In my session this week, I was talking about a couple of days in which my intrusive thoughts were at full volume. I went down the list of things I did to help ease my anxiety: the identify and flag technique, meditation, looking up funny things, reaching out to friends, taking "turns about the room" (AKA pretending I'm in a Jane Austen novel and walking around my living room), and then finally taking an L-theanine capsule to get my anxiety to a manageable level. I did everything I could think of that I had learned from therapy to work through the anxiety. As a result, the heightened anxiety and full-volume intrusive thoughts only lasted for around three days this time. VICTORY WAS MINE!
My therapist always says things like, "You work really hard to manage your anxiety." And, "I honestly don't think I've had a client work as hard as you do to manage your anxiety." She's always so quick to make me recognize my hard work and progress.
I never really understood why she made such a big deal about it. I mean, I'm in therapy to do the work, manage my anxiety, and rewire my brain. I'm choosing to be in therapy. Of course, I'm going to use what I learn there and work hard. It feels like I don't have any other choice but to work hard to help myself heal. Not working on it, to me, is like chopping my leg off and just watching myself bleed to death instead of trying to stop the bleeding. To that last statement, which I actually said out loud, my therapist responded, "You'd be surprised..."
I've been thinking about that part of our conversation ever since. At first I was puzzled. Why would a person choose to go to therapy, but then not apply what they learn there to try to get better? Then I felt like, maybe, I started to understand a little bit, why that happens sometimes. (Spoiler: It's not because we just don't want to get better or because we're just lazy.)
Healing is scary. Healing changes us. It changes the way we think, the way we feel, and it may even change a little bit of who we thought we were as a person. Healing is unfamiliar, and as we all know, the new and unfamiliar is enough to make even the healthiest of brains a little bit nervous. New and unfamiliar to an unwell brain that lives in unhealthy thinking patterns and craves the same old routine, well, that's enough for our funky brains to scream, "ABORT MISSION! WE CAN'T DO THIS! ABORT! ABORT! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"
Healing is also scary on a more conscious level because healing hurts, in a way. We have to confront bits of ourselves that we might not like very much and the bits that are causing us to (unintentionally) hurt ourselves and maybe even loved ones. We have to face fears and traumas. We have to feel things we may have buried. There will be guilt. There will be shame. There may even be some self-loathing. Those are hard feelings for any of us to deal with. Add in the blown-out-of-proportion servings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing we experience when we have a mental health condition, and it's that much more intense.
The idea of healing, for me, was scary in another way. Going to therapy, and thinking that I might actually be able to heal gave me hope. Hope, especially when we aren't used to feeling hope, can be scary because it's almost "too good" a feeling. That makes us want to back away from the feeling before someone else can ruin it for us. Add in the fact that I didn't think I deserved to feel hopeful because I felt like I was a terrible person, and it's even worse. I was just waiting for my hope to be taken away. I was waiting for my therapist to say she'd changed her mind and thought she couldn't help me or thought I wasn't trying. (I was crying in EVERY SINGLE SESSION for MONTHS. I was a mess. I was worried she'd give up on me.) She never gave up, and I eventually worked through my fear.
I'll end with this: Healing can be terrifying, especially when our brains are telling us that we can't do it, that it won't help, that it's too new and unfamiliar, that it hurts too much, or that we don't deserve it. Our brains are lying to us. We can heal. EVERYONE CAN HEAL from whatever trauma or mental health condition they live with, but we all have to work at it. Just because healing seems scary doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Some of the best moments of our lives come out of the times when we're almost too afraid to try.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Why Didn't She Just Force Me to Go?
Disclaimer: If you think someone is a danger to themselves or others, if someone has lost touch with reality, or if you notice sudden, unusual changes in behavior (like fits of rage/panic/crying, a significant drop in functioning, a signifigant drop in school performance, or suspected drug use) that can't be explained by an environmental factor, you should definitely call a crisis line and/or get the person a medical and psychological evaluation.
