safe place

first year of internship provisional psychologist

[zenrayne]

Coping Mechanisms Masterlist

Thoughts to break the cycle

this is temporary if I believe it is

I AM NOT my perception, or my thoughts

I am the observer of the thoughts

my mind is protecting me and is stressed from not knowing how to fix it. Thank you for protecting me but it will be okay

the negative thoughts are just a symptom of depression, dissociation/dpdr, c-ptsd, or anxiety or all of the above

thoughts are just like another one of the 5 senses. Like how you can perceive textures, smells, tastes, sounds. Your thoughts allow you to perceive an experience. But you are not your nose. You are not your mouth. You are not your ears. You are not your hand it’s just a hand that’s connected to your body. And so You are not your thoughts. You’re the one experiencing these sensations you are not the sensations.

Even if you genetically are predisposed or your genetics or brain chemistry has caused the issue. Especially in this case your thoughts do not define who you are they are just a reaction your brain is creating to protect you from something it thinks is a threat.

self hate and depression is a coping mechanism: your body wants you to be better, to be perfect to avoid something negative that hurts and self hate is the way it decided to go but it doesn’t have to be that way. Tell your mind “thank you” and “I love you but it’s okay.” “We are safe” and “I am enough.”

I try to remember my goals: how I want to be happy, the things I want to add to my life that will make me feel calmer and happier. (If you don’t have any goals or ideas think of anything you want in this world to achieve, or learn, or earn and write it down and imagine how it would feel if you had it right now. It helps push you to realize you can shape your life how you want)

that someone in this world loves you. If you can’t name anyone. Your own body loves you. It keeps you alive and gives you the ability to experience things like eating yummy food, being able to pet an animal and feel how soft their fur is, being able to look up at the sky and see stars or clouds. Simple every day things that we take for granted because we get so stressed out from life and drama. Sometimes we forget we could lose our eyesight and we wouldn’t be able to see things or people that we love. We could get injured and never be able to walk, run or jump again. We could lose our ability to breathe and be hooked up to a ventilator. I like to write down anything I can think of to be grateful for everyday in my journal and it makes me feel less depressed, less anxious,and excited to be able to just .. be alive especially when I want to not be alive anymore

I remind myself that when I was a baby I didn’t have any thoughts I didn’t know shit. The way I grew up and had to experience life made it so I perceive life the way I do. I like to imagine if I was a blank slate what are the different ways I could look at my life? What are the ways I can decide to look at situations or myself? People don’t just wake up and love themselves they were taught to feel loved. Just like how we don’t wake up with these negative self hateful thoughts. We got them from somewhere. We can choose if we want to still believe our perceptions or not. But learning to be happy and to love ourself is like a skill. Just like how learning to hate ourselves took time and repeated experiences.

Self care / Self love activities

imagining an older version of myself comforting present me. And imagining myself currently to comfort past me during traumatic moments

bubble baths

napping with soothing audios, or sleep meditations

walking outside

calling a friend

visiting a family member or friend

Write yourself a note when you’re happy to yourself and read it when you’re upset

Make a voice memo give future you a pep talk, positive affirmations, or even guided meditations and listen to it when you’re upset

lighting a candle and writing down an intention and meditating or you can pray if you believe in a god or have a religion. Or if you just believe in the universe and law of attraction

journaling

cleaning or tidying up a little

eating a yummy but healthy snack

cooking or baking

(if I’m severely not okay) holding an ice cube, running my hands in cold water and splashing the water in my face, taking a cold shower, taking a rubber band on my wrist and snapping it back

reading a book

watching my favorite tv show or movie

watching a comedy

playing music and forcing myself to dance (when I’m alone of course 😅)

yoga

exercising

watching cute animal videos on YouTube

Singing in the shower

Adult coloring books

some type of video about philosophy that reminds me that I’m not alone and we are all lost

some type of video that reminds me how beautiful life can be

some type of video that reminds me that I’m not in control of my circumstance, my genetics, or the world but I’m in control of how I react that I’m the one that gives power to my thoughts

Breaking thought patterns, bad habits and doing self care every day helps immensely. Over time it gets easier and easier to feel okay and to even feel happy. But never stop doing these things for the rest of your life. You either feed the negative thoughts or you feed the positive. You either feed the negative habits or you feed the bad. You get to choose. Seek help, and be gentle with yourself. Healing isn’t linear.

[curseofthefae]

[furiousgoldfish]

Abusive parents are always completely unobservant and ungrateful for their most kind, hardworking and responsible children. You all should have been noticed and praised for all the work you did. Every time you handled a problem on your own, that’s extraordinary work right there that shouldn’t have even been on you, and yet you handled it because you had to, and no one even acknowledged it. Every time you’ve done a chore for the sake of not upsetting parents, every time you willingly chose to be a buffer between your parents, or parents and other people, you’ve been doing hard sacrificing work, you damaged your own self-worth in process, and nobody even noticed.

You should have been seen, you should have been comforted, and told that you did more than should have been expected of you. Every time you swallowed your emotions and pretended everything was fine, every time you tried to make things better for your abusers and they showed zero gratitude and took it for granted, every time you went thru most painful and devastating moments of your life alone and unseen and unheard, you should have been seen and heard. You should have been comforted. Even more, you should have been cherished, your sacrifices appreciated and then made up to you, you should have been fretted over, lifted up, gushed up and made feel like you were the center of someone’s world, like what you’re going thru is someone’s first priority.

