flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
I tried to get into the first Shadow work post Saturday and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working, but I just now realized that it requires you to be aware of your body, a thing at which I am Not Great (often deliberately so, considering the chronic pain). So let’s pick a different question and see how it goes.

What’s something you’re often embarrassed to admit to others?

• That I have chronic pain, which will need accommodations people often feel contempathy towards. I have childhood memories of people rolling their eyes when I try to express my needs, and it’s a shitty, shitty feeling that embarrasses me bc I technically can fix that situation, but I’m tired and have knives where spoons should be a lot of the time. It makes me feel bad to be disabled.
• That I am ““gifted”” - bc it doesn’t mean what people think it means. They think it means that I’m “too smart to make dumb mistakes” and like, neighbor … so are you but here you are mistaking intelligence with wisdom, a mistake any second year D&D player can point out. My procedural memory and visual memory work just fine. It’s the episodic memory where everything goes to shit.
• That they’re wrong about my having a gender, in a way that seems fairly obvious to me but is apparently easy to miss for cis folks. But other enbies can clock me and gravitate my way easily enough, so I guess that part is just as well. I just wish cis people would stop punishing cisn’t folx for not complying with gender norms. It’s tiresome and I have better shit to do.

Okay, that seems to have gotten a little deeper than last time. Limited success!
flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
The traumatic stress reaction increases heart rate and breathing, so activities that do likewise can trigger flashbacks in some traumatized individuals.
That is not helpful.

—-Babette Rothschild


This makes a lot of sense, not for me and my former love of dancing til I got sweaty and dizzy and had to sit the next song out, but for a lot of folks I know. Food for thought.
flamingsword: Three lit candles in front of a window with twilight woods beyond (Candles)
I used to grieve all year long, for multiple years at a time, and my griefs would get out of hand and tangled up. That was ... inefficient, let's say. So I started listening to people's grief stories and collecting things from self-help books and therapists and other people's therapy stories, until I had cobbled together something workable for me. Here you go.

First, before the grief occurs, if I can reasonably expect it to occur, I try to align my expectations with reality. I want friendships to last forever, but I don’t expect them to. I accept that I am powerless in the face of people dying, and I acknowledge the weight of it. It keeps me grounded and from guilt spiraling or blaming myself for literal actual entropy occurring. I am not responsible for the passage of time.

Then, after the tragedy happens, I sit quietly with my thoughts and see what wants to come up. Memories, feelings, old wounds that this reminds me of, all those things that come knocking on the door of my thoughts, begging for attention. I feel the first part of the feelings to take in the flavor of them, then stop before I get too invested. I don’t let my feelings run away with me just yet.

Next, I find it helpful to write those thoughts down, since it keeps everything straight for later, so I just brain dump everything onto a document. It is helpful to almost everyone to name your feelings, because it give you a sense of power over them, and I can definitely attest to that.

Then, there’s kind of a hidden step - I look at the assumptions I am making behind the thoughts I’m having. Am I assigning blame to myself or someone else unfairly? Is my model of reality accurate or am I making my feelings about something into my estimation of reality? Am I being gentle with everyone including myself, and not holding myself/them responsible for not being future-seeing, all-knowing, or all-powerful? If I am being irrational in some way, then I try to fix that, and if I can’t tell whether or not I’m being a crazy person, then I talk it out with someone I trust.

After I’m sure I’m making good choices and that I’m not setting myself up to blame myself for shit I have no power over, I set up with a box of Kleenex and some Gatorade or something to replace the saltwater I’m about to lose, and then let my feelings have me for a little bit. I try not to cry for so long that I give myself a headache, but I don’t kick myself if that happens anyway. Biology is weird and I am not psychic.

After a few days or a week of the worst of the grief, I go back to the person I talked to about it the first time, if they have spoons for me, and I process any new feelings that are coming up for me. I don’t try to hold myself to one “stage of grief”, because that’s a fool’s errand. Sometimes I am angry and sad and bargaining, and accepting, and betrayed by reality all at once. And if I talk that through every week or so with someone or a couple of people, then I get through what feels like a years worth of grieving in a couple of months.