I was recently an observer to a situation that brought back many memories from the years before and the beginning of my journey to wellness. I always talk about what I was going through, but I never talk about what my mom was going through at the same time. I couldn't really see outside myself and all my secrets that I was trying to hide at the time, which is a thing that often happens when we suffer with anything that hurts, whether it's a mental health condition, grief, or generally unpleasant life circumstances.
At the same time I was suffering, so was my mom. She had to watch me suffer and then feel helpless because I wouldn't tell her what was going on. She asked repeatedly after each period of panic, and I made up excuses or I lied because I was too afraid to tell her the truth. (Sorry, Mum.) She would even ask me to go to therapy each time and offer to make appointments for me, because, if I couldn't talk to her, she at least wanted me to talk to someone. I declined each time, and she didn't force the issue, even though I'm sure she wanted to. I had to break, I guess, before I was willing to let therapy help me piece myself back together. (Just a tip: DON'T DO WHAT I DID. Go to therapy at the first sign something isn't quite right. Even if you're afraid therapy can't help you, just try it out for a couple of months. You're brain is lying, by the way, if it tells you that you can't be helped.)
You might be asking yourself why my mom didn't just force me to go to therapy. That seems like the best thing she could have done, right? She could have made an appointment for me, put me in the car, and then took me to the therapist. Is that what you're thinking? Well, it's not that easy. That wouldn't have been effective because I wouldn't have WANTED the help she was trying to forcefully give me. I wasn't ready for help yet, and I didn't really think I could be helped anyway.
Here's the thing about mental health. You can't force people into treatment unless it's under special circumstanced (see Disclaimer above). People have to WANT (or at the very least, recognize that they need it) to go to therapy and put in the work or it isn't going to work. It's exactly like physical health that way. People have to WANT to get well and be willing to make the necessary changes before their health and quality of life can improve. People have to be willing to talk to a therapist before the therapist can help them. (Therapy is amazing, but therapists aren't magicians that can snap their fingers and fix our brains while we sit there and glare at them in stony silence. Therapy is a give-and-take relationship. Therapists are facilitators that give us the tools and information to change our brains. Also, therapy does not end after the hour-long appointment, my friends.)
My mom (as a person who has gone to therapy herself) knew she couldn't force me to see a therapist. She knew I wouldn't let therapy help me if I felt like she was forcing me to go. So, she did the best thing. She kept bringing it up. She kept asking if I wanted to go, even though, most of the time, I responded with anger or a lie. She kept bringing it up and asking anyway. She never asked in a way that made me feel like she thought something was wrong with me, like I NEEDED therapy. She would just ask, "Do you want to make an appointment to talk to someone? I think that could make you feel better." Or, "Do you want me to call and make an appointment for you so you can talk to someone?" She never made it seem threatening or taboo. She always mentioned it conversationally and without judgement. Sort of like, "Hey, I notice you might not be feeling well, do you want to get checked out?" If she'd done it any other way, goodness knows how much longer I would have resisted or even if I might have shut her out completely.
I'll end with this: As much as we want to sometimes, we (mostly) can't force people we love into mental health treatment. We're scared, our loved one is scared...it's a scary situation to be in when we're dealing with an out-of-control mental health condition. As much as we NEED help, we have to WANT help, too, or therapy isn't going to be effective. Also, it wouldn't hurt to ask why our loved ones don't want help while we're on the topic.
I was recently an observer to a situation that brought back many memories from the years before and the beginning of my journey to wellness. I always talk about what I was going through, but I never talk about what my mom was going through at the same time. I couldn't really see outside myself and all my secrets that I was trying to hide at the time, which is a thing that often happens when we suffer with anything that hurts, whether it's a mental health condition, grief, or generally unpleasant life circumstances.
