Think Happy, Be Happy

What's crackin' loves? Me? Well.. quite a bit, I suppose. Allow me to share.
Some days seem pretty fucking hopeless. Like, what is the whole point? Some days are rough and full of hate, worry, misery, and of course that golden depression. As a disclaimer, guys, depression is in no way golden. Some days, most days, it feels like it's eating me away, and when it swallows I'm left in nothing but utter darkness. And I'm having a really hard time getting the idea into my head that I, my happiness and well-being, matter... Like, that I have a reason to even ride this ride (life). But I'm working on it... It's for sure a process, and a damn long one at that. I could sit here for hours and mope until I spiral down down down and plunge myself into a crisis. But I won't. I'm here to share my newest favorite coping skill that therapy has taught me. I have to share it, write about it, to retain it. I'm almost wondering if I should just get all my therapy tattooed to my body so I never forget. But anyways.
So this week we have focused on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Which, in a short, sweet, simple, and hell of a lot cheesy explanation is "Think Happy, Be Happy." But that just gets an automatic eye-roll, I know, I gave it too. But like it's actually a mind blowing and very real skill. You may be aware of this therapy theory if you've ever taken a psychology class, but I had never heard of it, so I'm pretty excited to share. The basics of it are as follows:

-An Event takes place
-It cause a Thought in our minds
-Which results in a Mood/Feeling
-That correlates with your Behavior/Actioin

Still with me?
It's just an on going cycle.

And for a number of people, including myself, our thought that occurs after an event is negative. They are called Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs), which is a great acronym because these thoughts just swarm and multiple and take over your mind, like ants. Anyway, the negative thought triggers a negative feeling that results in a negative behavior. So the idea behind CBT is to target the thought. This can be very very complicated because we aren't always aware of our thoughts, or the fact that our thoughts are even negative. Some people, like myself, have these ANTs carved so deep into our beliefs and persona that they just seem right... But the point is, change the thought, change the feeling and behavior. Now it's a big and impossible jump to go from these negative thoughts to happy-go-lucky-positive ones, so what we have to start with is making your thoughts neutral and fact-based.

 For example of this all, say tomorrow I have a big test that I'm not prepared for. Automatically, someone like myself, would think "oh shit, I'm going to fail it." This thought is usually followed by a pile of other negative thoughts including "I'm so stupid", "might as well drop-out of school now", "my life is over", and ultimately I wouldn't even try to study for the test after being so discouraged. But with the use of CBT, I would try to catch myself in this thought and change it to something more neutral, like, "there's a test tomorrow, I don't know how I'm going to do on it, but it's not too late to try to do well." and these kind of thoughts would result in a less hopeless feeling and a more studious behavior. Does that make sense? I hope I'm explaining it clearly...

Now, as I already mentioned, we aren't always aware of our thoughts. So, for starting off, sometimes we may have to catch ourselves in the already negative mood or action and work our way back to figure out what caused it. The first step to all of this is just Thought Awareness. You have to find your negative and distorted thoughts; you can't clean up an oil spill if you don't know it's even there...

 http://theberry.com/2012/01/10/daily-awww-whats-black-and-white-and-cute-all-over-30-photos/

A New Day

Holy Shit. Hey guys. A hell of a lot has happened since we've last talked, and I'm sorry I vanished, but geez. Life happens. And Instead of writing a novel of all the ups and downs that I've been through, I'll just start fresh and tell you relative things as we move forward. Today is a new day. Since it's like midnight and whatnot.

First off, I'm changing the purpose of this blog (well kind of..) I want to start updating this again, but as a therapeutic, thought journal type of blog. It will be super personal, so beware and run while you can. I just really am in a fix right now and my life is all flip-flopped; I think making myself write again might help me get back on track and maybe have reason again. I've lost a lot of myself. I got into a really dark place. But I'm in the process of regaining a better outlook of myself and the world and life. And trust me, its a hell of a long process. So bare with me, and stay with me.

Something I know I'm going to want to talk about s lot on here is something I'm not really able to share with many people, especially not to the extent that I'd like to. So, I'm going to tell you a secret to clear the air, so I can talk about it. In this "dark time" that I'm rising, some shit happened and the point is that I'm not in an Intensive Outpatient Prohram ( aka IOP and Inanimate Object Party) which is basically a 6 week long group therapy program, intensive as in Monday-Thursday 4pm-7pm... I'm about to go into my 2nd week. I like it a lot and I really REALLY think it's going to, and already is, help me a lot. But, for my own sake of digesting and retaining, I'd like to share the things I learn in therapy here. Not the super personal aspect where I share my distorted thoughts, traumas, or anything, but the part of the program where we learn coping skills.I have a bit of catching up to do, so this post will be fairly long.

Actually I'm just going to share my favorite skill so far, and I'll brush over the other ones later.  I've learned how to IMPROVE the moment. Which is a skill to help with one's Distress Tolerance, basically bringing someone back from the verge of a crisis. IMPROVE being an acronym. "I" is for imagery, where you use all five of your senses to take your mind to your "happy place." In therapy, we drew out a picture of our "happy place" and mine was sitting on this swing with my brother and sister, out in the woods under the stars with the smell of pine tree, and my dog running around us. "M" is for meaning, were you find the good/meaning/value out of the pain or bad situation you are experiencing. So that's cool."P" is for prayer/poem/phrase/whatever you want to call it, where you set a  motivating or calming message that will remind you everything will be okay; mine is "time is meant for mending." Next is "R" for relaxation, and here you do something to physically relax your body (stretching,deep breathing, getting a massage). And then there is "O" for One thing in the moment. With this one we basically do the same thing as imagery with out senses, expecting instead of going to a different "place" you do it in the moment. For example,stopping yourself from all judgmental thoughts and just observing; that wall is red, it has a rough texture, it smells like plaster, etc... (bad example but hopefully makes sense). "V" is for vacation, but not like buying a plane ticket to Spain. You take a brief vacation from your typical structure/schedule and just treat yourself to something you like but don't have on a regular basis. It could be anything from going playing with puppies at a pet store or exploring a new nature trail or anything. Finally, we have "E" for encouragement, where you have to become your own cheerleader. You just tell yourself encouraging things, literally like "You can do it!"

I realize how freaking cheesy this all is, but hey it really works. And the thing is I just want to be better. I don't want to be sick anymore, so I'm willing to try anything and everything. In the meantime, I'm inching my way back into a good state. And I want to warn you, internet, that I will have really really good days, and I will have really really bad days; but it'll be okay. I'm trying to not isolate myself from the world anymore. I'm trying to understand that I am important and what I do impacts others' lives. And I'm trying to remember and believe that the people who mind don't matter and the people who matter don't mind. Thanks, Dr. Seuss.

Here's an irrelevant picture.

{source: http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/raccoon/ }

Peace.