How do you stop being so hard on youself?

[Deleted member 541]

@Ms Spock GOOD JOB!!!!!! Checking out, mentally leaving, zoning out... Call it whatever you'd like, it's a coping skill. One that we often use, but not a great one in the long haul. Staying in the here and now, being present and dealing with the crap as it comes is the best way to handle things.

Years ago on this site, we used to talk about healthy coping skills to use to stay in the hear and now. They are sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Using something to ground you to stay in the here and now. They can and do work effectively when used in a constant manner....

Smell.... Anything that is strong and will keep you here.
Taste..... Again the same concept.
Ect
Ect........

It may help to keep something with you at all times that is your goth when you start "checking out"!!!!!

 

[ms spock]

I am doing so much better on this now @She Cat!. I have to get back into CBT, DBT and all the extra stuff that I need to do for myself. I have stopped beating the living shit out of myself for short periods of time.

 

[ms spock]

For me it is going to require a fundamental shift in the ways in which I (don't) relate with myself. I have a big overhaul to do.

 

[NoWhereKnowWhere]

I've been lingering on this thread and plucking some things I like that I think might help me. I've been thinking I have all these awesome techniques and coping skills, but when I'm not doing great I can't find them in my brain. Or where ever it is I've jotted them down.

So I got a big A1 piece of card and I'm writing them down so when I'm depressed, in a crisis, dissociative, overwhelmed I can go to the card and have all the things I need. So far there's a self compassion exercise, crisis survival techniques (distraction, self sooth), radical acceptance exercise and grounding tools. These are all things I know work for me but I can't quite find when I'm not doing great. Plus it's been an exercise in self care on it's own, I'm caring and supporting myself. It's been difficult to learn to do these things for myself but I know I'm capable of doing them for other people.

I always say to my self 'you can't pour from an empty cup' I'm always so worried about supporting and caring for other people but I don't do if for myself. So I've used that against myself I can't care for and support other people if I don't care and support myself. You can't pour from an empty cup, so I'm really doing theses self care/compassion/sooth exercises for other people. It's all very round about but as long as I'm doing it, hopefully someday I'll be able to do it for myself and no one else.

I used: http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/crisis_survival_video_text.html
For the crisis survival skills and the radicle acceptance.

I also wrote down loads if affirmations on individual pieces of paper and folded them up and put them in a jar. I can pick a couple out everyday and read them. They are all appropriate for me and in my handwriting so they're hard to argue with. So eg 'I am a good person, I have proof of this as my friends care for me very much'. 'I am intelligent and strong'. If feels kinda hippy but (maybe that's my British culture saying that) it does help a bit.

It seems like it's a thousand little things, that's what keeps me going.

 

[Deleted member 34424]

I'm working on therapy now, which helps, and a big thing I connected to two years ago was Buddhism.

 

[cupfish]

My turning point came when I recognized that my brain is sick. My brain fires anxiety chemicals virtually 24/7/365. Sometimes it is expressedtac in nightmares; sometimes in getting triggered; always I feel sick to my stomach with a pit of fear. But that's not who I am!! That is what my brain does. Like my bum knee and nearsightedness, they ain't perfect either. When I owned my brain as a physical organ that was misfunctioning a lot of the crap inside cleared up. I am not defined by a bad knee, contact lenses, or an overstimulated sympathetic nervous system from C-PTSD. I can stand in my place because I don't have to do the hardest job in the world any more in order to prove myself.

My turning point came when I allowed myself to express that I don't like something. Self-loathing and accepting everything bad that comes your way is an understandable reaction to trauma. Allow yourself this one teeny thought before heading down the internal road to Dysfunction Junction when you feel self-hate: WAIT A MINUTE.....say it to yourself. WAIT A MINUTE, why am I feeling badly when this XY&$^*!!! was rude/hurtful to me? WAIT A MINUTE, is it my fault that my [name person in your life] is always irritated at me?

Friday my husband came home, we sat down to share our days, I felt myself getting anxious about preparing dinner. Friday I worked late, didn't get supper going as promised. I didn't tell him this was churning around my diseased brain, and started to tell him about my day. It turns out I had bad day, AND DIDN"T EVEN KNOW IT. I had just powered through the nasties, building up resentment and anxiety that expressed itself through dinner-panic-anger-trigger. When my husband said, "You had a bad day!" I felt the poison start to drain. Yes I did. Not because I deserve it, or asked for it, it was just a tricky day.

I never really got the "love thyself" thing. But I am learning to respect my instincts by ignoring the wacko signals PTSD transmits.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

[Tinyflame]

Incredible post @cupfish thank you. Xox.

 

[Tinyflame]

ETA OMG 'dysfunction junction' :roflmao: thank you for the giggle. :hug:

 

[cupfish]

Incredible post @cupfish thank you. Xox.

who's your buddy? you're too hard on yourself that's fer sher

 

[Tinyflame]

Do you mean @cupfish = be our own buddy? :confused: Must admit I'm just shooting for my relationship as 'tolerable'. Self-affirmations leave me para-suicidal, lol.

:hug:

 

[Tinyflame]

Mind you, it's hard to separate others'-criticism self-internalized, from self-criticism. I suppose it's hard to not feel one has 'fallen short' from where they 'should' be either. Sometimes I feel it neither normal nor sufficiently fulfilling (for myself) to celebrate small victories which to others wouldn't even be considerations.

 

[cupfish]

There is another really sad possibility: you/we are not at all equipped to evaluate the accuracy of others' criticisms. Here is a test: if a hairy eyeball from anyone from anywhere pretty much always ends up with the, "I'm a piece of garbage" conclusion you/we are framing normal criticisms through a PTSD lens. That lens always leads to self-hate and strengthens the well-worn neural pathways in ze brain, keeping the self-hate response very much alive. Gick. You write well, rare.