Self Care Thread - How are you taking care of yourself?

[lighthouse9]

Hey everyone,

I missed out on keeping this going while dealing with my move, but I'd like to get another self-care thread going.

This week, I'm REALLY going to need to find ways to take care of myself. I haven't felt this awful in a long time and I'm trying to do my best to keep my head up, shoulders back, and boundaries intact. It's been too easy to make everything in my head a catastrophe and resisting black and white thinking has been pretty difficult.

So... .my care for this week:

1. Finish my DIY furniture project and enjoy the process of making something with my hands. Figure out what I'm going to make next, without breaking the bank!

2. Re-listen to one of my favorite book series to distract from ruminations.

3. Drink more water and eat more vegetables.

4. Confront a fear or two. Since the break up, my anxiety has been claiming situations as dangerous or uncomfortable and I've been avoiding them. I know, having done lots of CBT and exposure therapy before, that the only way to get over stuff that scares me is to face it (gently of course). I've been noticing lots of PTSD symptoms from a past relationship surfacing lately and I'm hypervigilant in a very maladaptive way. At some point, I need to break that pattern.

5. Find humor and whimsy in whatever way I can. I bought a ridiculous shower curtain for my new place (it's of a cat riding a narwhal) despite protests from my mom that it wasn't very "adult." Near the end of my relationship, I stopped being very fun and everything got so serious, to the point that my when I would crack a joke my wife would look at me surprised. I know that it was the constant gaslighting that took away my fun and sense of humor. Now, that I'm out of the line of fire with her (though very much in the line of fire with my dad now), I'm making an effort to find fun again. The shower curtain is silly and will make me laugh every time I use the bathroom. It's such a small thing, but I really need to laugh if I'm going to make it through this next stage of grief.

6. Get back to working out. I was doing great with workouts before the move, but then the physical activity of moving made working out somewhat pointless and I am still pretty beat up and sore from moving. Once my stuff is delivered and I'm done moving things around, I need to get back to working out.

How about you all? How are you incorporating self-care? Anyone dealing with personality or mood changes linked to seasonal changes? Do you need to double down on self-care?

[CryWolf]

1. study for exams
2. practice mindfulness
3. drink more water
4. go gym again.
5. go for walks at park


try to accept my feelings instead of thinking about why and analyzing everything or think of what ex is doing

[Cromwell]

chocolate
cartons and cartons of duty-free imported cigarettes bought from friends
more chocolate (and I cant stand chocolate).
coffee, the sachet 3 in 1 type, saves having to use up energy to manually add 3 ingredients.
coming to these boards to vent
watching some fun movies but seeing BPD in too much of it
pizza all the time because saves washing a plate.
reading books, but seeing BPD characters lurking within the story line
doing my coursework when i can get to the stage of not re-reading same page over and over.
music but no love songs, that concept needs some time to re-evaluate.
coming back to these boards to counsel someone, feeling mildly better about myself ive done something productive
resupply with more chocolate when serotonin starts to drop.
another coffee once energy level has bottomed out from the previous spike; realising im on the way to a peptic stomach ulcer (thanks b1tch)
combining coffee, cigarettes and chocolate as a way of improving time management
vented out underlying anger by being easily irritated by work colleagues, someone asking me for 10th time "how are you" in the same day will be punished by me making their life miserable in any way i passive aggressively can. feel much better for doing this.
steal one thing a day from work (those capitalist pigs wont notice) to invoke helpful kleptomania rush and natural uplift from depressive state.
languishing in my darkened room playing video games. good ones though. violent ones.
internalising all hate, bitterness and spite. walking at night to burn off chocolate hoping will be mugged and can unleash stored up rage.
do not brush teeth do not wash. exhibit your pain visually and olfactory to society, shame them, they created this mess.
not opening any mail past 6 months in case there is something that will annoy me such as credit card debt (this actually works great!)

all of the above is huge progress from where I used to be and highly recommended.

to summarise, do your best to keep serotonin levels high,
cigarettes hit nicotinic feel good receptors, but dont think of your ex during this time, it will form an unhelpful association.
if you run out of energy, caffeine is safe and proven in clinical studies to enhance exam performance. It is a semi myth that it is a diuretic, drink enough until your body considers it as part of normal homeostasis.


kick anyone in the gonads if they ask you how you are, knowing that they really just care about feeling better about themselves by doing this.

avoid therapy, probably will be conducted by a high functioning borderline knowing your luck. best not risk it.

but whatever you do, never break NC and do not let anyone tell you that you are depressed and should seek professional help, (you already know this), most of the better anti depressants are MAOIs and they dont interact with cheese. Yet cheese provides euphoria. pizza has cheese as its fundamentally base ingredient, it is practically toast on cheese, not forgetting the added efficiency of the pizza box as a convenient disposal plate replacement. (refer back to self tip #7)

[Cromwell]

avoiding cats, they are triggering me a lot, those agile, sneaky borderlines of the animal world.
setting cat traps in my garden

[gotbushels]

Hi lighthouse9   

Just providing some support for your self care. 

3. Drink more water and eat more vegetables.

Great basics you have here. I noticed water actually cheers me up on some days when things get tough. Not hydrating seems to cause the opposite.   

5. Find humor and whimsy in whatever way I can. I bought a ridiculous shower curtain for my new place (it's of a cat riding a narwhal) despite protests from my mom that it wasn't very "adult."

I'm a big fan of this. I have quite a lot of fun or silly work stuff. Just because you like cats riding other animals has no connection to how capable you might be in other areas of your life. 

6. Get back to working out.

I am so envious. It is so hard to maintain this when there's so much other stuff going on. Good luck!

... .mood changes linked to seasonal changes? Do you need to double down on self-care?

For everyone, there are up days and down days--and yes I will increase self-care if it's not a going well. Guys have moody days too. A new day will begin tomorrow.   

4. Confront a fear or two. Since the break up, my anxiety has been claiming situations as dangerous or uncomfortable and I've been avoiding them. ... .

I support your fear confrontation. I'd like to share a tip the about situational hypervigilance. For me, what was driving it was heightened self-consciousness of "prohibited behaviours" by my ex. After that, I wanted to have nothing to do with anything like her. So the energy kinda moved to vigilance for "BPD" signals. That's fine but I found it easier to just focus on the fun and the moment and make that happen--then see what comes of it. If you've already figured out what signals are important to you and you're able to not ignore the stuff you don't want when things are going good--then I think it will benefit you to focus on the fun instead. Yes, there's a lot of people with PDs out there, but if 6% meet BPD diagnosis, that leaves 94% that haven't. That's heaps of people that probably won't trip your "has BPD" wires. Even if you want to extend the stat to 10%, that still leaves a good 90% of people.

When a relationship progresses, the BPD signals will probably manifest more obviously to you as you won't be so "spent" on things that don't matter, if they manifest at all. I hope this helps you get more freedom and peace. 

Enjoy your peace lighthouse9.

[Foursome]

Going to my range this weekend and shoot.  No I wont make a lifelike representation target that looks life my ex.

Just a few friends and 1000 rounds of ammo.