Distraction Vs Avoidance

[rosey]

I find my self very confused these days with whether i am avoiding or distracting.

Thoughts start popping into mind so i try to do something to distract myself then i wonder if i should in fact be facing them and maybe was avoiding not distracting.

Same the other way round i think i am avoiding but then think there is nothing wrong with distracting.

I guess either way i am not facing but would like to know if anyone else has similar confusion or any thoughts on the matter.

 

[Gs172003]

Whats the difference?

 

[rosey]

Whats the difference?

Exactly @missy meier apprently there is a difference but l am yet to spot it.

 

[Gs172003]

Personally I distract myself TO avoid. Im sure I do other things too but I keep myself insanely busy CONSTANTLY so I don't have to deal with things until I have no choice. But..that's me.

 

[rosey]

Personally I distract myself TO avoid. Im sure I do other things too but I keep myself insanely bus...

Thats me too.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

if anyone else has similar confusion or any thoughts on the matter.

Confusion, yes! I have massive amounts of thoughts. My brain never stops. And its gets confusing as to which ones do i counter, which ones do i distract, and which ones do i accept. Countering and accepting being different. Accepting is allowing space for. Allowing it to come in. Naming it. Etc. In my opnion.

Some are obvious but some arent and it gets very confusing. What ive done is when theres too much and when i cant make heads or tails of them or if its just too much to work with, I distract. I'll be overwhelmed if i tried to sort them all out so until i can sort a few out, i distract.

Thoughts that are, or seem to be, opposite of things my therapist says, books say, most on here say, I counter.

Thoughts that are suicidal, ritual urges, thoughts that arent specific content (specific content is like "you are bad", things that i'll need to counter), I distract.

Thoughts that have emotions connected to them, thoughts (recently) "my mommy is gone" and things connected to my mom, thoughts of being hurt, what was done, what i did, thoughts like that i accept them, bring them in and sort of break them apart.

Not sure if any of this mess makes any sense. It is insanely confusing most times. Not organized like this & most times there are many thoughts from many areas and its hard to sort. A lot of times i cant make sense of it so i'll write it here in my diary and try to then sort them or put them in a thread and gain help to sort them. So i dont mean to make it sound easy. It isnt. But there are times i need to counter, times i need to distract, and times where i need to accept.

I will say that most of it is countering or distracting. Accepting seems to come after ive worked on an area and they are way more organized because ive been working on that area.

 

[joeylittle]

In DBT, it's the difference between regulating and tolerating (distress tolerance) - and distraction is the skill that help you survive tolerating. (Slightly semantic, but hopefully makes sense).

Emotion regulation is what you do when you think you can 'work with it' - not completely fix it, but turn down the volume or intensity of it, do some reframing, and challenge it down to something manageable and very close to neutral in that moment. That part is critical to grasping the concept. DBT would then say that it's the regular act of regulating those thoughts/emotions that will eventually allow them to shift, since the main regulation skill is a form of challenging.

Avoidance, in my book, is a distress tolerance technique. As long as you are conscious that's what you are doing, it's not going to work against you. Some would call this the distinction between 'stuffing' (ineffective, because you are left with churning feelings ready to burst out) and compartmentalizing (effective, because you are putting it aside for later).

But avoidance - if reframed as compartmentalization - is only effective if you can have awareness that you are choosing to put it away for later. There's most definitely an 'it', and you aren't pretending it's not there, denying it, or switching to an alter in order to cope (unless you've done a great deal of work on your DID-level dissociation, and that's now part of how your system works, and you are co-conscious).

Denying the very existence of the thought/emotion is not at all effective or helpful, short or long term. Denying it is pretending it's not happening/didn't happen. All you are doing there is reinforcing very negative coping skills.

So, the thing to ask yourself, first is - Can I work with this thought/emotion for five minutes and see if I can get it to come down?

And if you can, you engage in whatever your skills are to do that - DBT, CBT, SE, EFT, etc, etc.

If your soul screams Hell no, get me out of here! You make a decision on how to address just surviving it and getting to some future moment (ideally, five, 10, fifteen minutes from now) where you aren't overwhelmed. You might choose a distraction tool, you might choose to self-soothe, you might choose to compartmentalize. There's an aspect of compartmentalization that involves radical acceptance (DBT - being able to acknowledge that it's a really nasty thought/emotion right now, but it won't be there forever) - but it's a brief moment before you just shut the lid on it, and move onto a more aggressive distraction tool. The goal - when you choose 'tolerance' - is to exit those feelings, however you can. Tolerance is a bit of a misnomer; it doesn't mean 'put up with it forever', it means 'survive it long enough to get to the next moment, and the moment after, and after, so you stay alive, don't hurt yourself, and let change happen.

Effective distractions will always manage to neutralize the crisis. You won't be 100% awesome afterwards, but you won't be in major distress (hence, distress tolerance).

 

[lostforgottensoul]

My bad, miss read avoidance for accepting...how does one do that?

Avoiding. I am not sure if i can discribe thoughts i distract from avoiding. I guess distracting can become avoiding, like avoiding dealing with something. I dont know, will have to think about that.

Sorry about the useless post. Still dont know how one reads "accepting" instead of "avoiding". :confused:

 

[Freedomfighter]

I find my self very confused these days with whether i am avoiding or distracting.

Thoughts start poppi...

Oh yeah, plenty of that. The confusion I suppose stems from the fact that the wiring in the brain has been damaged. I myself find that it is often neither, not distracting or disassociating, often times it is simply to attempt to make sense of what happened to me.

When I contracted PTSD some predators saw that as a chance to attempt to further hurt me and to attempt to take advantage of me. It took me six long years to even realize that. I can only hope that means that some of my wiring in my brain has fixed itself, because I was evaluating my situation today and nothing that I did six years ago remotely reminded me of what I would have been able to do if I would have been healthy then without PTSD.

There are people who judge PTSD sufferers and I stay far away from them, considering that right now I truly understand that some people preyed on me when I was very sick and could not possibly have understood anything they were doing to me at that time. My brain was so damaged back then I am surprised I made it this far. But predators will attempt to do that, see the weakness of a victim and set right in on it. I was on the threshold of death, considering suicide, when a vicious predator set in on me and I just realized that this particular predator is still around and the most dangerous one of them all.

 

[rosey]

Confusion, yes! I have massive amounts of thoughts. My brain never stops. And its gets con...

That makes sense. I think you are onto something with the breaking it down into a category like emotion etc. Thank you

 

[rosey]

My bad, miss read avoidance for accepting...how does one do that?

Avoiding. I am not sure i...

Oh well haha it was still useful and apt to me. So it is no bother.

 

[rosey]

In DBT, it's the difference between regulating and tolerating (distress tolerance) - and distraction...

Thank you. I have done dbt so will go over my notes again with your words in mind.

I guess really it comes down to awareness aslong as the distracting and avoidance is purposeful and healthy it makes little difference which it is.