#tolerating uncertainty

[ursamajorrris]

sisin içinde sakince yürüyen kız

[learningtolovemyself2]

My parents sent me flowers last week as a congrats for finishing my undergrad ❤️ Trying to get into the celebratory mood instead of just being sad and terrified - I think other people are more excited for me than I am for myself. There is an element of pride but most of it is just feeling anxious and sad and unsure about what comes next. And trying to tell myself that’s ok. Small steps. I also hate that a 4 year degree took me 7 years and I feel so old and “behind” everyone else. But I have to remind myself that I took whole years and semesters off for intensive treatment, and that there were lots of semesters where I was just part time or I ended up dropping classes or ended up in the hospital. And thinking about graduating makes me spiral and think about all these other things like how I don’t have a partner or kids and nobody would want to be with me and I never pictured being alive for a future so that’s hard and scary to imagine and to try and move towards etc. Anyways. Bottom line, change and uncertainty and life transitions are scary and hard and sad and I don’t know what comes next and trying to remind myself that’s ok.

[go-to-rakuen]

It’s really crazy how the anxiety treatment I’ve been doing for the last five years is way different from the shit they have you do in an inpatient or a partial hospitalization program. What I’ve been doing in private treatment is mostly Behavioral Activation with DBT and CBT as a framework. Most programs I’ve done really push CBT which is effective IF you use Behavioral Activation with it. Without BA the whole model just falls apart.

Another big aspect of the work I do is tolerating uncertainty and being uncomfortable. Like obviously we’d all love to live in a world where we could never feel uncomfortable but it’s not possible. Which is why I’m very concerned about our youth since I’ve been noticing some really severe avoidance behaviors that makes anxiety worse. TikTok is the literal embodiment of a depression loop which is why I now have limited my time on it. Everyone should have access to the treatment that I have been doing. It’s so frustrating seeing people in a cycle of depression and anxiety and them being stuck behind a paywall. Behavioral Activation needs to be stressed more in the context of CBT and it needs to be free.