What do you do with brittle emotions?
March 11, 2023 10:25 PM Subscribe
I have had a handful of episodes over the past year in which my emotions feel brittle. I don't know how else to say it. Strained, but I think brittle is closer. This is new. This is different. Without trying to resolve any of the stressors listed below, what new skills, habits or practices can I add to my situation to strengthen my resilience? I am autistic.
I just shoehorned my life stressors into the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory and got a score of about 300. A lot of these factors are situational and I am working on resolving those. Others will normalize. I still expect to have another 1-2 years to get through with above average stressors.
Stressors
Physical
- I need more exercise than I get and I am waiting on a very slow healthcare system to help me resolve some issues so I can get more exercise safely.
- I get out as much as I can but my body has responded poorly to sitting around online all the time.
Financial
- Where I live is unaffordable but me and my partner both need to stay here for the healthcare just for this next year
- Underemployed because of covid - not working in food service
- We might move away from this region which is our home because it's unaffordable
- Figuring out somewhere to live that meets the needs of both me and my partner is difficult and feels impossible
Social
- Figuring out somewhere to live that meets the needs of both me and my partner is difficult and feels impossible.
- My partner of many years is transitioning, and we're gay now. Great news but still a stressor.
- For several reasons, we moved to our city in late 2019 and have been living as though we were only staying for a few months since the start of the pandemic. We have below market rent but might have to move out at any time.
- Covid cautious like it's 2020, but with more grocery shopping.
- We haven't put down roots in this city and don't have local community or friends.
- A close family member died and a couple of loved but not close relatives are actively dying
A lot of these are feelings of powerlessness with a side of feeling like there's no escape.
Neuroplasticity means my brain can learn to go to brittle emotions and I'd like to discourage my brain from developing this habit. Prevention is the best cure. What are your personal triggers for brittle emotions? Maybe they will help me recognize my own.
Without trying to resolve any of the stressors listed above, what new skills, habits or practices can I add to my situation to strengthen my resilience? No food or drug solutions please. Open to religious and philosophical frameworks. Open to powerful stories that I can tell myself.
I just shoehorned my life stressors into the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory and got a score of about 300. A lot of these factors are situational and I am working on resolving those. Others will normalize. I still expect to have another 1-2 years to get through with above average stressors.
Stressors
Physical
- I need more exercise than I get and I am waiting on a very slow healthcare system to help me resolve some issues so I can get more exercise safely.
- I get out as much as I can but my body has responded poorly to sitting around online all the time.
Financial
- Where I live is unaffordable but me and my partner both need to stay here for the healthcare just for this next year
- Underemployed because of covid - not working in food service
- We might move away from this region which is our home because it's unaffordable
- Figuring out somewhere to live that meets the needs of both me and my partner is difficult and feels impossible
Social
- Figuring out somewhere to live that meets the needs of both me and my partner is difficult and feels impossible.
- My partner of many years is transitioning, and we're gay now. Great news but still a stressor.
- For several reasons, we moved to our city in late 2019 and have been living as though we were only staying for a few months since the start of the pandemic. We have below market rent but might have to move out at any time.
- Covid cautious like it's 2020, but with more grocery shopping.
- We haven't put down roots in this city and don't have local community or friends.
- A close family member died and a couple of loved but not close relatives are actively dying
A lot of these are feelings of powerlessness with a side of feeling like there's no escape.
Neuroplasticity means my brain can learn to go to brittle emotions and I'd like to discourage my brain from developing this habit. Prevention is the best cure. What are your personal triggers for brittle emotions? Maybe they will help me recognize my own.
Without trying to resolve any of the stressors listed above, what new skills, habits or practices can I add to my situation to strengthen my resilience? No food or drug solutions please. Open to religious and philosophical frameworks. Open to powerful stories that I can tell myself.
I'm not going to say anything to address the list of stressors, because it doesn't actually seem relevant to your question and whether I can relate to any one of them or not, I DO have a familiarity with the feeling of brittleness and brittle emotions.
