Kiss of Death

 

Stress what is it and how to cope with it.

                                                                                                               7-8-22

Does life make you want to pull out your hair and scream at the top of your lungs and punch a hole in the wall..  I have and you are not alone. Everyone deals with stress. Punching a hole in the wall and pulling out your hair are unhealthy ways to deal with stress.  In this blog I will focus on the top five strategies to cope with with stress in a healthy way. Growing up was difficult in my household not only was being abused on the daily, I didn't have a safe adult I could go to and tell them about my abuse. In my household I would always hear from the adults that there was no reason to be sad, angry, frustrated or upset I had a roof over my head, food in my belly, shoes on my feet etc. Anyone else grow up in a household like that.

 I was an innocent kid stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I got out of that situation and moved far away and told my story to my family after suffering sexual abuse for 25 long years.  Thankfully they support me and believe me- I know some of us are not as lucky. My childhood was robbed from the age of 3 until I left.  I have learned it's never too late to relive your childhood and own it and rewrite the negatives and turn them into positives.

 I had to find things that make me happy  I like things that are sensory driven: Walking barefoot in the sand, playing in the waves, creating messy art- Slime, Obbleck, fingerpainting. I encourage you to find the things that make you happy.

1. Take Deep Breaths- Count to 10, Close your eyes, put your hand on your chest and feel your chest pump in and out. I learned a technique I like to use and help my friends who are stressed or overwhelmed or dealing with big emotions. It's called the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding exercise and how it works is like this:  5 things you can See, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can Smell, 1 thing you can Taste. 
2. Take a Walk or some form of exercise, I like listening to music while I am out walking in nature but you can easily walk on a treadmill or take a jog.  Yoga /meditation  I use yoga with Adrianne on youtube and insight timer for mediation also for bedtime- white noise or bedtime stories. Moving your body will help you loosen up and refocus.
3. Punch a pillow or crumble up paper and make baskets
4. Journaling- I have been journaling for a few years now, started off with pen and paper and now transferred to my phone, but I miss the connection of getting it all out on paper. My enetrys are mostly about what I did that day and I write in it before bed,  I have also added  what I  call a trigger journal which is a seperate journal that I used to track my triggers- I have PTSD and CPTSD so there were a lot of triggers, I would write down, where, when it started when it ended and what tools I used to calm myself down.
5. Get Help, let people in- talk to your family, friends, co-workers, teachers, therapist or an adult you can trust. It doesn't matter who you talk to as long as you talk to them and feel safe.

I hope these five tips help. I started this blog about stress but ended up going around in circles talking about my story, my background growing up - that would be the ADHD and HyperVilengent focus where my brain goes a million miles a minute and never shuts off which is partly why I have a hard time falling asleep and when I do sleep I get jolted out of bed and wake up in such a panic due to a nightmare or sometimes my body is so restless I get up in the middle of night and have to get out of bed, sometimes I fight that feeling and put more white noise on and close my eyes and other nights I have to get up and move out of bed.This morning I have been up since 4 AM due to my body being restless and I played on my phone until about 6:40AM- did some deep cleaning and still in my pj's.  Anyone I went off another tangent. I truly hope this helps people understand that they are not alone and remember to check on your loved ones and your friends especially the strong ones- because you can't help others when you have an empty cup. Be grateful for the life you have. It's easy to look at someone's life and say they are living the dream, they love their spouse, they love their job, they are always happy. People don't share the secrets they keep them to themselves in the dark but once it's dark all the secrets come out to play.