Coping skills to substitute or distract from SH

[SeekingAfrica]

Really having a tough time tonight. Got therapy on Tuesday, but I have reached my stress limit few weeks back and it's just been building more and more beyond what I thought I can handle. So it feels like my whole world is pain and problems and I'm having a hard time coping. So negative thoughts tend to linger longer because I'm exhausted from the situation I'm in. Like the fact that I have 2 hard conversations to lead tomorrow in the first half of the day and so I'm feeling too stressed and reluctant to fall asleep before I find some relief. So I don't wake up late and in panic, which happened twice last week. I also had this weird trigger moment today. Someone I passed by was wearing this perfume I only ever wore in the summer I got PTSD, strawberries and champagne, and it was like it stirred everything in me and I can't think clearly. I get these flashes of moments of that summer before everything got all messed up... I just...I don't know, I have this feeling like I don't know how I'll make it through the next 2 weeks, from practical standpoint. And the pain is so big that it stirs all the dark thoughts in me. This feeling like I can't do anything about how awful the situation is, and that it has been like that on and off for a long time...and so the idea of SH feels like...it's something I can do. I can't do anything about feeling in pain or out of control, but I can do this. I did once this week, but I'm trying to avoid making it a habit again, because it's a slippery slope, I know.
I just....it's too much. Everything is too much. Even my body knows it. I'm all anxious and I get super cold when I get panicky, and I'm exhausted in every sense of the word.

So I'm trying. But when I'm in this state of mind it's hard to remember what skills and coping are good for me. Probably need to put them on a list. I'm just tired but still trying, I really am.

 

[Skywatcher]

I struggle with this and my therapist said that as I heal it will start to go away on its own. We call it negative coping. She said, you have been doing it for awhile, so don’t pressure your self to quit. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Have compassion for your negative coping.