Need sugestions pls

[Kalima]

I’m writing this today to ask for any suggestions anyone has that could help. I had some drastic swings in mood over the weekend, and a very bad night Saturday. But I have been able to keep myself from hurting myself. But I really want to, I need it.

I’m finding it very very difficult to focus too many negative thoughts. I’m kind of thinking with 2 minds, I hear the negative thoughts such as ‘I wish I was dead’ and I also catch myself , tell myself ‘that’s not true’. But even though I’m able to do that I can’t stop the thoughts from repeating. Maybe because I don’t believe my second thoughts.

I’ve been at work for 1 ½ h and I have done the about 15m worth of work. I know hurting myself isn’t a good coping method, but it’s helped me snap out of the annoying and frustrating circle of thoughts I’m currently in. Are there any other ways to snap out of it? Does anyone else have any suggestions? I’m not down to the point of crying, I feel irritated, frustrated and pissed off at myself. I’m angry that I’m not taking control and pushing the thoughts out of my mind because I need to and I want to be able to do that. Anyone know how? coz my method is one I’ve been fighting for 3 days now and I’m about to just give in.

Also I have a hypno session tonight and I'm a bit scared how I'm likly to react coz I know we intend to go over some old memories and I don't want to fall further.

Thanks

[Mark]

I've come across what you are talking about with regard to having the negative thoughts, and also the corrective thoughts at once a number of times. This is rather common, that one stream of thought puts you down viciously, while the other attempts to defend and criticize the irrationality of the first thoughts. To over-simplify, the first stream of thought is the depression speaking - it's the emotional brain leaping to unwarrented conclusions, while the secondary thought stream is more cognitive - more analytic. It's not a fair fight, as the emotions will tend to win out against the rational parts of you in any given instance. If you continually reinforce the rational parts of you, through a process of cognitive therapy, you can build it up, and make headway against the emotional thinking, but it takes time, and even when you're good at it, the emotions have momentum and can take a while to disapate.

So - one important thing to remember is that emotions are physical sorts of things - think of the relationship between the terms emotion and motivation and motion. There is a relationship here and it's not just wordplay. You can influence your emotions through physical actions, such as vigorous exercise, or through exercises such as yoga that can loosen up the body and the spine or change the way that blood flows in your body. If you're looking for a quick non-chemical alteration of your mood, my first suggestion would be to exercise or stretch or both. Exercise will get out some of the "nervous energy" you have that is itching to be released in the form of self-injury. It's also distracting, and that helps a lot too.

Hope that helps.

Mark

[Kalima]

Insightful but perhaps not helpful.

So there isnt a better way to stop such thoughts short term when in the confines of work. Nice.

[Mark]

Kalima,

I wouldn't leap to that negative conclusion. You have to try different things to see what will work for you. Most everything you might do will take some ongoing practice before it will produce symptom relief with regard to depressive feelings, however, so that is just something to keep in mind. Not a reason to not do anything, but rather a reason to try different things and not look for radical improvement right away, but instead over a little time (a few weeks).

Mark

[Finally living]

Hi Kalima.

If I 'hear' you correctly, you are trying not to hurt yourself, (meaning the vague idea of 'cutting,' to deal with stress) not the more serious, "I'm ending life today" = hurting myself.

If it is 'cutting,' read on...

I have not hurt myself in over 18 months. It is hard to remember our new healthy coping skills especially when life gets stressful. One trick I have learned is to get out of the house and go to a public place. You cannot do harmful things to yourself in public, but when you're at home and can hide... that impulse can be hard to ignore. I will visit a park and find something beautiful to watch - the water, the light through the trees, children playing on a playground that are absolutely delighted with a swing. Reminding myself that there is beauty in life helps me "see" the beauty in my own life.

If this makes sense to you, great. If not, I hope I didn't confuse you too much. Either way, good luck & I hope that you keep trying.

K

[Guest ASchwartz]

Welcome, Finally living, and Hi Kalima,

Finally living, the suggestions you are giving Kalima are excellent, both for her and for everyone. It makes great sense and I appreciate your input. Can you tell us more about your self?

Allan

[Natalie]

Hi Kalima-

Did you find anything to do at work to relieve your negative thoughts and tension?

How did the evening therapy session go?

FYI- I worked with a person who had a hard time fighting with her desire to cut at work. When she felt this way she had the following "tricks" that she would use (not all at once, just depending on the day/time/mood).

1) She linked to a funny website for a few minutes and read some jokes to take her mind off the negativity

2) She did some deep breathing exercises (see our Stress Reduction article, section about Diaphragmatic Breathing), because her workplace made her tense, and her "tenseness" made her want to cut.

3) She opened up a small journalling file and wrote for a few minutes about her feelings and thoughts and then put them away for later (when she could more intensely examine them).

4) She would take a quick bathroom break and walk up and down the stairs outside her office

5) She would switch and do some tasks that involved getting up and moving around- such as walking to the copy machine.

6) She would plug in her Ipod and blast her favorite music (so it didn't bother anyone else).

Are any of these techniques things that you could do at work?

[Kalima]

Dear All,

"Did you find anything to do at work to relieve your negative thoughts and tension? " - Well I did write some and eventually the negative thoughts passed, but I was still finding it very hard to concentrate and focus. The writing is something I use a lot because the words tend to fly around my head and getting them onto a screen or on paper gives me a chance to see them and as I have been told by my councilor, a chance to slow it all down.

How did the evening therapy session go? - the session didnt go as planned, we left the hypno for another day and discussed thoughts and stuff. In particular we discussed suicicide, something I once was giving genuine concideration to but I have fortunatly moved past that (at present anyways).

We talked fairly non-stop for the whole session and eventually decided that I think too much, and that perhaps makes me more prone to depression. We also discussed what equals happiness. All in all it was a good session.

The "tricks" that you have given have really given me something to think about, they seem quite practical. I also found Finally living's sugestion a great one, I might try and employ that when I am at home.

I am in a fairly positive mood today, I have had my first night of undisturbed sleep this week and man did i need it. Work has been making me a little stressed when I am at work, and keep finding it very hard to concentrate and to just get on with it. I'm not sure if that's just sleep related or what.

Anyways cheers all.

x x x x