DBT strengthening statements

Do not let them consume you. They don’t define who you are.

Friendly reminder to not punish yourself for creating. 

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

I have a tendency to beat myself up whenever something I make doesn’t meet my expectations (which is always). The result is that finishing something = bad feelings: I am effectively punishing myself for having created something. The natural reaction to this punishment is an aversion to creation, meaning that my perfectionism is harming me, not only by causing me to despise what I do make and by impeding the creative process, but by attacking even my desire to create.

a fools guide to not wanting to die anymore

by me, a fool who doesnt wanna die anymore 

… 8|

That’s some pretty good advice. I don’t know what’s left of my humor after ‘guess I’ll just die’ jokes but it’s worth a shot.

Personally i went from “guess I’ll die” jokes to “IF I HAVE TO BE HERE FOR 5 MORE MINUTES I PROMISE YOU I WILL BUY JUST, AN ARRAY OF CLOTHES.” and other wild hyperbolic stuff. Just replace the death part with something ridiculous and off topic. Its very entertaining

This also works with calling myself things like stupid, worthless, trash, etc. Even if you do this jokingly to yourself, your brain still believes it, and keeps up the cycle. Seriously, I found that when I stopped saying these things about myself, even jokingly, it made a massive difference.

Here’s a tip I picked up from a friend that’s helped me a lot — replace self deprecating jokes with ironically self aggrandizing jokes

Like every time I trip and fall, instead of saying “l’m just a disaster human” I say “I’m the epitome of grace and beauty”

Or like, when I draw a picture I’m not 100% happy with, instead of saying “my art is trash” I say something like “you know I think it’s time we replaced the Mona Lisa”

When you do that you get to make a joke, but you’re ALSO getting practice building yourself up, y’know?

And eventually it becomes a reflex and you get so used to it that you can say nice stuff about yourself even when you AREN’T joking

This is so important

There’s a fine line between “pushing yourself out of your comfort zone” and “pushing yourself into a mental breakdown” and we need to fucking find it and stop encouraging people to do the second in an attempt at making them do the first.

A German pedagogue named Tom Senninger developed this model called the “Learning Zone Model.” Senninger talks about three zones: comfort, learning (or growth), and panic. I think that’s really important because some people do talk like anything “outside your comfort zone” is automatically good and brings growth.

But Senninger knows that you can only stretch so far before you’ve stretched too far. Both experience, personal work, and therapy can help expand the first two zones and shrink the third, but we’ll always have that place where panic and/or pain sets in, and our goal should be to recognize and respect that in ourselves and others, rather than force ourselves or someone else to “push through it.” There is no “through it.” The only thing on the other side of the panic zone is more panic.

This is super good advice. Learn about your boundaries and demand that people respect them more guys.

Writers: It’s okay to take a break.

Just a friendly reminder that it’s okay to take a break from writing. For a day. For a month. For however long you want to. Just because you aren’t physically writing doesn’t mean you’re not a writer. Resting is part of the process, too. So is meandering, living life, letting ideas flow through you while you take a long bath. Go have experiences so that you have something to write about. Get your heart broken. Rub your face on the grass. Sleep. If you hate yourself if you aren’t writing or being overtly “productive,” the question to ask is not, “How can I force myself to write more so that I feel better about myself?” but “How can I love myself no matter what?” and “How can I respect my process, which involves periods of not wanting to or not being able to write?” You don’t have to DO anything to be worthy, lovable, and awesome. It’s okay to take break.

Rehab for writing injuries

You’ve heard of “making writing a habit,” and you’ve tried, but the pressure to write fills you with horrible pain and dread. You spend all your time wishing you could write but somehow never writing. The “make it a habit” approach doesn’t work for you. But you still want to write, maybe even regularly. Is there nothing you can do?

Here is an alternative approach to try. A rehab program, as it were, for writers with a psychological “writing injury” that has destroyed their desire to write and replaced it with shame, anxiety and dread.

If you have a writing injury, you probably acquired it by being cruel to yourself, by internalizing some intensely critical voice or set of rules that crushes your will to write under the boot-heel of “you should.” “You should be writing better after all the years of experience you’ve had.” “You should be writing more hours a day, you’ll never get published at this rate.” “You should write more like [Hilton Als/Jeffrey Eugenides/Octavia Butler/Terry Pratchett/etc.].” “You should write faster/more/better/etc./etc.”

