Exercise, all types. Clears the head, calms the nervous system.
Journaling and to-do lists.
Very effective!
I also try to write my thoughts here from different accounts which really helps and sometimes even broaden my perspective
Acceptance.
Let me go from “why me!?” to “the thing was bad but its over now, how long am I going to give it power over me?”
I have a little question. What to do when the thing happened that had a ripple effect or it is still ongoing?
Its really become hard to accept in that situation
I’m not really sure what to say. My response is more about reconciling my post-traumatic stress disorder with functioning in the world.
I think you have to make it to the post part first.
breathing
no one ever explained to me what a deep breath was properly (in fairness, i don’t think anyone in my life knew)
once i got into my 30s, i read “the body keeps the score” by bessel van der kolk, and learned about 4-7-8 breathing, and had my mind blown by how good it works
Apathy. I have a bunch of coworkers who even struggle with it. Sometimes schizophrenics just yell at you for stealing their shadow and putting gremlins in their socks. They just do that sometimes. Help me do whatever they want to get them to swallow the haldol then just don’t talk to them for an hour and we’ll all be besties again. Or they’ll sleep it off. Either way it’ll be fine.
No they’re not actually yelling at you because you did anything wrong. They think they are, but they’re not. You know you didn’t do anything wrong. I know you didn’t do anything wrong. They’re yelling at you because you’re the one who happened to make eye contact when the voices told them someone stole their shadow and put gremlins in their socks. They would’ve yelled at anybody. In the nicest way possible, get over yourself, you’re not that important. Crazy people be crazy and if you hold it against them you will be too.
The one that did some good was cognitive behaviour therapy via bibliotheraphy (“Feeling Good” by David D. Burns, M.D.). It’s a bit of a slog though. Comes in audiobook, but I needed the paper. I’d tried CBT by a few other sources before, but it just wasn’t in depth enough for me to really get into it. The part I always come back to is ‘identifying disfunctional thoughts’ - usually just noticing them is enough to kick me out of a spiral.
Love David burns. I used to listen to his podcast.
Parts work/ifs. It’s interesting that in the present moment I don’t have the answer but when I think of the original experience the answer just come to me.
