- Hey everybody.
♫ It's finally Friday
And I'm so glad.
This week has like, drug on.
And the stupid president has been in town,
shutting down streets and ruining
all chances of getting anywhere
to pick up things or grab lunch or anything.
He's made it impossible, so get out of my city
and go somewhere else, stay in D.C.,
or do regular things.
Don't... don't shut down my roads.
Ah!
Costs us hundred of thousands
if not millions of dollars to make it happen.
(sighs)
Okay, sorry.
Had to vent.
It's been frustrating me all day.
I sat in traffic, stopped, for like 15 minutes,
while we waited for him to pass,
then they opened the streets.
Then I'm like, "Why are you here every day, all day?"
He was here yesterday, the day before.
I'm like, ugh!
So, anyway, when you live in L.A.,
I guess that's just something you gotta put up with.
So, I am on Facebook 'cause it's Friday.
It's Friday!
Thank God!
And I have three questions, as well as a journal topic
that I thought of myself (gasps)
which never happens, but today it did.
So, first question is...
It's a good question.
"Sorry if this is really obvious."
Well, clearly, I don't think it is.
That's why I'm answering it.
"But is there a difference between distraction techniques
and coping mechanisms when dealing with self harm urges?
I haven't self harmed in a few months
because I've become quite good at distracting myself
by listening to music, et cetera.
But the feelings still come back over and over again
without becoming any weaker or less frequent.
I think this might be because I haven't actually
developed any healthy coping mechanisms
because my brain still decides I should self harm.
But what actually are some examples
of healthy coping mechanisms?"
Now,
coping skills
and distraction techniques can definitely go hand in hand,
and a lot of them will be very similar,
like listening to music or journaling.
Those can both--
Or, I guess what I would say,
is that coping (mispronounces 'mechanism')
Bleh; bleh bleh bleh.
Coping mechanisms can be distraction techniques always.
But distraction techniques cannot always
be coping mechanisms.
Now, the difference between the two, is that distraction
is just what it sounds like.
You're just distracting your brain for a while.
You're like, "look over there!
What's that?
Let's think about that for a while
and not about this other thing!"
And so, it just is a way to bring your mind somewhere else.
Now, coping mechanisms are something that we're going to
be doing to replace the need for the self harm.
So you have to figure out,
and the hardest thing for many of my clients
is figuring out what it really means for them.
Why do they self harm?
Why do you use your eating disorder?
Or why do you find yourself flowing into panic attacks
or bouts of depression?
We have to find what our triggers are
and why we're using these things to cope already?
Even if it's alcoholism, drugs, it can be any kind
of "unhealthy" coping skill that we're using.
We have to figure out why we're using it
and then we attack it with other healthy skills.
Some of those being,
'cause she's asking for some healthy examples,
journaling is the number one thing that I always talk about
because it's something we can do
no matter what time of day it is,
no matter where we are,
and it helps us process through our thoughts.
Because most of the time, we're using a coping skill
because we're feeling kind of shitty
or stuff is running around our head
and we can't get it to stop
and so we use this as a way to make that happen.
'Cause self harm and eating disorders and even depression,
it focuses our energy on something else.
We'll often think about how sucky it is that we're so sad,
or how sucky it is that we have to eat
and we're so frustrated and we're so fat and we're so stupid
and if I self harm I'm focused on doing that.
And all of it revolves around that kind of stuff.
And there may be even rituals involved with doing it.
And so we're using that as a way to cope with
the shitty feeling or bad situation or stress.
Are you following me?
Am I keeping you?
I don't know if I'm making sense.
So that's why we use it and we have to replace
the self harm with something else,
so something else that's going to help us process through
healthfully all those feelings, that stress,
that anxiety, whatever.
And that's why it has to actually be a real,
tangible process thing.
Like journaling, like seeing a therapist,
like calling a friend to vent.
Sometimes just writing things or scribbling,
maybe taking pictures, maybe doing art, maybe playing music,
maybe writing songs about how we feel.
It can be any of those things.
Sometimes sports will help people,
like people will go for walks, petting dogs.
There are things that kind of cathartically help us
feel better and help us manage the stress
that may have caused the self harm urges
or the anxiety that may have caused it
or another trigger that we've come across that day.
You have to find the things that help you manage
those triggers and the urges themselves.
Not just like a distraction,
like, "Oh, look over there!"
and it's short term and the urges come right back.
We want to find thing that give you a little bit more space.
Now, everyone's different,
and a lot of the one's I've mentioned,
you might say, "But that doesn't work for me."
Now, I want you all to recognize that it's gonna take more
than just one new coping skill to deal with the
self harm urges as a whole, we may need like five things
before it kind of goes down a little bit.
So please, please, please, any of you out there
that have really great coping skills that work for you,
maybe it's just painting your nails and venting to a friend
on the phone, maybe it's listening to some music
and journaling, maybe it's collaging,
what is it that works for you?
And let us know below, because that's the one thing,
it's hard for me when not knowing your situation
and not knowing you personally to come up with
different things that would work for you,
but there are so many other healthy ways to cope
and the urges will go less and less and less,
and happen less frequently and less frequently,
and not be as strong until they're gone altogether.
So, let's all work together as we try to figure out
new healthy ways to cope.
Okay?
Question number two.
