What Are Your 'hanging On' Skills?

[Undercover member]

LIke when you really really can't cope. What do you do to hang in there without doing something like SH.

 

[Wakis]

breathing is still the best method. I was freaking out big time yesterday.
Then I laid on the floor and started breathing real deep, calmed me down after a while. But it takes a while some times.

 

[Cavuci]

Hiding in my car. Going to bed. Writing. Planning something. Sometimes sitting at the beach very healing. Doing a good deed for someone. Venting to a friend (or on myptsd!). Watching a funny movie.

 

[Emef]

work or exercise. Something that requires my concentration. Easiest trick to pull on your own brain to make it think about something else is to give it something else to think about. TV or movies or the internet don't work for me (I can tie my shoes while talking about something and thinking about something else and chewing gum and listening to the radio weather report and looking around the room for car keys) but doing something that makes me stay in the moment for my own good is very therapeutic. If the consequences of losing concentration involve a level of discomfort, even just having to do it again, I find it easier to stay where I need to be. If the consequences involve pain, it comes really easy. Mountain biking or painting the eaves of the house on a 15 foot ladder come to mind. Bee keeping. High voltage repair work. Motorcycle maintenance.

 

[Odoza]

Smoking. Talking. Touch. Hot showers. Loud music. Curling up in a ball and sleeping, or not sleeping but dreaming. Loving. Venting. Missions from Gawd. Movies. Books. Art. Helping someone. Shooting. Dancing. Gravity sports (pay attention or get smashed). Drawing on myself. Gaming. Picking a fight. Throwing knives. Picking locks. Writing. Getting lost. Eating something. Cooking something for someone else. Triggering myself into a gnarly panic attack or flashback so I've got bigger problems.

 

[Cuno]

Extreme cases, I SH. It's enough counter intuitive I piss myself off doing it and get my priorities back together instead of losing time doing it. Also works for finding out I could literally be screwing up worse on a daily basis and I'm not so whatever whiny fit I'm having otherwise is being fine, chill and breathe.

Stare into the flames. It's doing everything for distancing myself from whatever I'm feeling at the moment. Nawh, back to friendly and gentle universe, history is history and I'm not yesterday's.

 

[Wuvob]

play with my dog

 

[Mufadu]

Listen to an album that I know really well and squeeze my cat.

 

[Ritul]

I'm a writer, so that's my primary fall back. On really bad days I produce thousands of words. I like looking into candle flames to help me center, but I can't handle bigger fires than that. (Bad family history with fires.) I read. Reading is one of the best things I do to help me step out of my own pain and get through the moment to a better moment. I have a punching bag because I have a deep and abiding need to HIT sometimes. (I don't hit people any more! I'm growing up!) I'm a talker. I can talk out my bad feelings with my husband; he's very safe. I listen to music and dance.

On the days when I just can't calm down and I'm hysterical I climb into the closet or I sit under my desk in an enclosed space. That helps. I need to feel enclosed.

Good luck.