There's a post -- it's a funny post so I didn't want to tack this on as a reblog but I will link here and reblog it later -- which cracks wise about the idea of ungrounding exercises. It opens with "what are five things you can't see".
It is genuinely fun surrealism, this is not in any way me mad at that post. But it did make me consider talking about grounding exercises because the five-four-three-two-one exercise genuinely is deeply ungrounding to me.
I don't get panic attacks or spiraling/racing thoughts and I've developed my own techniques for dealing with anxiety down the years, so it's not really a tool I need. But when I heard about it for the first time, I pictured trying to use it and immediately my heart rate rose.
Because there's too much to remember! I know that's not the point but the idea of trying to pass the countdown test filled me with horror. You have to remember which number is associated with which sense. You have to remember all five senses, come to that. You have to remember what you've already named, you have to remember where in the countdown you are, all while also trying to keep in your mind what you're panicking about while not panicking further because whether or not it's worth the reaction you're having, whatever it is it's still an issue that will need to be dealt with.
You don't actually have to do any of that. The point is to distract yourself and also reassert a relationship to the real, mundane world happening around you using physical sensation. I fully understand the theory. Which sense you're trying to experience five of versus which you experience one of isn't actually relevant. If you only name four things you see instead of five and one of those is also something you name as a thing you smell, or if you use the sense of taste for two separate categories, it doesn't matter, nobody is keeping count but you. You don't actually have to keep the issue in mind, now's the time for damage control and not mental landscaping.
But uh. See, despite thumbing my nose at many sets of formal instructions over my lifetime, in this case I'm never going to internalize the irrelevance of doing it 'right' because....well, because I'm me. It's irrational but so are our fucked up limbic systems that make us think the best reaction to perceived threat is hyperventilating. So for me, someone with slightly flighty object permanence and bad short term memory, it's like being told that in order to save myself from imminent drowning, I have to pass an algebra test. Why go down humiliating myself trying to solve for X? I'll just drown, thanks. ("I would rather die a watery death than do math" was kind of the theme of my high school years.)
Anyway. This isn't to say the exercise doesn't work, just that not every grounding exercise will work for everyone. Well, and that the kind of person to stress over this one is also the kind of person who might feel like a failure when it doesn't work, so this is me speaking to them so they know that it's okay to just pass this one on by. It's not for us, my comrades.
