Life and trauma

@Former-Member oh dang, that's no good. I wish I could say I was surprised ay.

I'll share this link again - maybe ill timed again though, if your brain is not in the spot for reading right now, but you can always open it up to come back to when you're closer to baseline again - Coping with Flashbacks

I just looked to see if I could find some guided grounding exercises - not sure if either of these are any good, they might be informative moreso than guided, least the first one seems to be:

Grounding exercises for anxiety and dissociation

10 Minute Grounding exercise

Finding ways to stay connected to the present helps - via sensory focusing (e.g. naming things you can see, hear, smell, feel, or taste) or by reminding yourself that you are here, not there where the flashbacks are happening, and that you're safe from whatever happened in them.

More hugs comin atcha! 🫂🫂🫂

@Jynx oohh thanks for all the links, I've opened them all up in separate tabs so I can read through them.

Staying connected to the present when they are happening seems to be a real challenge. It kind of just takes over and I find myself stuck in the past reliving everything. That's when that fear of losing control kicks in especially after what's just happened. I try hard to remind myself that I'm safe and that it can't hurt me, but it's just so overwhelming. My doctors appointment really can't come soon enough, I need some sort of support to manage this.

@Former-Member oh yay, I hope there's some nuggets in there that you find useful!!

I gotta dash, but we can touch base on this again tomorrow if you like hun!! Cos off the top of my head all I got is 'crisis lines' - which is deffo an option! But I may recall it being not a fond option for you?

Thanks for the chats tonight!! Hope the colouring keeps you content and sleep finds you swiftly 💜

@Jynx I've read through the first one and I want to try and write them out and put them up. But my writing isn't pretty enough so I'm not sure how I'm going to work that one 😂.

I'd love to chat about it more tomorrow. I'm giving the crisis lines a break as it was just bringing my down more everytime I was let down by them. I know they are still there if I need them but I'm managing ok just having the chats here.

Thanks for the chats and being there when things got rough. Enjoy your night ❤️

@Former-Member

I have an app that I find helpful "calm harm"

It gives you the option of 5 minute activities or 15 minutes activities under 4 categories, comfort, distract, express and release

Not what I came here for though. I have a cool story for you.

I was picking up dinner and when heading back to my car I saw a gift card in a trolley. It has $21.68 on it and so one of the retailers was Officeworks.

I got a new water bottle, a matching pen and washi tape for the advent calendars I'm building. I only paid $3.32

@avant-garde thanks for sharing.

Oohh cool story, glad you were able to treat yourself to some things 😊.

@Former-Member ahaha I've got the messy handwriting curse too!! End up doing bubble writing or like, colouring it in cos I make mistakes so I have to thicken the lines lol

Very happy to keep chatting about it all!! How are you feeling today anyhow?

Oooh boo ya @avant-garde what a score!!

@Jynx my normal handwriting is fine, but I can't do any fancy lettering and I'm self conscious about trying due to teachers putting me down during my school years.

Honestly today hasn't been great, I shared a snippet of my story in a post earlier. I just feel like everything has hit me hard today, like all the past has come flooding back. So honestly I'm not even sure how I'm feeling right now 😞.

Hey @Former-Member ,

I'm sorry to hear how hard it is for you. Good on you for doing what you can to stay distracted. What do you think would be helpful for you at this moment?

@tyme right now being here and chatting at the moment is helping me. I'm ok, just taking things minute by minute.