What Do You Do To Comfort Yourself?

[falling_wave]

I was thinking today about those small feelings of sadness, anxiety, etc. that come but build into overwhelming emotions. It just occurred to me that when I start to negatively feed into my emotions it is often because I need comfort when I feel these things and have never really learned to comfort myself when I need it. Going back to childhood I think I learned to internalize and build on my emotions because I wasn't taught to validate them and then calm down. I am wondering what your take on this is and how you might do it for yourself.

 

[MT Johnny]

Interesting question and timing for me - sitting here tense as H*** because of an ugly family situation playing out and I can't leave which would be my usual MO - "flight response". So my alternative is to nervously fidget, look at the Internet, and try to clean the house. None is very soothing.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Hi @falling_wave my problem with self soothing is that by the time I know I'm crashing, it's too late. I am learning to be mindful, to practice breathing for relaxation, to focus on being grounded so I don't dissociate. I agree with you that I never learned to self soothe as a child, nor was I ever comforted at home. To this day, my feelings are ignored and invalidated by all the members of my family. I am still the scapegoat with my mother leading the attacks. I spend very little time with them. I left home at 17, thank goodness. But I have struggled forever with being good to myself.

 

[Friday]

For me it has absolutely nothing to do with childhood, I was taught emotional monitoring and regulation is spades as an ADHD kiddo from a great family, and everything to do with PTSD & trauma. Took me years to learn how to monitor & regulate the first go-round (like 5-7 years), and this go-round I seem to be on a similar time scale. My emotions are still all over the effing map, and it's 4 years in. 3 years into working my ass off trying to monitor & regulate this shit. Every time I have a spike in symptoms, it's also one of the first things I lose control over / gets out of hand.

 

[falling_wave]

@KwanYingirl I can relate with realizing late in the escalation process. I have started to recognize that this pattern is occurring everytime I start to do google searches on various feelings etc. My T told me recently that it's my way of feeling connection instead of loss and that I am covering up feelings I need to feel to get better. I totally get how that is true now. I want to feel and get through it but when I try to give up my automatic response I feel like I'm lost in an ocean or something trying to swim. I need to be comforted but no one is there to do it and I haven't been able to on my own. I know coping skills and I will use them but it's only distraction not comfort or self soothing. I feel like the coping skills I've worked to attain are only distracting inevitable pain. @FridayJones interesting this happens for you coming from a great family. Maybe it is just ptsd. How can we fix this?

 

[Friday]

Link Removed interesting this happens for you coming from a great family. Maybe it is just ptsd. How can we fix this

LMAO... Dang good question! Still workin on that one ;)

These 3 threads help a lot. 2 are dealing with 1 specific emotion (although iceberg in particular translates to all of them, and I suspect we could do every emotion out the same way anger is in the first), another in a very brief overview (MOOD management) of all/most. It's a helluva lot of work in all cases learning to identify, rationalize, monitor, & modify. One of the things I absolutely adore is the iceberg model... Because self soothing just plain doesn't work if I'm feeding into one of the base causes while trying to get rid of the spike. It just makes then iceberg bigger. I have to look not only at the "shiny" emotion that is smacking me in my face, but what's beneath it. Cuts a lot of the trial and error out, to step back & break things down. Ahhhhh... Okay! That makes sense! Well let's come at it from this other angle, then!

Dealing With Anger

The Iceberg Of Emotions

Link Removed

<rueful grin> So.... Even though it may seem to be the same emotion on the surface? What's driving it, very much changes what exactly I need to do, and what works best, to soothe it out. Anxiety from one source needs A B or C. But will work best with B. Anxiety from another source? Needs X Y or Z... And absolutely *not* A or B, but C will work better than nothing. X, however is best. Meanwhile JKL will work for all forms of anxiety, but are pretty nuclear (like using a shotgun blast to swat a fly) so I've got the nuclear options in reserve, but try not to use them.

How well I self soothe? Very much depends on how quickly I can identify what the source and what the basic or best way to tackle it, is.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

It took me so many years to learn how to comfort myself. I started out with learning about what I wanted and needed and had to force myself to meet those needs. I am doing a lot better at it but there are still times in my life when I have to really struggle to meet those needs and wants. Like I said I had to force myself and now when I have a hard time I listen to my inner voice and just do the thing that will comfort me.

for instance my husband of thirty six years of marriage died and I saved one shirt to cuddle when I need it. the other night I was missing him so bad so I forced myself to get the shirt out from under the covers of my bed and hold it close to me and it really helped. It has been a learning process for me but I am beginning to really pay attention to my wants and needs.

They were never acknowledged as a child an even as an adult I still did not know what I needed and wanted ant it took years to finally figure them out. So I am getting better at it and I hope this helps you.

 

[falling_wave]

@gizmo so sorry for your loss and the grief you are going through. That does seem like a good way to self soothe and more than just coping. I'm glad you found that to help. How did you start noticing what worked? Was it just trial and error?

 

[KwanYingirl]

FWIW I'm lying awake at 2/11am unable to sleep as usual and I have my windows open and can hear the waves breaking at the ocean. The sound invokes relaxation and it occurs to me that what stimulates my senses in a positive way is what I feel comfort in. Music, digging in dirt, gorgeous views of the coast of Maine or the mountains of NH, eating lobster or salmon (or pastry).

 

[Flossy]

It took me so many years to learn how to comfort myself. I started out with learning about what I wanted a...

Oh @gizmo , so sweet. (hug) I did this too with my son's shirt. Kept it in a plastic bag as long as I could to keep his smell on it.
@falling_wave I haven't got a grip on this yet either. I still fall back on getting into bathtub full of water. This costs me a fortune in power bills when I am going through rough patch. Also, fall back on eating carbs.

The one thing I do that I guess is not a negative thing is to always make sure I have good magazines or books from the library to read. I find solace in reading a good article in a magazine. My favourite is Vanity Fair. It is a real discipline or it takes real discipline for me to make sure I always have something to read.

Digging in the dirt always does it for me too @KwanYingirl. I cant always make the leap. I guess to try to walk outside is a good stepping stone to self-soothing. It seems less lonely than doing something inside.

 

[StellaBlue]

I was thinking today about those small feelings of sadness, anxiety, etc. that come but build into overwhelming emotions.

I think a lot of it is to be able to catch those feelings when they're still small (I say this as someone who only recognizes that this is important, not someone who is able to do this on a regular basis). When they're small feelings, then you have a lot more choices (and this is my DBT shit coming out, so take it or leave it) - change it (emotional regulation), handle it (distress tolerance [self soothing]) or let it get worse.

What I've been working on a lot is recognizing those "small" feelings - this is coming from the girl who never had any feelings...ever. So when something in my body twinges, I'll try to step back and say...oh, my head is suddenly feeling like it's stuffed with cotton, my heart is beating, my muscles are tensing...this could be anxiety. Why am I anxious? Is there a story I'm telling myself? Then...and this is my mantra...what do I do to NOT MAKE THINGS WORSE. So, that could be distress tolerance (self soothing) - at least until I'm out of the red zone...or it could be figuring out if I need to change something. It's a lot of work...takes a lot of mindfulness...and I am only at about 10% success rate. But it does help me.

 

[Gunsmith]

Anything I can jump into with both feet- I have to give myself a goal or mission. I like to hand load ammunition because it requires focus, concentration, and constant monitoring. I find an hour or two of extreme attention to detail makes me feel worlds better.