Some possible coping tips for meltdowns/crying spells
Jul 21, 2008 10:58PM
- 3 comments
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I notice with myself there's a huge gap between what I can realize rationally and logically think vs. what I feel. I may be thinking these or similar thoughts in the midst of an attack but feel no comfort in them and still be anxious/depressed. I find the part of being unable to will the feelings away very true. At least I find it true with me and something I've been posting as a helpful tip for people in the autism community.
This was my response to the medhelp page in the depression community:
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Mental+Health/Ten-things-to-do-when-panic-hits/show/76?cid=47
(500 character limit prevented me from posting my comment there)
One thing with autism is the lack of being able to fully control some or many powerful (especially negative) emotions. I'm realizing there are some emotions I can't control and that's okay as long as I know I can control what I do when I feel the way I do. I may not be able to stop crying, but I can decide not to hurt myself (out of frustration and anger with myself) in the midst of the attack. I can choose to let myself cry in a private area or find someone willing to listen. Either way it's better to just cry it out than to try to fight it and stop it. Lately I've found it some comfort to realize no matter how small the trigger or how off base I know my feelings are that it's okay to feel what I feel. For instance if someone suffering chronic pain hasn't emailed, visited, or called me in a while, I feel hurt and rejected. I may logically realize it's not true, but still feel rejected. It does no good for me to try to lose that feeling of rejection. Rather I'm learning to go along with it, not fully believing it, but rather let myself cry because after all the feeling itself is genuine and the crappy feeling along with it is probably biologically based rather than something that can be fully consciously controlled. It does seem to help reduce some of the crying time when I take the focus off the trigger and figure if my body wants me to cry, then I may as well let it cry. Crying in itself is a healing method. (Something I read in an animal study). In the mean time while I'm crying I can force myself to do something else (non harmful) to occupy my time. Eventually the crying spell passes and I feel better. (Usually get a mental picture of being dripping wet and surviving a thunderstorm. You can add a rainbow to the image if you wish.)
I find some of my worst anxiety comes, not from the trigger, but rather my attempt to "cope" with my own reaction to the trigger. I hope that makes sense.
This was my response to the medhelp page in the depression community:
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Mental+Health/Ten-things-to-do-when-panic-hits/show/76?cid=47
(500 character limit prevented me from posting my comment there)
One thing with autism is the lack of being able to fully control some or many powerful (especially negative) emotions. I'm realizing there are some emotions I can't control and that's okay as long as I know I can control what I do when I feel the way I do. I may not be able to stop crying, but I can decide not to hurt myself (out of frustration and anger with myself) in the midst of the attack. I can choose to let myself cry in a private area or find someone willing to listen. Either way it's better to just cry it out than to try to fight it and stop it. Lately I've found it some comfort to realize no matter how small the trigger or how off base I know my feelings are that it's okay to feel what I feel. For instance if someone suffering chronic pain hasn't emailed, visited, or called me in a while, I feel hurt and rejected. I may logically realize it's not true, but still feel rejected. It does no good for me to try to lose that feeling of rejection. Rather I'm learning to go along with it, not fully believing it, but rather let myself cry because after all the feeling itself is genuine and the crappy feeling along with it is probably biologically based rather than something that can be fully consciously controlled. It does seem to help reduce some of the crying time when I take the focus off the trigger and figure if my body wants me to cry, then I may as well let it cry. Crying in itself is a healing method. (Something I read in an animal study). In the mean time while I'm crying I can force myself to do something else (non harmful) to occupy my time. Eventually the crying spell passes and I feel better. (Usually get a mental picture of being dripping wet and surviving a thunderstorm. You can add a rainbow to the image if you wish.)
I find some of my worst anxiety comes, not from the trigger, but rather my attempt to "cope" with my own reaction to the trigger. I hope that makes sense.
Hello Sweetie,
I am so sorry you are going through so much!! I know how I feel when I feel rejected and I know with your triggers and everything you go through is a hundred times worse. I think you are a wonderful person and you deserve only happinesss. I will pray for you and that God will bless you and help you with everything you go through.
If you need me anytime please write I am in terrible pain all the time and it does help me to help others. Always know you are special to so many of us here on MH.
Take care and please know I pray for you and I do care.
Dee
I am so sorry you are going through so much!! I know how I feel when I feel rejected and I know with your triggers and everything you go through is a hundred times worse. I think you are a wonderful person and you deserve only happinesss. I will pray for you and that God will bless you and help you with everything you go through.
If you need me anytime please write I am in terrible pain all the time and it does help me to help others. Always know you are special to so many of us here on MH.
Take care and please know I pray for you and I do care.
Dee
sorry you are going through what you are. If you figure out coping mechanisms, let me know. Crying is a good one. Helps you aren't a man... i think men have more trouble crying even in private than women do. Plus if you're female you can tell people you had a good cry about something and you get sympathy and understanding.
