fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2989 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2989 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

(Digimon Adventure/02/Tri)

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03.

['Allo 'Allo!]

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04.

[Colby Keller]

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05.

[Kokoro Kiseki - Vocaloid]

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06.

[MSPaintAdventures, Homestuck]

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07.

[David Mitchell and Robert Webb]

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08.

[Graham McTavish from Outlander]

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09.

[Game of Thrones/ A Song of Ice and Fire]

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10.

[Alfred Hitchcock's Rope]

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11.

["Darkness Falls," World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor]

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12.

[Avengers]

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13.

[Bob Bryar from My Chemical Romance]

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14.

[Criminal Minds]

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15.

[Vikings]

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16.

[Gunnerkrigg Court]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 034 secrets from Secret Submission Post #427.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

First, I'm sorry you're involved with multiple scenarios like this. It sucks at best, and can be detrimental to your health and/or sanity at worst. Second, while I have no idea what the situations are, I've been there, and it is possible to come out the other end. There is no instant fix.

For me, finding something to get completely lost in media during anything that could be remotely construed as "down time" helped immensely. I stayed constantly stimulated. Reading or listening to music I have to think about walking between classes/destinations, TV/internet all the time. I find a favorite movie and fall asleep to it. For example, I watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit for three months straight. It became Palovian: all I had to do was think about them fleeing the bar and getting picked up by Benny the Cab to start falling asleep, so I would start it a minute or two before that and wait for the magic to happen. I got into a LOT of TV shows during this time. TV and movies were great because it's a constant stream of change, which makes it harder to something to invade because there's no settling point -- no stopping makes it harder to things to sneak in. It's not perfect, but the intrusions lessened.

I saw a school counsellor about once a week. If you have that one friend you can talk to, or access to a psychologist or counsellor, they can just be an ear and a shoulder. The benefit of the counsellor was her access to resources I didn't have, or didn't think to look up. Things like
-ACE (Achievement, Closeness, Enjoyment) Log
-STOPP (Stop, Take a Breath, Observe, Pull back, Practice what works)
-Saying or writing "I'm not thinking about that right now, I'm thinking about (sugar snaps, tarantulas in tutus, whatever)
-Thought monitoring form, for identifying thoughts and feelings, determining if they've been distorted by my distress, and how I can actively change my approach to the thought when it comes up
-and how to be non-judgemental of my own feelings and experiences, while also identifying rumination and beginning to break that cycle.
She asked me basic question about what I like to do -- and when was the last time I did it? I started walking and cooking again, both of which I love but had simply stopped because of how down and uninterested I felt. It's also how we found out we were raised in the same religion (surprisingly common, but totally confusing unless you've heard of it before). I basically had to teach her about myself, which meant I had to explain what happened and why I was so upset while also thinking about things I enjoy doing, that make me feel happy and accomplished.

The biggest part was giving some of it to someone else. It took a lot of self-talk and convincing, and even then I had to break out the metaphorical crowbar to pry the information out for the counsellor. It was damned hard, I hated it the first couple times, but it did help.

tl;dr
1) Get lost in something, esp. if it's constantly changing. It's harder for the thoughts to pop up and distract you when you have to focus on shifting stimuli.
2) Talk to someone -- anyone -- so it's not something you're carrying around on your own.
3) When thoughts do happen, try to think about small chunks at a time, give yourself a time limit to mull over it, then say aloud (or write), "I'm not thinking about that right now, I'm thinking about XYZ."

[ SECRET POST #2989 ]

This got long, tl;dr at bottom