just possibly you are finding things in me that aren’t there like you think they are, which actually reflects yourself…??
Your intense mode of trying to succeed in having a good day of rest is something I’ve never had. My inner energy and the flow I get into doing my stuff often give me good days even when I don’t manage to put the brakes on. What I’ve learnt pretty quickly is to listen to my body and just stop any physical activity even after 5 minutes, even if people are disappointed: I don’t care and I will only sometimes let someone (actually only one grandchild) trample on my body for a few minutes longer than I should.
The radical deepest improvements was only directly from any books / therapy. At the time I had a lot of phobic anxiety stuff. But suddenly one thing clicked in. An image came to me that if I am standing on a bridge or something, then I am safe and am not falling. I worked for myself on this standing safely and it turned into a general mindfulness of the Here and Now and that gradually decreased all films of past and present that had always lamed me. (For others, I’d read up and practiced how to re-imagine nightmares etc. and learning that technique may have helped this, not sure.) Amazingly, first my fear of heights quickly decreased, followed by a whole load of other fears, like stage fright, 15 areas I think I once counted. I practiced all of these regularly, I first got the fear of heights down from about 80% to 5-10% inside of about 6 months, and under 5% after 2 years.
Now this mindfulness has grown very useful for my attitude of radical acceptance. So pain books like Jon Kabat-Zinn and Peter Levine I could speed thru inside of an hour, cos like most things now: I already implement all of it.
I still did some therapy sessions for some bits and bobs (and cos my psychologist acknowledged my "skills’) and an ACT online course for people with fibro and similar, just in case and for fun.
I do however very much get how children make it very challenging!
Hi @JayCS, I stand to be corrected, and thank you for your gracious reply here. Please excuse my simplicity and ignorance; a recent 10 years of isolation due to abuse will do that to a person.
Thanks for your reply. I must say that I like how you have made sure you aim to have a balance in your life with times of healthy enjoyment. Thanks also for sharing your mindfulness journey. It is so great that this has made such an improvement in your health. Having (most likely PTSD induced) aphantasia in all sensory areas, kinda stops this as an option… I just have to utilize other options. 
Thanks again for sharing.
Oh dear, no, not simplicity or ignorance, that to me definitely doesn’t fit to you! - I think carried by new insights and hope that this might work. Perhaps not really correction, just re-adjustment. The important thing is to carry on with this idea, and I’m keen to hear/read how you fare, and praps I can contribute ideas how you might get it to work.
Trauma therapy I know from people close is such a difficult thing. Sometimes I get the feeling a good trauma therapist might be able to help without harming. Sometimes people need to find their own way. Some things need to just be manoeuvred around.
What prevented my I spose life-long trauma turning to PTSD was working on things from the start, long-term, but whilst freeing myself by outer and inner distancing, I of course went from one long relationship to another that were each better than the one before, but always entailed some abuse, if less and less. For a good part cos I was learning not to get abuse actually get to me and pull me down.
Visualization not being an option:
I wonder if you can re-train it, unlearn the aphantasia.
But my basic trick is probably not visualisation, it’s sensing my body and my situation in the here and now. Making myself as aware as possible of the fact that I am now not in danger. So standing on a bridge or shortly before some gig or talk or calling for a waiter, I repeat(ed) to myself: I am here and now standing safe. Often via the feeling in my legs and especially feet. A second later: I am still safe now. The same after something happens, like: I am safe. This slows down and minimises the build up and quickens the build down. Long hard work.
But again I’m not sure if this is again too sensory for you. I’m not too sensory myself, or wasn’t. Feelings and senses were often not bad and dangerous in the past. But I’ve learnt all the sam.
So as you say, your other options will be to free yourselves from ghouls of the past and future by finding your own way to remain in your present safety.
The question would be what kinds of things have worked for us in the past, that we are good at or seem likely to be learnable. They might be things like mind power, powerful thoughts, not using the senses too much?