What I usually try to do is get closer to things that make me happy, in a low key animal way. Being cold is really close to unhappiness and grouchiness for me, and I often won't notice I'm a little chilly or won't see it as anything worth doing with, but putting on a heated blanket or having a hot tea tends to help dull the edges of whatever bad feeling is threatening.
More generally make a little time for comfort. Hot bath, nothing distressing, quiet music and a candle. Cry if that is what comes up, or drink a sip of (or eat a piece of) something intensely flavored that you enjoy, feel what you're feeling, just let the rubber band of your self un-stretch a little.
posted by Lady Li at 3:02 AM on March 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
What I usually try to do is get closer to things that make me happy, in a low key animal way. Being cold is really close to unhappiness and grouchiness for me, and I often won't notice I'm a little chilly or won't see it as anything worth doing with, but putting on a heated blanket or having a hot tea tends to help dull the edges of whatever bad feeling is threatening.
More generally make a little time for comfort. Hot bath, nothing distressing, quiet music and a candle. Cry if that is what comes up, or drink a sip of (or eat a piece of) something intensely flavored that you enjoy, feel what you're feeling, just let the rubber band of your self un-stretch a little.
posted by Lady Li at 3:02 AM on March 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
Open to religious and philosophical frameworks. Open to powerful stories that I can tell myself.
I'll share the underpinnings of my own philosophical framework, because it's what I've always used to get me through times where everything is just overwhelming and I simply can't even.
There is only one belief that I can completely rely on as being 100% certain, and it is this: something's going on. Sometimes, I render it instead as "this is." Both of those wordings mean the same thing to me. In particular, neither wording nor their underlying meaning requires me to make any kind of conceptual distinction between myself and everything else, or indeed between anything and anything else, in order to remain true.
I have come to rely on this idea being 100% certain because any time I'm in any position to care about certainty, I can test it and it's trivially true by direct inspection, which seems like a desirable property in an axiom. I have also never seen any convincing counter-argument and in fact have trouble understanding how any such thing could even begin to be constructed, since the very act of constructing the argument is itself something that's going on and therefore nobbles the argument before it can get out of the starting gate.
So if my immediate problem mainly boils down to feeling overwhelmed by uncertainty, which it turns out that quite a lot of problems do boil down to, I can reach straight for that reliable axiom and get a little hit of certainty to counteract the overwhelm. And although it sounds like very little, it's proved useful to me more times than I can count.
One interesting thing that I've found out about this is that the experience of certainty that attaches itself to every reminder of that axiomatic truth is a thing in and of itself, an experience that remains available even in states of consciousness that don't permit formulating any statement in anything I'd recognize as language.
It seems likely to me that deliberately exercising my little axiom will also therefore be exercising whatever modes I support for experiencing certainty as its own thing, thereby improving my ability to do that. So I do that, several times per day, and have done for at least thirty years. I also have an elaborate ontological and epistemological framework that depends on taking this as the only axiom, which I won't bore you with here. Access to the experience of unshakeable certainty in and of itself is the sword I use to cut the Gordian knot of anxiety, and the axiom on its own is enough to get to that.
Raw certainty has its dangers. Twenty years ago I experienced a psychotic break where I was experiencing nothing but certainty alongside every random thought that popped into my mind: every half-assed explanation I dreamed up on the spot for anything came with ecstatic trumpet blasts of epiphany, leaving me believing in it as absolutely as if revealed by what a monotheist would think of as their God.
This is an extraordinarily pleasant way to live but in no way sustainable. It abnegates my responsibility to look after myself and puts a completely unconscionable workload onto everybody who in any way cares about me, so it's not something I now seek to re-experience.
Taken in moderation, though, I think regular doses of certainty are quite beneficial. I also suspect that the exact same beneficial effect is what so many people who value religious faith are actually getting out of theirs.