You know what, though? Fuck all that. Self-abuse may have featured heavily in the cool twentieth-century writer’s lifestyle, but we are going to treat ourselves differently. Because 1) it’s nicer, and 2) frankly, it gets better results. My plan here is to help you take the radical step of caring for yourself.

1) First of all: ask yourself why you aren’t writing. 

Not with the goal of fixing the problem, but…just to understand. For a moment, dial down all of the “goddammit, why can’t I just write?” blaring in your head and be curious about yourself. Clearly, you have a reason for not writing. Humans don’t do anything for no reason. Try to discover what it is. And be compassionate; don’t reject anything you discover as “not a good enough excuse.” Your reasons are your reasons.

For me, writing was painful because I wanted it to solve all my problems. I wanted it to make me happy and whole. I hated myself and hoped writing would transform me into a totally different person. When it failed to do that, as it always did, I felt like shit.

Maybe writing hurts because you’ve loaded it with similarly unfair expectations. Or maybe you’re a victim of low expectations. Maybe people have told you you’re stupid or untalented or not fluent enough in the language you write in. Maybe writing has become associated with painful events in your life. Maybe you’ve just been forced to write so many times that you can no longer write without feeling like someone’s making you do it. Writing-related pain and anxiety can come from so many different places.

2) Once you have some idea of why you’re not writing…just sit with that.

Don’t go into problem-solving mode. Just nod to yourself and say, “yes, that’s a good reason. If I were me, I wouldn’t want to write either.” Have some sympathy for yourself and the pain you’re in.

3) Now…keep sitting with it. That’s it, for the moment. No clever solutions. Just sympathize. And, most importantly, grant yourself permission to not write, for a while.

It’s okay. You are good and valuable and worthy of love, even when you aren’t writing. There are still beautiful, true things inside of you.

Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for humans to do things if they don’t have permission not to do them. It’s especially hard if those things are also painful. We hate feeling trapped or compelled, and we hate having our feelings disregarded. It shuts us down in every possible way. You will feel more desire to write, therefore, if you believe you are free not to write, and if you believe it’s okay not to do what causes you pain.

(By the way: not having permission isn’t the same as knowing there will be negative consequences. “If I don’t write, I won’t make my deadline” is different from “I’m not allowed not to write, even if it hurts.” One is just awareness of cause and effect; the other is a kind of slavery.)

4) For at least a week, take an enforced vacation from writing, and from any demands that you write. During this time, you are not permitted to write or give yourself grief for not writing. 

This may or may not be reverse psychology. But it’s more than that.

Think of it as a period of convalescence. You’re keeping your weight off an injury so it can heal, and what’s broken is your desire to write. Pitilessly forcing yourself to write when it’s painful, plus the shame you feel when you don’t write, is what broke that desire. So, for a week (or a month, or a year, or however long you need) tell yourself you are taking a doctor-prescribed break from writing.

This will feel scary for some folks. You might feel like you’re giving up. You might worry that this break from writing feels too good, that your desire to write might never return. All I can say is, I’ve been there. I’ve had all those fears and feelings. And the desire to write did return. But you gotta treat it like a tiny crocus shoot and not stomp on it the second it pokes its little head up. Like so:

5) Once you feel an itch to write again—once you start to chafe against the doctor’s orders—you can write a tiny bit. Only five or ten minutes a day. 

That’s it. I’m serious: set a timer, and stop writing when the time’s up. No cheating. (Well…maybe you can take an extra minute to finish your thought, if necessary.)

Remember: these rules are not like the old rules, the ones that said, “you must write or you suck.” These rules are a form of self-care. You are not imposing a cruel, arbitrary law, you are being gentle with yourself. Not “easy” or “soft”—any Olympic athlete will tell you that hard exercise when you’ve got an injury is stupid and pointless, not tough or virtuous. If you need an excuse to take care of yourself, that’s it: if you’re injured, you can’t perform well, and aggravating the injury could take you out of the competition permanently.

