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No-bullshit coping strategies (part 2)

Usual advice: "Write down the anxious thought, describe the physical sensation, and come up with a positive response. You're retraining your brain!"

Neat. I'm gonna sit here staring at my 78 notebooks full of half-finished projects and things I'm trying to track in order to Figure Out My Crazy. I'm gonna think about how I'm gonna have to organize it eventually but the backlog is only getting bigger with every page I write. And if I write something now, it's gonna be in The Wrong Notebook.

If you're compulsive about archiving stuff, another journal creates as much anxiety as it corrects, possibly more. If you're alone, say it out loud instead. Or to your pet. If you're on the bus, whisper, or even just phrase it in your head.

You get to pick the tone. If you're like me, the "positive response" bit makes you want to puke. Instead, shoot for an unexpected response - what's the weirdest way you could rationalize this? What's the stupidest response you could have? What's a response that's EVEN MORE DRAMATIC than the original catastrophizing?

Yeah, you don't want your brain to run straight for the emergency button at every damn thing. But it's stupid to try and just substitute a different universal response. Positivity isn't always appropriate. It can't always be authentic. It's better to try and get your brain to be original and varied. "Anything else but that" is better than "Never that, always this."

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Series intro:

or follow the tag, #no bs coping strategies

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No-bullshit coping strategies

I saw a great post about self-care through a depressive episode - realistic shit, written by someone who's been there. I think we need to get familiar with the concept of "a good tool that I can't lift right now". Lots of self-care advice is like that, and sometimes it makes things worse - "wow, I can't even get myself to shower today, I'm fuckin useless."

Sometimes you have the presence of mind to use the CBT exercises we've heard about from every therapist we've ever seen. Sometimes you don't. It's ok to scale your response to your current abilities. One set of protocols for "mild to moderate wiggin' out", and another set for "OH GOD oh god fuck fuck fuck what do I do everything I look at or think about makes it worse".

I'm here with ideas for that second set. I have panic disorder, among other things, and I want to contribute some stuff I've actually tested. An ongoing series, as I think of things or come up with new stuff.

Part 1:

Part 2:

or follow the tag, #no bs coping strategies

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No-bullshit coping strategies (part 1)

Usual advice: "Feeling stuck? Accomplish one small task, like doing a load of laundry. Even a small achievement helps."

That's cool, that would be helpful if I wasn't actually paralyzed. If you're overwhelmed with indecision and glued to the bed, the trick isn't to just pick something. That's the problem - you can't pick something, even if you know the choice is trivial.

My first move is to reduce stimulation. If you have a blanket or hoodie, pull it tight around yourself. Close your eyes and cover them if you can. Face the other way, curl into a ball if you feel the need. Like a mental air-lock - you can't live there, but sometimes you need to keep the world firmly outside of your head for a minute.

Worrying is what you're doing right now, so commit to doing that and only that. The pressure to stop worrying and act makes everything worse.

You're on a Willy Wonka boat ride. Notice which thoughts freak you out, and just explore your head for a few minutes with an attitude of morbid curiosity. When I watch the chaos, I start to feel like an observer rather than a participant. Like sitting in a corner at a party, which is a familiar mental space for me.

This won't make the anxiety go away. But it helps me get to a state where I can start to deal with it. A strategic retreat delays the fight, but lets you pick where it happens.

Series intro:

or follow the tag, #no bs coping strategies

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[bravest-teacups]

YOU'RE STILL GIFTED

The world just doesn't value it as much now if your gifts don't make money. Being gifted didn't ruin you - if anything did, it was being told that the things you're best at are worthless.

Being gifted in high school or college is valued mainly because of the potential for conventional success. If you choose not to go that route (or if you face systemic barriers to conventional success), that doesn't mean you're not still gifted.

REMINDER: there are lots of kinds of gifts that get no credit, and lots of skill and work and virtue involved in developing those gifts.