If I'm angry about something, I like to play video games. Yup, good way to avoid a situation. Or get involved in a good board game, though if it's too upsetting I will not socialize with others so that doesnt' happen and it's back to the video games. Lately I found my preschooler thinks it's amusing when I pop in an exercise/dance video and dance (someone recommended exercise to release endorphins is a good way for coping with emotional upsetting things and i can't exactly hop off to the gym to do it). I also like to hide in the closet with the lights out and rock. That's when I've reached my limit. When I was a teenager I used to claw my skin. That is totally not a good way of dealing with anger and upset emotions. I had to go see the high school psychiatrist when I got caught doing that in school because I tored my knuckles and wrists up with my fingernails so horribly one teacher thought I was suicidal (I wasn't). The psyciatrist taught me some other ways to cope (though at this point that's like almost going on 18 years ago so I can barely remember), like punching pillows and writing letters that you never give to people (you rip them up... though she did tell me to burn them but I accidently set fire to the trash can and almost caught my room on fire... so a paper shredder or ripping probably would be a lot safer... you just have to make sure the person doesn't find the remains in the garbage). Dealing with crazy relatives/inlaws... I end up hiding in a closet on occasion. relatives seem to be able to get to you the worst/best (depending on your viewpoint)... Personally, I like the video game escape the most, when and if i can do it.
I used to play Grand Theft Auto on the playstation many years ago (this is probably one of the worst if not the worst games out there, on a moral and ethical viewpoint and I gave it up a year after I started... though there are lots more acceptable games out there). When I was working, my coworker also played this... and when our boss overheard us having a conversation about stealing a car, getting the prostitute to ride with you to a back alley and then beating her up and taking her money to boost your health stats back up to full (it was a hidden cheat)... he knew we were talking about a video game when we mentioned health stats but we hadn't realized he heard the rest of the conversation from the doorway (we shared an office) and was wondering about us. That's about when I decided violent video games were a very bad thing. I stopped playing them and started doing the sports ones or the RPGs that at least didnt' have too much violent action and it wasn't graphically shown. And getting lost with the SIMS and SIM City designing cities. Though it was fun to have the cities destroyed too. Grand Theft Auto you could get out of your car and beat someone up with a baseball bat, steal a tank and blow up some buildings or a helicopter (I used cheat codes a lot though you could get the tank normally as well). When I was working full time, I had a lot of anger issues because I had a lot of communication difficulties. So did my coworker. We found video gaming a welcome relief to the normal world. We didnt' have kids to worry about watching us play or take care of either.
Yup, I probably need to see a psychiatrist, but I don't think they'd fix me. LOL. At least not without shelling out several thousands of dollars or more that I can't afford to begin with and that would make me depressed not having money to pay for things like... your house and food! Oh, and your kids' food and clothes and toys. LOL. I am not violent in life. I don't even spank my child (we do time outs). Video games are an alternate reality. Some people see them as a very bad way of coping, others see them just as a way of coping. I guess it depends how addictive they can make you. For awhile, my online gaming in college (back in 1991 when you had to telnet and ftp to connect because there was no world wide web to dialogue rpgs that had no graphics, only written descriptions) got way out of control. I managed to cut back to a normal level. Though my first year, when I was so addicted, I was taking this pysics class. We all played the same MUD (multi-user dungeon) before physics class. Except one morning we had a quest we had to finish. Our whole group lost track of time... until the physics professor showed up because a couple students did manage to show up to class and tell him where the rest of the 15 of us were. Oops! Needless to say, he got all of us to cut back our online gaming time and start focusing on important things like our physics problems and our lab homework. So, sometimes a way to escape from emotions can turn into a bad addiction that causes problems in the read world. I definitely have an addictive personality... so I really have to watch what I do. But on other hand, I still do some things because they are a way to escape from my emotions for awhile, and come back to them later when I have a more rational perspective on things.
Oh another trick I learned to combat the emotionalness of PMS... is to watch a sad video movie that makes me cry my eyes out. I get upset about something and someone else, not myself. My mom does that to cope with things other than PMS (like when she's sad or angry or upset or someone told her something that upset her). It doesn't really work with me though except for the PMS.
