Prevention of stress is better than cure

[white knight]

"Stress" and vast word that covers several descriptions of worry, load on the mind and the number of things in life to do.

In our daily life we carry out hundreds of tasks from making our bed to turning off the light before sleeping. Many of these tasks are mundane however when we fall ill with a mental health issue these same insignificant tasks become hurdles, the hurdles then become a challenge and soon they all gather to become too high to leap over. We then plug away year after year to just manage this state of mind until sadly it all ends with a serious mental breakdown.

It is only having gone through that process that I can see clearly that period of many years when the warning signs were ignored. The "fast lane" of juggling work in my case 80,000km a year driving, medication, relationship woes and childrens needs etc. Two psychotic episodes in quick succession was the end of my working life. That was 9 years ago. So what can you do about the build up of stress during that period where you are just maintaining tolerance of life itself?

• Acceptance- learn to accept that life will not be smooth, it will throw waves of unexpected barrier at any time. Accepting this results in less panic
• Realise that from the cave man days or even more recently, that life used to have far less activity. Hunt, cook, eat, maintain shelter and care for each other. Since then we've cluttered it all up. This means our mind is full and needs rest and de-cluttering. Leads to-
• Going back to basics. Remove things that you dont need. Toxic people, clubs and community obligations, reduce addictions and streamline bill paying etc
• Increase happy things, hobbies, sports etc. Barrack for a team? I made one mistake recently y joining a fotty team on facebook. You simply cant post a comment without controversy- nope, left that group. Leads me to-
• Learn to care for yourself. Everything that works in life needs care. Service your body and mind with rest and meditation. Start by googling "youtube prem rawat Maharaji". His videos are amazing
• Help others. You experience in life and your endurance to survive a mental health issue is invaluable. Helping others makes you feel valued.
• Learn positivity and motivation. Attend lectures. Our minds are open to learning better ways to thrive.
• Worry only produces ulcers. https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/anxiety/worry-worry-worry
• Praise yourself. You can be your own best friend

Comments welcome

TonyWK

[On The Road]

Hi Tony, thanks for the suggestions you offered. 🙂actually there are some I'm currently doing.

Accepting myself is not easy, I'm working on it but I've always felt a bit frustrating and contradictory. sometimes I reckoned that I want to accept the fact that I'm not accepting myself (positively)

Going back to basic and increasing happy things need effort too, I think I would enjoy doing things/ hobbies/ sports alone, a good way to reduce unnecessary socialising (toxic) and also to learn to enjoy my own company🙂

and I don't think I did well or I'm going to do well on the last three points 😂 they are just not for me at the moment.

[white knight]

Hi OTR,

Thankyou for your interesting post.

I understand effort can be daunting so prior to me being capable of ongoing effort, I did things that were significant in their positive effect on my progress with my mental health but took little actual effort.

I'd watch my Prem Rawat Maharaji videos, my favourite being

https://youtu.be/BhrtbBrMQ1Y

I'd do what Maharaji recommended in his teachings, to watch a sunset from start to finish with no distractions, a flower blooming or offer an old person my help lifting shopping bags. All free. This is back to basics without effort.

Your hesitation to join groups is valid. I am the same and most of us are wise staying away from that environment as there is commonly bullies or plain grumpy people that like control. I have my rule, never join a committee.

Accepting yourself has restrictions based on what the core of the reason is. Eg my mother has likely BPD (in denial 90yo) we've been estranged for 11 years. Learning of the reason for her behaviour was the greatest challenge. I was advised to google "queen witch hermit waif " the 4 characters of that illness (ps I praise those sufferers that seek treatment) and learned about her. That gave me strength to remove her from my life and insight as to why I didn't like myself, I found the core reason for my self hatred. Finally I had a reason to praise myself, to counter my self loathing. From that point on it was like a snowball , liking myself for my humour, compassion, poetry, building, inventiveness and love of animals. Essentially discounting my own mothers words of criticism that was never warranted. That was the building block that built the house of "Tony the person".

I also had to accept my uniqueness as all 8 billion of us are. Google

Youtube Maharaji the perfect instrument

Freedom is only valued when it's taken away. Same with what we have. I broke my leg in 2012, in a wheelchair for 8 weeks. I then valued walking. Focus on what you have not what you don't have or have list.

Beyondblue topic 30 minutes can change your life

The above thread is the moment it all changed. 26yo and so negative. That lecture was the start of my healing some 40 years ago. I've been spreading the word ever since.

You have a good base. You're here as a CC and doing well. That's a pat on the back you can do yourself now.

Has CC brought you any confidence?

TonyWK

[On The Road]

Hi Tony
Thanks for the reply. I always dismissed the positive sides and saw many things as just chores, this is some irrational thinking patterns that I have to change. I'll take some time to watch the videos and some other similar ones, it would be helpful for my self-acceptance process. I completely agree that the need of focusing on what we have, which is something I'm currently doing for myself.
I'm not sure if I became more confident than before. It was good to see ppl reply to my post they read my words and thanked me, which made me happy. I'm not sure if I could offer some help or some comforts in certain ways, sometimes it was a bit daunting for me to read some heavy stories and after reading those I prefer not to reply as I didn't know what was the best and the appropriate. I usually checked back to see other veteran champions like you and others that could offer constructive help. I'm happy to learn more.

