I'm a Feminist, Baker, Ravenclaw, Bookseller, Social Work Student. Most of all I'm a writer. My neurodivergent brain (the seasons' flavours are ADHD, Depression & Anxiety) is trying to get through the semester while simultaneously being kind to myself. I still believe that words are the answer, and that things do get better.
Coping 101 - a masterpost of down to earth resources
This post doesn’t contain links to many professional resources - it’s a list of coping tips from people who are mentally ill/disabled themselves and who all decided to share what has worked for them here on tumblr. In the last 7 months I have been sharing content created for and by mentally ill/disabled people on this blog - and to celebrate reaching 5000 followers, I have decided to collect all the best coping tips I’ve come across in one easily accessible place. Enjoy!
Managing emotions:
Letting go of emotional suffering via mindfulness.
DBT strengthening statements
Handling negative emotions
The “emotions are signals” method
The “mindfully recognizing emotions” method
Healthy perspectives on emotions
The “emotions are like hiccups” method
The “healthy outlets” method
Managing anxiety:
Coping statements for anxiety.
Breathing exercise gif
Breathing exercise gif 2
Things to remember when having an anxiety attack
The “just show up” method
The “panicky friend” method
Grounding techniques
The “I can survive the next 10 seconds” method
The “distract your brain” method
The “you will be able to cope” method
Managing depression:
7 depression tips and why they work
Depression tips
21 tips to keeping your shit together when you’re depressed
Managing executive dysfunction:
The “might as well” method.
The “one step access” method.
Why self-discipline isn’t always the answer.
The “use whatever works” method.
The “taking care of someone else” method.
The “june-bugging” method.
Tricks for pushing through executive dysfunction
The “do several things at once” method
The “accept your limits” methods
The “turn it into a game” method
The “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method
The “tricking your brain” method
The “untangling the spaghetti” method.
The “smaller steps” method
The “emergency cleaning” method
The “letting go of should” method.
The “my body is an animal I need to care about” method
The “fork theory” method
The “remove the barriers” method
The “half-ass things” method
Managing negative thinking:
Challenging cognitive distortions.
Finding alternative thoughts.
Challenging negative thoughts
How to get over past mistakes
Toxic positivity vs hope and validation
How to improve your self-esteem
Negative and positive cognitions
The “self neutrality” method
The “separate your negative qualities from your identity” method
Self talk to help end obsessions
Ten forms of twisted thinking + ten ways to untwist your thinking
Managing self care:
How to practice balanced self care.
Why hands-on hobbies are important
Ways to self-soothe
A list of mental illness workbooks
Ways to start feeling again
How to get back on track after a breakdown
How to self-soothe and treat yourself
Types of healthy coping skills
The “parenting yourself” method
An interactive self care guide
The “don’t ignore your needs” method
Online self care
Making the most of therapy
Free worksheets for people who can’t access therapy
The “add good things to your life” method
Showering for spoonies
The “do what you can” method
The “it isn’t a waste of time just because it won’t cure you” method.
As the year is ending soon... this is your friendly reminder that you didn’t waste your year. any moments of happiness or comfort, any small accomplishments, they all matter. this has been a really hard year, and simply surviving is something to be proud of. 🤎
listen to me. lying is morally neutral. and for many people in shitty situations it's a survival tactic.
lying in order to cause harm is often wrong, because causing harm is generally wrong. lying is also done for a myriad of other reasons, including because it isn't safe to speak truth, or because privacy is a thing and damn what an incredibly invasive question to ask in the first place.
also, sometimes lying is funny. sometimes it saves time. sometimes it's easier, sometimes it accomplishes a goal, sometimes the truth is nobody's business, or is tricky to articulate, or you don't know what the truth is but are expected to have an answer regardless. sometimes you just straight up want people to stop bothering you. sometimes lying is an experiment to see how much you can get away with. sometimes you just want to be a little mean, yeah.
and in none of these situations is lying automatically "right" or "wrong" it is simply a tool that people will use, and that you will have to make your own decisions about based on situation and context.
climb out of the dark pit of assigning moral values to neutral behaviors. that's puritan thinking that's got its greedy fangs in you, rip 'em out by the root
everyone in the world is either a democrat or a republican. everyone in the whole wide world is a democrat and a republican and america is the largest and most populous country in the world and america is easily the most culturally diverse country in the world because the middle class white people in my state (like a little country) are very different than the middle class white people over there (another little country, once more called a "state") and you could never understand how bad it is in america, the main country in the world. where are you from again? it's bad in america and america is bad but the way that america is run is the only way a country could possibly be run unfortunately. i don't like it but it's the only right way for a country to be run and you don't get it because the main victims of the main country are all here and you aren't. where are you from again? they never told me about that place. i don't think you get that real people live in america. probably because you're a republican. real people live in america and real people are hurt by america but what can you do? god said america has to be like this. god said this because god is real so god is american. you don't get it because you're over there and we're all here in america, the realest country in the world. where are you from again? how can you talk like this with what's happening in america? you're a democrat, right? where are you from again? my country is so large it stretches over yours and presses down hard. it's not my fault that they never told me about that place. my country covers the world. you don't understand how bad this will be for real people in the real world, the first world, the only world. they never told me—where in america are you from again?
