5 Ideas to Unlearn Protracted Withdrawal

Some ideas that helped me . . .

Introduction

I remember when I first started seriously considering The Mindbody Syndrome (TMS) I communicated with Steve Ozanich, author of The Great Pain Deception, and I told him: I think I’m experiencing TMS, what do I do now? Ozanich replied it’s not about doing anything, it’s about understanding. And I thought oh okay . . . but what do I do? Because I have to do something. I can’t stare at the ceiling all day. Now I probably took this too literally but eventually I figured out that what I could do were things to help facilitate and deepen this understanding. So what is the understanding?

The most important thing I had to know beyond any doubt, eventually, is that I was experiencing The Mindbody Syndrome, a learned neuroplastic syndrome caused by psychological stress. I had to reject my previous biomedical understanding of chronic pain and protracted withdrawal and replace them with TMS. And as I started to truly accept this—that I’m actually healthy, that there’s nothing to fix, that I’m just really, really angry and stressed out—I started to improve and when TMS resonated deeply within my entire being the sensations virtually stopped. It took time to understand this but it’s that simple.

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But people are skeptical, as I was, and our minds are skeptical, so this is not easy to understand, right? That’s why it takes work, the work toward understanding. Sometimes it’s hard to think that we’ll ever get better because we’ve been here for so long and we’ve suffered so much. But here are five things that helped me increase my understanding. 

1. Intellectual Understanding

The first thing I had to do was gain some intellectual understanding of TMS before I could seriously consider it. It had to make sense to me as a real possibility. I couldn’t read Sarno right away. When I first heard about TMS there weren’t successful clinical trials on Sarno’s approach that show it as very effective for non-structural chronic pain and even Long COVID without tissue damage. That’s very powerful evidence. And there’s also now a myriad of success stories out there for chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, IBS, skin problems, dizziness/POTS, tinnitus. The list goes on and on. You can get an inspirational intellectual understanding of TMS by watching YouTube videos of people’s success stories (you can find these by typing in a syndrome then TMS).

Now the thing with protracted withdrawal sensations specifically, while I know people have had success with this approach outside of myself, it’s harder to find success stories, at least online. I think this is because psychiatric drugs are kind of a taboo topic and protracted withdrawal is comparatively less publicly known and comparatively less experienced as well. I also think a barrier here is that withdrawal communities, unlike chronic pain groups, for instance, are already alternative communities. They’re an alternative to the psychiatric explanation saying people aren’t in withdrawal they’re just “mentally ill.” Now withdrawal communities often reject “psychiatric illness” as an explanation for their suffering and rightly so. But if the “protracted withdrawal syndrome” idea also isn’t working out, then what? Then you are seeking an alternative to an alternative. You’re twice removed from where you started. TMS, if you choose that, is the Third Way. That’s a long way to go, a long way to travel. And it’s a lot to ask someone to reject the psychiatric regime and then reject protracted withdrawal ideology and that whole regime behind that. So that can make it harder to get here and harder to accept. But there are people doing this.

Anyway more to the point for that intellectual understanding, maybe read something by John Sarno like Healing Back Pain (I’ve put an audio version of the book and a Sarno lecture on my YouTube channel ) or Howard Schubiner’s Unlearn Your Pain or Ozanich’s The Great Pain Deception. These are TMS classics and you can replace the word pain with protracted withdrawal and the core of these books remain applicable. The idea again is to find something, some angle that might make sense and resonate with you. There are a bunch of variations and reinterpretations of TMS but I think, for the most part, they all kind of gel together. So just get some initial understanding of what this whole thing is about.

2. Repetition of some, not others  

Here is one of John Sarno’s favourite quotes found in his books:

Pity me what the heart is slow to learn                                               What the swift mind beholds at every turn. 

- Edna  St. Vincent Millay

So what this basically means is that an intellectual understanding of TMS is good, it’s important, but it’s not enough. Protracted withdrawal sensations are produced by unconscious processes—like most brain processes they’re automatic and so largely beyond our conscious control. And this idea that we have protracted withdrawal or an injury or we’re damaged, that idea can lodge itself into the unconscious mind and even become our core identity. So consciously we might say, oh this TMS stuff kind of makes sense, but then there’s an internal pull saying no it doesn’t or it won’t work or whatever. That’s coming from this unconscious idea, this unconscious belief that something’s wrong with us. And so that deeper aspect of the mind or our heart, that’s what’s slow to learn so we have to teach it. And it has to be that way otherwise we’d be all over the place as a species if our identities changed at the drop of a hat.

