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 Post subject: How to Use Tools When You Feel Overwhelmed
PostPosted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:50 pm 
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Hi, I'm Libby - new to the board. I've been exploring the forum and see that I have a lot in common with the posters here. It gives me hope that others are trying to address their BPD issues.

I am so #*&#@!!@ tired of fighting my way upstream! I have a tendency towards depression. At times, I drag my life through the crapper. Or, maybe I drag my life through the crapper and THEN get depressed.

At any rate, today is one of those days when so many aspects of my life seem out of control, my career, my finances, my relationships, my depression.

If it weren't for the fact that my significant other is here, I would be in bed, sleeping or crying. I avoid the anxiety by shutting down.

How do you get control on days like this? I'm scared that I will always feel this way and I don't want a life like this. Tomorrow is Monday. I don't want to lose another week to this without trying to fight it.

Thank you for your help. :)


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 Post subject: Re: How to Use Tools When You Feel Overwhelmed
PostPosted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 5:40 pm 
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Hi Libby - sorry you are having a hard time.

I am not really very good at using the tools as they stand - lots of other people here can give you great advice - but I do use bits and bods of them.

One of the things I find when I am feeling the way you do is that I tend to catastrophize - everything just seems so awful and out of control and bleak, and I forget that things look different after a good night's sleep and the difference that a day can make. One good thing about having very changeable emotions is that nothing lasts very long!

I think also not feeling like you have to fix everything at once - taking a small bite out of one of those areas, and dealing to that. Otherwise it IS too overwhelming. Even non-BPDers can't tackle their whole life and have it come out sparkling and shiny on a single Sunday!

I think acceptance is a very good place to start. Accepting that this is where you're at for now, remembering that nothing is permanent, the very nature of life is change (and that can work for, as well as against us), and giving up the FIGHT. I know I wasted a lot of energy trying to deny reality and rail against it and hate it and be caught up in how unfair it all was. I am better at not doing that so much, nowadays.

I meditate and do yoga and other mindfulness sorts of things that a lot of the tools also sit well with - and I think the tools are probably a good way to strengthen those mindfulness/acceptance/non judging muscles, instead of giving in and getting overwhelmed by the flood of emotion we can get so consumed by.

Maybe just pick one - for one of your situations - and work with it? Make it your Sunday goal to DO one of them. Don't worry about the outcome or beat yourself up because it doesn't work the first time or you forget or whatever.

If it were me, I'd start with Radical Acceptance. Because I think when you give up the fight, you suddenly have a lot more clarity and energy to tap into your own wisdom and see what needs to be done.


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 Post subject: Re: How to Use Tools When You Feel Overwhelmed
PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:45 pm 
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Thank you so much for your post, Susanna. I appreciate the support. I am taking things one bit at a time, just as you suggested.


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 Post subject: Re: How to Use Tools When You Feel Overwhelmed
PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:35 pm 
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Hi Libby,

I'm on a very brief lunch break right now so I'll have to be quick, but I really liked your questions. It's nice to see you want to be proactive when you're struggling.

On those days when everything seems out of control, it might be a good idea to try all of the tools. When things get overwhelming I find it helpful to divide the problems into separate packages bc it's really easy for them all to blend into one and then that problem, which is a tangle of lots of problems, just seems like one big messy knot.

Then, if you can, try to write down the very basic problems. Like one might be: debts to pay off, and another might be: not sure what to do about that friend I fell out with recently, etc. Then for each problem try to systematically apply the 5 steps.

I find it helpful to cross reference with the tools too. Like if I'm doing the 5 steps I might check in to the 10 Forms of Twisted Thinking to make sure how I'm doing the Steps isn't twisted.

The forums for the tools are also really helpful, so you may have an issue you're grappling with and rather than post on On The Border or Season Passes, you could post into say All for Four, and that way you can be constantly checking that how you approach that problem subscribes to the Four Agreements.

We're also here to help guide you to the relevant tools as you progress through your recovery, so sometimes it's worth just writing down what's going on, and someone like me may pop up and guide you to a useful tool for that problem.

Does that help a bit?

Maybe you could start right here and begin to discuss the difficulties you're facing right now.

_________________
~ Sarah


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 Post subject: Re: How to Use Tools When You Feel Overwhelmed
PostPosted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:51 am 
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Sarah,

Thank you for taking time from your break to help me out. I am feeling as if I am just one step from out of control, but I am grateful that I am at a point in my recovery where I can see - at least sometimes - that I have tended to make choices that put in me bad situations. I can choose differently. Even though I am so scared, I can choose differently.

Yesterday, my therapist actually suggested exactly what you recommended in your post! I copied the Five Steps into my notebook, and this afternoon, I am going to begin listing issues in my life I've been avoiding. These are the same issues that are now spinning out of control, no surprise there.

Thank you for your post - it helps keep me going to know that there is support out there.

Libby


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