I’m just myself thinking how safe the present safety may feel, if we are all jittery and anxious a lot of the time. I think it’s probably relative and can be sensed that way. Like I’m “relatively” safe now. And we can then work ourselves up by extending times and situations.
Also it’s essential to try all kinds of relaxation techniques, focus on the ones that work easiest and quickest, practice these in all situations - times of stress as well as times of peace, learn to call them up at our will, habituate them. Not force them upon us, of course, but bathe in them like in a warm bath. My favourite one I only learnt since fibro is NSDR/Yoga Nidra (Ally Boothroyd), and of that “toes tingling”. A quirky one I’d never have expected would work for me. But I’d search in the many things on offer for an own quirky one.
Hi JayCS,
Thanks for your encouraging re-adjustiive comments about me.
Making improvements in managing my fibro. is a challenge, when life doesn’t feel safe, especially with the possibility that any day, my young adult child could die, but then again, could go on like this for a long time. There is no way of telling. Quietening the body down in the storm is difficult. It is just like telling a woman to relax during the pain of her contractions of childbirth, or telling disabled people, who depend on people to transfer them, to relax if the people accidently drop them. It is important and very unnatural. I presume this is what you were referring to as “inner distancing?” We still endeavour to do these things, in order to get to a better place.
The recognition of aphantasia as being real, is fairly new; it has been about 12 years now. That means that methods of reversing it are still in the discovery process. I have been kinda trying with a small success. The difficulty with not being able to visualize, is that it makes it difficult to go from intellect (memories being intellectualized) to emotions. Visualisation would normally help bridge that gap. Aphantasia is a protective shut-down of the senses, but it makes healing more of a challenge. The memories get stuck in the body, and release is more of a challenge. Still trying, though.
My go-to is TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises). You might think this is a quirky one. Lol. Once the body gets used to it, it becomes quick to trigger a start. Hopefully this can help reduce involuntary tremors, with time. 
Just wanted to say: Glad you’re here, so good!
Yeah, I think I understood you right: It’d be important (to do), but very hard?
Natural I’d “redefine” would be when fear accords with the possibility of danger/risk, unnatural when it goes and remains beyond that, as happens in PTSD, phobia/anxiety.
And I guess in more natural cultures, relaxing during giving birth is a more natural thing than in ours.
Your comparisons seem to make the type of anxiety “visible”, but have the downside that they’re images that tie down a fear that isn’t at all helpful. Good side is they are images, not real, and as they imply feelings that make us feel powerless we can reframe situations using similar images that make us feel more in command of our situation.
Simple ‘negative backdrop’ ones are the complete senselessness of worrying ourselves to death or illness or more pain, and that our worrying can cause exactly what we are fearing. Not practically helpful, but a good mindset for a start, to make sure we ‘know’. And it’s not just knowing the obvious, it’s making sure first intellectually we accept death and sickness as well as life, because they are a necessary part to life, without them there is no life. (Questions and answers of theodicy may come up to religious minds.)
More positive and constructive is changing our attitude to death and dying, for instance in the sense of carpe diem. Young adult child you say. That reminds me when I was young I had a distinct feeling I’d die when I’m 25. No worrying, a quirky inkling I’d ‘play’ with. I wouldn’t have minded to die or to live and work for some happiness. So after 25 each day is a present to me and at the same time I’m ready to go any time. No one else will be able to share this thought, but “In the Living Years” (Mike + the Mechanics) and other carpe diem reminders can help us live in the present with ourselves and our loved ones.
So yeah, life isn’t safe, but that’s a safe realisation. That’s the beauty of radical acceptance which frees us by helping us accept what can’t be changed, “distance” ourselves from any thoughts, emotions, like the two comparisons. I’m not naturally good at Buddhist “detached awareness” in purity, I have slowly learnt to let my interpretations and “films” or what happened or might happen go by concentrating on and cherishing what is Now.