For the first few days, all of the writing you do should be freewriting. Later, you can do some tiny writing exercises. Don’t jump into an old project you stalled out on. Think small and exploratory, not big and goal-oriented. And whatever you do, don’t judge the output. If you have to, don’t even read what you write. This is exercise, not performance; this is you stretching your atrophied writing muscles, not you trying to write something good. At this stage, it literally doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you generate words. (Frankly, it would be kind of weird and unfair if your writing at this point was good.)

6) After a week, you can increase your time limit if you want. But only a little! 

Spend a week limiting yourself to, say, twenty minutes a day instead of ten. When in doubt, set your limit for less than you think you’ll need. You want to end each writing session feeling like you could keep going, not like you’re crawling across the finish line.

Should you write every day? That’s up to you. Some people will find it helpful to put writing on their calendar at the same time each day. Others will be horribly stifled by that. You get to decide when and how often you write, but two things: 1) think about what you, personally, need when you make that decision, and 2) allow that decision to be flexible.

Remember, the only rule is, don’t go over your daily limit. You always have permission to write less.

And keep checking in with yourself. Remember how this program began? If something hurts, if your brain is sending you “I don’t wanna” signals, respect them. Investigate them, find out what their deal is. You might decide to (gently) encourage yourself to write in spite of them, but don’t ignore your pain. You are an athlete, and athletes listen to their bodies, especially when they’re recovering from an injury. If writing feels shitty one day, give yourself a reward for doing it. If working on a particular project ties your brain in knots, do a little freewriting to loosen up. And always be willing to take a break. You always have permission not to write.

7) Slowly increase your limit over time, but always have a limit. 

And when you’re not writing, you’re not writing. You don’t get to berate yourself for not writing. If you find yourself regularly blazing past your limit, then increase your limit, but don’t set large aspirational limits in an effort to make yourself write more. In fact, be ready to adjust your limit lower.

When it comes to mental labor, after all, more is not always better. Apparently, the average human brain can only concentrate for about 45 minutes at a time, and it only has about four or so high-quality 45-minute sessions a day in it. That’s three hours. So if you set your daily limit for more than three hours, you may be working at reduced efficiency, when you’d be better off saving up your ideas and motivation for the next day. (Plus, health and other factors may in fact give you less than 3 good hours a day. That’s okay!)

Of course, if you’re a professional writer or a student, external pressures may force you to write when your brain is tired, but my point is more about attitude: constant work is not necessarily better work. So don’t make it into a moral ideal. We tend to think that working less is morally weak or wrong, and that’s bullshit. Taking care of yourself is practical. Pushing yourself too hard will just hurt you and your writing. Also, your feelings are real and they matter. If you ignore or abuse them, you’ll be like a runner trying to run on a broken ankle.

I know I’m going to get someone who says, “if you’re a pro, sometimes you gotta ignore your feelings and just get the work done!” 

NO. 

You can, of course, choose to work in spite of any pain you’re feeling. But ignore that pain at your peril. Instead, acknowledge the pain and be compassionate. Forgive yourself if pain slows you down. You are human, so don’t hold your feet to the fire for having human limitations. Maybe a deadline is forcing you to work anyway. But make yourself a cup of hot chocolate to get you through it, literally or metaphorically. Help yourself, don’t force yourself. If you’ve had a serious writing injury, that shift in attitude will make all the difference. 

In short: treat yourself as someone whose feelings matter.

Try it out! And let me know how it goes!

Ask a question or send me feedback!

THIS

This is the kindest writing advice ever. I love it.

This is amazing.

The one thing I disagree with is the enforced writing times. Probably because my writer’s block always stems from not feeling like the words are coming out properly, so I’m not going to question it if I can get something that I can edit later.

But yes, don’t hate on yourself because it’s not happening at that specific time.

That’s a good point. If you’re making progress and you’re afraid to interrupt that, please don’t! A modified way to think of this is just to stop before you get depleted. Don’t cut yourself off in the middle of your flow, but don’t keep writing until you drop either. Make sure you conserve some energy and enthusiasm for the next time.

