PTSD, coping mechanisms, self harm
Jan. 16th, 2014 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettContent notes per the subject line.
So as I've been learning more about mindfulness, I've started finding it easier to reach for mindfulness-based techniques when I go into an anxiety attack: take five deep breaths; do a three-minute meditation; list ten good things.
But "easier" isn't "easy" and definitely isn't "always", and it is still the case that very often the thing that will make me notice I am Not Terribly Okay is catching myself digging my nails into my hands or forearms.
I've been thinking about coping mechanisms a fair bit, recently, what between counselling being good for me and trying to work out how to live gracefully with PTSD; and it seriously only just hit me that a huge part of my compulsion to self-injure is self-soothing from panic attacks, and that's been the case for as long as I can remember.
And so I circle back around, once again, to viewing self-harm as a value-neutral tool.
So as I've been learning more about mindfulness, I've started finding it easier to reach for mindfulness-based techniques when I go into an anxiety attack: take five deep breaths; do a three-minute meditation; list ten good things.
But "easier" isn't "easy" and definitely isn't "always", and it is still the case that very often the thing that will make me notice I am Not Terribly Okay is catching myself digging my nails into my hands or forearms.
I've been thinking about coping mechanisms a fair bit, recently, what between counselling being good for me and trying to work out how to live gracefully with PTSD; and it seriously only just hit me that a huge part of my compulsion to self-injure is self-soothing from panic attacks, and that's been the case for as long as I can remember.
And so I circle back around, once again, to viewing self-harm as a value-neutral tool.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-17 09:10 am (UTC)I dig mine in my thighs. Much less visible to a casual observer. :(
For me sometimes it's self-soothing, but sometimes it seems to be a direct message from whatever process in my brain monitors unacknowledged stress (now I'm imagining brain daemons) alerting me to a situation that is Not Okay and which requires my conscious attention.