DEVELOPING HEALTHY COPING SKILLS

While dealing with the darkness that blankets your soul, it's important to find healthy coping skills. Many times, while mental illness plagues our minds, we develop unhealthy ways of dealing with it like self-injuring, bottling up feelings, bursting into angry fits, lashing out at family and friends, and so on. These methods only push us deeper into the hole.

Some good coping techniques are:

• Problem Solving. Find friends, family, or a support group to help you find ways to deal with past and present problems. (I talk out problems with my husband.)
• Stay Calm. Don't scream, cry, or become violent over situations. (I realized I think more clearly when I'm calm.)
• Talk about feelings or write them down. Don't keep your feelings bottled up inside. Let them out to a trusted friend or on paper. (I keep a journal to write my feelings and thoughts in.)
• Find the positive. Instead of dwelling on the negative, think about and list the good things in your life. (When things look hopeless I remind myself of the good things I do have.)
• Be proud of your accomplishments. Don't think of your illness as a failure, but look at it as a challenge you will overcome. Even the small-things like making it through a day without injuring-are accomplishments. (I'm proud to say I have not injured in 13 years and I am in recovery from mental illness.)
• Find a hobby or craft. Finding something you like to do such as a craft or hobby. A craft or hobby can be relaxing and it can also keep you busy so you're not thinking too much. (Writing and wood-burning helps me keep busy and relax me.)
• Develop a support system. Gather up friends and family members you can turn to when times get rough. If you don't have friends or family, find a support group. (My family, some friends, and my husband are people I can turn to in a time of need.)
• List negative thoughts and turn them into positive. Fold a piece of paper in half. Write negative thoughts on the top of one side and positive thoughts on the other. Write down your negative thought like, “I'm a worthless, loser” and on the other side write, “I'm a kind and successful person.” (This taught me to look at myself and things around me in a positive way.)

Some of these coping techniques and more can be found at http://www.haveigotaproblem.com/download/191/How-To-Improve-Coping-Skills. Learning how to deal with the emotions and thoughts that fill you will help you reach recovery. Using unhealthy skills only makes you feel worse. They did for me. The more I bottled up my feelings and injured, the darker and deeper the hole of depression became. I felt like there was no way out. When I started going to therapy and began to learn many of the above healthy coping techniques, I started to climb the walls of my hole until I reached the light.

I still use some of the above skills to deal with rough times in my life and they keep me dancing in the light.