coping skills
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I’m trying to use coping skills. The little dumb ones, like listening to music, especially during triggers and stress. Writing. You think this blog is cringe? Should see my paper journal. I use grounding when I dissociate – what can I feel? See? Hear? This involves a bit of mindfulness, and I am not always
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Sometimes I am just floating, going through the motions, not sad or depressed or manic or anything. I exist in a state of melancholy. I use work to cope. I’m working 9 days this week, and I realize 9 days is more than a week but that’s just what it is. If I didn’t have
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My top coping skills – music, writing, movies and film…and most of all, work. I’m at Sacred Heart again tonight, with a trainee. I haven’t been here that long, but I am already orienting new people to the floor. In fact, it was only my 4th night back when I was new that I trained
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At last, after a marathon of 60-hour work weeks the last three months, I’m taking a week off. I don’t have to be back at work till next Thursday. I am anxious about my flooring project. I still haven’t heard from my installation coordinator. I worry they won’t be able to do it in time.
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Jesus Christ the flashbacks…I am lost in my head so often. Stuck in memories, stuck in the past. The juxtaposition of bipolar with PTSD is painful and aggravating and weird. A doctor found that this PTSD profoundly affects my life. Pile on a manic or depressive episode and I’m suddenly dealing with intrusive thoughts and
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A little glimpse of dysfunction into my family – we still have not got together for Christmas/New Years. The several attempts led to postponements over illness in my brother Sam’s family, with his wife and my diabetic nephew getting sick. My youngest brother George breaking his foot and being really drunk. I have no idea
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I have had to sit with a lot of discomfort for the last few days. It’s forced me to think a lot about the DBT skills I’m supposed to use in response to these painful feelings – distraction, HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired) build mastery, and just plain sitting with the shitty feelings. I also
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I had to duck out of IOP early today – my lack of a need for sleep finally seemed to be catching up with me. I worked two extra shifts Friday and Saturday nights, trying to expend the energy in a productive manner, and only slept a few hours Sunday before coming back in for
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As I cling desperately to sanity and basic functioning, I remind myself daily of the coping skills I’m trying to incorporate into my life, something with which I’ve always struggled. It’s like the moment I need them, they fly right out of my head and I don’t know what to do. This is what I
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 