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The bad days; What caused them and what do I do?

Some days are just genuinely bad with no rhyme or reason; others are bad because I have become overwhelmed and my PTSD decides to kick and make it a little worse. Both are as equally bad and both can be a pain to try and deal with and calm myself down. This past week was good, I had a conference that aligned with my College major, it was enjoyable. However, toward the end of the conference week, When I was starting to get exhausted from the early to late days and the push I was giving myself mentally to not let the exhaustion get to me, I noticed I was starting to get more nervous. We did this one "simulation" to help us see what it was like in some peoples shoes with higher mental disorders, keep in mind this conference was to train us to interpret in the mental health field, and I figured it would be no big deal I can join in and listen to the tape...well....that was the wrong choice. I put the headphones on, started playing the tape, listened for a few minutes and then felt the start of a panic attack. I remember thinking "NO this is not gonna happen here, not in front the people I will soon work with. No!" I was able to calm myself down enough to stay in the room by keeping my mind occupied by other things, though it was tough. Next day I felt nervous all day, which was to be expected from what happened the night before, but it was nothing to terrible to deal with and it was the same for the next two days. Great it passed. Wrong again. Sunday morning I woke up to having had a horrible night sleeps from having a nightmare on repeat all through the night. When I say on repeat I mean: I woke myself up at 2:30 from it, fell asleep, Had the nightmare again, woke myself up at 3:30, fell asleep, had it again...etc...etc...etc...
The dream had NOTHING to do with that voice simulation.

So Why that dream and why was it on repeat? That's easy yet hard to explain. When my body had undergone stress I always end up having nightmares related to the past or that specific person that had done it. This response wasn't immediate this time which made it harder to deal with because it's hard to believe that it bothered me for that long. So what did I do? Kept myself occupied and relaxed. I did not do anything or go anywhere that would make me nervous. Netflix has became my best friend for this!! So I watched one of my favorite shows: Grey's Anatomy. Though that may have also been a bad choice because I was already emotional so of course I ended up crying during it but at least I was no longer mentally freaked out.

So my advice to you is this: When you have bad days and everything makes you nervous and you know you will be easily triggered do something relaxing. Don't force yourself to do things that you normally wouldn't do. Relax yourself. I use to make myself go outside and do stuff and then wonder why I would start feeling worse. Because I was forcing myself to do things I would not normally do. What would I do on a normal day? Well I would normally watch Netflix before I fell asleep. So I chose to watch Netflix during the day because it's something I'm comfortable with. Did it cure my fear for the rest of the day? No. But it did help me cope which made it easier to deal with.

"Routine is part of coping" - Lorene Scafaria

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