Encouraging Words from my Therapist

Considering I've been dealing way too much with my depression and anxiety lately - with tempting suicidal thoughts pervading my mind again - I thought it would be a good idea to go visit my therapist. She's an amazing woman who has this amazing ability to explain things in a way that brings me back to the things that matter and the things that make me feel safe and okay. She shared some words of wisdom to me today that I'd like to pass on to everyone else, because... honestly, this is the first time I've really heard advice like this and I think it's really helpful.

Sometimes it's really helpful to think of anxiety and depression like physical entities that like to torment you. That's how it feels sometimes, isn't it? With the little voice in your head telling you all the terrible things that make you feel worse and worse. Well, one thing that they like to do is to take you from the present. Anxiety prefers to bring you to the future, and force you to worry about all the things that haven't even happened yet and the things you cannot yet control. Depression tends to like to torment you about the past -- it likes to bring you back to a worse time. And sometimes when you have a little of both, you worry about the future while evidencing it with bad things from your past. It's a mess. So on top of the bad thing you're already experiencing, you're hurting yourself with things that have already happened and you can't change, as well as the things that haven't happened yet and can't be predicted.

The best thing to do is to tell it to shut up and bring yourself back to now.

Take in a deep breath and identifying what's happening now. You're sad that you've lost someone. You're sad that you're alone while everyone else seems to have companionship. You failed a test. You lost something meaningful to you and can't find it. You miss someone really bad.

Acknowledge it. Acknowledge your pain, acknowledge what's hurting you at the moment, and say to yourself, "Yeah. This is terrible and I hate it. It's making me sad."

If your mind tries to pull you in a past or future place, stop it in its tracks. Another deep breath. It's going to be okay. If you're sad or hurt, it's okay to be sad or hurt. Most of the time it's in response to reasonably hurtful things. It's okay to mourn loss. Loss sucks a lot. Loss hurts. Loss is something really impacting on a person. Focus on that and then try to find the means to cope.

I know I'm going to be sad on Friday, so I'm going to ask my friends to take me out so we can have fun. I'm going to go buy myself that book I've been wanting to read for a while. I'm going to sit down and play my favorite game. I'm going to try to do something that helps -me- feel better about right -now- because that's the only thing I can control.

I can't change the past. I can't control what's going to happen in the future. But I can control the here and now. I can be my own best friend and comfort myself when I know I need it. I can reach out to people who will try to make things better for me.

And when your mind begins to wander about things that aren't happening?
Stop.
Breathe.
Identify what's hurting you now.
Acknowledge it; validate yourself. Reach out to others that can validate you.
Help yourself cope.

I hope that this helps someone. Please be well. You all deserve to be very happy.

Thank you for sharing. Living in the moment is really important.

wow, thank you so much for sharing that!! it was almost like a sign for me. amazing.

I've dealt with deep depression in the past and currently have anxiety (not nearly as bad as it used to be)... I feel as though I'm at the end of the race with this condition... HOLLAYLUYAH! thankfully and gratefully defeating it little by little everyday, I actually am going to be speaking this upcoming Thursday and my speech is titled "taking out the trash" ... mentally... we tend to have a buncha garbage filling up our minds with "noise" and just need to start taking out the trash and living in the moment, allowing yourself to FULLY experience the moment, be in the here and now...

even though I'm looking forward to taking another step forward by doing this speech since its voluntary && still in the back of my mind was the thought "is this a speech worth doing?" "is anyone going to be receptive to it?" although, i dont really have time to change it now lol but reading this told me .. nope, its perfect... this was the perfect post for me to see. thank you again!!! and i did learn from it as well, i never looked at it how she broke it down awesome if you want tell her i said thank you too! lol

Oh and a movie i'd like to recommend if you haven't saw it yet... "Peaceful Warrior" ! "Taking out the trash" was a lesson i learned from that movie, its a GREAAAAT MOVIE!! Please let me know if you end up watching it and if u liked it!