I like my own trivial axiom better than any religious faith I've ever encountered, exactly because it cuts straight to the chase and doesn't require me to embrace a bunch of other nonsense that's more reminiscent of my psychotic experience than anything actually useful. If I'm going to use a non-falsifiable belief to bootstrap access to a therapeutic experience of certainty, I'm quite pleased to have found one as non-specific as this.
posted by flabdablet at 3:45 AM on March 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'll share the underpinnings of my own philosophical framework, because it's what I've always used to get me through times where everything is just overwhelming and I simply can't even.
There is only one belief that I can completely rely on as being 100% certain, and it is this: something's going on. Sometimes, I render it instead as "this is." Both of those wordings mean the same thing to me. In particular, neither wording nor their underlying meaning requires me to make any kind of conceptual distinction between myself and everything else, or indeed between anything and anything else, in order to remain true.
I have come to rely on this idea being 100% certain because any time I'm in any position to care about certainty, I can test it and it's trivially true by direct inspection, which seems like a desirable property in an axiom. I have also never seen any convincing counter-argument and in fact have trouble understanding how any such thing could even begin to be constructed, since the very act of constructing the argument is itself something that's going on and therefore nobbles the argument before it can get out of the starting gate.
So if my immediate problem mainly boils down to feeling overwhelmed by uncertainty, which it turns out that quite a lot of problems do boil down to, I can reach straight for that reliable axiom and get a little hit of certainty to counteract the overwhelm. And although it sounds like very little, it's proved useful to me more times than I can count.
One interesting thing that I've found out about this is that the experience of certainty that attaches itself to every reminder of that axiomatic truth is a thing in and of itself, an experience that remains available even in states of consciousness that don't permit formulating any statement in anything I'd recognize as language.
It seems likely to me that deliberately exercising my little axiom will also therefore be exercising whatever modes I support for experiencing certainty as its own thing, thereby improving my ability to do that. So I do that, several times per day, and have done for at least thirty years. I also have an elaborate ontological and epistemological framework that depends on taking this as the only axiom, which I won't bore you with here. Access to the experience of unshakeable certainty in and of itself is the sword I use to cut the Gordian knot of anxiety, and the axiom on its own is enough to get to that.
Raw certainty has its dangers. Twenty years ago I experienced a psychotic break where I was experiencing nothing but certainty alongside every random thought that popped into my mind: every half-assed explanation I dreamed up on the spot for anything came with ecstatic trumpet blasts of epiphany, leaving me believing in it as absolutely as if revealed by what a monotheist would think of as their God.
This is an extraordinarily pleasant way to live but in no way sustainable. It abnegates my responsibility to look after myself and puts a completely unconscionable workload onto everybody who in any way cares about me, so it's not something I now seek to re-experience.
Taken in moderation, though, I think regular doses of certainty are quite beneficial. I also suspect that the exact same beneficial effect is what so many people who value religious faith are actually getting out of theirs.
I like my own trivial axiom better than any religious faith I've ever encountered, exactly because it cuts straight to the chase and doesn't require me to embrace a bunch of other nonsense that's more reminiscent of my psychotic experience than anything actually useful. If I'm going to use a non-falsifiable belief to bootstrap access to a therapeutic experience of certainty, I'm quite pleased to have found one as non-specific as this.
posted by flabdablet at 3:45 AM on March 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is a difficult thing to recommend to someone, because I know how I might have received the advice in my own situation (just shrugged or nodded, probably). But I did it and got into it and, dammit, it actually helped! So how could I not recommend it?:
Mindfulness meditation. Specifically, what got me over the hump and into the habit was the app 10 percent happier. I believe it has described itself as "mindfulness for fidgety skeptics." There are sessions with a bunch of different teachers, different styes, different focuses, etc.
I started cognitive behavioural therapy around the same time and that helped a lot as well. I'm a very logical person, so it really connected with me. Same for the psychologist. I can understand how that wouldn't be the case for everyone, or how it's not equally available to everyone.