If I'm angry about something, I like to play video games. Yup, good way to avoid a situation. Or get involved in a good board game, though if it's too upsetting I will not socialize with others so that doesnt' happen and it's back to the video games. Lately I found my preschooler thinks it's amusing when I pop in an exercise/dance video and dance (someone recommended exercise to release endorphins is a good way for coping with emotional upsetting things and i can't exactly hop off to the gym to do it). I also like to hide in the closet with the lights out and rock. That's when I've reached my limit. When I was a teenager I used to claw my skin. That is totally not a good way of dealing with anger and upset emotions. I had to go see the high school psychiatrist when I got caught doing that in school because I tored my knuckles and wrists up with my fingernails so horribly one teacher thought I was suicidal (I wasn't). The psyciatrist taught me some other ways to cope (though at this point that's like almost going on 18 years ago so I can barely remember), like punching pillows and writing letters that you never give to people (you rip them up... though she did tell me to burn them but I accidently set fire to the trash can and almost caught my room on fire... so a paper shredder or ripping probably would be a lot safer... you just have to make sure the person doesn't find the remains in the garbage). Dealing with crazy relatives/inlaws... I end up hiding in a closet on occasion. relatives seem to be able to get to you the worst/best (depending on your viewpoint)... Personally, I like the video game escape the most, when and if i can do it.
I used to play Grand Theft Auto on the playstation many years ago (this is probably one of the worst if not the worst games out there, on a moral and ethical viewpoint and I gave it up a year after I started... though there are lots more acceptable games out there). When I was working, my coworker also played this... and when our boss overheard us having a conversation about stealing a car, getting the prostitute to ride with you to a back alley and then beating her up and taking her money to boost your health stats back up to full (it was a hidden cheat)... he knew we were talking about a video game when we mentioned health stats but we hadn't realized he heard the rest of the conversation from the doorway (we shared an office) and was wondering about us. That's about when I decided violent video games were a very bad thing. I stopped playing them and started doing the sports ones or the RPGs that at least didnt' have too much violent action and it wasn't graphically shown. And getting lost with the SIMS and SIM City designing cities. Though it was fun to have the cities destroyed too. Grand Theft Auto you could get out of your car and beat someone up with a baseball bat, steal a tank and blow up some buildings or a helicopter (I used cheat codes a lot though you could get the tank normally as well). When I was working full time, I had a lot of anger issues because I had a lot of communication difficulties. So did my coworker. We found video gaming a welcome relief to the normal world. We didnt' have kids to worry about watching us play or take care of either.
Yup, I probably need to see a psychiatrist, but I don't think they'd fix me. LOL. At least not without shelling out several thousands of dollars or more that I can't afford to begin with and that would make me depressed not having money to pay for things like... your house and food! Oh, and your kids' food and clothes and toys. LOL. I am not violent in life. I don't even spank my child (we do time outs). Video games are an alternate reality. Some people see them as a very bad way of coping, others see them just as a way of coping. I guess it depends how addictive they can make you. For awhile, my online gaming in college (back in 1991 when you had to telnet and ftp to connect because there was no world wide web to dialogue rpgs that had no graphics, only written descriptions) got way out of control. I managed to cut back to a normal level. Though my first year, when I was so addicted, I was taking this pysics class. We all played the same MUD (multi-user dungeon) before physics class. Except one morning we had a quest we had to finish. Our whole group lost track of time... until the physics professor showed up because a couple students did manage to show up to class and tell him where the rest of the 15 of us were. Oops! Needless to say, he got all of us to cut back our online gaming time and start focusing on important things like our physics problems and our lab homework. So, sometimes a way to escape from emotions can turn into a bad addiction that causes problems in the read world. I definitely have an addictive personality... so I really have to watch what I do. But on other hand, I still do some things because they are a way to escape from my emotions for awhile, and come back to them later when I have a more rational perspective on things.
Oh another trick I learned to combat the emotionalness of PMS... is to watch a sad video movie that makes me cry my eyes out. I get upset about something and someone else, not myself. My mom does that to cope with things other than PMS (like when she's sad or angry or upset or someone told her something that upset her). It doesn't really work with me though except for the PMS.
Actually I typed this in a good mood, but I was thinking back to that earlier day I mentioned. It doesn't help though to read people on the depression forum get suicidal. It does frustrate me because I don't like people making such choices. It's not my life though and I know I can't save them. The best I can do is give them a # for a crisis hotline.
Though I have to admit my base mood yesterday was more um okay more than cheery. That would be the hormones I guess. The good thing *knock on wood* didn't get the bad cramps that can occur this month so far.
I'm stressed a bit because I have a lot of appointments today...which means I should be hurring up and scarfing down my breakfast so I can leave asap to my doctors appointment.... then something else after... I think this will be the day my nose gets picked to have the cyst removed?
I'm feel more numb than upset... maybe just a general uneasiness.
Though I have to admit my base mood yesterday was more um okay more than cheery. That would be the hormones I guess. The good thing *knock on wood* didn't get the bad cramps that can occur this month so far.
I'm stressed a bit because I have a lot of appointments today...which means I should be hurring up and scarfing down my breakfast so I can leave asap to my doctors appointment.... then something else after... I think this will be the day my nose gets picked to have the cyst removed?
I'm feel more numb than upset... maybe just a general uneasiness.
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