Barriers to seeking support (TW: Mentions self harm and CA)

@Jynx I've heard it before. You talked about it earlier in the week...or maybe last week and used the tiger analogy.

Wow...thank you for sharing. It makes sense that you actually kinda work with your lizard brain and run, then pretend to chill to like...appease it.

I think I dissociate, at least I feel like I do. I just...when my body can't decide what state it wants to be in, my brain just kinda...fizzes out and I get spaced out and disconnected. I actually think I dissociate a lot...like almost every time I go out to the shops or supermarkets, or out in general. I often find the world to be too...noisey and I'm either overwhelmed and over stimulated by it or I shut it all out. I feel like...I'm so separate from everyone else...disconnected.

I have done some mindfulness and have practised meditation, but it's something I struggle to be consistent with.

Urgh again...can not hit the support button @Jynx

That makes sense. I think that's why I have issues here sometimes, it's that constant awareness of like...rejection. It kind of explains last night's 'red button' experience.

Someone sees me, my defences are down and someone sees me, I've communicated how I really feel and now I'm afraid I'll either get in trouble or be rejected for it.

But like...even then with @RiverSeal I started to get really edgy, because we were talking about SI and SH.

@NightFury mmm dissociation can be tricky to identify but you certainly sound like you're describing it to me. That sense of like... being locked behind a fog, or like you have to keep snapping your focus back in. Can get very distressing for sure.

Oi honestly me too, did you find it to be a struggle to get started too? That and I am so fidgety haha

A lot of what I've read about mindfulness and meditation has said that consistency is actually the key to making em really effective. I am gonna try to maybe do more like 'Mindful Mondays' (you may join/re-ignite the actual thread if you like!) to practice the skill more so that when I am distressed, it doesn't feel like a useless exercise in frustration, it feels like a more automatic process.

Again, ty for your openness today hun. Hope you get a good rest in tonight 😊

@Jynx I'm not good with sitting still, so meditation is kind of hard for me. I also find that when I'm super anxious, I can't be "quiet" enough within myself.

I didn't know there was a thread! So thank you, I'll check it out.

Thank you for your company and for helping me learn some new things about myself.

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@NightFury wrote:

@Jynx I'm not good with sitting still, so meditation is kind of hard for me. I also find that when I'm super anxious, I can't be "quiet" enough within myself.

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@NightFury BIG mood. One of the reasons it took me so long to get into meditation was the fidgeting!!

I have had some wise people reassure me over the years that there's no one correct way to practice these things. Some guru here or youtuber there might say 'THIS is the way to meditate' but like... it's literally just the practice of presence, there's no secret knack or ultimate method.

For example, one can go for a mindful walk!

And then sometimes if I am finding it hard to be present (and like I'm just spaced out watching my feet plodding along for instance) I will give myself a little task or game - like, see how many flowers of different colours I can find, or how many dogs I can spot, or I'll pop some music in and pretend like I'm walking to a soundtrack.... Anything that tethers me to the here and now 😊

@Jynx interestingly, when I learnt meditation as a practice, it was taught in a way to untether me to here and now. I learnt with a spiritual teacher who taught meditation for connection to universe and spiritual aspects of energy.

I have to learn how to meditate for presence now. I have the Smiling Minds ap and often use it when I wake in a panic in the middle of the night. It doesn't help me to calm, or to come out of that state, but it does help me once I'm out of it. If that makes sense?

Learning to meditate to be present...is a whole new ball game.

@NightFury huh, that's a cool way to be introduced! I got the impression my goal was to have a completely blank mind which felt... like setting me up for failure LOL cos I've learned (for me anyhow) it's not about making the mind blank... it's about being here, now. The mind just kinda goes blank incidentally, when I'm really connecting anyway.

The most helpful ones I've found recently are like that - it's like a guided journey through the felt sense of the body out into the vastness of space.

It does make sense! I think like... half my coping strats are a bit like that? I think it's cos it still does take time for the body to process/flush out all the adrenaline. So no matter what, there's always gonna be a... 'cooling off period' I spose you could call it? Which is itself sometimes really tough... I always feel so brittle, and sometimes this sense of like 'oh how silly of me to have gotten myself so out of sorts'.... I think it might be a form of shame unfortunately! Stuff I gotta work through. But yeah do you get that element too?

@Jynx wow! That blank state of mind is so hard. The whole...empty your mind of your thoughts...is completely impossible for me. It's like...chasing shiny things when I meditate...ooooh, look a thought...it's so shiny, let's get stuck there. Lol.

I don't know if I experience cooling off periods, to be honest. I get...really hard on my self...like...blame myself for everything and kinda berate myself for it afterwards.

I guess maybe I do...after panic attacks and everything's settled and I'm dealing with the absolute exhaustion from the physicality of it all, there's like this...cooling off period where I just have to rest in it. You gotta go through it. And I get the really fragile feeling, like I'm raw.

@NightFury yeah nah, was totally unrealistic.

Way I like to address the shiny shiny?

Every thought is a wave. We are used to surfing every wave. Meditation asks us just to float and let them wash over us. If we find ourselves surfing again, it's okay! We get adrenaline from it after all. We just gently let ourselves go back to the floaty space. We are the oberserver OF the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. We are the ocean, not the waves.

Mm that sounds like a really tricky childhood narrative to navigate. The 'outward expressions of emotion are dangerous' is not uncommon, and a truly difficult path to walk hun. You're doing SO well 💜

@Jynx I like the surfing analogy. You have good analogies. Being an observer of the thoughts, not the thoughts. Something's just clicked and I understand how meditation can help me.

Urgh! I know it's there. It comes up...like a lot.