“Every
setback might be the very thing that makes you carry on and fight all the
harder and become much better.”
Les
Paul
Some of Shake My Hand’s most popular content on our social media channels (@shakemyhandUK on Twitter and Instagram) are when we post practical skills to help you cope with different difficulties you might face in the aftermath of rape and sexual abuse. So, with that in mind, as well as a recent achievement of my own in allowing my GP to conduct a personal examination, I was inspired to write this piece about a practical attribute and skill that I have personally found important in moving forwards from the rape and abuse that I experienced as a teenager. Now, I’m in no way saying that this is essential or fundamental; just that I found it to be really useful in my own recovery and in the process of taking steps forward instead of back…
The Ability To Self-Soothe & Try Therapeutic
Skills
Self-soothing
is a skill I learnt in my two and a half years of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
(DBT) and it can be found in the Module titled: Distress Tolerance. Now, in starting
DBT as a sectioned (detained under section 3 of the 1983 Mental Health Act)
psychiatric hospital inpatient, I was initially incredibly reluctant to engage
and cooperate with the Therapy staff. I felt that my unsafe and unhealthy
coping skills were the only way to cope with all my thoughts and feelings from the
memories and flashbacks of the rape and abuse I had experienced five years
before starting DBT. And I think a reason for this conviction that there were no
alternatives was the belief that if, for one minute I thought I could have done
something different in coping with things, then surely, I would have! Why would
I have chosen to hurt myself or make the three suicide attempts I had by then
when I could have been doing something safer and with less dramatic and upsetting
consequences?
Thankfully,
through doing DBT, I learnt that yes, there was definitely alternative coping
strategies; but it was completely understandable why I hadn’t thought to use
them – it was because from the moment the abuse ‘finished’ I had been surviving.
Fighting to survive. I had been in no ‘right’ frame of mind to have thought my attitude
and behaviours through properly, nor to have had the actual ability to come up
with other strategies to deal with all the anger and sadness that my memories
instigated in me. I was relieved to learn this understanding approach because
when I found these alternative skills of engaging in self-soothing exercises and
distraction activities (from the Distraction Skill also found in the Distress
Tolerance module) to be effective for managing my mental health, I honestly
felt like a complete idiot! Like, how could I have not thought to do these
simple and basic things?! How could I have put my mind and body through all
these horrible and painful actions when I could have been having a hot drink
and doing a puzzle instead?!
Fortunately,
through DBT and also purely through time and other elements and factors of my
recovery (including with my blogging career), I have come to recognise and
believe that there was a point and a purpose to those three years of being so
unsafe and unhappy. That I wouldn’t be who I am today and where I am today if
it weren’t for all those difficult and – occasionally – life-threatening
instances and, finally, I’m happy and content with who I am and grateful and
excited for where I am… And that’s a whole other attribute I’m going to talk
about later.
After
learning about the skill of self-soothing, you then have to find activities in
that theme/category which actually work and are effective and useful for you
and your mental health. And, I feel like this process, can take a really lengthy
period of time because it can honestly just be a case of trial and error – you might
have to try a number of different potentially helpful activities and methods of
self-soothing. You might also learn that some of these things work when your
mood or thoughts are in a particular way and that it takes others for when you’re
feeling and thinking in a different way. For example, if I’m feeling anxious
about something, then taking a shower and engaging in some of my favourite beauty
routines will help dim that down. However, if I’m feeling angry about
something, then I might need to get in my pjs and snuggle up in bed with my
cat!
After
determining what works for you and when it works, the hardest part is actually remembering
to do – or at least try to do – these alternative coping skills! You’d think
that when you’ve found something, typically, reasonably easy to do to cope with
difficult thoughts, feelings, and experiences; doing them wouldn’t take any
reminders or even much thought and persuasion. But actually, it can be
incredibly challenging to continue to do something new and to get into a new
pattern of thought. To develop a new mindset that actually sticks and which eventually,
comes naturally. In doing DBT, we had to complete ‘Diary Sheets’ where you had
to document daily the Therapy skills you’d used and why you’d used them. The
Therapist told us though, that if you got to a point where you couldn’t think
of which skill you’d used, that’s when you knew you’d finished Therapy because
it meant everything was just coming naturally to you now.
Now,
why is being able to engage in self-soothing activities and have them actually
help you and your mental health an important attribute after rape and abuse? I
say it is because it means you not only have the healthy and admirable ability
to try a safe coping skill, but also that you care enough about your life and your
emotional wellbeing to make this change in the way you’re dealing with things. It
insinuates that you are – or are at least beginning to – consider yourself
worthy and deserving of an improved life and you’re willing to try to cope in a
safe way illustrates that you have the strength and courage to make changes to
benefit yourself in some/any way possible. This testament of your strength, bravery,
determination, and dedication says a lot about the person you are and can
really define and determine the likelihood of your recovery from – and the path
you take after – your traumatic experiences.