It’s not a perfect system, but it works okay for me when I’m not in full on “turn off my feelings like a robot” mode. If you have tricks and things that work for you, let me know?
flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
I can stop sitting in my chair curled up like a shrimp.

I can refill my water bottle now before I notice I am getting dehydrated.

I can circle back on the idea to have a bring-your-own-music dance party on my very slow Discord server with the friends there. (DM me with your user name if you want to be invited. You will not be required to dance in front of people you've never met, lol)

I can be silly and make ek-ek-ek-ek-ek noises watching birds with my cats.

I can put food in the instant pot now so that when I am hungry, tasty food is ready.

I can stop procrastinating on getting work done by chilling out on DW.
flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
I am having a bunch of brainweirds today, so my normal monday therapy post is just going to be a check in. And it's like, the shortest check-in I can think of.

in three words or phrases, how are you doing:

physically & mentally? - executive dysfunction, tense, weighed down

in your work and relationships?. - sad, unmotivated, insecure

in your feelings? - listless, empty, fragile
flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (therapy)
For the folks interested in where I get my CBT posts etc., a lot of my entry stuff is de-bigoted and translated out of "I've already been to therapy" lingo from The CBT Toolbox by Jeff Riggenbach, which was written by a white guy in the 2000's (and it shows). The rest of it is from things like Pinterest boards, web searches for specific things like "ADHD + alexithymia + strategies", and listening to a bunch of therapy and positive psychology podcasts.

In no particular order:
Therapy for Black Girls has been great to listen to even though I am neither Black nor gendered. But a lot of her guests mention neurodiversity as a thing that may make things work differently.
Unlocking Us with Brene Brown is excellent for a variety of authentic-living purposes.
We Can Do Hard Things is sometimes slightly heavier on the woo and "trust in God" stuff than I would prefer, but is great for learning to advocate for ourselves.
Ten Percent Happier has a good voice, and a personable attitude but is very neurotypical so YMMV on how helpful his guests and advice are going to be.
The Happiness Lab is kinda bougie, but worth listening to taken with that grain of salt.
Meditation with Dawn Mauricio is so soft and peaceful that I sometimes just zone out. Some of her stuff has been slightly ableist, but she's been getting better at that in recent episodes.
A Slight Change of Plans with Dr. Maya Shankar is a lot of life experiences of people who have been through trauma and are willing to share how they dealt with it and what they learned as far as tactics for dealing.
flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (therapy)
This afternoon I seem to be having swinging between sadness and ennui. So I have been crafting and ignoring the election, since there's nothing more I can be doing for it.

But now it is time to do the therapy journaling I should have done yesterday. Which, I don't really feel like doing? I am antsy and having feelings and full of buzzing.

Still. time to do the thing )

In other news, I need a better way than pinterest to come across good craft ideas and blogs.
https://moralefiber.blog/
flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (therapy)
Make a list of your emotional needs. Which ones are being met? Which ones are not being sufficiently met?

Need to feel safe in relationships, 90%
Need to feel my feelings and grow, 75%
Need to have a balance of positive, neutral, and negative feelings and experiences 85%
Need for variety and play 35%
Need to feel in community 75%
Need to feel trust and be trusted 60%

Are your boundaries supporting your needs? Are they aligning with your values?

My boundaries are still pretty haphazard, come to think of it. I am okay enough with my life to not need to do anything to them? But maybe I should anyway. Maybe it would help Ghost and other people I know to talk out and have the boundaries so that they can feel more secure and feel like it is okay for them to have boundaries, too. Lead by example/be the change etc..

What traits in your Shadow would help you advocate for your needs and your boundaries?

Whew. Asking the hard questions. Um.

My ability to not care what anyone thinks of me, including the people whose affection I want, would help here, to make it easier to say my boundaries out loud. My ability to be pointless, creative, loud and annoying would help with meeting my need for play and variety and fun. And I do need more of that. So I guess I get to work on that stuff first?
flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (therapy)
Am I returning to the CBT posts? I guess so! Long-ass prompt behind the cut. )
flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (therapy)
Hokay, so: there's three different avenues to acquiring alexithymia, and it is relatively important to know where it is coming from:

• There's brain stuff (bc neurodivergence just be like that sometimes),
• there's de-personalization and dissociation as an early childhood trauma response during the stage when you're supposed to learn feelings and the names for them, and/or:
• there's alexithymia as a learned behavior from your repressive or neglectful family.

