monday?
a.k.a. Ryan Gosling
- Jul 28, 2023
- 54
I am writing this post in case there are people around who are dealing with similar issues and can't afford or are just curious about therapy and what's the kind of stuff it helps you with. I'm still in the process of figuring all this stuff out but below I will offer an example of me applying something I learned in therapy to help me feel better when life feels unbearable. You can skip the first two chapters if you don't care about the context behind it. I hope there are at least some people who will find this helpful or even people who have more experience and can add to it.
Before therapy
Long story short I've been suicidal since I was like 12 and after pussying out of so many attempts I decided I will probably never have the guts to do it and set out on a mission to figure out how to make the best out of whatever time I have left in this world. I went through six months of therapy which have been very useful and I learned a lot about myself and how to deal with my issues. My life has never been that bad but it was mostly my own thoughts that have been making me miserable. I found particularly fascinating the way thoughts, emotions and behaviors influence one another and CBT is probably the way I can fix myself. At the time I was unemployed and living off savings so I was focused entirely on correcting my bad thought patterns and practice nuanced thinking.
After therapy
Once I was done with therapy I weighed my options and decided that the best course of action for me would be returning to my old job that I hated but which made me good money. The plan is to save up for a few years until I can afford to get my own place back home. I went in determined to not drive myself crazy like I did last time. A few months in and the job is kicking my ass. I gave up on most of the good habits I picked up during therapy and felt like I had lost all progress. I just let myself sink back into the same idiotic rumination and overly dramatic monologues that have been clogging up my brain for most of my life. After months of barely ever thinking about suicide I got to a point where I am regularly fantasizing in vivid detail about killing myself. However, earlier today I work made me feel extra miserable because I hate working on weekends. At some point I just felt so desperate for a way to make this shit more bearable that I started thinking about what I learned in therapy again. I seem to somehow forgotten that our thoughts and emotions are not completely out of our control and can be steered, at least to some degree.
Example
So for some reason the thing that tortures me the most in life is the amount of time I spend working but I also worry a lot about the way I spend my time. Rationally I am fine with spending 40-50 hours a week working for a few years if it means my life will improve significantly because of it down the line. So here is what I did today: First, I remembered that thoughts influence emotions. Probably the most important skill I developed through therapy is observing the thoughts I have from a third person's perspective and weigh their truth value and usefulness from an objective standpoint. I noticed that it all starts with me thinking about how much work I have to do and how long it's going to take. As soon as I think about that I feel the tightness in my chest start to appear. Then I start repeating the thoughts over and over, making myself feel worse and worse in the process. Thoughts like "I have x amount of work left", "I'm gonna be here until x o'clock", "I hate this job", "I hate my life", "When I get home I'll be too tired to play my favorite game" etc. Now, all of these thoughts are true. I do hate my job and I hate being there but what I realized is that by repeating these phrases in my head only made work more and more unbearable. Once I realized this I thought "These thoughts are making me feel bad right now. How about I just don't think about it?". And then I tried to stop thinking those thoughts. I spent the next 10 minutes or so rejecting all of these phrases that automatically come into my head and telling myself "this is not a useful thought" or "there's no point in me having this thought right now". While doing this I also tried to slow down my breathing because that also helps calm down intense emotions. And HOLY FUCKING SHIT after those ten minutes the tightness in my chest started to ease up and I couldn't believe it. I was working without being in constant emotional agony. Of course nothing changed; I was still working a job I hated, I was bored, I was tired but the goal was to make working not be emotionally painful. It's worth noting that a few days prior I had tried a different approach: while working I was trying to focus more on the things I enjoy or that I am grateful for at work. It's a good exercise but it didn't really help me in the moment. (Actually it helped a little because there was a song on the radio that I hate but then I tried dissecting it in my head and figure that I like the way it sounds but I just hate the lyrics, which made it more bearable). I think it's just easier to feel like I am being honest with myself when I admit that I hate my job but just stop ruminating about it. It was still not all sunshine and rainbows though. When I started the exercise I had three hours of work left. The first two went unbelievably well but the last hour started becoming painful again. During the first 2 hours I got really excited so I worked really hard and fast and I think that caught up with me by the third hour. I started slowly sinking back into misery but I would blame that mostly on physical fatigue.