A go-to of mine for my ex-social phobia was Face - Accept - Float - Let Time Pass, and I realised I could dissolve the emotional pain far quicker by “immersing” myself into it and not distracting. Similarly some physical pain loses its sting to me by “feeling it” closely, and the rest by distracting, in balance of the two.
So inner distancing from a possible but unlikely risk would be a help and might come from an attitude of radical acceptance with the help of the serenity “prayer”.
Exercises a quirky one for trauma? No way, completely brilliant! ¯_(ツ)_/¯ The memories seemingly buried in the body are then “shaken loose”, the body can let go. I’ve had a look at TRE here:
“to trigger a start” you say: I’m not sure what you mean, but it sounds a bit as if you mean “voluntary” tremors and I’m sure that can help any involuntary ones as well as shaking the memories loose, freeing. I tried some other tremor exercises once, I think that was for pain, but it didn’t help me, rather it made it worse, but good and easy to try.
Aside from NSDR, Wim Hof’s breathing exercises are something praps similar which I have loved when I needed a different kind of relaxation.
Thanks again for sharing, @JayCS . You understood correctly what I said.
Just one comment… I just look forward to being able to feel the feelings and then let them go. I have spent too many years holding the emotions back. Radical acceptance sounds like a great way to go.
I’m always on the lookout to find workarounds and to dissolve seeming dead-ends.
So it occurred to me: Don’t you dream, doze-dream, daydream? If you can’t remember them, taking more note of nice or interesting dreams can increase your phantasia again.
These would be situations that can be used to re-evoke your phantasia.
What about art, photographs, architecture, nature?: external good images to re-awaken good internal ones. And savouring any sensory impulses like a nice smell or taste.
Anything in that for you?
Hi @JayCS
Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I have been very busy.
Thanks for your thoughts on the aphantasia. I do think it worth trying to reverse it. Within the busyness of life, it is difficult to keep regularly making attempts. I have been attempting intermittently. I find that focusing on hand and movements, like sign language signs, in front of me are a good start. Somehow the closeness of the movements helps.
Yes, I do have dreams, but I mostly don’t remember them. No doze-dreaming or daydreaming. I only remember having visual sensory remembrance when I was young. Hearing tunes or other people’s voices in my head (without the tune or words being deliberately generated in my own head voice) and other sensory abilities, I don’t remember ever having. They are probably not as important in the scheme of things. All I can see visually in my head are very, very faint still images of very familiar people and places. I struggle to work out if there is colour… it is that faint. It does affect my ability to recognise people; remember events/facts and remember which direction to go. I think that visual plus intellectual remembrance would be much better to have together. I will keep trying. I am not sure if many other people have tried to reverse their Aphantasia, what their methods were or how successful it was. I think with time, more will show up on the internet about people’s efforts, and proven successful methods.
Thanks again, JayCS
When you said “I struggle to work out if there is colour” I started wondering how clear the images in my head are. Not particularly clear, actually.
Cos you said you don’t know how far reversing has been tried, I read up a bit on that.
Interesting the retorting comment of William Williams on the first site (below) “it is an ABILITY and aids clear-thinking”. And considering what I read, trying to reverse it seems a heck of a strain for not much result.
I get you think it might be influencing your recognition capabilities, but maybe that’s quite independent and can be trained using other strategies with more gain.
Looking back above, I see that fibro as “whack-a-mole” was an image that caused a strain for you - is the aphantasia praps why? And for a beautifully cognitive mind that would as said just translate to “alternating pains”.
Here I believe the image of some for this that the fibro pain “jumps around” is actually detrimental, because it’s a wrong belief and might cause additional stress by making us feel powerless and prevent people from trying to tackle each of these local pains. But to vent it might be OK.
Also I’m now wondering: With less visual imagination, wouldn’t that mean you don’t (need to) worry about the past or future, because both are faded anyway?
So that means concentrating on the Here and Now comes naturally to you? In a sense, mindfulness is the practice of sensing what is, rather than visualizing what isn’t…
So what I experience as a great help (that’s how we started on this) is something that might even come natural to you anyway, so isn’t much of an issue for you?
