So blah blah life stressors/work stuff/not fabulous habits/shitty sleep/being a queer Jewish American with a uterus in 2026/perimenopause/my baseline mental health bullshit… basically I have gone and gotten the brains in a bit of a pickle. I’ve been in a partial hospital program for a few weeks.

(Now for those of you just joining us, I’m a therapist who works with teenagers. So I had some game going in, knowledge wise. But when stressed I tend to be a brain in a jar and I have been pickling in a very toxic brine, so I needed some help reattaching my head and my body. Anyway.)

This program uses a different therapy model (ACT = Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and there are a couple of things I’ve learned that were really powerful that I wanted to share.

- who actually is your inner critic? Like, what do they want? Imagine just turning to that horrible judgy voice in your head and compassionately asking “what is it you want, exactly?”

Like, Karen the Successful White Lady in my head needs to shut the fuck up, because her diatribes are cruel as fuck and genuinely making me want to die cry a lot. And also, when I turned and faced her, well mainly she would like me to do some movement and hydrate and have a house that is pleasant to live in and follow through on my commitments.

And in this program I was able to sit with her (myself) a little and now I’m like — you know what, Karen, you can be an absolutely hateful, judgy bitch, but these are some fair points. So how about you work on developing some compassion and I’ll take this under advisement.

And then I felt some feelings, which leads to the other thing.

- wait a minute, go back to the feeling part. I’m a very analytical person with a lot of anxiety and I can tell you exactly what the feeling is that I’m feeling, how it got there, what part of my backstory is getting triggered, etc etc. Like, give me a feeling, I will give you a nuanced understanding of that feeling’s origin. I do not suck at this either personally or professionally.

Some of you may have noticed that I missed a step. Turns out, I jump right from stimulus to analysis. I’m not actually numb or alexithymic, but l am very, very avoidant and I want to throw my big brain at a problem. So I go right to “let’s figure this out.”

Turns out, we gotta feel the feeling. Yes, you. And me. And all of us on this nerdy wordy website. We can’t skip this step. Your body will eventually be tired of quietly and politely Keeping The Score and reach a point where it cannot do it anymore. Ask me how I know.

But if we feel the feeling — like actually sit with it and cry and scream or whatever, and breathe, and do whatever we gotta do to re-regulate (I’m learning TIPP skills in my program) — if we can do that, the feeling doesn’t sit around in our bodies destroying our peace on a molecular level. We need to complete the stress cycle, like the Nagoski sisters say.

I knew this intellectually, but um, actually, our stress response cycle doesn’t care how smart we are. We don’t get a pass on this. I have been jumping to analysis because, for me, that’s the easy part. But avoiding the actual feeling just lets it stew in your brain. Go back, Sanj, you skipped a step, my good bean.

God fucking dammit, it is so annoying, i gotta breathe and jump around again. Such bullshit.

Anyway, I know lots of skills, I can go for days. But this is the really, really hard one we genuinely can’t skip.

So anyway, that’s what I learned on my winter vacation desperately necessary medical leave. These are really new habits, so I’m not immediately and magically fixed, but I have a direction to go in, and that’s something.

I thought I would share because I suspect a lot of you can relate — and look, I just saved you 5-6 weeks of intensive outpatient therapy.

This would have had me crucified on tumblr 10 years ago but maybe we are ready for this conversation now:

If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.

This is a PSA to about 3/4s of the Portland Youth populace

everyone who reblogs this and is like "I ordered my own tea this week" or "I only barfed once when I had to give a presentation'- you are doing amazing sweetie. Have patience with yourself, you are relearning a skill so difficult that people get 4 year degrees to do it professionally.

Why is it?? That I can go through the whole day feeling fine and dandy but the second I lay down for bed impending doom settles on me?

