flash flood
have to wake up in 4.5 hours so why not catch up on my lj.
things i want to know:
what is it about first love that makes them so damn hard to give up?
how do you know if/when you love somebody?
how do i not lash out when i'm irritable/grumpy/out of control?
why do i avoid confrontation?
how do i not freak out in stressful situations?
how do i keep myself in a good mental state?
well, let's start with the last one, since i'm obviously sabotaging it by not sleeping when i already don't have much time to do so. for a while, i had a borderline resident in the house. one of the forms of therapy thought to be most useful for borderline personalities is dbt or dialectical behavioral therapy. one of the things i like about dbt is that they break down the most very basic aspects of living, the stuff no one has ever thought to teach you and assumed you learned by observation and example, like social and emotional intelligence stuff, that you might have managed to pick up if you had good models in your life and weren't abused too much, and teach them in easy to remember ways, such as with tons of little acronyms. anyway, one of the topics of dbt is how to reduce your vulnerability to negative emotions, or how to manage your mood so that you don't turn into a foul-tempered screaming shouting crying cursing monster, because happy people tend to do more pleasant things like sing and converse and stay focused on life projects and such. the acronym they have for skills to do this is PLEASE MASTER
Physical
iLlness - treat illnesses
Eating - eat a balanced diet
Altering - avoid mind altering substances
Sleep - have a regular balanced sleep schedule
Exercise - at least once a day
Mastery - do at least one thing each day that gives you a sense of confidence and achievement
I like this. i think i pretty much agree. of late, i find that i'm more stable if i avoid caffeine and alcohol all together. if i can manage my blood sugar*, which is highly unlikely, i might even be sane. and i also think it's pretty cool they have that Build Mastery part, because it's something so basic to mental health yet so easy to overlook. because how can you feel good if you feel utterly useless. i'm not sure if it's sufficient to keep negative emotins away. i'm not sure i've ever managed to fulfill all these skills. but now that i've managed to type out the silly acronym, maybe i can manage to remember it and try to live by it. then i'll tell you if it works. and yeah, why are the most basic things the hardest? sleep and exercise. those two are things i've been trying to get enough of my whole life. and having trouble trying to try. what's my problem? why can't i understand that they're necessary? grrrr.
*side story: i think i'm hypoglycemic. my pcp may or may not agree but she was pretty baffled and didn't have any good answers for me, so i'll just keep self-diagnosing. i took a glucose tolerance test for a re$earch $tudy and drank a bottle of grossness filled with 75g of sugar. now usually, they do this to see if you are diabetic. they take your blood 2 hours later and if you are, your blood sugar will be off the walls high. and for me somehow, after two hours, my blood sugar was low enough where i could have gone into a coma. i didn't of course, but i was feeling pretty strange and the walls were shifting weirdly and my emt instincts kicked in with a thought like, if i was my own patient and they told me how they were feeling, i would throw them onto a stretcher and absolutely refuse to let them wander around despite their every protest. but of course, being myself, i just ignored that thought and took the 10 min walk back to my lab where i scarfed down copious amounts of food ...i made it ok. it felt pretty bad though. and it wasn't just psychological bc they didn't tell me how low my sugar was until the next day in a worried phone call. and if they had found out right then, i'm sure they also would not have let me walk around.
incidentally, Please Master is also an erotic poem by Allen Ginsberg. Google it if you want to blush.
time to sleep. night night.
things i want to know:
what is it about first love that makes them so damn hard to give up?
how do you know if/when you love somebody?
how do i not lash out when i'm irritable/grumpy/out of control?
why do i avoid confrontation?
how do i not freak out in stressful situations?
how do i keep myself in a good mental state?
well, let's start with the last one, since i'm obviously sabotaging it by not sleeping when i already don't have much time to do so. for a while, i had a borderline resident in the house. one of the forms of therapy thought to be most useful for borderline personalities is dbt or dialectical behavioral therapy. one of the things i like about dbt is that they break down the most very basic aspects of living, the stuff no one has ever thought to teach you and assumed you learned by observation and example, like social and emotional intelligence stuff, that you might have managed to pick up if you had good models in your life and weren't abused too much, and teach them in easy to remember ways, such as with tons of little acronyms. anyway, one of the topics of dbt is how to reduce your vulnerability to negative emotions, or how to manage your mood so that you don't turn into a foul-tempered screaming shouting crying cursing monster, because happy people tend to do more pleasant things like sing and converse and stay focused on life projects and such. the acronym they have for skills to do this is PLEASE MASTER
Physical
iLlness - treat illnesses
Eating - eat a balanced diet
Altering - avoid mind altering substances
Sleep - have a regular balanced sleep schedule
Exercise - at least once a day
Mastery - do at least one thing each day that gives you a sense of confidence and achievement
I like this. i think i pretty much agree. of late, i find that i'm more stable if i avoid caffeine and alcohol all together. if i can manage my blood sugar*, which is highly unlikely, i might even be sane. and i also think it's pretty cool they have that Build Mastery part, because it's something so basic to mental health yet so easy to overlook. because how can you feel good if you feel utterly useless. i'm not sure if it's sufficient to keep negative emotins away. i'm not sure i've ever managed to fulfill all these skills. but now that i've managed to type out the silly acronym, maybe i can manage to remember it and try to live by it. then i'll tell you if it works. and yeah, why are the most basic things the hardest? sleep and exercise. those two are things i've been trying to get enough of my whole life. and having trouble trying to try. what's my problem? why can't i understand that they're necessary? grrrr.
*side story: i think i'm hypoglycemic. my pcp may or may not agree but she was pretty baffled and didn't have any good answers for me, so i'll just keep self-diagnosing. i took a glucose tolerance test for a re$earch $tudy and drank a bottle of grossness filled with 75g of sugar. now usually, they do this to see if you are diabetic. they take your blood 2 hours later and if you are, your blood sugar will be off the walls high. and for me somehow, after two hours, my blood sugar was low enough where i could have gone into a coma. i didn't of course, but i was feeling pretty strange and the walls were shifting weirdly and my emt instincts kicked in with a thought like, if i was my own patient and they told me how they were feeling, i would throw them onto a stretcher and absolutely refuse to let them wander around despite their every protest. but of course, being myself, i just ignored that thought and took the 10 min walk back to my lab where i scarfed down copious amounts of food ...i made it ok. it felt pretty bad though. and it wasn't just psychological bc they didn't tell me how low my sugar was until the next day in a worried phone call. and if they had found out right then, i'm sure they also would not have let me walk around.
incidentally, Please Master is also an erotic poem by Allen Ginsberg. Google it if you want to blush.
time to sleep. night night.