Here are my suggestions. (As with all advice from randos on the internet, take what works and leave the rest
):
- Treats - give yourself things to look forward to every day. Don't have to be huge things - hot bath, nature videos (can give you the benefits of being in nature w/o the painful walking), favourite songs, food treats, journalling, hang out w/ your pet, etc
- Routine - commit to basic things every day - getting out of bed by a certain time every day, getting dressed, taking any meds you might have, etc
- Tracking - (via sticker chart / Excel file / app), b/c you don;t want to rely on your tired brain to remember things and human hate to break a streak once they get one going; will also remind you of your successes - hey, I did X every day for the last 4 days, even though I didn't want to do it any of those days
- Rewards - the same kind of things you would give yourself as treats but bigger, juicier, more delectable (so a treat might be a hot bath or a new pair of super-fuzzy socks; a reward might be a massage or a new pair of fleece pajamas or 2 hours of your favourite podcast). Given, by you to you, after you achieve some benchmark in the things you are tracking.
- Battle your disordered thinking (aka, "stinking thinking"). This article and this article list types of disordered thinking and how to respond to these kinds of thoughts.
- Lean on your support network (family, friends, this forum). Recruit your survival instinct. And help others when / how you can.
Best of luck. Feel free to PM me.
Kennedy
Thank you so much for this!
I think my plan so far is to work out the very basic self-care needs that I have - keeping myself out of bed all day, getting changed, actually eating and then work on anything resembling returning to my normal life. I like that part about giving myself treats - I'll Pavlov myself better, haha. I see recovery as being similar to that bit in BoJack - I don't know if you've seen the show - where there's a guy who runs up a hill every day and he says every day it gets easier, the hard part is simply doing it every day. I hope that makes sense.
An app would work for me I think, in the early days of going through this I was using one that had an option to track my moods and I'd get mad at myself because I hadn't improved. I think now my mindset is a little different it won't be like that though.
Disordered thinking is something I really struggle with, that's what I need to get in check alongside self-care. The two go hand in hand. It's like I have this mental block telling me that I need to stay in bed and not eat and research ways to CTB (which is how I found this site, funnily enough) but
shockingly that's only made me worse. Finding a way to defeat that will be the hardest part but there's literally no way out this situation, unless I want to eventually be hospitalized for malnutrition or CTB.
I think my end goal in this is to be better by July. My friend is having a small gathering for her birthday and I've got friends going I haven't seen in months. I obviously don't expect a full recovery, but if I'm able to actually socialize, I'll know I'm on the right track.
I'll keep that in mind about messaging you - sorry if this reply is all over the place but it has helped a lot. It's good to see actual steps mapped out.
Attempting to make a change like that alone might be bordering on impossible, because everything in the immediate environment will trigger the same old thoughts and interpretations.
For some reason, every time I've been extreme close to CTB, some unexpected event has happened.
* Late last year I had contact out of the blue from a lady who I had really missed since she left my life.
* Then in later months, I was having an internal dialogue about how I would attempt recovery if I had some financial windfall, then I got a phone call announcing a major pay rise.
* And most recently, a work colleague found himself homeless, and in the process of living with me, he has introduced me to a fanatical fitness regime which is something I secretly always wanted, but never had a starting point.
All I can say is to take any opportunities to be around others who would accept you in a nonjudgmental way. Sometimes the answer is to 'flick' straight to a healthier state and then integrate the newfound lifestyle rather than slowly address each of our 300 grievances. I'm no success story but this is the best advice I can give based on my own experience.
Thank you for this, it really sounds like the universe is giving you signs to stay here! I'm very very lucky to have had my family support me through this, I'm gradually going to try and spend more time with them and do simple activities like going on walks with them. In terms of other non-judgemental people, my therapist recommended local activity groups but that's going to take some building up to get to. I'm
very self-conscious about going outside by myself (even to travel to somewhere that would be a 'safe place') due to my hair loss/breakage and my weight loss.
I've had similar things with my friends recently that have stopped my thoughts of CTB. Today I packed up my things from my student house and found some cookies my housemates had left for me with a note that said they hoped I was okay. It sounds incredibly small, but it was touching to know that they were thinking of me. I also got back in contact with friends I hadn't seen and I was shocked that they weren't mad at me for not messaging them for months, and that they were accepting that I wouldn't see them in a while because I'm working on my recovery.
I hope that makes sense, and I'm glad you're feeling a little better now.
hi
reading your message i did not understand what specifically happened to you — the reason that you are depressed.
to me human interaction helps a little bit to keep going although it interferes with my crying rituals.
Hi, I guess I left it out! It's hard to get into and it's one that
hopefully will be helped by therapy. I was dealing with an extreme amount of stress at university and whilst that was going on I was suddenly plagued by memories of my teenage years. During that time I acted out a lot and I did some really stupid things, got myself in some harmful situations that were very traumatic. Things got too much and I got myself in a cycle of blaming myself for the trauma I went through and convinced myself I was a bad person because I should have known better. Downward spiral starts from there, really.
Human interaction is good but it's very hard for me, I'm going to try and isolate myself less and less and get back into actually being around other people.
EDIT -
Oof, I didn't realise that would post all in one block - still getting used to this site lol
