Tag: anxiety

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Make your own deck of coping skills

a deck of decorative cards with coping skills on them

Do you ever find that the skills you have for coping with everyday stress are not serving you as well as they could? If you suffer from depression, anxiety or trauma, it’s possible that the coping skills you learned growing up could be updated. I know my coping skills for a long time consisted of considering suicide, leaving the area, or crying. These were my go-to behaviors when I was really stressed out, and I found that they weren’t serving me very well. My therapist recommended some other options, but I would forget what I should do in times of stress. So I made a list of coping skills to help me remember.

We are all given a deck of cards to play in life that are our coping skills, and we can stack the deck in our favor in order to better deal with all the stresses life hands out. So, a fun project is to actually create a deck of cards, each with a different coping skill on it, to be used in times of stress to remind ourselves that there are more ways to handle stresses than what we learned as children. I decorated my cards with markers and made them look as cute and inviting as I could, and I use this deck when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Getting out the markers and flash cards was reminiscent of childhood, and coloring the cards with different designs was really soothing. Now when I’m stressed out, I go draw a card and do the activity that is written down. If I draw a card that doesn’t feel right for the time, I just shuffle it back in and draw again. All you need to create your own deck are some index cards and markers, colored pencils or crayons. Get into it and really personalize your deck. You’ll be more likely to use the behaviors if you choose them. Here are some examples of coping skills you might want to add to your deck. Take a walk, Take three deep breaths, curl up in a blanket and watch your favorite show, listen to music to change your mood, or take a nap. Make sure your coping skills really help you to feel better.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

9 Places to Meet People When You’re Depressed

You know how hard it is to get out and socialize when you’re depressed and your therapist suggests you get out and socialize. Here are ten places you can go to meet people where your depressed mood won’t turn people off.

  1. Support group. It doesn’t matter which one. People in support groups are often at a low point in their lives and it will be easy to just blend in. Bonus points for sharing your story
  2. Bus station. There are many people who are down and out with whom you can choose to start a conversation. In fact, you can even have a loud conversation with yourself without anyone paying attention. Granted, this does show the lack of good mental health care in the US.
  3. Car dealership. Just go and say you’re interested in buying, but you don’t know what kind of car you want. The car salesman will spend all day with you pretending she’s your friend. Just don’t buy anything.
  4. Therapist’s waiting room. The question is there for the asking….What are you here for?
  5. Blackjack table. Make sure you find the table where everyone is quiet and sullen. You’ll fit right in. You can even swear loudly without raising eyebrows. Make sure to bring lots of money if you want to stay awhile.
  6. Cemetery. All hours company from mourners in the daytime to distressed teens at night. Where could you ask for better company in the blues?
  7. Library. You don’t have to talk at all and you can bond over shushing people who are talking on their cell phones.
  8. Hospital. Stay away from the newborn section and you should be fine. Striking up a conversation with a harried nurse in the cafeteria will get your mind off your own troubles.
  9. Court. You have to be quiet while court is in session, so you don’t have to worry about making long conversations. Another instant icebreaker. What did you do? If you’re lucky, you may end up with a pen pal for three to five years.

I hope these suggestions help you on your quest to make new friends. Depression can be hard, but it is easier if you can share it with people. Do your best to live your best life!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

From Nothing to Something

I am a shy introverted slacker. I have no self-discipline, little motivation and a ton of fear and regret. I have made so many mistakes in life and I’m not sure how to go where I want from where I’m at. In fact, I’m not sure where I want to go. My modus operandus is to run from what I don’t want, sometimes ending up in an even worse place than where I was. I’m overweight and underemployed with no savings, no house, no retirement plan, nothing. I’m ashamed of my past, terrified of the future and spend much of the present sleeping. I am in a relationship in which I’m afraid to ask for what I want or to ask what my partner wants. We talk about nothing other than 80’s cartoons and spend the rest of our time online or vegging in front of the tv. I offer nothing to the world and am basically just waiting to die.