For context, I was diagnosed with a progressive (though not fatal) disease and have been accumulating physical disability before and over the course of the pandemic. Plus, you know, life! Family stressors, work stuff, social isolation, etc.
Both CBT and mindfulness meditation have been like waving a magic wand! All my troubles have melted away! No. Obviously those things are not true. But I have found them surprisingly helpful. And I share them hoping you might find something in it all that makes this a little easier for you.
posted by fruitslinger at 6:35 AM on March 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
Mindfulness meditation. Specifically, what got me over the hump and into the habit was the app 10 percent happier. I believe it has described itself as "mindfulness for fidgety skeptics." There are sessions with a bunch of different teachers, different styes, different focuses, etc.
I started cognitive behavioural therapy around the same time and that helped a lot as well. I'm a very logical person, so it really connected with me. Same for the psychologist. I can understand how that wouldn't be the case for everyone, or how it's not equally available to everyone.
For context, I was diagnosed with a progressive (though not fatal) disease and have been accumulating physical disability before and over the course of the pandemic. Plus, you know, life! Family stressors, work stuff, social isolation, etc.
Both CBT and mindfulness meditation have been like waving a magic wand! All my troubles have melted away! No. Obviously those things are not true. But I have found them surprisingly helpful. And I share them hoping you might find something in it all that makes this a little easier for you.
posted by fruitslinger at 6:35 AM on March 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
Brittle emotions? Consider antidepressants. As we age and hormones change, sometimes one’s ability to cope goes out the window. Medication doesn’t have to be forever but it can help.
posted by amanda at 7:17 AM on March 12, 2023
posted by amanda at 7:17 AM on March 12, 2023
How is your interoception? Developing a habit of mentally scanning my body a few times per day for subtle interoceptive signals has helped me to get better at identifying physiological needs and nascent emotional states (and then taking an action to address them) before they become "an emergency".
posted by heatherlogan at 8:08 AM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 8:08 AM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Regarding exercise - I will share with you a plan recommended for very sedentary people with heart conditions (but applicable to anyone): https://imgur.com/a/BRRMpOi
(Paraphrasing from this book): It’s understandable to be overwhelmed by the thought of exercise after a long sedentary period, with the stressors you’ve had, or to be fearful of overworking your body when you’ve experienced health setbacks. Start with small, safe exercises to build back trust in yourself. Don’t overdo it. Build strength bit by bit. Start with something you like, or the suggested walking program.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:45 AM on March 12, 2023
(Paraphrasing from this book): It’s understandable to be overwhelmed by the thought of exercise after a long sedentary period, with the stressors you’ve had, or to be fearful of overworking your body when you’ve experienced health setbacks. Start with small, safe exercises to build back trust in yourself. Don’t overdo it. Build strength bit by bit. Start with something you like, or the suggested walking program.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:45 AM on March 12, 2023
If you can organize access to the skills of a good myotherapist, do.
posted by flabdablet at 10:03 AM on March 12, 2023
posted by flabdablet at 10:03 AM on March 12, 2023
Yeah, what I experience as "brittle emotions" is fairly neatly covered under the umbrella of resilience, and I just completely ran out about six months into the pandemic/after my father died, and after suffering for nearly a year and hitting a second full round of burnout from the endlessly piling-up stressors, my anxiety and depression assessment scores plummeted just from taking the step of getting prescriptions for Lexapro (it's good for both) and a sleep aid. I'm now stepping down the Lexapro to spend more time with my ADHD medication.
But if that's absolutely off the table for you, you're going to have to find lifestyle changes that buy you back more resilience. Sleep isn't even number one here, it's number 0. It's alpha and omega. None of the rest of this gets fixed until you are sleeping a) enough b) well c) with relatively normal sleep cycles, and though this will provoke some outrage there is a lot of evidence that you need to be doing this in a highly-traditional Circadian pattern if it is at all possible. This is going to mean starting your hygienically-correct wind-down process at like 8pm, by which point you have finished eating for the day and ideally not watching any TV that triggers your fight-flight and naturally slowing and relaxing until you are lights-out by 10ish. And aside from rare indulgences you're gonna have to get up at a perhaps distasteful hour, to keep your schedule in place. I also recommend using a sunrise lamp every day if you do not have generous windows, to keep your pineal gland on point.
