How do i manage days like this?

[Dolphin Lady]

My belief system always tells me that I am not good enough. I am working hard to convince myself that this is not true and am having some success with the help of CBT Therapist, but some days I find it almost impossible not to beat myself up over everything that I consider to be negative. It is such a devastating core belief and I have come to recognise how much believing this has harmed every aspect of my life over the decades. It also leaves me with such intense emotion on the difficult days like today, where, if I see or hear of another human being exploiting other vulnerable human beings, I want to cry and scream to escape the pain, rage and sorrow. The intensity of my emotions scares me and I cant bear to allow myself to feel them so I resort to distraction by any means when I know I should allow them. How do I cope on days like this? please help.

 

[Supervixn]

Im in crisis today also. I suppose by reminding yourself that this too shall pass. It's discouraging to know these feelings will return to torment... until we find another belief to replace the negative ones.

Something is askew with our belief systems and it's like a loop... but where there's room for improvement, there is continued hope. I'm sorry. I'm rooting for you. You're not alone. Be gentle with yourself and God bless you. I know how you feel.

This too shall pass.

 

[Lauren in Recovery]

I understand how you feel when the pain and discomfort is so intense that you don't really know what to do with yourself. I used to have panic attacks followed by dissociation and then a complete emotional shutdown for days at a time. Many times these were triggered by something I did or someone else did that made me feel like I wasn't good enough.

In those times I found that writing to try to get my feelings out was very therapeutic. For years I let rage build up inside me and it eventually destroyed me and led to crippling addiction. But writing was good. Just to get some of the racing thoughts out of my head.
Another thing that helped with my deep feelings of inadequacy was positive affirmations. I had affirmation cards from a friend that I posted up all around the house.

It's really hard to try to cope when you're already a hot mess. It's all we can do to make it through a day. But just doing such small things to start practicing self-care (like the positive affirmations) is a great way to slowly learn how to cope with and even eventually fend off some of the emotions we are feeling in PTSD. Take a bath, do a guided meditation, go for a walk, just do something for you.

 

[Deleted member 541]

This^^^^^^ and one foot in front of the other and do that with baby steps....