Jedi Mind Tricks For Surviving Tapering and Recovery

[FeralCatman]

I started another thread for people to post positive Daily Affirmations that they use to help get by. This Thread is a little different. This is for people to post any psychological tricks that they use to help them cope other than the affirmations and I call them Jedi Mind Tricks. I came up with one this morning to use for myself.

 

I recently posted on my Thread about discussing my progress with some withdrawal coaches and the estimate is that I have maybe another couple of years to go before I can really get back at it again. When I say the words '2 years' to myself it sounds like an ungodly amount of time so I've been trying to reframe it in a way that's more acceptable to My Mind and Spirit. Instead of 2 years I am instead looking at it as 24 months or perhaps 104 weeks and for some reason to me that sounds more palatable. It breaks it down into smaller chunks instead of two big chunks and this is actually something I learned to do in the military when dealing with complex tasks. Break it down in the little parts so you don't get overwhelmed and then start chopping away at the parts. So I'm going to make a simple list to hang on my refrigerator that will include also the 3 years and 4 months of tapering and the two years of recovery time that have passed so far and then extend that list out to include another 24 months or 104 weeks. Weeks that have already passed will get a line through them immediately so I can see that I've already crossed that distance and then every week I'll cross off another week on Sundays. This way every Sunday I can see that I am making progress with a visual cue instead of just letting it run around in my head and for me that seems to work.

 

This may not work for other people however if you have a similar trick that you use to keep from psyching yourself out and getting discouraged please feel free to list it here as any and all ideas that are found to be useful are good ones and may be useful to others. 😉✌️😺😺

[BigCat]

I like the "splitting stuff up into bite sized chunks" approach.  I do it on long journeys on a motorbike, I work out percentages in my head, fuel consumption, etc.  Anything to distract me from my boredom, sore butt and sore knees!!  Great idea @FeralCatman

 

My own treasure is that things are tidal.  They ebb and flow.  There are high and low tides.  We have no choice but to move with it.  Always changing, with each phase of the moon, things do not stay the same.  The difficulty that is with you now is temporary.   

[FeralCatman]

2 hours ago, BigCat said:

@FeralCatman

 

My own treasure is that things are tidal.  They ebb and flow.  There are high and low tides.  We have no choice but to move with it.  Always changing, with each phase of the moon, things do not stay the same.  The difficulty that is with you now is temporary.   

This is a good one now we have two things people can do that may be helpful so thank you. If you think of anything else like that add it to the list the more the better. 😉✌️😺😺

[Catina7]

I don't know how helpful these suggestions will be, but when I was in the thick of it I tried doing these.  If they help someone else....great!

 

1. Imagine what it feels like to feel "normal" without any symptoms.  Really try to shift your focus and visualize how that would feel.
2. Try to think of all your symptoms as being separate from who you really are.  The more we can make a disconnect between the two and realize that this is not who we really are, it can help distance us from getting enveloped in pure misery.

[FeralCatman]

Just now, Catina7 said:

I don't know how helpful these suggestions will be, but when I was in the thick of it I tried doing these.  If they help someone else....great!

 

1. Imagine what it feels like to feel "normal" without any symptoms.  Really try to shift your focus and visualize how that would feel.
2. Try to think of all your symptoms as being separate from who you really are.  The more we can make a disconnect between the two and realize that this is not who we really are, it can help distance us from getting enveloped in pure misery.

 I've tried this myself and at times it is definitely helpful whenever you can do it

[KenA]

On 8/19/2023 at 10:42 AM, FeralCatman said:

I started another thread for people to post positive Daily Affirmations that they use to help get by. This Thread is a little different. This is for people to post any psychological tricks that they use to help them cope other than the affirmations and I call them Jedi Mind Tricks. I came up with one this morning to use for myself.

 

I recently posted on my Thread about discussing my progress with some withdrawal coaches and the estimate is that I have maybe another couple of years to go before I can really get back at it again. When I say the words '2 years' to myself it sounds like an ungodly amount of time so I've been trying to reframe it in a way that's more acceptable to My Mind and Spirit. Instead of 2 years I am instead looking at it as 24 months or perhaps 104 weeks and for some reason to me that sounds more palatable. It breaks it down into smaller chunks instead of two big chunks and this is actually something I learned to do in the military when dealing with complex tasks. Break it down in the little parts so you don't get overwhelmed and then start chopping away at the parts. So I'm going to make a simple list to hang on my refrigerator that will include also the 3 years and 4 months of tapering and the two years of recovery time that have passed so far and then extend that list out to include another 24 months or 104 weeks. Weeks that have already passed will get a line through them immediately so I can see that I've already crossed that distance and then every week I'll cross off another week on Sundays. This way every Sunday I can see that I am making progress with a visual cue instead of just letting it run around in my head and for me that seems to work.

 

This may not work for other people however if you have a similar trick that you use to keep from psyching yourself out and getting discouraged please feel free to list it here as any and all ideas that are found to be useful are good ones and may be useful to others. 😉✌️😺😺

When I was going through it, I had a friend tell me that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. It helped me to realize that the overall big picture can be accomplished by taking it one day at a time. 

[FeralCatman]

Here are my 2 favorite quotes from the movie Apollo 13 spoken by Gene Kranz the flight director for that mission to the Moon that failed due to catastrophic failure of the spacecraft.

 

Gene Kranz:

Let's look at this thing from a... um, from a standpoint of status. What do we got on the spacecraft that's good?

 

Failure is not an option.

 

In a metaphorical sense what happened to that spacecraft is basically what happened to our brains both going on and coming off these drugs. That spacecraft and our brains suffered an explosion and could no longer function correctly. Once you're in withdrawal you end up having to improvise an entire new mission to get home which is to say to get back to where you want to be.

 

It's very difficult sometimes but whenever I'm feeling really bad I try to remember these quotes and take stock of anything that I have that is good which helps me to get through times that are bad.

 

Neuroplasticity brain retraining courses actually use this concept to help deal with symptoms simply by trying to take your focus away from the symptom and put your focus somewhere else so you don't reinforce whatever it is that's happening.

 

I am of course not 100% successful in being able to do this but I have gained more ability as time has gone by and I have definitely found using this sort of mindset to be helpful.

[Pidgeon]

"Rome wasn't built in a day"

I personally struggle with seeing the detail without keeping a view of the entire story.