"When I have negative thoughts, how do I decide which
I should argue back to, and which I need to try
and just dismiss without just getting sucked into
a pointless 'discussion' with it?
Sometimes arguing back helps, but other times it leads
to a whole load of more answers back
from this negative voice."
Now, I thought that was a great question
because often times, we'll do that.
We'll get sucked into these same things where we're like,
"Well, no, but you're stupid."
"Well, no I'm not, because I did really well."
"But no, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about--"
And we end up in these discussions with ourselves,
with that negative voice, about things when really
we should just be talking back and moving on.
Now, I would encourage you to do some research,
because everybody is different.
Some people never get into full-blown discussions,
I find those of us who are ruminators, we're over-thinkers,
we tend to obsess on certain things and feel urges,
like, "But I have to do this."
Part of that in us causes us to have these discussions,
these sort of back-and-forth with our negative voice
instead of just being able to dismiss it.
And so I would encourage you to start noticing
which negative voices that you talk back to
get you caught in discussions.
And then, I would encourage you to start pushing
those ones away, rather than talking back.
And now, it's going to take a little bit of,
you know, research on your part.
Noticing, taking notes, when you write things down
sometimes it helps to better show you maybe there's a trend
in the type of comment that's being said
that you're talking back to,
like the negative voice that talks about body image,
that might get you in a whole discussion.
Whereas eating or exercising or depression or anxiety,
any of those kinds of comments are easy to talk back to
and it goes away, it's not like a full discussion.
It's like, "Dismissed."
So I would do some research,
I would notice which ones you get hung up on,
and then I would choose purposefully, be very mindful,
of what topics those are and decide to push them away.
Like, "I'm not going to think about that."
Like I talked about in one of my DBT videos
about putting it on the back burner,
like, "I'll deal with that later.
I don't have any time right now.
I'll put it in the back of my mind for the moment."
And we can do that sometimes and that's another coping skill
and DBT that helps us to focus on the now and be present,
and not feel like we're having these conversations
and we're battling in our own mind all the time.
Does that make sense?
So do some research, figure out if there's certain topics
or certain phrases that get you caught in the discussions
and then we can make sure that we put those
on the back burner, we dismiss those and move on.
Okay?
Question number three.
"Hey, Kati, I really need an answer to this question.
I've been nagged with it.
Or, question I've been nagged with.
How long can my eating disorder survive?
I stopped recovery three years ago,
and think I'm close to relapsing,
but is that even possible?
I self harmed last night for the first time in a year
and I'm really getting worried.
Is it even possible for an eating disorder to survive
for nearly seven years?
Help!"
An eating disorder can survive forever and ever
if we don't deal with it.
Am I right out there, all of you watching?
It can survive for ages!
I had one particular client that comes to mind
who had three children, three, and during that whole time,
trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, breastfeeding,
no eating disorder.
Magically disappeared.
Three.
So that was, hmm hmm, three years...
Let's say four to five years of baby time and then,
boom, eating disorder came back as soon as that was over.
So it can definitely survive forever.
Tell people to shut their mouths.
It can survive forever unless we fully cope with it.
So if you out there are wondering,
like, "Why is it coming back?"
and, "God damn it, I thought I worked on this."
I encourage you, find a therapist,
find a treatment center, get the support you really need
to actually work on the real issue as to why
you have your eating disorder.
What purpose does it serve for you?
When did it start?
Was it a trauma, was it a situation,
is it the way that we feel our brain works
and our obsession about things,
what is it and why do we do it?
And then the more we work on that,
then the less likely it is to even be able to hang on
'cause we're going to kick its butt.
Okay?
Now, journal topic, and it's just a wonderful quote
so I'm going to read it to you.
"Of all the people you will know in a lifetime,
you were the only one you will never leave or lose.
To the question of your life, you're the only answer.
To the problems in your life, you're the only solution."
Isn't that great?
Rewind it back and listen to that again.
So amazing.
It's by Jo Coudert.
Probably saying that wrong, but who cares?
What an amazing quote.
And I want you all this weekend to consider
how often you put yourself down,
how often you don't rely on yourself,
trust yourself, believe in yourself,
have confidence in decisions you make.
And then I want you to read this quote again
and realize that you're the only answer to your questions,
and you're the only solution to your problems.
And then let's start changing that conversation
that we have with ourselves.
We're strong, we're amazing, we can kick people's butts
and we can kick any mental illness's butt.
And today is the world, what do they call it?
The World's Mental Health Day, or...
I think it's just Mental Health Day, that's what I call it.
But I think it's the World Mental Health Day.
And the theme for this year is living with schizophrenia
and even though many of us may not have known
someone in our life to have schizophrenia,
it's real and it happens, and the more we talk
about it, the more we offer up positive, helpful,
supportive information, the better off those with it are.
And the more we talk about mental health as a whole,
the closer and closer we get to making
mental healthcare readily available to all.
So please share mental health information,
whether it's my videos, whether it's an infograph you like
on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or whatever,
let's start the conversation
because it should be available to all.
It shouldn't be something that we have to
wait eight months to get,
it's something like medical care
that we should be able to access and access quickly.
So keep sharing, keep talking,
let's keep this conversation going.
I'll see you all on Monday and on Tuesday I'll be on Tumblr,
so ask your questions there.
Okay, bye!