On The Road

[white knight]

Hi On the road

Some positives are elusive. We don't see them. Your last post is full of insight, drive, striving to learn and humility. All those characteristics is indeed great, yet like freedom we'll only realise how good it is if we lose it.

Take humility. One of the best features of some people, adults that aren't afraid of the truth, to put aside ego and acknowledge their need to learn from others. Many people show, in contrast, arrogance as if, had they concede their lack of ability it will be seen as weakness.

Beyondblue topic the good Samaritan

As for constructive help your own experiences is your main asset. Two things 1/ to remind ourselves we are not professional medical staff so we limit ourselves to that charter 2/ that we don't underestimate our importance as a link in the chain of assisting members (and non members that google) benefit from our guidance. Such guidance available 24/7/365. We are "go to people".

We shouldn't try to gauge our contributions comparing to professionals however we shouldn't underestimate our significance either. That humility is relevant when you realise that we'll never know how far our posts go when it comes to adding a rudder to the lost souls out there.

A virtual hand on a shoulder could produce a smile or it could be a lifeline.

"Irrational thinking patterns " is a challenge. The most important teaching by my therapist 34 years ago was to learn to judge my Intrusive thoughts as either realistic or otherwise. Once I could eliminate the fake ones I was on my way. So as yourself "is that thought realistic"? Fear can be one cause for such thoughts. Eg you have a conflict with someone. "Will he knock on my door"? "Will he bad mouth me on social media"? Etc...thoughts or fear unrealistic in most cases.

With the elimination of Intrusive thoughts in conjunction of motivation the see-saw can be tipped. In time you'll succeed in a far happier existence where you'll automatically think that way. That's where I am now and it's so peaceful even normal thought processes.

Beyondblue topic 30 minutes can change your life

TonyWK

[livi_mivi]

Hey Tony,

I really love this thread and emphasis on preventing stress! I think being proactive is underrated and there might be a greater acceptability of being reactive. I believe that a preventative shift is something that should be getting more attention and I love your suggestions of ways in which we can achieve that. Personally, I have reassessed the way in which I distribute my time in particular, removing activities and people that did not serve me anymore and actually caused more stress than reward.

Thanks for your insight!

[white knight]

Hi LM,

Welcome to this thread

re:"removing activities and people that did not serve me anymore and actually caused more stress than reward."

You've touched on a pet subject- toxic people. I know how these self centred ones or those with no empathy can't cause us stress. I found that like this thread topic states, prevention is better than cure. How do we prevent stress by avoiding toxic people? Better screening is my suggestion.

Google

Beyondblue topic fortress of survival

That thread is particularly helpful when we grow up trusting everyone.

I like your acknowledgement of your need to rearrange your time. That time saved can be replaced with other things like meditation

TonyWK

[livi_mivi]

For sure! I think as well, when you grow up in an environment that you feel ignored and invalid in, we tend to become quite insecure and accepting of people that might not have the best intentions for you. I found that even when I was quite good at "people screening" and detecting BS, I would still let these people walk all over me. I would bend over backwards in friendships were there was only effort on my behalf, back stabbing, no reciprocity etc. (i'm sure you get the picture). But again, you spend all your efforts trying your hardest to please this person to distract from the fact of how lonely you feel and how these are the type of friendships that you deserve. I believe this is what caused me the most stress in life.

The biggest turning point was when I stood up to a cousin that was trying to invalidate my experiences growing up and gaslight me in front of the rest of my cousins. These feelings of worthlessness all stemmed from how I was treated by some of my own family members and to this day, this one cousin refuses to accept that they were anything but caring and nice to me. I shut them down immediately. Some family members were quiet, some acknowledged my struggles and the part they played and some, who I had opened up to before, openly supported me. It was at that point that I realised my worth, I felt empowered and I rarely question myself anymore. It's safe to say since then, I rarely do something that causes me stress or makes me uncomfortable to please anyone anymore. I have built up a strong and reliable support system. It is these people that constantly remind me of my worth. They help me navigate situations and feelings that stress me out, squashing them before they becoming overwhelming. I do the exact same for them. I guess that is why that point was so important for me to mention in this thread.

[white knight]

Thankyou for replying

I'm 66yo and the commonality of- narcissists, manipulators, gaslighters, waifs etc is much more wide dread than I thought when younger.

My best learning experience was after I was told to google

Queen witch hermit waif

That is a reference to an extract from a book called- walking on eggshells by Dr Christine Lawson. They a 4 characters from some people with BPD. My mother has all 4.

It's a short read and can be invaluable if learning how to cope with toxicity in people.

TonyWK