(The timed writing sessions thing applies better to freewriting than to work on actual projects, by the way. If you’re working on a story, then yeah, you don’t want to stop arbitrarily at a critical moment when you still have thoughts burning to get out.)

in my head theres a little mouse wearing a little apron and she makes all my emotions

she needs to read a fuckin recipe this bitch is just making a MESS

shes doing her best… maybe shed do better if you were nicer to her

making serotonin is the cooking equivalent to scrambling an egg and she can’t even do that right smh

Hi I’m Catifex and I want you to make your mouse’s work easier!

- This is a step by step on getting a therapist

- Need to find a therapist by location? Psychologytoday lets you search by city or zip code in the USA, Canada, or UK. 

- Can’t afford therapy? No insurance? Need low cost options? Here is a great list of ways to get help when money or insurance is an issue..

Reblogging this in the hopes that the image of a sweet little mouse doing her best to make my emotions will help me remember to be kinder to myself.

you can replenish your health by…: drinking water, breathing fresh air, eating a wild strawberry…

you can restore your mana by…: listening to folk music, breathing fresh air applies to this one as well… taking a walk…

I suddenly feel less pessimistic about these suggestions for improving mental health purely bc it’s worded like this

i genuinely hope anyone ages 13-15 on this website (or, god forbid, younger) stays safe and keeps their private information secure and really private 

please, if you’re really young on tumblr, try not to get swept up in the discourse and the tremendous amount of arguing with strangers that goes on here. i know you probably feel mature for your age but this website, like, really psychologically affects youth, and i encourage you to be cautious about your interactions with people on here

 please, kiddos, stay safe

additionally, for my young, non-adult followers,

on the validity of recognizing emotions

…I do this and it helps but I get the feeling that it will work even better if I imagine myself as a swan.

PSA

You feel like shit is a website set up to help you get out of that funk/improve things just enough to not feel horrible and miserable all the time.  It’s amazing.

Whether you struggle with mental health problems all the time or whether this is a new/temporary state for you, this guide is an easy and judgement-free self-care tool.

PLEASE TRY IT OUT!  Really!  You just click through the questions to answer and follow simple instructions that in the end, ideally, will help you to feel more comfortable and stable on a daily basis. 

Good luck!  Have fun!

Wow this self-care took is incredible.

I’m feeling ok right now and am about to settle into bed (but this was scheduled hence the early morning post) but I flipped through it for awhile just to see what it is like and holy crap it’s like a choose-your-own-adventure of self-care activities that not only aims to engage you in positive feel good behaviors but also tries to match its suggestions to your level of energy/ability/can even.

I think I am going to use this definitely when I am having a bad time but maybe also try to incorporate it into my life on at least a weekly if not a daily or semi-daily basis.

This is super super awesome!

Adding this to my resource list.

I LOVE this. Love this.

I use this on a daily basis and I LOVE it! it’s kept me from forgetting to take my meds and being all pissy the next day lol.

This is absolutely fantastic! I haven’t tried out every option on there but I went through it once as a test and was super impressed.

My emotions are valid*

*valid does not mean healthy, or good, or to be privileged above common sense and kindness

A distinction for anyone who is young and hasn’t figured this out yet:

You are allowed to have whatever emotions you want. No one can control your emotions. Emotions are healthy responses to things.

You are not allowed to have behaviors that are harmful just because you have certain emotions. Your behaviors are what you can control, and they are far easier to control than your emotions.

You can be jealous about someone or their talents until you turn green, but it is harmful to yourself and to that person if you try to sabotage them because of it. You can be so angry you can literally feel your temperature rise, but this does not give you permission to rage at others.

Your emotions are valid. They are always valid. You are a person of value. However, you behaviors are not always justified just because of those emotions. You may not be able to control you emotions, but you can certainly control your behaviors.

please be gentle with yourself. you’re trying. if it’s taking you longer than you thought to achieve something or get somewhere that’s okay. try not to compare yourself to others too much because not everyone gets to where they need to be right away. you’re alive that’s what matters. keep trying. you’ll get there.

hey man i haven’t seen a single similar post (concerning???) so i feel like it’s important to make this.

tomorrow is ramadan. your eating disorder will not magically disappear in ramadan.

allah will not hate you if you relapse in ramadan. be it that you faint or you binge, if you need to break your fast because of your eating disorder THEN YOU BREAK YOUR FAST.