At the same time I was suffering, so was my mom. She had to watch me suffer and then feel helpless because I wouldn't tell her what was going on. She asked repeatedly after each period of panic, and I made up excuses or I lied because I was too afraid to tell her the truth. (Sorry, Mum.) She would even ask me to go to therapy each time and offer to make appointments for me, because, if I couldn't talk to her, she at least wanted me to talk to someone. I declined each time, and she didn't force the issue, even though I'm sure she wanted to. I had to break, I guess, before I was willing to let therapy help me piece myself back together. (Just a tip: DON'T DO WHAT I DID. Go to therapy at the first sign something isn't quite right. Even if you're afraid therapy can't help you, just try it out for a couple of months. You're brain is lying, by the way, if it tells you that you can't be helped.)
You might be asking yourself why my mom didn't just force me to go to therapy. That seems like the best thing she could have done, right? She could have made an appointment for me, put me in the car, and then took me to the therapist. Is that what you're thinking? Well, it's not that easy. That wouldn't have been effective because I wouldn't have WANTED the help she was trying to forcefully give me. I wasn't ready for help yet, and I didn't really think I could be helped anyway.
Here's the thing about mental health. You can't force people into treatment unless it's under special circumstanced (see Disclaimer above). People have to WANT (or at the very least, recognize that they need it) to go to therapy and put in the work or it isn't going to work. It's exactly like physical health that way. People have to WANT to get well and be willing to make the necessary changes before their health and quality of life can improve. People have to be willing to talk to a therapist before the therapist can help them. (Therapy is amazing, but therapists aren't magicians that can snap their fingers and fix our brains while we sit there and glare at them in stony silence. Therapy is a give-and-take relationship. Therapists are facilitators that give us the tools and information to change our brains. Also, therapy does not end after the hour-long appointment, my friends.)
My mom (as a person who has gone to therapy herself) knew she couldn't force me to see a therapist. She knew I wouldn't let therapy help me if I felt like she was forcing me to go. So, she did the best thing. She kept bringing it up. She kept asking if I wanted to go, even though, most of the time, I responded with anger or a lie. She kept bringing it up and asking anyway. She never asked in a way that made me feel like she thought something was wrong with me, like I NEEDED therapy. She would just ask, "Do you want to make an appointment to talk to someone? I think that could make you feel better." Or, "Do you want me to call and make an appointment for you so you can talk to someone?" She never made it seem threatening or taboo. She always mentioned it conversationally and without judgement. Sort of like, "Hey, I notice you might not be feeling well, do you want to get checked out?" If she'd done it any other way, goodness knows how much longer I would have resisted or even if I might have shut her out completely.
I'll end with this: As much as we want to sometimes, we (mostly) can't force people we love into mental health treatment. We're scared, our loved one is scared...it's a scary situation to be in when we're dealing with an out-of-control mental health condition. As much as we NEED help, we have to WANT help, too, or therapy isn't going to be effective. Also, it wouldn't hurt to ask why our loved ones don't want help while we're on the topic.
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Reminder: It's Temporary
This past week and the week before that, I experienced non-stop, high anxiety. I couldn't identify a cause in my environment or my thought pattern. It was just there for no real reason, which happens with anxiety disorders. I hadn't had anxiety like that for an extended period of time in (I'd guess) around a year or so. I did all the things: movement, meditation, distraction, supplements. The anxiety was still there. I couldn't get it down.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm distress intolerant, which means that I have a really hard time dealing with negative emotions (like sadness, anger, anxiety...). My distress intolerance may even play a part in why I developed an anxiety disorder because of my need to control my emotions and my refusal to really feel the feelings I didn't like. My therapist likes to tell me that emotions we don't acknowledge and deal with often manifest as, you guessed it, anxiety. (I've gotten better at feeling all my feelings, I promise.)
Another thing distress intolerance does in my brain is go, "Oh no! These negative feelings are the new normal. I'm going to feel like this forever." In other words, my mind views the negative emotion (like my anxiety) as a permanent state of feeling. So, there I was this past week, feeling anxiety about my already-high anxiety. What if I spiral? Why isn't it going down? What if all my coping strategies never work again? What if it's like this FOREVER? You can see how that's not helpful when I'm trying to bring my anxiety down to a less consuming level.