You are a person, not a waste of potential. You have the potential for a much wider range of worthwhile effort than the world ever thought of. Your potential isn't wasted if you devote your time to things that are worthwhile to you.

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An open letter to my mental illness, in loving memory of Mr. Rogers

Hello, Pit

I've noticed that lately you're putting a lot of effort into trying to get my attention. It seems to me that you're afraid I'll leave you behind.

I know that I have been unkind to you. There are some things you do that make me feel sad, too. I have called you bad names. I have told you that you don't matter, and that I don't want you around. That isn't the sort of people I'd like us to be.

There are so many things about you that are good. You remind me why it's important to be kind. Everybody has hard times, and those troubles can make it harder for people to be good friends or do the things they like. That doesn't mean that they're bad or lazy. You helped me understand that just about everyone is trying their best, even if it's hard to see.

You've helped me become a little stronger, a little more patient, a little more thankful for the kind people in my life. You remind me that it's more important to be kind than to be the best at anything.

We've been together a long time, and we'll probably be together for a long time to come. Even though we haven't always gotten along, I'd like it very much if we could start to be friends.

I want you to know that it's okay if you're scared. I know you worry about not being good enough, and think that nobody could like you. That sounds very lonely. I don't want you to have to hide and be lonely. I don't think you're anything to be ashamed of. I think that you want to be kind and helpful and loved. Those are good things to want.

I know it would be a big change for us. I'd like to give it a try. I think we could be a good team if we stop fighting and be a little patient with each other. I think that would be much nicer for you and me and everyone we care about.

It's important to keep trying even when it's hard. I'm going to keep trying every day. It would mean a lot to me if we could try together.

Nobody's perfect, but that doesn't mean they should be left behind. I want you to know that you're welcome here. There's nobody else just like you, and you are special to me. I like the way that you can find beautiful things in any dark place.

You deserve care and acceptance and understanding as much as anyone. And you know what?

I like you just the way you are.

P.S. Maybe 'Pit' isn't such a nice name. There's more to you than that. Would it be better to have a nicer name? A long time ago, I had a friend named Max. He was troubled, but he always kept trying to be kind. I think 'Max' would suit you just fine.

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Standard disclaimer: I’m not religious, but…

I can get behind love and compassion being sacred. Thou art God, friends.

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Random Headcanon: That Federation vessels in Star Trek seem to experience bizarre malfunctions with such overwhelming frequency isn’t just an artefact of the television serial format. Rather, it’s because the Federation as a culture are a bunch of deranged hyper-neophiles, tooling around in ships packed full of beyond-cutting-edge tech they don’t really understand. Endlessly frustrating if you have to fight them, because they can pull an effectively unlimited number of bullshit space-magic countermeasures out of their arses - but they’re as likely as not to give themselves a lethal five-dimensional wedgie in the process. All those rampant holograms and warp core malfunctions and accidentally-traveling-back-in-time incidents? That doesn’t actually happen to anyone else; it’s literally just Federation vessels that go off the rails like that. And they do so on a fairly regular basis.

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I just kinda exist in people’s lives.

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A man in a dress and makeup isn’t necessarily gay, see, and a man who marries one of the world’s most dazzling female supermodels isn’t necessarily straight. He wasn’t quietly androgynous, nor genderless, smack in the middle of butch and femme. Bowie was flamboyant about both his masculine and feminine sides; he was all of the things at once, flying in the face of easy definitions. A University of Pennsylvania gender-studies undergraduate boiled it down to this astute statement in 2013: “The M-F spectrum does not have the descriptive capacity to categorize Bowie effectively.” Bowie often openly addressed the inadequacy of binary labels, as when he presented Aretha Franklin with a Grammy in 1975. “Ladies and gentlemen—and others,” he said with a coy smile, looking dapper as ever in a tux and copper ombré hair.

Christina Cauterucci on David Bowie in Slate, January 11, 2016 (via blackstar-rising)

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David Bowie, 1976

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Original, please steal.

I think the app is just called Zen.

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