Everyone is suggesting various forms of mindfulness/meditation, and you definitely need to find ways to push to the side the stressors you cannot control or can't do anything about until some other thing happens off to the Big Box of Compartmentalization, after one last pass of taking them out and examining one last time if there's a solution. As an example, you know you can't move away for a year, so what possible productivity are you getting out of worrying about where you'll go right now? And I know this is a pernicious sort of "hi it's me again it's 3am" thoughts, so find a slogan or battle cry or phrase of exorcism when it comes up. I personally have a rule that the only things I can fix during Sleeping Hours are hunger, thirst, bathroom, and physical comfort issues - work and life and the big questions are Daytime Jurisdiction.
And I'm a bit of an expert on this because we got rid of everything and hit the road last summer to see if we could find that perfect place and not only is there not one true perfect place, there are lots of good places but also the landscape of "good" and also "safe" are changing so abruptly you can't even know today what's gonna be a good idea in a year. At this point, you just have to get a little mystical and decide that the answer to this - or at least AN answer, SOME answers, fresh ideas - will appear to you at some point in the next year.
Even if you can't get more physical exercise, get more outside air and put some novelty into your eyeballs. Embrace the strange temporariness of your situation and enjoy a (good) tourist mindset. Like I said, we're living on the road now, in short-term rentals from 6-12 weeks at a time, and while there are moments where the realization that this is all very temporary does feel a little scary, it also gives even the mundane a fresh coat of paint. One of the things we do on a regular basis in our temporary locations is just poke around in Google Maps and go find stuff to look at, or wander around if it's outdoors, or get takeout from. If getting out is difficult, just do it in Maps and follow links and find out meaningful stuff about where you're living and maybe put some of the coolest stuff on a Hope To See list. But at the very least do open a window for a few minutes a day, or open the front door and get a few minutes of air exchange and watch something grow every day.
Find some joy. Seek it out. Store-bought is fine: funny animals on youtube, a silly card game with your partner, a playlist of can't-but-sing-along songs, smart comedy podcasts. Give yourself license to do something low-pressure creative on a regular basis - do some youtube drawing classes or futz around with air-dry clay. Routinely try something that stimulates your learning core, and that may be learning a little sign language one day and memorizing a short poem another. Do a puzzle or puzzle game. Make those brain wires do a variety of things that are not critical to survival and give you a little hit of dopamine for something relatively healthy.
Start a gratitude practice. There's two parts to this: one is just being more mindful of things to be grateful for and actually saying so when they involve other people (also explicitly saying so TO YOURSELF for the things that you do). The other part is to actually take some quiet moments to actually just retrieve and examine the feeling of gratitude. Not FOR anything, just let it well up in you just to exercise those very specific muscles and remind you of how good it feels so that you remember the rest of the time that it's right there for you to reach for any time you like.
And while you are never obligated to be grateful for shitty things happening to you, you can at least look for the lessons, which I think is one way to mitigate the trauma of uncontrollable external forces. You can also extend yourself credit that you will be capable of figuring out the hard challenges - probably not today, because it's not time for most of them to be figured out yet, but if something comes up that needs figuring out today you will probably do a decent job of it.
I'm a witch who does a little protection ritual every morning and re-applies as needed during the day, and one of the critical passages is this: "In the course of my day today, I call in compassion and clarity of communication in myself and others. I ask for good opportunities to be sent my way and sharp eyes to recognize them when they do." I don't really believe in luck, but I do believe we can suffer from diminished or damaged perception for good ideas, good news, good opportunities. We can lose our ability to read the signs along paths, so we don't notice the bear poop on the right fork in the trail or we don't hear the river babbling just around the corner on the left.