🤔 a compelling model

Experiencing catastrophizing anxiety can be like doomscrolling headlines your brain is writing in real time, and I like this metaphor because then when I notice I'm doing it I can tell myself to get a better editor and stop posting clickbait

Honestly it boils down to reparenting yourself & rewiring your own neuronal pathways & telling yourself a firm “stop” when you notice your mind slipping down negative loopholes & being present in the moment & enjoying being mid task rather than waiting for it to end & not thinking of inertia as your baseline and natural way of living

So tempting to keep embarking on the same self destructive cycle over & over & over again . But at some point you have to put ur foot down w ur own behaviors & be the thing that truly saves u

#this is unfortunately true#it’s not easy to tell yourself Hey Drop It#like you’re your own dog furtively eating pinecones and rocks#but you gotta#sometimes it’s a Hey We’re Not Doing That#you gotta though

Something that really helped me recently in therapy is when my therapist asked, "If you could give a name to [your anxiety], what would you name it?" and I really surprised myself when I instinctively and reflexively chose a name that to me has strong associations of PROTECTION. I didn't realize how much my anxiety was an impulse to try to protect me, but I knew it subconsciously, and giving it that name shone an instant light on that fact and made it IMMEDIATELY easier to treat my anxiety with empathy and gentleness. It's just trying to help me, it doesn't know that it's getting in the way. :( It's doing its best, and so am I. Like I immediately found myself talking to it the same cadence I use to address my cat???? Like in the tones of "[slightly warning sing-song] Baby, what do you have in your mouth? What are you crunching on over there? No, come on, don't eat the plastic, sweetheart, that's not for cats. No, I know you want to lick it, but it's not good for you, honey. [puts it in the trash]"

idk. YMMV

"How do you brainstorm your ideas and stories?"

Listen, man, I've been using thinking about fictional characters and their problems to avoid thinking about The Horrors since I was single digits in age. I have no idea how to start. Nor do I know how to stop. The inside of my head is constant "what ifs". I just made them fun instead of horrifying.

The reason trying to motivate yourself to do a task by focusing on what will happen if you don’t do it never works is because the dumb monkey part of your brain can’t tell the difference between anxiety at the prospect of doing the task and anxiety at the prospect of not doing the task. You’re thinking “this task is easy and the consequences of not doing it would be horrible, so I have no reason not to do it”, but all the dumb monkey brain sees is “thinking about task causes anxiety, therefore task bad!”.

Someone not responding to you right away does not mean that you’re not important to them. I know it can be hard, but other people are allowed to be busy, or even just not have the energy to respond to you. This doesn’t mean they don’t care about you.

Ahhh but when you see them active on other things?😤

Sometimes people have the energy to be “online” and look at posts or whatever else, but don’t have the energy to reply to people. And that’s really valid.

Smashing the reblog button on tumblr, or shitposting on Facebook, or vague-blogging in a Dreamwidth braindump takes a whole lot less energy (and more critically focus) than actually interacting with a human whose feelings I care to protect.

Sometimes, we have anxiety and it's simpler to just wait until we have energy to reply 'properly.'

I say this with the most tender of affection, but I feel like more of you bitches should be on anxiety medication

that's not even me being mean-funny, I'm just seeing waaaaaaaay too many people with untreated anxiety, and that is an incredibly soul-sucking way to live. you deserve better, so please be aware that medication and therapy are both powerful treatment options to consider.

me: has had 2 good days in a row

my brain: It’s Time

me: for what

my brain: It’s Time

you better watch out, you better watch out, you better watch oUT, YOU BETTER WATCH OUT, YOU BETTER WATCH OUT, YOU BETT–

me when feeling suspiciously relaxed: what responsibility have i forgotten

meirl

— Brené Brown, The Power of Vulnerability (via optais-amme)

I always reblog this cos I know ppl who have anxiety around stuff like that who find this helpful (anxiety’s not always rational, & even ppl superinformed about how magic works etc can get nasty intrusive surges of shit from seeing those posts from time to time!)

What the guy above said, and also this is adorable.