So maybe you’ve watched some TMS stuff. Maybe you’ve even read a book or two. Great I did that too but that’s probably not enough. A big part of this approach is repetition of the TMS concepts and related ideas. So I guess I’ll say this here then: at some point you’re going to have to make a choice, as I did, to what world you’re going to belong to. There’s this withdrawal world and forums where you might get some helpful information, but it’s filled with people reinforcing the idea that something is wrong with us. Alternatively there’s this TMS world that’s going to say, you’re okay, you’re healthy, you’ve just learned this syndrome because you’re so stressed about things and worried about it. And maybe deeper down there’s something you’re really upset about that’s driving the stress that’s perpetuating the syndrome.

So what I did was I immersed myself in this mindbody world. And ideally you can find a particular resource or book that you can listen to over and over and over again to get this knowledge deeper inside you to reach the unconscious mind. Sarno suggested rotating between the Psychology and Treatment chapters of one of his books every day. You can learn something new with each additional reading but ultimately you just want to find something that resonates with you that you can read or listen to over and over again.

Now at the same time you want to give yourself a break too, to process this information, to not listen 24/7. You also don’t put too much pressure on yourself or try too hard if you miss a day or whatever because, again, from the perspective of this approach we’re already healed, we’re just looking to increase our understanding so our mind receives this message. So just go at your own pace and do what feels right for you.

3. Emotional Work

We’re taking in all this knowledge, which is great, but there’s also some stuff we can do beyond just receiving this information to get more involved and make this approach active. So one thing we learn with TMS is about the importance of emotions.

What’s been found in pain research and I suspect this is true for protracted withdrawal is what keeps withdrawal sensations firing over and over again is a danger signal from psychological stress. Emotions then play a central part in keeping this danger signal active.

Now when we’re dealing with scary withdrawal sensations we can get stuck in threat scanning mode, so on the (above) left there you see potential threats coming internally from the mind, our internal pressures, and on the right you see possible external threats coming from the five senses. In either case it can be our emotional response that determines whether we are perceiving an actual threat or not.

Now John Sarno, along with recent research, has shown that powerful emotional responses can be repressed so we’re not aware of them. All we feel is the withdrawal sensations, not the deeper emotions. In this sense Sarno postulates the purpose of mindbody syndromes is to protect us or distract us from feeling our emotions. But if the syndrome is caused by threatening emotions then we must address them. So what we have to do is acknowledge that it’s safe to have emotions, it’s safe to feel emotions, and also acknowledge that whatever’s happened to us in our lives we’re now emotionally safe.

One thing we can do in this regard that Sarno recommended is journalling. I’ve made a video about this previously. It can be really helpful to explore stressors or pressures that might be contributing to our sense of danger. Or you could also write down a list of stressors like I talk about in this video and review them daily as a reminder of why the withdrawal sensations persist from our perceived danger. So you can watch that video for more information if you’d like. 

But we don’t have to journal we can also just ask ourselves, what am I feeling right now? People who tend to develop mindbody syndromes, not always but often, tend to neglect their feelings. We live more in our heads and are more concerned about what other people are feeling rather than ourselves. Sarno suggested pausing several times a day to just ask yourself what am I feeling emotionally? Maybe set a timer a few times a day to do this. If you don’t feel any emotions then just remind yourself that it’s okay to feel emotions and that emotions don’t need to trigger withdrawal sensations. Because, again, it’s a danger signal caused by the mind’s perception of threatening emotions that maintains withdrawal sensations. 

4. Affirmations and Talking to the Mind

So to help take youself through all this Sarno created a list of twelve daily reminders and suggested people set aside aside fifteen minutes a day to review them. Now I don’t know if I did that but I did commit them to memory and I would often repeat them to myself when pain or withdrawal sensations got worse. So I’ve adapted Sarno’s reminders here for protracted withdrawal sensations. I’d just say first that these reminders assume that you’ve been checked by a competent physician to ensure that you’re in good health as most people in protracted withdrawal seem to be despite how badly we feel. So here are those twelve daily reminders.

