Isollae

CalamityJane wrote a post about dealing with her anger and bitterness and thats such a problem for me right now. I think I should walk away but I'm wound up so tight with my own emotions that I don't feel I can make a thought out choice. I hate making decisions based on emotions.
Someone else responded to her that you have to let yourself feel the emotions before you can deal with them. Those words feel true.

How do you find the time to let yourself have a mini break down? I feel like it could take me weeks if not longer just to work through my own tide up feelings and I'm not sure I even can without totally falling apart.

Falling apart is simply not an option.

What are things you guys have done to find time for you or to work through the emotions?

choublak

An anti-depressant might help. You could take it for whatever period of time you need, and then stop.

jamaicamecrazy

Sometimes I have a "day of wallowing". Usually it starts with some wine and a good tear jerker movie and some songs that make me cry. I allow myself a day to not do anything I don't want to do. I journal, maybe talk to an old friend. Read some Al Anon stuff, come to the board. Cry and cry some more. Usually after a few hours, its out of my system and I start doing some little things that need to be done. I have had to have less of these lately. Keeping busy usually gets me through the pain but sometimes you just need to face it head on. We have a right to feel all the sadness and anger we feel.
I fortunately live with an adult son so have little responsibility. I can close my bedroom door and not be disturbed. Perhaps you can make even an hour for yourself to have your mini- breakdown.

JillGorges87

I feel it is important to first realize that we have a right to our feelings, whatever they are. Keeping a journal is also very very helpful. Many times I will start by writing out broad thoughts and narrowing it down. Ex: if you are feeling angry, write it down. Then start trying to narrow down by taking an emotional inventory (you must be honest with yourself and be willing to look at many different sides) of why you feel angry. Many times the more I am able to narrow it down I realize that a lot of why I thought I was angry had to do with something underlying that I was not paying attention to whether subconsciously or consciously. It also helps me to ask myself, are my claims to support my feelings rational? What can I do to start moving in a more positive direction? I think of the serenity prayer...God grand me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. By writing out my thoughts and feelings on paper I can look at the things I am unable to change and work through whatever I need to to accept this. Then I look at what I can change; what do I need to do to change things that are within my control? Which things are priority or not? Just take it one day at a time, none of us are perfect and we are going to have some days that are better than others; some days that we have the strength to face whatever comes our way; other days where we may fall short. This is okay!!! All that matters is the here and now, we cannot change the past, and it is unwise to anticipate the future because we have no control of that either.

wanttobehealthy

Exercise is probably the #1 thing that has worked well for me... Crappy interacting with stbxah is a super motivator for a good long run.... I also sort through a lot of stuff when I am working out...

Crying, talking to friends and looking at my kids and realizing how much better off they and I are with him gone also all help.

LucyA

I could never do the analyzing myself stuff, not with that label anyway.

I had a cry everytime I had a bath at one point! I talked to anyone who would listen and I still ended up feeling nothing for a long time.

And when I say feeling nothing that's exactly what I mean, I had no real emotions for a good few months, I think it ws my body/minds way of coping with things, or at least holding the feelings back until I knew I could cope with them.

Whatever works for you is whatever is going to work, you don't have to feel things right away, but you might feel them later, and you don't have to feel how someone else has felt before you.

Feel what you can feel/have to feel, don't worry about the rest of it. Be you, not what you think you have to be. It's different for us all.

LifeRecovery

I love the saying that "Depression is not a sign of weakness, but a sign that you have been strong for too long."

I think many other words can be substituted for the word depression and this saying still works.

Therapy has helped with this for me.

Self care like watching sappy movies and crying. Calling friends and crying. Writing a list of (not kidding) 75 things that I was angry about...then crying. There was a lot of crying in this discharge of emotion for me. There was frankly a lot of anger also. Anger was new though so I was not as afraid of getting stuck in it as I was the tears.

Just like I don't have to act on every thought (thank goodness), I don't have to act on every emotion. If I don't admit I have them they stay with me longer, and multiply.

I was very fearful that once I got "started" on feeling them I was not going to be able to stop. I had to trust myself and learn that this was not the case. Getting the emotion out actually helped me to not get "stuck" with them.

cricket123

I might have to try this!

Willybluedog

When I started with a new therapist I wrote a detailed timeline, what happened, when, who was involved, how I felt then, how I feel now. Even before I gave her this "manifesto of pain and hurt" I felt so much better, it was like opening a vein and letting smoking black poison run out of me. Now when I need to shut down and repair I just write out these hurts, it makes a huge difference in how long I am down.