Katie's "How to Chase the Crazies Away" Guide to Life (sorta)
In response to a friend:
I think I know what you mean about everything seeming to be moving so fast and yet nothing is really moving forward. When I was going seriously nutzo/anxiety my senior year of LSU, it seemed like everything I had to do in the next 3 years was in my head, all clamoring for attention. Huge life decisions, still finishing school, katrina fucking shit up, trying to apply to grad school, etc. Desperate to not make the wrong decision and end up fucking up the rest of my life. And yet, I couldn't get anything done. I couldn't hear past my brain screaming from being pulled in so many different directions.
There came a point where I was cutting regularly and started to disassociate from reality. I wasn't suicidal, but I became so scared that I would get in one of those disassociated states and not realize what I was doing and end up killing myself. That's when I started going to see my therapist in Baton Rouge (a clinical social worker).
Anyway, she helped me learn skills to cope with, well, life in a slightly less destructive manner. Contrary to popular belief, you can go in there and tell your therapist what you want to work on (like getting more organized, figuring out relationship problems, etc) and they will help you with that. While they might want to discuss the reasons for many of your actions, they will mainly provide practical advice on getting your head in a good place. ...If they're as good as my therapists, I guess. None of that "so... tell me how you felt about your father when you were 9" bullshit.
I'll just throw some stuff out there. If you find any of this helpful, cool, but what worked for me won't necessarily work for anyone else.
-take some time each day to organize your thoughts. what are the things that you think about the most? write it down. seeing a list of your hopes/dreams/fears/etc can put things in perspective. think hard about what matters to you the most and what the things are that you can actually do something about. Even things that you feel like you have no control over can be changed, even if it's just in your own head. It's all in the way you react to it. It's a learning process, but eventually you will be able to prioritize and focus on the things you really need to.
-Let the little stuff go. Take the big stuff and break it into little chunks. It's a lot less scary when your goal is to just get out of bed when you don't think "oh my god, i have to get out of bed and it's going to be freezing and the bathroom is so cold and the shower doesn't work right and everything sucks and i should be doing work instead of laying here. rinse, repeat." (quotes courtesy of my seriously fucked up head from the December I was living on Kat and Mic6helle's couch on Magazine)
-Don't be afraid to ask your friends for help. I could never have gotten through the past couple of years without the support of my muffins and family.
-Focus on what makes you happy. Who you want to be as an independent person. It's hard not to define yourself by your relationships with other people. I'm terribly co-dependent. Speaking from experience, giving anyone that much power over your emotions is a very, very dangerous game. I'm marginally better at it than I was before, but that's not really saying much.
-Think before acting. (Yeah, I know. It's just an ideal here. I don't think anyone of us really expects to always be able to do this.) Ask yourself if your reaction will make the situation more positive or negative. Consider why the other person/people might act the way they do. It's always fun to take the higher road by keeping your cool because a) they're probably not worth the emotional stress anyway and b) it usually makes them look like an idiot. A little bit of vindictive pleasure goes very nicely with not bothering yourself with petty people.
-Oh yeah, and regular sleep, exercise, healthy diet, all that shit that's soooo annoying to do. ugh. :P
Uh, I'm not sure how helpful any of that will be. I guess it's just my general "how to" on living in a positive way. I'm crap at a lot of it, but I'm slowly learning to make it habitual. It's probably not something anyone will ever be able to do all the time or even most of the time. Trying is what counts.
so.... there ya go. at age 50, i hope i can look back on what my 23-yr-old self thought she knew about life and have a good chuckle =)
one thing i do know.... is that i barely know anything =)
I think I know what you mean about everything seeming to be moving so fast and yet nothing is really moving forward. When I was going seriously nutzo/anxiety my senior year of LSU, it seemed like everything I had to do in the next 3 years was in my head, all clamoring for attention. Huge life decisions, still finishing school, katrina fucking shit up, trying to apply to grad school, etc. Desperate to not make the wrong decision and end up fucking up the rest of my life. And yet, I couldn't get anything done. I couldn't hear past my brain screaming from being pulled in so many different directions.
There came a point where I was cutting regularly and started to disassociate from reality. I wasn't suicidal, but I became so scared that I would get in one of those disassociated states and not realize what I was doing and end up killing myself. That's when I started going to see my therapist in Baton Rouge (a clinical social worker).
Anyway, she helped me learn skills to cope with, well, life in a slightly less destructive manner. Contrary to popular belief, you can go in there and tell your therapist what you want to work on (like getting more organized, figuring out relationship problems, etc) and they will help you with that. While they might want to discuss the reasons for many of your actions, they will mainly provide practical advice on getting your head in a good place. ...If they're as good as my therapists, I guess. None of that "so... tell me how you felt about your father when you were 9" bullshit.
I'll just throw some stuff out there. If you find any of this helpful, cool, but what worked for me won't necessarily work for anyone else.
-take some time each day to organize your thoughts. what are the things that you think about the most? write it down. seeing a list of your hopes/dreams/fears/etc can put things in perspective. think hard about what matters to you the most and what the things are that you can actually do something about. Even things that you feel like you have no control over can be changed, even if it's just in your own head. It's all in the way you react to it. It's a learning process, but eventually you will be able to prioritize and focus on the things you really need to.
-Let the little stuff go. Take the big stuff and break it into little chunks. It's a lot less scary when your goal is to just get out of bed when you don't think "oh my god, i have to get out of bed and it's going to be freezing and the bathroom is so cold and the shower doesn't work right and everything sucks and i should be doing work instead of laying here. rinse, repeat." (quotes courtesy of my seriously fucked up head from the December I was living on Kat and Mic6helle's couch on Magazine)
-Don't be afraid to ask your friends for help. I could never have gotten through the past couple of years without the support of my muffins and family.
-Focus on what makes you happy. Who you want to be as an independent person. It's hard not to define yourself by your relationships with other people. I'm terribly co-dependent. Speaking from experience, giving anyone that much power over your emotions is a very, very dangerous game. I'm marginally better at it than I was before, but that's not really saying much.
-Think before acting. (Yeah, I know. It's just an ideal here. I don't think anyone of us really expects to always be able to do this.) Ask yourself if your reaction will make the situation more positive or negative. Consider why the other person/people might act the way they do. It's always fun to take the higher road by keeping your cool because a) they're probably not worth the emotional stress anyway and b) it usually makes them look like an idiot. A little bit of vindictive pleasure goes very nicely with not bothering yourself with petty people.
-Oh yeah, and regular sleep, exercise, healthy diet, all that shit that's soooo annoying to do. ugh. :P
Uh, I'm not sure how helpful any of that will be. I guess it's just my general "how to" on living in a positive way. I'm crap at a lot of it, but I'm slowly learning to make it habitual. It's probably not something anyone will ever be able to do all the time or even most of the time. Trying is what counts.
so.... there ya go. at age 50, i hope i can look back on what my 23-yr-old self thought she knew about life and have a good chuckle =)
one thing i do know.... is that i barely know anything =)