Tag: coping skills

~ Sephira ~ Leave a comment

readingrainrose:

I realized a little while ago (after struggling with mental illness for almost 30 years) that my approach needs to be positive, not negative.  

I don’t mean positive thinking or any of that shit.  I mean, if you’re mentally ill, you often frame management as “an absence of symptoms.”  Which is great, if you’re talking about acne or a torn ACL or chicken pox.  But if your mental illness is as pervasive as mine (anxiety with obsessional features), striving to eliminate every single symptom so that you can be “normal” is a fool’s errand.  And I used to get worked up about it.  One of my future in-laws likes to comment on my knee bouncing, and it wrecked my self-confidence whenever we were over at their house.  “Nervous tic?” she’d ask, in front of everyone.

My current therapist is great. When I talk to her about eliminating a certain habit or tic that I have, she asks me if that tic is interfering with me living the life I want. If the answer is “yes,” then we work on eliminating it.  If the answer is “no,” then we leave it be. My anxiety makes it impossible for me to go to Disneyworld.  But I don’t want to go to Disneyworld, so there’s no reason for me to worry about it.  I could spend all of my time trying to control all of my rituals and tics.  I could exert all of my energy into social situations and “pushing my limits,” but all that is going to do is make me miserable. 

Let’s reframe health as “capable of living the best life you can.” 

Coping Skills

~ Sephira ~ Leave a comment

ofcourseitsmyhead:

So, if you’re willing to help a friend out, I’ve realised something.
When I am at max capacity, and I cannot continue functioning at the current level of ability, I can do one of two things:

I can fall into a nonepileptic seizure
or
I can shut one or more functions down, to conserve energy

The easiest ‘function’ for me to shut down is speaking. I’ve been doing it for years, and it’s quite helpful in surviving overwhelming situations. Most recently it helped me finish grocery shopping without having a panic attack, which was super useful.

BUT

If I do this, it then leaves room for an unintended but unfortunate consequence: Nobody can converse with me. So, my husband and I picked up small, key phrases in American Sign Language so that I can still communicate back, but I don’t have to speak. It’s quicker than typing something on a screen, and I can still portray emotion fluidly and get my point across effectively as long as I’m understood.

So if you’re a friend, and you’re local, consider watching some videos on ASL. You don’t necessarily have to practice the gesticulations, but if you know the words I’m going to be using with my hands and body, it’ll help us all carry on a conversation when my voice needs a break.

And then, I won’t feel left out! 🙂