I hope that you do get a break, externally, from the hits that keep coming. In the meantime, please remember you deserve peace and rest and it is the good kind of fight to carve it out for yourself where you can.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:32 AM on March 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
But if that's absolutely off the table for you, you're going to have to find lifestyle changes that buy you back more resilience. Sleep isn't even number one here, it's number 0. It's alpha and omega. None of the rest of this gets fixed until you are sleeping a) enough b) well c) with relatively normal sleep cycles, and though this will provoke some outrage there is a lot of evidence that you need to be doing this in a highly-traditional Circadian pattern if it is at all possible. This is going to mean starting your hygienically-correct wind-down process at like 8pm, by which point you have finished eating for the day and ideally not watching any TV that triggers your fight-flight and naturally slowing and relaxing until you are lights-out by 10ish. And aside from rare indulgences you're gonna have to get up at a perhaps distasteful hour, to keep your schedule in place. I also recommend using a sunrise lamp every day if you do not have generous windows, to keep your pineal gland on point.
Everyone is suggesting various forms of mindfulness/meditation, and you definitely need to find ways to push to the side the stressors you cannot control or can't do anything about until some other thing happens off to the Big Box of Compartmentalization, after one last pass of taking them out and examining one last time if there's a solution. As an example, you know you can't move away for a year, so what possible productivity are you getting out of worrying about where you'll go right now? And I know this is a pernicious sort of "hi it's me again it's 3am" thoughts, so find a slogan or battle cry or phrase of exorcism when it comes up. I personally have a rule that the only things I can fix during Sleeping Hours are hunger, thirst, bathroom, and physical comfort issues - work and life and the big questions are Daytime Jurisdiction.
And I'm a bit of an expert on this because we got rid of everything and hit the road last summer to see if we could find that perfect place and not only is there not one true perfect place, there are lots of good places but also the landscape of "good" and also "safe" are changing so abruptly you can't even know today what's gonna be a good idea in a year. At this point, you just have to get a little mystical and decide that the answer to this - or at least AN answer, SOME answers, fresh ideas - will appear to you at some point in the next year.
Even if you can't get more physical exercise, get more outside air and put some novelty into your eyeballs. Embrace the strange temporariness of your situation and enjoy a (good) tourist mindset. Like I said, we're living on the road now, in short-term rentals from 6-12 weeks at a time, and while there are moments where the realization that this is all very temporary does feel a little scary, it also gives even the mundane a fresh coat of paint. One of the things we do on a regular basis in our temporary locations is just poke around in Google Maps and go find stuff to look at, or wander around if it's outdoors, or get takeout from. If getting out is difficult, just do it in Maps and follow links and find out meaningful stuff about where you're living and maybe put some of the coolest stuff on a Hope To See list. But at the very least do open a window for a few minutes a day, or open the front door and get a few minutes of air exchange and watch something grow every day.
Find some joy. Seek it out. Store-bought is fine: funny animals on youtube, a silly card game with your partner, a playlist of can't-but-sing-along songs, smart comedy podcasts. Give yourself license to do something low-pressure creative on a regular basis - do some youtube drawing classes or futz around with air-dry clay. Routinely try something that stimulates your learning core, and that may be learning a little sign language one day and memorizing a short poem another. Do a puzzle or puzzle game. Make those brain wires do a variety of things that are not critical to survival and give you a little hit of dopamine for something relatively healthy.
Start a gratitude practice. There's two parts to this: one is just being more mindful of things to be grateful for and actually saying so when they involve other people (also explicitly saying so TO YOURSELF for the things that you do). The other part is to actually take some quiet moments to actually just retrieve and examine the feeling of gratitude. Not FOR anything, just let it well up in you just to exercise those very specific muscles and remind you of how good it feels so that you remember the rest of the time that it's right there for you to reach for any time you like.
And while you are never obligated to be grateful for shitty things happening to you, you can at least look for the lessons, which I think is one way to mitigate the trauma of uncontrollable external forces. You can also extend yourself credit that you will be capable of figuring out the hard challenges - probably not today, because it's not time for most of them to be figured out yet, but if something comes up that needs figuring out today you will probably do a decent job of it.