You are not supposed to fast when you are sick. YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO FAST WHEN YOU ARE SICK. IT IS HARAM TO FAST IF YOU ARE SICK BECAUSE IT BRINGS HARM TO YOUR BODY. If you start feeling horribly sick and you know, you haven’t had sufficient suhoor or iftar for a few days or anything of the sort, it is okay to break your fast and even go to the hospital if you need to.

habaybi that have eating disorders, PLEASE take care of yourself during ramadan. It is a month of cleansing and forgiveness, so forgive yourself if you relapse. You can always redo your fast after ramadan.

Jazakallah please reblog this post and ramadan mubarak to you all! ♡

19 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before I Turned 20 so I Didn’t Waste a Decade:

 a list poem for working-class  girls trying to grow up and into themselves

1. It is okay to leave anyone and anything and anyplace that makes you feel like shit.  It’s hard, but it’s okay.  And fuck explaining anything to anyone, unless you want to.  Let them fucking wonder.

 2. Know who the fuck you are.  Not just on some touchy-feely fuzzy pretty-on-the-inside tip, but knowing who you are racially, culturally, in relationship to your sexuality, gender and your class- is a source of your power.  You define that for you.   Don’t ever let anyone else tell you who you are.  This may change in time, as you grow and learn more.  That’s okay.  Manage any shame or guilt you may feel through acts of accountability.

 3.  Be accountable for what you do.  This means owning up to how you fuck up, just as much as it means owning and defending the contested space you fill.  You will fuck up, and only you can seek atonement for this.  You will need to defend yourself, and rarely will anyone do that work for you.  Acknowledging both your mistakes and your rights as equally important.

 4. They will call you crazy.  You are a woman.  There is no way of going through the world in the moment we live in and not get called crazy by someone, often someone you wish would see you as deeply sane.  You are not crazy.  The world is fucking crazy.  If you are affected by this imbalanced, unjust world, it only proves that you are a sentient being with some sense of empathy.

 5. Empathy is built.  You need to learn to really listen.  This means listening without thinking about how it relates to you, or planning the next thing you are going to say.  This means seeing everyone, regardless of who they are, as a human being.  You cannot really be a human being unless you regard everyone as such, even your greatest nemeses and the gravest perpetrators.  All of our damage comes from somewhere.  Yours and everyone else’s.  Learn to listen to others.  Learn to listen to yourself.  Empathy cannot exist without really, deeply listening first.

 6. You are going to have moments of unbearable pain.  It takes time to learn how to heal yourself.  And healing sometimes still leaves scars.  Healing is sometimes incomplete.  Think of your scars as battle-wounds – evidence of how much wiser you are now- maps of where not to return.  Cherish these scars and honor them.  There will come times when they are the only reminder of where you have been, and how much you still need to grow.

 7. You are going to have moments of unbearable loneliness.  You need to learn how to love being with yourself, because ultimately, no one has the potential to love you like you can.  It is beautiful to love and be loved, but these are just hints as to how to regard yourself.  If you regard yourself highly, and learn to turn loneliness into soothing solitude, you will be capable of giving and receiving truly transformative love.

 8. Find something that makes you feel like the world makes sense, even if you can’t justify it intellectually to yourself or anyone else.  Personally, if I don’t rock a wall, get up, get laid, get down on a dancefloor, read a good book, write a poem, listen to a mind-blowing record or have a soul-shaking, satisfying conversation at least once a week, the world doesn’t make sense to me and I am unmoored.  If I don’t get these things for a month, I become a total, inconsolable, incomprehensible wreck.  This wreck can easily snowball into all kinds of self-destruction.  Find what works for you and be loyal to it as a loyalty to yourself.

 9. The world you live in is sick.  This sickness creeps into all of us, and in many it manifests as an inability to love oneself, let alone others.  Some of those afflicted with a parasitic strain of this illness will latch onto you as a host.  You may believe it is part of your nature to nurture and support endlessly.  These people will eat your love whole, and you with it, and leave you as a husk.  You can grow again from your husk, but it will be hard, and it takes time and the training of betrayal and heartbreak to learn to trust yourself enough to determine who is worthy of your trust.  Do not let anyone ride you.  Only walk with those who will walk side by side with you, as an equal.