1. Protracted withdrawal sensations are due to TMS and not literally withdrawal or a drug injury.

2. The direct reason for the sensations is learned brain pathways.

3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by stress, including repressed emotions.

4. The principle emotion is my repressed anger (or whatever you think it might be for you).

5. TMS only exists to distract my attention from the emotions.

6. Since there is nothing fundamentally wrong with my brain and nervous system, there is nothing to fear.

7. Therefore going out in the world, doing things, is not dangerous. 

8. I must resume all my daily activities. 

9. I will not be concerned or intimated by the withdrawal sensations.

10. I will shift my attention from the withdrawal sensations to emotional subjects in my life.

11. I intend to be in control, not my unconscious mind.

12. I must think psychological at all times, not physical

This is all easier said than done. But this is like a pep talk to yourself. And maybe you have a different interpretation of TMS and you can alter this list to your choosing and use that as a reminder for yourself. But it is useful to have something handy to talk yourself with to regularly deepen your understanding.

At the same time you can also talk to your mind whenever you want to saying: look mind, I understand you’re upset and you’re protecting me from my emotions with these sensations. But you don’t have to do that anymore. Because it’s safe to have emotions. I can be aware of them. And I’m safe. You can also recap the stuff you’ve learned about TMS for your mind, advocate for yourself. I did that all the time. Your mind, believe it or not, is listening. And you can talk to it and change its beliefs, change its understandings. Be persuasive. You can do it. 

5. Act on the Understanding to Complete it

There’s listening and reading things, and doing emotional work, and then there’s actually walking the walk; that is getting back to our daily lives, doing the things we’ve been avoiding. And walking the walk can be less difficult once we get a better handle on this TMS stuff and start working on our own mindbody connection. If you start too soon trying to get back into the swing of things, people can frighten themselves. But when you have start integrating this TMS knowledge it can really help the transition. 

So people with pain, for instance, are often scared to move like I was and people with protracted withdrawal sensations can be scared to do with things because of maybe noise or light sensitivities, or feelings of panic or exercise intolerance, and so on.  There’s so many things people fear in withdrawal. And that all stuff scared me too. 

Now there’s an interesting memoir written by filmmaker Sarah Polley, who’s well known here in Canada, called Run Towards the Danger. And in one the chapters she shares her experience with post-concussion syndrome. She had a head injury, got a concussion, and the all these scary sensations just kept going and going for years. It’s similar to protracted withdrawal sensations and all these other mysterious syndromes. Sarah was understandably very scared and retreated from life and work and was basically housebound to avoid “triggers” as best as she could. But she was not getting any better. Eventually she met a physician with an unorthodox approach. He suggested waiting around and avoiding things, feeling forever scared, only reinforced that the world is dangerous and the danger signal that causes these sensations. So what did she have to do? She had to run the towards the danger and challenge her brain. And she started running towards the danger in other areas of her life as well, including emotionally. This is a classic TMS approach even though this physician was not a TMS physician. One example she was concerned about the noise her kids would make as it worsened her sensations—she had noise sensitivity—so she let them make as much noise as they wanted and this reinforced to her mind that louder noises are safe. In fact it’s great and loving to hear this noise, it’s the sounds of her children playing. And as she kept up this approach to different areas of her life this “post-concussion syndrome” it went away and now she’s back again making films and so on.

Now I don’t think I ran towards the danger but I did walk and you know as I got comfortable with that I did start running and it was revolutionary for me. Sarno thought avoiding things and living in fear might be more imporant in keeping the syndrome going than people’s constant focus on the sensations themselves. So getting back to life, back to human relationships, human connections, that’s a massive part of this approach.

Summary 

So those are five or so things a person can do to deepen an understanding of TMS: get an intellectual understanding of TMS, maybe get off the withdrawal forums and dive into some specific TMS materials on repeat to get them deep into yourself, do some emotional work, learn some affirmations or daily reminders, learn to talk yourself, and act on this information to complete this understanding. There are other techniques as well, but this post is already so long. Anyway if you try out these things please try to do them with as much self-compassion as you can and have as much empathy for yourself throughout this process. A lot of times we’re just so hard on ourselves but if you set a few times a day just to have a moment of compassion for yourself, that could go a long way. And remember doing all this work is worth it because you’re worth it. I hope this is helpful in some way and I’ll see you next time.