[Thirty shades]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum.

I have issues from childhood which have impacted on choices I have made as an adult. This has prolonged the abuse over nearly 50 years.

I have had some treatment using Pete Walker's approach to grieving my past.

I am struggling again today and have come to realise how ever hard you work at recovery, there will always be bad days and situations that I find difficult to handle.

Does anyone have any tips for how to handle a bad day?

Many thanks

[Skeezyks]

Hello shades: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral! I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

You mentioned having issues from childhood that have impacted choices you've made as an adult. I'm now 70! And that has absolutely been the case for me too. I'm glad you found some treatment that has been of help. My own personal approach to handling bad days as a whole is pretty-much just to keep myself busy. I just make myself do whatever needs to be done. And typically, after a while, I find I feel at least a bit better. As my father used to say many years ago: "You're not required to like it. You're just required to do it." And then, in terms of how to handle the bad moments... times when difficult memories or emotions come up, my go-to practice involves the use the what is referred to as compassionate abiding. Here's a link to a description of the practice:

https://mindsetdoc.wordpress.com/201...e-abiding-101/

Here are links to some articles, from PsychCentral's archives, on the subject of how to let go of a painful past, the first by our host Dr. John Grohol, Psy. D.:

https://psychcentral.com/blog/learni...ys-to-move-on/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/lettin...ful-over-time/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to...from-the-past/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/you-do...dium=popular17

https://psychcentral.com/blog/stop-b...dium=popular17

https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to...dium=popular17

https://psychcentral.com/blog/heres-...ner-of-regret/

My best wishes to you...

[Thirty shades]

Thanks for your reply Skeezyks. I will take a look at the links you have sent. Thank you for taking the time to find them.

I have used/overused the busy approach before and now have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a result.

The feeling it out approach seems to work for me but just takes some time to work through. Pete Walker gives 13 management steps which I also find helpful. I can't add the link as I have not posted enough yet but a google search for Pete Walker 13 Steps for Managing Flashbacks, will give
yourself or anyone interested some advice.

[Fuzzybear]

Thank you for this thread, it’s helpful to me