#dbtselfhelp

[rotten-sunflower]

I feel called out lmao

[rotten-sunflower]

I just read about the “Create Meaning” skill in DBT and I think I already like it almost the best. its basically about finding something positive in the negative things or making it into something positive. so in that regard, I wanna make a list of positive things that being sad/ feeling bad brought me:

discovered the Eric Andre show: literally in the worst of my days, this was one of the only things that managed to make me laugh

cooking more: for some reason, even when im depressed and have no energy for anything, I do still like to cook stuff because I like nice food I guess

starting a job: the #1 reason I wanted to get a job was literally to distract myself from bad thoughts (esp abandonment issues) and it works but also I really like this job now + the money im gonna get from it

motivation for self improvement: accepting that I was mentally ill gave me room to want to improve myself, first of all ofc in the sense of getting rid of mental illness but also further than that to just improve my personality ig

joining communities: specifically for BPD, I joined some communities online to talk about my experience, which can be really soothing sometimes

photography: my Lonely Night Walks™ produced some really nice pictures

depression memes: I used to never like depression memes, or mental illness memes in general for that matter but now I do and I also made one meme by myself (I have no life lol)

fashion: similar to the job, I started taking pictures of my outfits every day and wanting to wear something interesting every day to distract myself and I think its almost a routine by now and I really like it

allowing my emotions: through trying to recover I learned to actually allow and accept my emotions more. even when I was (relatively!!) mentally stable (at least more stable than now) I used to kinda always surprise my emotions and never really allow them to be and now im definitely doing that more. I feel like im more honest with myself

diary/ journaling: this is pretty recent, but a few days ago I started like picking up journaling again, in a more organised way tho, since my old journal used to be more or less just ramblings about the people I talk to. the thing I do now is more recovery- oriented (I think) and more organized

learning about mental illness: through admitting that I am not mentally normal, I started researching about mental illness, not just about mine but also about other illnesses and disorders as well and I feel like ive already learned so much and I definitely want to continue learning about other peoples struggle!

[rotten-sunflower]

guys some of these suggested “coping mechanisms”...?

like im not already doing that on a daily basis?