Sometimes the best stop-gaps or solutions, are the things that you’ve been taught to disapprove of.
Getting a week’s worth of frozen meals, to get nutrients into your body, because you know meal prep (even the basics) will be too much.
Eating off of paper plates for a year, because it’s distressing to keep walking by all of your unfinished dishes, but you aren’t managing to get them done.
Putting a bunch of cheap laundry baskets (or cardboard boxes) in different rooms, so dirty laundry is less obstructive to your space when it piles up, because you always have somewhere to toss it.
Throwing out the container full of moldy food in the fridge, even though the container could be washed and salvaged, because you don’t have the spoons.
Offering to do something you can manage for a partner, roommate, or sibling, in exchange for them taking care of a chore that is unmanageable for you.
Saying “I just can’t do ____ right now” to the other people in your space who it will impact, to start a conversation about how else it can be dealt with.
Getting extensions, even if you theoretically Can do the work without them, if it will mean less panic.
Cancelling plans and asking for space, rather than burning yourself out further or lashing out at friends.
Turning in an assignment “embarrassingly” late.
Throwing your laundry in the washer in a messy heap, then washing it on cold to avoid color bleeding, instead of sorting it.
Starting, then not finishing, tasks. Picking up 2 pieces of trash in the living room without cleaning the rest, instead of saving it for a theoretical future time you can “do it all.”
Saying “no” to things that sap you of energy, dignity, or autonomy, and not having a detailed explanation for why.
Saying “yes” to things that are relaxing and pleasurable, and not having a moral-focused or self-conscious explanation for why.
Doing things for recreation that are healing. Discarding the idea that medicine cannot be fun, and fun cannot be medicine: Eating food because it tastes good, or taking a substance (as safely and mindfully- whatever those things look like personally- as you can manage) because it feels good, can meet needs and be therapeutic.
Throwing away your planner, because you have unhelpful shame over forgetting to use it. Instead hanging a large piece of paper or corkboard or whiteboard next to your bed, to scribble disorganized reminders and doodles on. Or sticking post-it-notes to your mirror.
Forgiving yourself for reactive behaviors and “bad habits,” because a) it’s more helpful to understand what needs your system is trying to meet than to feel guilty, and b) and and because one behavior- which may not be your ideal or ultimate goal- may help in avoiding a more harmful one.
Sleeping “too much” in order to avoid more acute forms of self-injuring.
Self-injuring in a less harmful way than your first impulse, then caring for the wound.
Smoking more weed than you hoped to, in order to avoid restricting food.
Some of these things involve reaching out and self-advocating, and it can feel painful or even impossible to do that. Not everyone has access to people around them who can help. But if you do, it’s so, so worth it.
And if you have friends who are struggling (or aren’t sure), making it clear to those around you that you’re willing to do these things: go buy a basic supply for them, email someone for them, make a phone call for them, help them clean something up… It can make a world of difference, and set up a culture where those same things will be reciprocated when you need them.
These strategies are so important, especially when trying to survive within a toxic, overwhelming, or under-resourecd environment.
So much self-work / self-help is a completely uphill battle without a foundation of environmental change.
If you’re struggling to change something about your reactions, mood, or behavior, while none of the realities around you have changed, and you have no more resources or access to safety than you did before: you are the norm, not a disordered exception. You are reacting normally.
Reaching out to multiple people to brainstorm ways of establishing baseline comfort/safety/stability, to address unmet resource needs, build a better environment, or work together to survive or change a toxic environment, is more helpful than 1,000 different moralistic self-work tips you’ll read, or hear from therapists focused on an individualistic/pathology-focused model of mental health.
Self-work and self-effective change are built organically off of those deeper, roots-level changes in access to resources, safety, and connection.
This means working in compassion + collaboration with “non-professionals”: friends, family, classmates, coworkers, community members. The sterile professionalization of mental healthcare has taken so much from us re: our ability to work together, and hold each other up.
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