I'm a witch who does a little protection ritual every morning and re-applies as needed during the day, and one of the critical passages is this: "In the course of my day today, I call in compassion and clarity of communication in myself and others. I ask for good opportunities to be sent my way and sharp eyes to recognize them when they do." I don't really believe in luck, but I do believe we can suffer from diminished or damaged perception for good ideas, good news, good opportunities. We can lose our ability to read the signs along paths, so we don't notice the bear poop on the right fork in the trail or we don't hear the river babbling just around the corner on the left.
I hope that you do get a break, externally, from the hits that keep coming. In the meantime, please remember you deserve peace and rest and it is the good kind of fight to carve it out for yourself where you can.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:32 AM on March 12, 2023 [9 favorites]
Yin yoga or gentle Yoga with Adriene videos on YouTube can make my emotions feel more settled and fluid through the soothing movements and voices.
Breaking habitual small patterns can also shake up my emotions - going someplace new like a different grocery store or taking a different way home, eating in a different spot in my home, watching something on TikTok completely outside my algorithm. I think a bit of surprise can push through.
Resting with a weighted blanket also helps me reset and feel less on edge.
I have gotten a lot out of the books of Pema Chodron (disclaimer: I am a Buddhist), particularly When Things Fall Apart. Jack Kornfeld offers similar ideas.
posted by lizard music at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Breaking habitual small patterns can also shake up my emotions - going someplace new like a different grocery store or taking a different way home, eating in a different spot in my home, watching something on TikTok completely outside my algorithm. I think a bit of surprise can push through.
Resting with a weighted blanket also helps me reset and feel less on edge.
I have gotten a lot out of the books of Pema Chodron (disclaimer: I am a Buddhist), particularly When Things Fall Apart. Jack Kornfeld offers similar ideas.
posted by lizard music at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Find a river in which you can swim at night, then do.
posted by flabdablet at 10:37 AM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 10:37 AM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm emotionally volatile by nature. With time, I've learned that emotions are real, valid, not illogical, and that I do not have to act on them. If I feel sad, I can experience it, and it will wash through me. If it lasts too long and affects my ability to live my life, I can use medication. If I feel fear, I can check to see if the danger is real; it often is. Once I recognize fear, I can choose a course of action. And so on. My emotions are often intense. Exercise is helpful, like you, I am temporarily sidelined. But even intense emotions can be experienced. A cold washcloth on the face helps, maybe a shower. Reading helps, books, not web-surfing. Engaging video helps - usually movies or tv shows that are not horror, suspense, thriller, because those provoke intensity. Watching videos engages my conscious mind, and allows my subconscious to process. Probably just a way to defer some emotions, but that's useful; it allows me to deal with them better.
I should probably get another prescription for xanax; I can take a very small amount to knock down intense feelings, allowing me to cope/ process. When I was in a really abusive workplace, it allowed me to get through more than a few days. Don't use it if you have a tendency towards addiction.
The idea of CBT seems useful; it hasn't resonated with me, though I may be practicing some form of it. A book that helps me a lot is Playing Ball on Running Water. It emphasizes what you should be doing, despite your feelings.
Get good nutrition, sunshine/ nature, and be kind to yourself. Respect your emotions, but learn to manage their effect.
posted by theora55 at 11:31 AM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I should probably get another prescription for xanax; I can take a very small amount to knock down intense feelings, allowing me to cope/ process. When I was in a really abusive workplace, it allowed me to get through more than a few days. Don't use it if you have a tendency towards addiction.
The idea of CBT seems useful; it hasn't resonated with me, though I may be practicing some form of it. A book that helps me a lot is Playing Ball on Running Water. It emphasizes what you should be doing, despite your feelings.
