Saying negative things, even jokingly, conditions your brain to choose those negative things by default. It slowly escalates to saying it to others. And then then you start to actually mean it.
Similarly, the actions you choose when you need to cope with something, conditions your reflexes and helps you exercise your self control. It's why practicing those silly things from therapy and DBT is so important, even if they feel stupid.
It's very important to choose healthy coping methods. "Opposite action" is one I use a lot.
For casual joking as a coping mechanism, choose positive things instead of negative. Instead of "haha i should just kms", say "haha I'm the best at this." Say it even though it's cringe. Say it even if you don't genuinely believe you're good. Even though your world is falling apart and you're crying for help.
If you're always self-loathing, give yourself some gentleness. Instead of saying "I'm just awful," say "I'm struggling." Say it quietly. Say it shakily. Say it with hesitation. Say it with the ache in your chest that you desperately want someone to see your true pain.
Instead of choosing a punching bag or screaming into a pillow, choose deliberate gentleness, quiet speaking, silence, and breathing. Do it shaking. Do it with your whole body tense and your teeth clenched and your breathing ragged. Do it even though you want that cathartic release.
During a depressive episode, where you want to shut away and never move... Push yourself to sit up. Slide to the edge of your bed. Put your feet on the floor. Stand up. One tiny little thing at a time.
Opposite Action is a DBT coping technique. When you have the impulse to do something bad or negative...choose the opposite. Because oftentime, your default choice is to give in to learned, "safe" behaviors. The only way out is to learn healthy behaviors, and practice the shit out of them.
vvvvv My own personal struggle (cw: violence and anger) vvvvv
I'm predisposed to violent tendencies. I have BPD, so I get bouts of explosive anger, and controlling my actions is damn near impossible sometimes. People would look at my anger and say, "Why not get a punching bag or pick up boxing to vent your frustrations?" Well...because, to me, that would condition my mind and body to use violence as soon as I got angry. Because with BPD, when your emotions get heightened and intensely out of control, your actions are almost always impulsive. Impulse control goes out the window. When that happens, everything is reflex. And with conditioning myself to choose punching something as a means of venting, it would mean in those intense moments, I would be choosing violence. And I don't want to do become that. Not ever again.
Meds help dampen the intensity, and that helps me to have better control of my actions and impulse control.
I use to slam doors and other objects. I would walk away when I'm angry so I didn't scream and yell. But this conditioned my wife that she should stay out of my way when I'm angry. I never laid a hand on her, yet she was afraid of me. Afraid of making me angry. She saw what I did to those doors and inanimate objects, and I wasn't always even mad at *those things.* So what would I do if she were to make me angry? I'd conditioned her to be afraid of me. I taught her that I was to be feared. Even if, to me, I was just "venting" my frustrations.
But when I saw what it was doing to her, I felt like a monster.
So I decided to change.
Instead of slamming things, I would freeze and deliberately, carefully set the object down or close the door gently and quietly, breathing and shaking the whole time.
When I was mad at her specifically, I would choose to touch her. Take her hand, hug her, kiss her hand, anything. Squeeze her tight. Grip her shirt. Just breathe.
This was me conditioning myself to be kinder. Gentler.
If I had chosen the punching bag or boxing as a means to vent frustration, well...
I dont like to think about what I would have become.
Im at a car dealership getting work done on my car.
And they've got "Glamorous" playing by Fergie.
And let me tell you... There's no other disconnect in reality that I've ever experienced in my entire life than hearing "if you ain't got no money take your broke ass home" at a large scale formal car dealership
I saw a post that said "I love you for being you" isn't a cop-out answer.
It reminded me of a revelation that Sylvia had a while back that helped her significantly with her self-worth.
She always struggled with self-worth. "What have I done to be worthy of being loved?" She would ask. She would use her past mistakes and her mental illness and trauma as an argument against being worthy of love.
But, you don't have to do anything at all to be worth loving. You don't even have to "be yourself."
You know what you have to do in order to be "worthy" of being loved?
Exist.
So ask yourself again.
"What did I do to deseeve being so loved? Why do they love me?"
They love you because you exist.
Not because you've done anything for them.
Not because they love you out of obligation or ties.
Not in spite of all of the things you may have done to hurt them, regardless of intent.
You don't have to perform for love. You don't have to earn love. You deserve love because you exist.
One was just casually going about their end-of-life business (closing bank acct, last will, spending time with friends and family). Most likely cancer, given the calm and clarity.
The other was a lot more confusing and heartbreaking. If I had to make sense of it, I'd say it was probably someone who passed of old age, since their last day seemed to be an Alzheimer's episode. She went somewhere with her husband, left him in the car when she went in and came back out to find no one and the car missing. She was picked up by someone and driven across town while she searched her phone for his contact information and text history (distressingly, there was none). Person took her to a store where she started wandering in search if her husband but couldn't find him anywhere. It's like he deleted everything and stole every trace of himself away from her. She passed by a sample-clerk several times, who gently asked her if there was anything wrong, and when she explained, he led her to the customer service desk to be taken care of. But she wandered outside and got distracted by some construction workers where she talked about how her husband used to be a lineman and asked if they knew him or where she could find him. They empathetically distracted her by showing her some lizards while someone in the back made a phone call and the construction work came to a halt.
My post comparing Discord vs Stoat has gotten a surge of likes/reblogs.
I've been half using it for a bit now but still waiting on certain features. Mainly Android stuff (notifications and masq).
I plan to take a fresh look at it to review again in the next few days since popularity is growing again. Gonna actually get that pkbot to see if i can come up with a tutorial or somethin', since the new Stoat app doesn't have plugins (last i checked anyhow).
Their dev server has been blowing up today though, so things are looking promising for Stoat. Hoping they get a dev soon, they mentioned being interested in one.
