When I’m distressed or anxious I find myself in these endless trains of thought. Just stuck in a loop. What helps you break free? I try to come back to reality, or use some coping techniques like breathing, but I’d love to hear what works for you.
I find distractions. Short form videos. Videogames. Music.
Have to bait my mind away from how breathtakingly fucked everything is like a dog after a piece of cheese.
I don’t always have it in me to execute on my own advice, but going for a run genuinely helps. Since leaving the house is a challenge in itself for me I bought a treadmill, and it was such a good decision. Reducing the friction between impulse and actually running was key for me, it’s so easy now to just stumble onto the treadmill and get going, and I don’t have to think about leaving the house or planning a route or meeting people or anything.
Concentrating on my breathing helps a lot, along with simple distractions.
The big help, though, was anti anxiety drugs. It was amazing, after being at war with my brain for most of my life. It was like - I’d have a bad thought, feel it in my gut, try a distraction, have it fail, have the thought again, on and on until i genuinely broke out or my emotions escalated to panic and it stopped in the post panic numbness.
With the medicine, the physical reaction petered out. I was able to use other methods like thinking “ok, so you fucked up then. you were a child. you deserved compassion from the adults around you” etc and was actually able to let go and move on.