Get good nutrition, sunshine/ nature, and be kind to yourself. Respect your emotions, but learn to manage their effect.
posted by theora55 at 11:31 AM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
The sleep advice from Lyn Never makes me angry in the very specific way of that things I know are true but that my inner toddler haaaates, like exercise and sunlight being necessary to my mental health. So I just wanted to call out that specific paragraph and say YES, ACTUALLY. (For me it's 10 pm, not 8, but I don't have to get up until after 8 am most days, so.) Days when I am done Doing Things early and can start winding towards bed an hour or two before "bedtime" are better sleep days.
posted by Lady Li at 2:25 PM on March 12, 2023
posted by Lady Li at 2:25 PM on March 12, 2023
On the useful mantras, if you're finding yourself getting caught up in all these stressors at a time when you can't do anything about them and just running through the litany, I have found the concept of "borrowing trouble" useful. Bad things may happen. Some bad things definitely will happen. Those things are not, at time of thinking, happening to me right now. Sometimes it helps me appreciate and enjoy (or at least be at peace with) these moments of goodness before the bad things happen.
posted by Lady Li at 2:30 PM on March 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Lady Li at 2:30 PM on March 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
For me, "brittleness" is usually that I'm at the end of my ability to cope or beyond what I feel like I "should" have to cope with, so in those areas, you could examine your beliefs ("should" you need to stay patient and resilient?) and abilities (can you?).
The other thing I notice is how much stuck-ness there is in your life. Perhaps find symbolic ways to get unstuck, like doing new things. (Could you afford a daytime road trip? That's pretty covid-safe.)
The other issue with being stuck is that a lot of life satisfaction has to do with being able to craft a narrative in which we are on "the right path," and there is also the dopamine associated with working hard towards a goal. If you're stuck and unable to find a path forward, then maybe you aren't getting enough of those. It may help to undertake efforts towards a goal such that you can see progress (online yoga classes to boost flexibility and do exercise within your abilities now?). Just making any progress towards any goal might help unlock the stuckness? And all the better if this effort to make progress towards a goal is one you believe puts your life on the right track (e.g., learn computer skills you can turn into income?).
posted by slidell at 4:26 PM on March 12, 2023
The other thing I notice is how much stuck-ness there is in your life. Perhaps find symbolic ways to get unstuck, like doing new things. (Could you afford a daytime road trip? That's pretty covid-safe.)
The other issue with being stuck is that a lot of life satisfaction has to do with being able to craft a narrative in which we are on "the right path," and there is also the dopamine associated with working hard towards a goal. If you're stuck and unable to find a path forward, then maybe you aren't getting enough of those. It may help to undertake efforts towards a goal such that you can see progress (online yoga classes to boost flexibility and do exercise within your abilities now?). Just making any progress towards any goal might help unlock the stuckness? And all the better if this effort to make progress towards a goal is one you believe puts your life on the right track (e.g., learn computer skills you can turn into income?).
posted by slidell at 4:26 PM on March 12, 2023
CBT gets good results for a lot of people, but I learned better emotional regulation from DBT skills. I used this one, and it really improved my tools for preventing myself from getting to the "brittle" point, and walking myself back even when I did.
posted by Miko at 9:28 PM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 9:28 PM on March 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Honestly I think walking helps a ton. Not for exercise, just a slow walk, and it can be as short as you need. But getting outside is good for you in a way that's hard to replicate. (If you need a doctor before any exercise at all, consider going out to somewhere to can sit in a bench and enjoy the outdoors a little. Have some trees or water to stare at and breath some fresh air.)
I got in the habit a decade or so ago and now walk about thirty minutes most days with my family, just around the neighborhood. I can tell the difference in my mood on the days I'm sick enough to not make it out.
posted by blueberry monster at 7:56 PM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I got in the habit a decade or so ago and now walk about thirty minutes most days with my family, just around the neighborhood. I can tell the difference in my mood on the days I'm sick enough to not make it out.
posted by blueberry monster at 7:56 PM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by meijusa at 1:15 AM on March 12, 2023 [7 favorites]