 10. Do not fuck with lovers that don’t prioritize your pleasure.  That can look like a lot of different things, and you’re probably still figuring it out.  Don’t put up with lovers that don’t give you room to explore, to express, and above all – if a lover is only focused on using you as a vessel to reach their plateau –be out.  This doesn’t mean to ignore your partner’s pleasure, but rather to see yours as of equal worth.

 11.  You are not responsible for the actions of those who hated themselves so much that they hurt you.

 12. Collectivism is a beautiful concept, and something worth constantly striving toward and building.  Collectivism has radically changed and challenged unjust structures and institutions.  But if you sacrifice your own survival for the benefit of the whole, you will find yourself wringing your hands and questioning the meaning of your life and doubting the worth of others in light of their unabashed self-interest.  Find a balance.

 13.  Do not carry broken people who are not in the process of rebuilding themselves.

 14. You are not your job.  Your job is simply a paycheck, and you are probably not compensated what you are worth and it is not your fucking fault- you inherited a broken economic system, and you will not be the first generation to fight for your right to live.  But you need to fucking fight for your right to live, in solidarity, with those around you who are also struggling.

 15.  Going to college is an accomplishment.  It does not, however, make you better than anyone else.  It doesn’t make you essentially more intelligent.  You never really make it “out” of the class you came from, and you never really make it “in” to the class you aspired to.

 16.  If you cannot translate what you have learned from whatever access you’ve had back to wherever you came from, then you have not gained anything- you have changed.  Assimilation is a choice.  Seek to be a translator.  Seek to share your access to those who you may have left behind.  Seek to disrupt the structures that taught those of us who gained more access that we are worth more than where we left, and less than what we found ourselves among.

17. Never take validation too deeply to heart.  This is especially true of those who came up entrenched in the age of social media.  The gaze of hegemony is always on us.  Find validation in the ratio between how positively you impact yourself and others versus how you fuck up and hurt others.  You will hurt others.  Be accountable for this, when you need to be, and always be mindful of how often that happens in relation to those you help grow.  None of us can be saints, but we can be salient and sentient.

 18. Take your struggle to your community, and find community in those whose struggles intersect.  It is only within one another that we will make any sense of this destroyed world and it’s corrupt ideology that we’ve inherited.  Fight.  Fight.  Fight.

 19.  You are inherently valuable.  You have worth.  Ask no one for permission.

Burnt out

I’ve felt very burnt out lately. I have projects I know I should be working on, but I just can’t seem to do so.

What do you guys do for motivation at times like these?

Motivation is fleeting. Discipline is required for when you feel burnt out.

I understand where you’re at, 100%. My current project is taking way longer than I thought it would, and longer than most of my previous projects. It’s very easy to get discouraged.

I work on my game every single day, even if it’s just a few lines of code or placing a few tiles on the map.

Don’t worry about quality or quantity, as long as you sit down and work on your project every day. Build the habit. Try not to miss any days. Don’t break the chain and don’t get discouraged. Keep your eye on the prize!

Consistency in Anything is always the key.

Loads of good advice in this chain, but also remember that it’s important to ascertain where that burnout and lack of motivation is coming from.

Self care might be more important right now than “pushing through” - plenty of situations where you could just make things worse if you don’t take the time to look after yourself. Burnout is insidious in how it can lead to more burnout!

Yes, very good point by @enteagd​!

If you’re having trouble because of stress or anxiety or depression or any number of other things, make sure you take appropriate care of yourself. That’s definitely more important than finishing a project. (This also ties into knowing your priorities, but that’s a slightly different topic.)

Talk to a doctor, therapist, friend, etc if you think your physical and/or mental health issues may be to blame. There’s no shame in getting help.

– It’s not exactly 3D related but it will help so much with 3D work. –

Great advice above but also remember to take a break once in a while. Refresh your eyes. Holidays are important and taking a day away from everything (or even a couple of hours) will seriously make you feel better (speaking from experience that is).