Moving forward
I don't want to sit here and think that I finally figured it out and now I have the secret to happiness but I think these are big steps towards a much better and bearable life. I will definitely continue to practice these techniques at work every day and see how it goes but for now I just felt like sharing this and if anyone has similar examples, advice or even questions I love to talk about this kind of stuff and I'm always open to hear more.
Before therapy
Long story short I've been suicidal since I was like 12 and after pussying out of so many attempts I decided I will probably never have the guts to do it and set out on a mission to figure out how to make the best out of whatever time I have left in this world. I went through six months of therapy which have been very useful and I learned a lot about myself and how to deal with my issues. My life has never been that bad but it was mostly my own thoughts that have been making me miserable. I found particularly fascinating the way thoughts, emotions and behaviors influence one another and CBT is probably the way I can fix myself. At the time I was unemployed and living off savings so I was focused entirely on correcting my bad thought patterns and practice nuanced thinking.
After therapy
Once I was done with therapy I weighed my options and decided that the best course of action for me would be returning to my old job that I hated but which made me good money. The plan is to save up for a few years until I can afford to get my own place back home. I went in determined to not drive myself crazy like I did last time. A few months in and the job is kicking my ass. I gave up on most of the good habits I picked up during therapy and felt like I had lost all progress. I just let myself sink back into the same idiotic rumination and overly dramatic monologues that have been clogging up my brain for most of my life. After months of barely ever thinking about suicide I got to a point where I am regularly fantasizing in vivid detail about killing myself. However, earlier today I work made me feel extra miserable because I hate working on weekends. At some point I just felt so desperate for a way to make this shit more bearable that I started thinking about what I learned in therapy again. I seem to somehow forgotten that our thoughts and emotions are not completely out of our control and can be steered, at least to some degree.
Example
So for some reason the thing that tortures me the most in life is the amount of time I spend working but I also worry a lot about the way I spend my time. Rationally I am fine with spending 40-50 hours a week working for a few years if it means my life will improve significantly because of it down the line. So here is what I did today: First, I remembered that thoughts influence emotions. Probably the most important skill I developed through therapy is observing the thoughts I have from a third person's perspective and weigh their truth value and usefulness from an objective standpoint. I noticed that it all starts with me thinking about how much work I have to do and how long it's going to take. As soon as I think about that I feel the tightness in my chest start to appear. Then I start repeating the thoughts over and over, making myself feel worse and worse in the process. Thoughts like "I have x amount of work left", "I'm gonna be here until x o'clock", "I hate this job", "I hate my life", "When I get home I'll be too tired to play my favorite game" etc. Now, all of these thoughts are true. I do hate my job and I hate being there but what I realized is that by repeating these phrases in my head only made work more and more unbearable. Once I realized this I thought "These thoughts are making me feel bad right now. How about I just don't think about it?". And then I tried to stop thinking those thoughts. I spent the next 10 minutes or so rejecting all of these phrases that automatically come into my head and telling myself "this is not a useful thought" or "there's no point in me having this thought right now". While doing this I also tried to slow down my breathing because that also helps calm down intense emotions. And HOLY FUCKING SHIT after those ten minutes the tightness in my chest started to ease up and I couldn't believe it. I was working without being in constant emotional agony. Of course nothing changed; I was still working a job I hated, I was bored, I was tired but the goal was to make working not be emotionally painful. It's worth noting that a few days prior I had tried a different approach: while working I was trying to focus more on the things I enjoy or that I am grateful for at work. It's a good exercise but it didn't really help me in the moment. (Actually it helped a little because there was a song on the radio that I hate but then I tried dissecting it in my head and figure that I like the way it sounds but I just hate the lyrics, which made it more bearable). I think it's just easier to feel like I am being honest with myself when I admit that I hate my job but just stop ruminating about it. It was still not all sunshine and rainbows though. When I started the exercise I had three hours of work left. The first two went unbelievably well but the last hour started becoming painful again. During the first 2 hours I got really excited so I worked really hard and fast and I think that caught up with me by the third hour. I started slowly sinking back into misery but I would blame that mostly on physical fatigue.
Moving forward
I don't want to sit here and think that I finally figured it out and now I have the secret to happiness but I think these are big steps towards a much better and bearable life. I will definitely continue to practice these techniques at work every day and see how it goes but for now I just felt like sharing this and if anyone has similar examples, advice or even questions I love to talk about this kind of stuff and I'm always open to hear more.