Here’s to all of you. I know you’ve suffered. I know you’ve been scared. I know you’ve worked hard. I know you spent days in pain and neglect in return. I know you felt like nothing you do was ever good enough. I know you no longer expect to be heard or seen. I know you buried it all inside. I see you.  You deserved to be seen every moment of it.

[anexperimentallife]

(I would love to add image descriptions to all my image posts, but hey, guess who is multiply disabled, chronically ill, working a full time writing job, AND trying to help care for a newborn? This guy!)

[furiousgoldfish]

Sometimes when your brain yells at you “it wasn’t that bad!” you have to ask yourself, then why would you be where you are right now, if it wasn’t that bad? Why would you be in this much pain, having all those symptoms, feeling anxiety, grief and all those empty holes inside of you? If it wasn’t that bad, why would you be having this conversation with yourself, would it even come up if it wasn’t that bad? Would it be bothering you if it was nothing?

Your feelings and symptoms can never appear out of thin air, or of your own doing. If you’re hurt over it, it was bad. If you can’t stop debating it inside of your head, it was extremely significant to you. If you have trauma symptoms over it, it was traumatic. If you’re crying your heart out over it, it was awfully painful to you. Nobody can tell you how something was for you or what you should be feeling, it’s your feelings alone that show you just how much something affected you.

And if you’re terrified of something that haunts thru your past, experiencing so much grief you have to dissociate from it every now and then to handle it, living your whole life in secret, feeling ashamed of your own feelings, of the way you’re experiencing your own life, helpless to change what you’re going thru even when you desperately want to, then it was worse than you think. Because events that cause that level of trauma can’t even be experienced in full intensity in real time, but the pain and the trauma will creep back to you years later, showing you bit by bit, just how bad it was.

[dankcptsdmemes]

[furiousgoldfish]

If your child has heard a death threat coming out of your mouth, you’re an abuser.

If your child is used to being called stupid, worthless, burden, or any kind of slur by you, you’re an abuser.

If your child knows every single way you’d like to hurt them and flinches away when you walk thru the door, you’re an abuser.

If your child knows their every vulnerability would be used as a weapon against them in your mind, you’re an abuser.

If your child was made to feel guilty and ashamed for the pain they’re being put thru, if they were told by your mouth they deserved it, you’re an abuser.

If your child heard you telling them to hurt themselves, or had you do nothing as they were hurting their own self, you’re an abuser.

If your child has to look elsewhere for the slightest bit of acknowledgment, attention and kindness, you’re an abuser.

If your child frets that other people would treat them so cruelly as you do, you’re an abuser.

If your child is afraid that other people will think of them as lowly as you do, you’re an abuser.

If your child had to beg for a necessity from you, you’re an abuser.

If your child was forced to offer labour, services or go thru strain and fear to gain basic necessities from you, you’re an abuser.

If your child had to fight to deserve to be part of your family, or to have you even acknowledge them, you’re an abuser.

If your child had no safety, support, security or love in your home, you’re an abuser.

If your child lived in fear of being kicked out, humiliated and abandoned by you, you’re an abuser.

If all you taught your child was how it feels to be hated, you’re an abuser.

If you refuse to acknowledge even for a second that you put your child thru all that suffering and fear, and still try to paint yourself as a benefactor in your child’s life, you’re an abuser and a liar.

No child has ever deserved any of this.

[shelookshappier-deactivated2025]

[siphonophore-collective-deactiv]

[clever-and-unique-name]

Reparenting Affirmations for an Inner Child

I am so glad you were born.

You are a good person.

I love who you are and am doing my best to always be on your side.

You can come to me whenever you’re feeling hurt or bad.

You do not have to be perfect to get my love and protection.

All of your feelings are okay with me.

I am always glad to see you.

It is okay for you to be angry and I won’t let you hurt yourself or others when you are.

You can make mistakes - they are your teachers.

You can know what you need and ask for help.

You can have your own preferences and tastes.

You are a delight to my eyes.

You can choose your own values.

You can pick your own friends, and you don’t have to like everyone.

You can sometimes feel confused and ambivalent, and not know all the answers.

I am very proud of you.

– Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker

[attainablerecovery]

Because traumatized people often have trouble sensing what is going on in their bodies, they lack a nuanced response to frustration. They either react to stress by becoming “spaced out” or with excessive anger. Whatever their response, they often can’t tell what is upsetting them. This failure to be in touch with their bodies contributes to their well-documented lack of self-protection and high rates of revictimization and also to their remarkable difficulties feeling pleasure, sensuality, and having a sense of meaning.

“The Body Keeps The Score” by Bessel van der Kolk

[thewolfofthestars]

To everyone with sensory issues:

You are not a baby for melting down because of under/overstimulation. You are not being immature or “just throwing a tantrum” when you have meltdowns. The discomfort and pain and fear you feel due to your sensory issues is real and valid, and shouldn’t be dismissed as silly or unimportant by people who don’t understand it.

[depresseddisneyprincess]

[toadallybpd]

[missingvibrance]

[studyingwithmi-deactivated20220]

[it-wasnt-that-bad]