I, for instance, have a mixed bag of all three flavors, which is why I have been studying this stuff for such a long time. Since I am not going to ask you for really sensitive information on a public post or to break confidences etc., I'm just going to give you a brief rundown on stuff with some links and applicable search terms so that you can see where I'm starting from and then do your own research if necessary.

The family stuff is the easiest to find but possibly the hardest to read. Seriously, if you had an unhappy family of origin, this is your content warning. First we're going to go for "Gottman emotion coaching", and then "emotion dismissing parent", then get some ice cream before reading up on "childhood emotional neglect" because those are not fun reads for anyone who loves a person who was emotionally neglected, and ESPECIALLY SO if it can bring up stuff from your own childhood. Then, looking on the bright side we're going to look up "emotional neglect solutions" and "emotion co-regulation in adults" for some potential steps.

The childhood trauma is a rough beast to pin down. There's too many directions that goes depending on what the trauma was, how it was handled, what the triggers are, and how you/your loved one are used to coping. I wish I could be more help on this, but I make a pretty cut-rate guru.

Brain stuff, however, is simpler to find. You just input the direction someone's neurominority diverges in (autism, adhd, ptsd, etc.) and the words alexithymia or "naming feelings" in quotes to get the kind of results you're looking for.

My tips and tricks:

  • Give extra time for naming feelings (10-15 seconds is usually good) and don't distract or help someone while they're finding the words. You can sometimes offer a word if you guys have that agreement, but always rescuing people from the hard stuff that they can and should do is a good way to create dependency, which is not a great idea.

  • Ask them to describe what their body feels like when they seem to be feeling some type of way. Noticing how feelings feel in our bodies is important for recognizing emotions as they happen, which is a slightly different skillset from reflecting on them in hindsight.

  • Print out a large version of the feelings wheel. I have one of these and it's been a marriage-saver.

  • Have them tell you the negative patterns previous friendships / relationships have fallen into, so that you can brainstorm workarounds together and work on the most relevant skills and coping methods. Be each other's accountability buddies if that is a thing that works for your relationship.

  • Do you/your pal/your loved one have a hard time dealing with frustration from job/family/life? Get a journal to write in, or email your accountability buddy with the stuff that might be too heavy to listen to when you want to focus your together time on positive experiences.

  • The spouse and I are still trying to get in the habit of naming one feeling to each other every day, which I've heard helps. Some businesses do a weekly check in with two or three feelings which I might try switching us to, since we are not highly emotive people but we can reliably have three emotions in a week, lol.

  • If someone needs help sometimes and you have the bandwidth, ask them if you can do the thing. Asking how to help calm someone down *before it happens* is really helpful, especially for folks with anxiety. If you are the person with the alexithymia: do you respond best to verbal or physical reassurance? Or do care-taking behaviours feel stifling and controlling because of bad associations? Are you a listen-while-I'm-venting type, or a help-me-problem-solve-first type? Once you're aware enough of your self-regulation methods, tell your loved ones those things.

    If you have coping methods or skill-building techniques PLEASE SHARE! Like, holy crap are you kidding?! We need all the help we can get out here. XD
  • flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (therapy)
  • Which three words or phrases best describe your emotional state?

    • What burdens are you carrying right now? Can you list all of them?

    • Have you eaten / hydrated / moved / connected with someone recently?

    • How does your body feel? Are you holding tension anywhere?

    • What needs do you have that are not being met yet?

    • Name 1 good thing that happened today, 2 people who brightened your week, and 3 things that you found funny this month.
  • flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (Aziraphale)
    Brené Brown and Karen Walrond discuss hope, joy, and small gratitudes as ways to fight back against despair, and to drag the world with you into play and healing, even when you are struggling.

    It’s a great listen and a form of self-care I’ve been neglecting, so I’m going to start fixing that. Would you all like a weekly post where I link-dump the stuff I’ve found that inspires hope/wonder/faith in humanity etc.? I’m collecting them over on my discord, and it would not be too much trouble to share here.
    flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
    In addition to Relationship Skills and General Emotional Skill Building, I’m going to start blogging more therapy questions and do locked posts of their answers.