Then, I remembered something. A quote came to me out of the blue. I'd watched a Vlogbrothers video on YouTube a few years ago, and it was one of those rare videos in which John Green, (author of The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska, and other books), talks about his mental health. He had been struggling a bit with his OCD, possibly similar to how I was struggling at that moment. He said, "How you feel when you are at your sickest is not how you will always feel."
Over the next week or so, I found myself thinking of that John Green quote when I would have an anxiety spike. It helped me get back to a more hopeful place. I was then able to say to myself, "Okay, anxiety, I don't like what you're doing right now, but I just have to wait you out." I didn't get lost in worrying about the possibility of feeling anxious forever because John Green reminded me that the state of feeling as unwell as I currently felt was temporary. I already knew that, logically, my anxiety wouldn't feel like that forever, but it's so easy to get lost in the feeling of anxiety. Sometimes, it just takes a person living with a similar condition to remind me that it really does get better again.
I'll end with this: It's so easy to get lost in our emotions, especially the ones we don't like. It's even easier to get lost in the hopelessness, frustration, and fear we might feel as we try to manage a chronic condition like a mental health condition. I know it might not be easy, but we all just have to remember that the emotions, bad days, and spirals are temporary.
Source:
The video is titled: On Mental Illness (and the end of Pizzamas)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_y4CACK-9g
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm distress intolerant, which means that I have a really hard time dealing with negative emotions (like sadness, anger, anxiety...). My distress intolerance may even play a part in why I developed an anxiety disorder because of my need to control my emotions and my refusal to really feel the feelings I didn't like. My therapist likes to tell me that emotions we don't acknowledge and deal with often manifest as, you guessed it, anxiety. (I've gotten better at feeling all my feelings, I promise.)
Another thing distress intolerance does in my brain is go, "Oh no! These negative feelings are the new normal. I'm going to feel like this forever." In other words, my mind views the negative emotion (like my anxiety) as a permanent state of feeling. So, there I was this past week, feeling anxiety about my already-high anxiety. What if I spiral? Why isn't it going down? What if all my coping strategies never work again? What if it's like this FOREVER? You can see how that's not helpful when I'm trying to bring my anxiety down to a less consuming level.
Then, I remembered something. A quote came to me out of the blue. I'd watched a Vlogbrothers video on YouTube a few years ago, and it was one of those rare videos in which John Green, (author of The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska, and other books), talks about his mental health. He had been struggling a bit with his OCD, possibly similar to how I was struggling at that moment. He said, "How you feel when you are at your sickest is not how you will always feel."
Over the next week or so, I found myself thinking of that John Green quote when I would have an anxiety spike. It helped me get back to a more hopeful place. I was then able to say to myself, "Okay, anxiety, I don't like what you're doing right now, but I just have to wait you out." I didn't get lost in worrying about the possibility of feeling anxious forever because John Green reminded me that the state of feeling as unwell as I currently felt was temporary. I already knew that, logically, my anxiety wouldn't feel like that forever, but it's so easy to get lost in the feeling of anxiety. Sometimes, it just takes a person living with a similar condition to remind me that it really does get better again.
I'll end with this: It's so easy to get lost in our emotions, especially the ones we don't like. It's even easier to get lost in the hopelessness, frustration, and fear we might feel as we try to manage a chronic condition like a mental health condition. I know it might not be easy, but we all just have to remember that the emotions, bad days, and spirals are temporary.
Source:
The video is titled: On Mental Illness (and the end of Pizzamas)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_y4CACK-9g
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
I'm Not Sure You Know What That Word Means
Trigger: Something that sets off a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of his or her original trauma. A person's triggers are activated through one or more of the five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. Children and adults can have triggers. (Definition from Psych Central)
I've been seeing the word "triggered" thrown around on social media quite a bit over the past year or so as a synonym for offended, upset, and/or emotional. It's usually used in a negative sense these days, to imply the whole "liberal or feminist snowflake" idea. A couple of times, though, I've even seen people say they're triggered in a joking manner. That isn't what being triggered actually means, and that's not okay.
