Scarleteen

Usually when we're having a rough time and feeling anxious or sad or just blah it's really tempting to try and make that feeling go away as soon as possible, and get back to being happy or relaxed. But sometimes it's okay to not be okay, and it can actually be a valuable experience and sometimes an important part of self-care to just sort of sit with those uncomfortable feelings for a while rather than trying to push past them or make them go away. (Taking the time to just be upset and explore why we might be feeling that way can be really useful, for instance.)

I ran across a piece a while ago that talked about this and found it really interesting, and I thought it might be useful to some of you as well, particularly if you're dealing with some anxiety. The article doesn't talk specifically about anxiety, but it definitely applies to all sorts of uncomfortable emotions: 3 Radical Reasons to Be Okay with Not Being Okay (and 4 Ways to Manage the Feelings)

So, how okay are you with not being okay? What's your instinct when you're feeling down or worried - try to make it go away, or sit with it for a bit and let yourself feel, even if it's uncomfortable? If you have ways of dealing with not being okay, too, I'd love to hear them!

Ah...thank you for posting this. Like, major thank yous.

If I'm feeling some flavor of not-good, I generally try to make it go away. Like most people, I think. I'll listen to music, I've got a fun little upbeat playlist on my iPod, and I'll lip-sync to songs that I know by heart and that I love, and everything is good again, and I can avoid the not-good entirely.

The thing is, I've been tentatively diagnosed with something called Borderline Personality Disorder. It involves, among other things, really strong emotions, and very fast emotional swings. I'm bawling my eyes out and screaming bloody murder. Five minutes later, I've no idea why. I'm perfectly fine. I can't tell you why I was so upset in the first place.

And one of the things to help with it is to 'accept the emotions, observe the emotions without getting caught up in them', that sort of thing. And until now, I had no idea how that would even be a thing. I'm used to, if I just...let myself feel un-good, rather than trying to fix it, that I'm wallowing in it, that I'm making a big deal out of nothing. It's hard to define how I'm supposed to accept my emotions without some sort of blueprint. This is a really excellent blueprint.

I'm so glad it was helpful for you! And I agree with a lot of what you've said here: there is often a lot of pressure to try and move past the not-good feelings as soon as possible, in part because sitting with them can definitely feel like it's not productive or helpful or we're just feeling sorry for ourselves, etc. It's great that you found that piece a useful starting place; it can be difficult to learn how to just experience emotions without trying to "fix" them in some way, and it's even harder if we don't have any idea where to start learning!