My Current Go-Tos for High Stress Times.
Okay, this a little different.
Excellent method for feeling better right away.
Books for Trauma and Depression.
Great Ted Talk About Depression.
This TED talk by K.C. Davis is called "How to Do Laundry When You Are Depressed". It's very real and down to earth. I highly recommend you watch it.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1O_MjMRkPg
If You Need to Talk to Someone.
In the Us we have warmlines https://warmline.org/warmdir.html#directory if
you need someone to talk to and it's not an emergency.
and crisis lines if it is. https://www.apa.org/topics/crisis-hotlines
and prayer lines
Better Help is a paid service that has counseling that you
don't have to leave home for. https://www.betterhelp.com/
Another Writing Based Resource.
The Crappy Childhood Fairy recommends a technique called The Daily Practice and she has a short free course on how to do it here. The Daily Practice for Healing Childhood PTSD (crappychildhoodfairy.com) In my opinion, this is good for healing of any kind of trauma or stress and is not specific for childhood complex PTSD. It is just good for you to write it out and meditate/pray. Give it a try.
Setting Boundaries.
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Setting boundaries for yourself and for other people is vital to living a happy life. I have discovered recently a podcast called Beyond Bitchy which teaches you how to make/define boundaries and live a better life. Beyond Bitchy: Mastering the Art of Boundaries | Podcast with Vicki Tidwell Palmer, LCSW
I think every single human on the planet would benefit from listening to this. I am not exaggerating.
A great resource if binge eating is part of your life.
There is a therapist online called The Binge Eating Therapist. The Binge Eating Therapist - YouTube Her name is Sarah Dosanjh and she is a lovely person. She's written a book called "I Can't Stop Eating". Check out her book on Amazon and follow the link above. In one of her videos, she reads the entire book aloud because she wants people to get the help they need. Follow her channel and give her videos a like.
A Couple of Great Resources.
I have found a couple of really good resources on Youtube. The first one that I found is a Youtube channel called Therapy in a Nutshell. It's run by a real therapist, Emma McAdam. She teaches methods for dealing with anxiety and depression, as well as relationship skills in a series of videos. It is fantastic. Very helpful for anxiety. Here's a link. Therapy in a Nutshell - YouTube
The second one is about childhood PTSD and it's called The Crappy Childhood Fairy. It's run by Anna Runkle and she is not a therapist, but just a person who experienced some trauma in childhood and has learned to heal from it. Her link is here. Crappy Childhood Fairy - YouTube.
If you had any trauma in childhood or if you have any anxiety, these are definitely worth watching. I recommend them whole-heartedly.
Playing video games - a way that I cope.
As we have previously discussed on this blog, playing video games is a good way to deal with/distract yourself from depression. I've been playing the Sims 4 and since I don't have any place else to share this, I am going to share some Sims 4 challenges that I have come up with. I don't know if any of my readers play the Sims or follow the Sims, but if you do, you probably know that it's a very open ended game and it's fun, for a while, but then if you don't have something to make your Sims do or cope with, it's not any kind of a challenge. The 100 baby challenge is very popular right now, where you make your Sim have as many babies as you can and then when she gets too old, you choose her youngest daughter and she has as many babies as she can. I like this one, but I've never made it very far. I get bored before I get anywhere near 100. So, on my own, I came up with the 26 baby challenge. Have 1 baby for each letter of the alphabet and name them that way, Archer, Becca, Caleb … etc. This would have the same rules as the 100 baby challenge otherwise.
Here are a few of my other ideas, not completely fleshed out as all the rules go, but the community can come up with those, I'm sure.
1. Homeless challenge. This one has already been done, but the way I do it may be a little different. I get the Sim a lot, but no home. He or she has an aspiration of having a mansion. They can work or earn money by freelancing, gathering produce, fishing or whatever. They can invite themselves to picnics that other sims are having in the park and go to the gym to take a shower. As they earn money, they can build a home. The first home I usually build for them is just a little room with a toilet in it, because that seems like the most important thing. Then we progress to a toilet, a bed and a fridge. Before the bed, they have to sleep on park benches. When they get the mansion baron aspiration completed, you win.
Variation one: After they get a decent sized home, they can (if you want) have them run a homeless shelter, by taking in town Sims and giving them makeovers, getting them skills, maybe a 5 in 3 different skills and moving them out. It's a lot of fun giving these people makeovers. :-)
Variation two: They can start out as a homeless single parent, with a baby or toddler, child or teenager or they can have a partner and be an entire homeless family. You will need to have baby and toddler essentials.
Variation three: They inherit a mansion but no furniture or furnishings of any kind. They are penniless at the beginning but they can fish, work, garden, gather, freelance or anything to earn the furnishings of the home. Mansion baron aspiration.
Variation four: You do a 10 or 5 or 3 minute challenge build for them (depending on how good you are). All the house you can build in your limited minutes is what they get to live in. Then, take away all their remaining money and they have to figure out how to get by until they can get their house finished.
Gardener Challenge: Get one of every kind of plant that exists in the Sims 4 game version that you own (except the cowplant - you don' t have to go there). There's a list here. https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/skills/gardening/#plant-list You could also just gather, say, 15 different types of plants and have them growing in your yard. Harvestable plants are growing all over the place. They sparkle so they're easy to find. You can eat them or plant them.
Dicey Decisions: Get a set of D&D dice and roll them to make ALL of your decisions. What hairstyle, what aspirations, what décor, etc. It's very fun and you may enjoy some of the choices you would have ordinarily made on your own.
Of course, exercise.
There are millions of studies that show that exercise is great for you in every way, but here's another one, specifically targeting depression symptoms. Harvard Study
I recommend doing a few of these videos. Just get up and do it, even if you don't feel like it and don't want to. If you, like me, can't do all the exercises because of bad knees, just keep moving.
There's a good collection of depression hotline numbers here. Depression hotlines.
You can also call and speak to a pastor at (800) 525-LOVE (5683).
Give yourself a hug!
It sounds weird, but as we have found on this blog, weird things work. Our bodies react to the act of crossing your arms and hugging yourself with a reduction in sensations of pain and a sense of safety. It helps you feel loved and care for.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-willpower/201105/hugging-yourself-reduces-physical-pain
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-neff/self-compassion_b_884665.html
Another good article on AT.
Apartment Therapy - How to Feel Like a New Person in 15 minutes.
As we go into the holidays.