However, I do actually want some things, but feel that I am not disciplined enough, courageous enough, or not enough of something to get it. I want a nice comfortable house on some land. I want to be engaged with my partner. I want to be engaged with life – to feel that the things I do or don’t do matter. I want enough income to be able to travel occasionally, to take classes, to try new things. I want stability. My whole life everything I’ve had or done was only temporary. I can live in this place until something better came along. I can date or be friends with this person until I found someone who treated me better. This job is okay for now. I haven’t put any effort or thought into building a life. Every few years or so, I just get rid of everything and start from scratch. I am tired of this impermanence. I want to change from being me as a slacker to being me as satisfied and content. I want real friends, my own house, and my own work that helps the world. I want to define my terms and then live within them. I’m going to make every effort to make this happen. I’m going to stick to plans and create good habits even when they’re hard or boring. I’m going to create a new life. This is a blog dedicated to that ideal. To go from nothing to a life worth living.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Construction Fun!!!

Last week I came home to find my front door pasted with official looking documents. I figured that my apartment had been confiscated and it was going to take up days of my time fighting an uncaring bureacracy for the remains of my furniture. It turned out to be much worse than I feared. We were served notice that a bunch of loud jack booted construction workers were going to descend upon our peace and quiet in order to replace the siding and the windows in our rented townhouse. They commandeered all the available parking spaces for a month, turned off our water for no discernible reason, banged on our walls and just popped in through the windows at irregular intervals. Neither my partner nor I do very well with people in general, and these are people we didn’t invite coming in through the windows like commandos sporting caulking guns. It is pretty terrifying. Unfortunately, my partner deals with his anxiety by yelling at me about what the workers are doing, which makes me even more anxious. I spent most of yesterday in a puddle under the bed with the cat.

Renter’s rights are sorely lacking in Oregon. The notice stated that they would access our townhouse between the reasonable hours of April 28 at 8:00am through May 10th at 5:00 pm. That is two weeks of all hours access that apparently gives them the right to invade us. It also read that neither the apartment complex nor the construction company was going to be responsible for any damage done to our property. I didn’t know that you could do that! I’m going to cancel my renter’s insurance and car insurance and just send letters out saying that I will not be responsible for any damage I do. Then I’m going to pop over to my landlord’s house, come in through the window and try to make conversation with them while they are still in they’re pajamas. This is apparently acceptable behavior nowadays! Yay! Since the contractor declined taking any responsibility for any damages, it seemed like the workers were told to inflict as much damage as possible on us. They took this as free license to grind all the hundred dollars worth of flowers we planted into sad little plant paste that will never bloom again.

I wait impatiently for the remodel to be over. I could hope that this will have a happy ending and that the new windows and siding will change my life for the better. I think the more likely scenario is that my rent will be going up. My partner and I have been talking seriously about buying some land in the desert with no utilities, because it’s all we can afford. Then we will build a house out of trash we collect. We’ll call it an earthship and it will be fabulous!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

How to create a life worth living

If you live with depression, chronic pain, anxiety or PTSD, you probably know what it’s like to feel that you’re life isn’t worth living. Somewhere, somehow, your will to live got stunted and you have come to accept the scraps that life has given you.

You do have the power to change your life, no matter how black it may seem at times.

Change can seem like a scary proposition though. If you struggle with these chronic conditions, change has probably meant loss. However, change can also mean addition to your life. You can change your life by adding meaning, slowly, at a pace you can handle.

If you can start to imagine one thing you could do each day that will be a step in the direction you want to head in. When I was in one of my blackest periods, leaving my house was terrifying for me. I was scared of my neighbors, I was scared of clerks, I was even scared of children. I knew that in order to get better I was going to have to go outside, but I couldn’t do it. So, I just put my shoes by the front door. That was my initial step in the right direction. A couple days later, I put on my shoes. I was still in my pajamas, hadn’t showered in a week, but I had my shoes on! I took them off after a while, but I put them on the next day again. This was within the realm of what I could do successfully each day. I created a small reward for every time I took the step to create a habit. My reward was a star on my calendar, and after a month of stars, I got to take a solo drive somewhere pretty.

Eventually, when I could see no one was outside, I started walking in my pajamas. Then I started wearing jeans and a shirt, then I started waving at people who were outside. Each day I did what I could in the direction I wanted to go.

You can use this method to create habits that will get you engaged with life again! just start with the easiest step you can think of, and track yourself and reward yourself each time you do the step. Once it becomes second nature, make it a little bit harder, but still something you can easily do.

Just remember, small steps, track and reward! Change your life for the better!