When someone, like myself, is triggered, it doesn't mean I'm upset, offended, or just being an emotional snowflake. It means something in my environment has pulled up memories or flashbacks and re-experiencing of trauma. It feels like I'm right back there, reliving the traumatic event, and that can be a terrifying experience. It means I may have to call my therapist to help me stay functional and not panicked in this situation. It means I may have to take medication, depending on how intense the traumatic memories and feelings are. Being triggered isn't something people recover from easily. It can take hours, days, or even weeks to come back to our "normal" after a trigger has re-activated the feelings of trauma.
When we use actual mental health terms like "triggered" outside of their original meaning and context, we're devaluing those clinical terms and making them seem less serious than they actually are. By doing that, we're, in yet another way, making light of people's trauma and suffering. We're telling them, yet again, that their suffering and trauma are less serious and less important, simply because the suffering and trauma are mental health-related. We're giving anyone that hears us use these terms incorrectly and flippantly the idea that it's okay to see triggers as just silly little things that upset people or that it's okay to make suffering into a joke. It's the same thing as saying, "I'm so OCD" just because you like your space neat and tidy or "I'm so bipolar" just because you feel moody.
When we use mental health terms incorrectly, we're actually hurting people. We're keeping the mental health stigma alive and well. When someone with an actual trigger hears us make light of triggers in conversation or sees it on social media, that person is less likely to mention that they have any triggers and less likely to seek help to heal from the trauma.
I'll end with this: Words have the power to hurt or help people. Words like "triggered" used incorrectly or flippantly have the power to stop someone from taking their trauma seriously enough to get help. We should all be a little more mindful of the words we use in our conversations and on our social media.
Source:
https://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-a-trigger/
I've been seeing the word "triggered" thrown around on social media quite a bit over the past year or so as a synonym for offended, upset, and/or emotional. It's usually used in a negative sense these days, to imply the whole "liberal or feminist snowflake" idea. A couple of times, though, I've even seen people say they're triggered in a joking manner. That isn't what being triggered actually means, and that's not okay.
When someone, like myself, is triggered, it doesn't mean I'm upset, offended, or just being an emotional snowflake. It means something in my environment has pulled up memories or flashbacks and re-experiencing of trauma. It feels like I'm right back there, reliving the traumatic event, and that can be a terrifying experience. It means I may have to call my therapist to help me stay functional and not panicked in this situation. It means I may have to take medication, depending on how intense the traumatic memories and feelings are. Being triggered isn't something people recover from easily. It can take hours, days, or even weeks to come back to our "normal" after a trigger has re-activated the feelings of trauma.
When we use actual mental health terms like "triggered" outside of their original meaning and context, we're devaluing those clinical terms and making them seem less serious than they actually are. By doing that, we're, in yet another way, making light of people's trauma and suffering. We're telling them, yet again, that their suffering and trauma are less serious and less important, simply because the suffering and trauma are mental health-related. We're giving anyone that hears us use these terms incorrectly and flippantly the idea that it's okay to see triggers as just silly little things that upset people or that it's okay to make suffering into a joke. It's the same thing as saying, "I'm so OCD" just because you like your space neat and tidy or "I'm so bipolar" just because you feel moody.
When we use mental health terms incorrectly, we're actually hurting people. We're keeping the mental health stigma alive and well. When someone with an actual trigger hears us make light of triggers in conversation or sees it on social media, that person is less likely to mention that they have any triggers and less likely to seek help to heal from the trauma.
I'll end with this: Words have the power to hurt or help people. Words like "triggered" used incorrectly or flippantly have the power to stop someone from taking their trauma seriously enough to get help. We should all be a little more mindful of the words we use in our conversations and on our social media.
Source:
https://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-a-trigger/
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