But wait, you say you do worry about “what might happen”. So here praps quite the opposite: using your aphantasia so that the image of what might happen fades and you can concentrate with a clearer mind on how to change your priorities for less stress?
Hi @JayCS,
A link you gave, mentioned using the retina as a focus point for reversing aphantasia. I had no idea that some people see their mind’s eye imagery through the retina.
“Areas of the brain from the retina of the eye to the primary visual cortex and beyond are both activated with vision and mental imagery .”
I am not quite sure how common that is, and I don’t think that focusing on the retina area when trying to visualize, would work for me. I am also thinking that I can’t see how any of the other senses’ capabilities could come alive (as was recommended to work on along with the visual) as I have never had them function in the past. For example, I have never even slightly heard specific people’s voices in my mind’s ear, or soundtracks in my mind’s ear; and none of these with touch, nor taste, nor smell. Therefore, trying to awaken these at the same time as the visual may not help me. I have tried to learn a bit of sign language to songs. As I sing or hear these songs, restraining myself from using my hands can be difficult. This is when I try to visualize what I can’t do with my hands. As these signs are done close to the eyes, I think it does help, somewhat. Having a passion for that thing, I think also helps. Perhaps stopping an artist, with visual aphantasia, from being able to paint when they desperately want to, may be a good time for that person to attempt visualization. Perhaps this is a good way to go.
You are correct in saying that I live in the “Here and now.” Escapism in my mind is not something I can do. My C-PTSD damage is limited by the aphantasia (my brain’s protective mechanism), and it also causes me to struggle to think into the future. This has its positives and negatives. I don’t naturally pre-think (and therefore worry, if what is ahead is worrisome) the immediate event ahead, but I can/do, suffer generalized anxiety. Living in the present – yes that’s me.
I must say, I think your thinking is amazingly insightful, for someone who doesn’t suffer from aphantasia.
I suppose, the term “whack-a-mole,” for me, makes me get the sense of constantly being attentive to my pains and working to resolve each of them, for a time, as soon as they pop up their ugly heads. Or are you saying that each time some new pain comes up, you work on a plan to cure it from ever returning, hence, keeping the pains at bay?
I haven’t yet listened to the second link’s podcast which you left last time, yet. If anything more comes up to discuss on this, I can get back to you on that.
OK, so I guess what whack-a-mole means to you is inferred from knowing the game…
Well, I myself actually don’t usually actively use the term whack-a-mole for my symptoms or treatments.
Those that do mean it in the sense of constantly losing rather than winning the game, so they try to treat one pain, that may go, but another or more then come up. An expression of their frustration with alternating pains, not much more than just another phrase for “moving pains”.
So your interpretation like mine seems more active than when people with fibro usually use it.
But I spose it does illustrate my (successful) way of treating all my many symptoms all my life.
Just I’m not constantly attentive to them. That’s maybe why I don’t look on it as whack-a-mole. And after all the symptoms aren’t gone quick, we have plenty of time to “muse”. It’s a question of balancing out passive acceptance with active combating after prioritising. When something crops up, I try to take note, and if it annoys too much and stays too long, it goes on “the list” (esp. the blog) and when I feel like it I research and/or ask people. So if, how quickly and how intensely I work on something depends.
Often I have found that treating things as soon as they pop up again can like a stitch in time save nine. Then again there are others that just need time (like my tennis elbow since August for which I only do exercises and cream if it gets too annoying).
Usually I at the same time treat short and long term. Long term in the first place means prevention rather than curing, looking for triggers and finding workarounds for them if they’re best not avoided, and that at the same time may well reduce the acute pain.
So I spose both your interpretations fit, but I’m not quite as adamant as that.
That said, I’m more adamant about it than anyone else I know, and also very successful.
I still have more moles than the average person, but after working them down considerably less than most with my conditions. I have to first watch out and then habituate what I’m doing and avoid much of normal life, but am at peace with that.