    I ordered myself a couple bars of sugar free mint chocolate when I ordered a friend some chocolate for her birthyday. So I can reward myself for finally getting these typed out.

    26 Therapy Questions to Journal About: )
    Now that I have prompts to blog about weekly for the next 6 months, I’m going to feed myself some lovely minty chocolate! w00t!
    flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
    I have a sinus infection but probably not Covid? And I am reading a really good book about how to be my authentic self more so that I can bring my whole self into my life and relationships. So far, these are all the places that I have written the word "ouch" in the margins:

    4. What's the most courageous thing you could do for yourself when you feel small and hurt?

    Answer: I have no idea. And that itself makes me feel small and hurt.

    Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame.

    ... and I blame myself for not literally predicting the future, still, even though I am getting better at catching myself doing it. I still feel like the weight of the moral universe is on me for doing everything right, even though my head knows how ridiculous that is.

    "foreboding joy", and "I'd rather not be joyful than have to wait for the other shoe to drop."

    I do not let myself get caught up in joys stronger than a medium contentment because I am so convinced that if I get used to joy and don't have my defenses up, something terrible is going to happen while I am unarmored and it will shatter me. (And then I will blame myself for that like I blame myself for every other thing I "should have seen coming". Ugh. Why do my insecurities have to interlock with each other?)

    So, let's talk strategies! What do you do instead of these things? Did you used to have any of this and got over it? DM's are welcome if stuff is super personal.

    I think the most courageous thing I can do about the current dumped-by-friend hurt is probably to just feel the hurt and sadness already. I have had the anger trickling out but have not been letting myself cry or feel rejected, and it's probably time for that. Other situations what is brave may not always line up with what is effective, but in this instance they both apply.
    flamingsword: “in my defense, I was left unsupervised” (Default)
    The world is big and confusing, and you know what? That's probably for the best. If the world were small enough for one human mind to experience and understand everything, well, it wouldn't be the vast, diverse playground that it is, would it? I don't believe in making things ideologically simpler for people to understand if I am sacrificing their ability to actually understand that thing. Especially if that "thing" is me. I don't believe that boiling my nature down to just a couple of elements is going to be useful to their ability to predict my behaviour or plan ahead for me. So if I just let people jump into the deep end of constructing gender: so? (And if people want to attack me or my community for their inability to understand us? Well I have a baseball bat and a bone to pick with them.)

    Which brings us to reality testing.

    It is healthy to know when your beliefs about the world are steering you wrong so that you can change them, yes? )
    flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
    • What burdens are you carrying right now? Can you list all of them?

    • Have you eaten / hydrated / moved / connected with someone recently?

    • How does your body feel? Are you holding tension anywhere?

    • What needs do you have that are not being met yet?

    • Name 1 good thing that happened today, 2 people who brightened your week, and 3 things that you found funny this month.
    flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
    Beliefs mean different things to different people. Some people are working on the unhealthy belief that they are worthless. But what does that mean to them? One opposite healthy belief might be that they have value, but people value things differently. Some people see things as valuable that others don't value at all, so the components of their beliefs about value will be different. Areas of life people may perceive as having value are: )
    flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
    Some interlocking concepts can become self sustaining cycles of wackness in your life. For some people, having low self esteem leads to underperforming their assigned gender. Not correctly performing your assigned gender leads to your social self being assigned the abject identity (a monstrous identity based on notions of straightness and normativity). And being called names and disrespected as the holder of the abject identity leads to distrusting your self concept which causes you to rely more heavily on the judgment of others, thus reinforcing the negative self esteem. Whether you rely on other people for your self esteem and concept of yourself is called your locus of identity, and not a lot of work has been done to see how malleable it is in adults. But we're going to try to hack it anyway, dammit! )
    flamingsword: The word THERAPY in front of a Paul Signac painting (Therapy)
    The basics for CBT go like this:
    Assumptions ➡️ Triggering event ➡️ Thoughts about event ➡️Feelings about those thoughts ➡️ Actions in response to feelings ➡️ Results

    We can't make our lives entirely free of triggers. That's highly unlikely. But there are several steps there where we can intervene before we get to the negative results. )

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