We all know what erectile dysfunction is but literally no one is ever taught what vaginismus is and it can cause people to feel extremely lost, broken, and cause people to take their own lives.
Raise. Awareness.
For the uninformed, vaginismus is when the vagina painfully tightens and spasms when faced with pressure, usually from anything trying to insert into the vagina. It’s the reason I can’t wear tampons, and why many people can’t have vaginal sex without severe pain.
There’s not a lot of treatments, and there isn’t a single one that is for vaginismus exclusively - they’re all medications or treatments to treat symptoms, but not the causes. In fact, for a long time doctors waved off vaginismus as a purely psychological disorder in cis women.
Seriously, this is so unaddressed and uncared for in medical circles. Please spread awareness, even if all it’s for is to let those who have it but don’t have a name for it finally be able to understand what’s happening to their bodies.
Hi hello! This post is almost 10 years old and there ARE treatments for this. Vaginismus is otherwise known as pelvic hypertonia and it is a MUSCULAR condition that can be caused by many different factors including endometriosis, trauma, chronic UTIs, and connective tissue disorders.
It’s incredibly common! And it can be treated by physiotherapy.
I know this because I’m currently undergoing physio and although it can take months to recover, I’m already seeing improvement. A lot of the pelvic floor exercises are available online, but if you have these symptoms please TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR and see if you can get a physio referral (or investigation for underlying causes like endometriosis).
Also, my additions to posts never get reblogged so a note to my followers: this is SUPER IMPORTANT ISSUE that affects many people and is rarely talked about. Please reblog, and please share this info with as many people as possible.
Pelvic hypertonia/vaginismus is incredibly debilitating and psychologically damaging but it CAN BE TREATED. Spread the word, and you never know who you’ll be throwing a lifeline to.
Hey! I read your study tips both posts regarding adhd . (Feel free to ignore )
I am still undiagnosed and I think it's adhd but i do not have the resources nor the environment or support system to do anything about it .I am a high schooler preparing for entrance exams and i really need to like get my shit together and i feel like i have wasted sm time already but i really do want to get better. When i sit to study i just can't focus if I keep my phone in some other room then also i would just sit and stare at my books without accomplishing something. I am trying really but it's feels like my brain is frozen and my body is moving .my brain keep screaming guilty and ashamed but i can't seem to do anything about it.your study post actually i related to a lot because pomodro kind of seems to be working for everyone but me and the you described the exact same things I do
I know this is a lot to ask for please feel free to ignore but how do I stop Letting my emotions take over and study consistently because I only have one chance at the exams
Oh my, first of all I’d like to say that, as cliché as it is, I know exactly how you feel. I was undiagnosed for so long (I was only diagnosed a few months ago) and I didn’t even know that the adhd things I experience on a regular basis wasn’t normal or neurotypical for so long.
first up : I know this is difficult, but please do not say such things about yourself. I’m not gonna get into the whole thing, (cuz I have done a post on that already) but it’s true that the more you drill that bad stuff into your brain, the more it’s gonna stick. We need our brains to be in the best condition possible to study efficiently and saying bad stuff about yourself that isn’t even true is just going to hinder your performance. You got this. I promise you’re not lazy. Your brain just isn’t motivated by the same things others are, but we can work with that simple difference.
I’ll make a separate post on how not to let your emotions take over, but for now …
adhd study tips for those trying to get into the habit.
— by a stem student with adhd.
here’s my first post on adhd study tips.
— don’t put your phone in a different room. Instead, download an app that prevents you from using other apps on your phone.
there’s plenty of apps that do this but the one I prefer is ypt because all its features are completely free and it stops your timer when you exit the app unless you enter ‘allowed app mode.’ I don’t know about you, but if I find that I’m just zoning out on my textbook then I end up stopping my timer and deleting the record because I know I didn’t actually study, and this motivates me to actually get some work done. The timer also gets me motivated to keep going for longer so I have physical proof of my focus time and studies. It will feel good to even have just 1 hour of study time on it, I promise.
