"My Experience: Handling Distress and Anxiety"
My Situation
It has been 3 days since I moved into my new apartment from the psychosocial rehab. I no longer have staffs and nurses taking care of me 24/7.
Yesterday, while sitting at a table, I started getting extremely distressed. I was anxious about "being here alone, and being stuck". I haven't been attending school nor working because of my healing process. I have had a goal of moving to Toronto since last summer. And I was sitting here thinking, "I'm STILL here. I need to go. Oh my gosh. What if I can't do it?".
I still do not know if it was the thought that made me feel this way, or I had been triggered by something else, or it was a habitual body reaction to something.
(Finding out the trigger is going to be the next thing I work on!)
What I Did To Cope
I called Kidshelpphone because I desperately felt the need to talk to someone. I wanted somebody to save me from this storm. I felt like I couldn't handle this anxiety and distress. The emotions were extremely intense.
I didn't feel satisfied even after the talk with the caring therapist, and I hung up thinking, "I need an actual friend, not someone that doesn't even really care."
I'm usually not this negative. I did not choose these thoughts, they were so automatic that it makes me think the resulted feelings came prior to the thought.
Thankfully, I recalled skills that I learned from Dialectical Behavioural Therapy. (DBT)
First I took some deep breaths.
I started telling myself, "I can handle this. I've been through this before." and distracting myself with an activity (watching a movie).
Afterthoughts...
I remember it as being extremely hard to completely get out of that "mood".
But what I'm noticing is that it has become much easier than it used to be. I am progressing, and I'm proud of that.
