Managing Intense / Distressing Thoughts

Managing Thoughts

I’ve recently been trying to engage myself in ways to help manage my intense and distressing thoughts and feelings. I am going to be attending therapy eventually but the wait list is about 6 months and if you’re like me then that’s too long to wait whilst dealing with such thoughts and feelings.

So as I’ve said on Twitter I am going to write a post on how to cope / manage these thoughts and feelings. I’m still completely new to these techniques myself but I thought I just need to share these to hopefully help others with these feelings and thoughts.

I would definitely recommend getting a notepad or using a word document etc. As these are great methods to use and always come back to especially if you’re close to crisis point it might really help support you reading back over notes you’ve wrote when stable.

First of all, write your distressing thought down. Although some may be able to follow these steps in their head I however have found it easier to write down. Then write your feelings down, sometimes there may not be a thought or a feeling but start with the step that is needed during the time. You can also think of reoccurring thoughts and feelings you get and write them down if you would like to practice this method. Are there any solid facts that support your thoughts / feelings? Are there facts that support the opposite of your thoughts?

The method is to question your thoughts and feelings and personably my favourites question is this one; would the people around me agree with the facts that I see? The reason why this is my favourite question to the method is because a lot of my thoughts and feelings are very much things I’ve triggered myself into believing by looking for small signs that it might be true. This question will hopefully help my step back and think rationally about my thoughts.

That leads me to accepting thoughts and emotions. Although at times it can be hard especially if you’re a BPD like me it’s about acceptance, accepting that it’s okay to have those feelings and checking the facts about a situation as to wether your thought it true. Sometimes this can be really hard and I am not a therapist I’m not going to say yes it’ll work all the time because it probably won’t.  However it is about giving it a go and challenging these thoughts and feelings.

This is why self care is also so important, when you feel at crisis point try and take a step back. Use your 5 senses to relax, smell your favourite candle, go for a walk, call a friend and have a rant, take a bath.

This post uses methods from Debbie Corso and Kathryn C. Holt - Stronger Than BPD, DBT activities.

Hannah x