— even if you’re not interested in your studies, try your best to find even one thing that interests you.
novelty, challenge and interest are some of the best motivators of the adhd brain, so use it. I know that sparking your curiosity for a subject you hate seems impossible, but hear me out.
ever since I was young, I was exposed to books and I drew everyday. This caused me to become very passionate about the arts, but since I had adhd and didn’t know, I failed all my classes and specifically hated chemistry because it was specifically designed to be everything that I can’t be good at due to my poor memory and the need to memorize a TON of concepts. Then during class one day, I was doing chemistry work with my friends and felt frustrated that they could easily balance equations and work out which compounds were acids or bases purely by its chemical formula. And that’s what sparked me to start reading my textbook to see what the big deal was. How was it possible for one to just know when something is a acid solely from looking at a bunch of letters? This started a chain reaction; I found my answer, and found that the process of finding my answer and learning this new information was fulfilling. So I looked at all the other chemistry topics, and it turns out chemistry was fun. I was supposed to be an art student but now I’m majoring in chemistry and biology, all because of that sense of challenge and curiosity I was given that day.
tdlr; I was bad at chemistry but I’m now majoring in it because I felt challenged by a friend and was curious to know how they could solve chem equations easily.
All it took was a bit of curiosity. It’s a very powerful thing to the adhd brain. And if you use this as a motivator for your studies it might even cause you to hyper-fixate on your work, which means you’ll naturally spend more time studying just to find all the answers you’re now dying to know.
— use the pomodoro timer, but think about the things that you have to do that seems a little impossible to do under 25 minutes.
This fulfills the ‘challenge’ category I mentioned in the previous tip.
Let me explain; I subconsciously started doing this to myself without anyone telling me this and it’s helped me a LOT. Here’s an example;
“This chapter’s too long, it’s impossible to read through everything and understand the key concepts in just twenty five minutes.”
is it, though?
So I was off to the races, genuinely reading through every page and taking note of every single heading or bold or italicized word so I will be able to summarize the entire topic by the time the twenty five minutes is up.
And it doesn’t even matter if you don’t make that twenty five minute mark, because you’ll feel a sense of defeat and try it again with another chapter/topic.
this accomplishes two things; one, the work you’ve been putting off or zoning out on is now probably 20% - 50% completed and now you feel motivated to continue. Two, this method will train you to be faster in learning or studying new material or even just completing work in general, depending on what you’re challenging yourself to do.
— dress up, do your hair, study at a library or cafe you love (and possibly make pretty notes.)
I’ve talked about interest, I’ve talked about challenge, and now I’m gonna talk about novelty.
Do this with purpose! But what do I mean by that?
I’m sure you’ve come across studious girls in media or even people on social media making videos and taking pretty photos of their day out to study. Usually they’re dressed the part and even if they’re not, there’s a certain vibe, aesthetic or aura about them that is just so desirable that it makes you wish you were doing what they were doing. And if you don’t feel this way, find content creators or media that do make you feel this way.
How will this help me? Well, there are actually a few reasons but the first one that comes to mind is that this is also an adhd tip used outside of studying. Combining a task you don’t want to do with a task you’d like to do is a faster and more efficient way of convincing yourself to do long, difficult or even tiring tasks. Another is that doing this would also mean you’ve technically gotten yourself to desire studying, something more commonly known as romanticizing studying. If you make studying look fun, glamorous or even desirable for yourself then you’re sure to get to the hideous parts of it. Think about being a straight A student, someone who’s always wearing nice clothes with great hair and such a focused work ethic. Once you desire to be that person and you dress like that person, you’ll start to do the things that person will do.
— use the pomodoro timer but set it to even shorter bursts instead. (e.g. 15 minutes work, 5 minutes break.)
Or hell, on my worst days I set it to 5 minutes work, 5 minutes break.
The whole point of this exercise is to just start, because that’s arguably the hardest part about studying, you can’t get yourself to actually start or to actually focus. So promise yourself a five minute break after a very short amount of time of reading.
— skip straight to the questions of a topic, try to do them and identify the information you need to get the answer right.
For example, I came across a bio question that was rather simple but I didn’t know the answer to because I haven’t revised the topic for a while, and the question was, what is needed in the body for anaerobic respiration to take place? And the answer was simple, but I didn’t know because again, I didn’t study the material before answering the paper.
one’s brain can have the habit of being complacent especially when you don’t wanna do work, so diving head first into the questions and realizing that you don’t know jack shit would be a good wake up call for you and your brain—and this can connect to the second point that I made because you might find that you’d be eager to get the answer right all on your own, and become curious as to what the answer is.
important to remember …
erase everything bad that you were told or led to believe about studying. I promise that if you look for ways to make it engaging for you and form a habit, studying can be something you don’t dread or worry about everyday. You are capable. This is the start of your journey. Yes, the question of ‘what if I get distracted again’ will always be there but think about what could happen if today is the first day you’re not distracted. If you don’t at least try to start now, you will have zero chance of being able to actually focus and study. But if you try, the worst that will happen is that you tried. If you keep trying, it will happen. I promise.
If you need any more tips regarding adhd, (or being undiagnosed,) please do let me know. I’ll do my best to help.
In this house we stan Mental Wellbeing @dermuffvontausendjahren - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
