#nevermind that eating well isn't that simple when you can't manage groceries bc you don't comprehend being alive for a whole week | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

juicydangler · 6 months ago

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oh yeah, foreshortened future is a whole thing with PTSD, can also occur with depression and possibly as a downstream effect of time blindness in ADHD (although find me a person with ADHD who isn't traumatised, we have confounding factors here) and it's why I can get snarly about people telling me to live for today, you could die tomorrow, yolo, live like you're gonna die young, etc. bc worrying about or planning for the future is actually a positive sign that I can conceive of a future at all and I worked really hard on that. Not being able to believe that I might survive has actually had ruinous impacts on my entire life and I don't appreciate anyone trying to undermine my efforts to repair it no matter how well-meaning.

The thing that made a tangible difference for me (YMMV) is writing my tomorrow-self a note before I go to bed every night. It's not exactly leaving myself a to-do list, although it usually includes reminders of things that need doing, and it's not journaling although it often includes reflections on the day I just had, it's more like a short letter addressing myself tomorrow as someone who will in fact exist. Like, my particular case was severe enough that waking up every day was kind of a surprise (at some points severe enough that going to bed was too, like what do you mean a whole day happened and I'm still here) so that's how small I had to start, but over time making regular efforts to see the next day as a reality I will probably have to deal with has allowed the growth of a longer sense of my own existence into the future, now I can almost imagine a whole year of existing, even if it gets a bit blurry after about three to six months. As a result I can sometimes do things like preventative care, maintenance, make and keep multiple appointments, deal with things before they become a crisis, finish projects that take more than a few hours, file paperwork on time, you know, live like I might actually live.

love ppl online being like "ur literally 30" like do u think thats not gonna happen to you??

#dear diary #I'm just gonna glide over the part where I misplaced the book for a couple of years and backslid #I don't even read the notes half the time but that's not the point #if it was just about remembering to do the dishes I'd just make a to-do list #the point is that tomorrow is a reality I will probably have to deal with #so maybe I should do the dishes before I go to bed #also this is something you will not find in any listicle about How To Live With A Sense Of Foreshortened Future #all very clearly written by untraumatised people who aren't even tangentially MH professionals let alone trauma-informed ones #they're all like just eat well and cuddle your pets uwu #try journaling abt your trauma and reflecting on your feelings uwu practice mindfulness uwu HAVE YOU TRIED YOGA UWUW #nevermind that eating well isn't that simple when you can't manage groceries bc you don't comprehend being alive for a whole week #or that mindfulness is actually contraindicated for PTSD these days bc it can literally make it worse #or that have you tried yoga is my CIA hypnoprogrammed robot assassin activation phrase #or that none of that shit actually helps this specific problem #like how the fuck is journaling about the past supposed to help me conceptualise the future? it fucking doesn't #so basically you can safely ignore those they're useless #fix your broken leg by going on a hike levels of useless #literally Homestuck helped more #like I'm sure there's other things that work other than this but you won't find them on a list made by anyone #whose entire understanding of mental healing begins and ends at take a nice bath with a scented candle and you'll feel better

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