wanted you all to know

right now i feel on a emotional roller coaster, one minute i may be up and the next i am so down that i can barely think straight...or even know who i am..confused and just unaware of things...just asking for some patience and understanding right now if i seem off...thanks

Hey Karrin, I am sorry to hear you are struggling, I know it must be difficult for you, I don't know what to say, but wanted to let you know I was thinking about you and sending you many HUGS ((((((Karrin))))))

i know what u mean ive been confuse and lost too sometimes i just needed time for myself to think it through. it help sometimes so why not take sometimes to yourself. give yourself a moment or a day of silence to think and collect yourself. good luck.

I've been having those kinda moods too. Like yesterday I was happy all afternoon then around the evening I started becoming so sad that I cried. I understand how you feel. You're not alone... I'm sorry you're feeling like this though. I really do hope you're going to feel better :]

((((((((((((karrin))))))))))))
We are here, we are listening.
Please know you can PM us anytime if we can be of any help to you.
You are doing a great job, this time of immense confusion will begin to settle.
There was a small section within the mountains of DBT work that hit home for us when nothing else seemed to get through. I'll share it with you in the hope it offers you something in the moment:
Turning the mind
Acceptance of reality as it is requires an act of CHOICE. It is like coming to a fork in the road. You have to turn your mind towards the acceptance and away from the "rejecting reality" road.
You have to make the inner COMMITMENT to accept.
The COMMITMENT to accept does not itself equal acceptance. It just turns you toward the path. But it is the first step.
You have to turn you mind and commit to acceptance OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Sometimes, you have to make the commitment many times in the space of a few minutes.
For me, acceptance of what everyone around me was telling me was my reality was just too much. I couldn't move forward in therapy, or in life in general. I wanted to move forward, but acceptance was just too big a step. For me, I found the COMMITMENT step prior was what I needed, a handrail for me to hang on to, keeping me facing the acceptance path, having a breather, so that I could take the acceptance step 'all' together when I was ready, but also allowed me to continue w therapy and life stuff.

Thinking of you,
kp

Sitting with you Karrin ((( comfort hugs )))

KP..wow what a wonderful response you made to me..i so appreciate it..acceptance is so hard for me right now...but taking a breather and realizing that i don't have to do it all at once and when im ready and that i do have help is good and i can trust in that..

thanks for this...hugs

love you its ok auntie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I am reading this correctly, commitment to accept doesn't mean you are condoning or giving absolution or approval of what happened in the past. Commitment to accept is for you and no one else. It's almost equivalent to forgiveness, you forgive only to help yourself move on, it's not about absolution to the offender.

Am I reading this correctly?

Hello June,
The Commitment to accept is actually even a couple of steps before forgiveness...
Its more like: the big picture is just too much too figure out/handle/place in your mind correctly, so instead of forcing it to fit and not being comfortable and having too many hang-ups about it, you commit to the idea that one day it will fit, and when it does, then you can worry about forgiving/not forgiving etc. Its just about understanding whatever the reality is and accepting that it is real and true.
If there is no acceptance of the thing that needs forgiveness for, then any forgiveness work is done in vain, or done shallowly, or done without full meaning.
Does that make sense? I hope that makes it a little clearer June.
Thank you for asking for clarification.
kp

all my support to you karrin...

love you tarmy

I'm still muddling through this concept. Let me give you a fore instance and perhaps you can help me understand through an actual event.

I'm walking up the stairs to my apartment. I have alot of groceries in my hands. I'm more than half way up the stairs when two of my neighbors decide to come down at the same time I was going up. They both bumped into me knocking the groceries out of my hands and ran the rest of the way down the stairs laughing. Of course my groceries fell thru the stairs and eggs broke, bottles shattered, etc. I was seething while I was cleaning up my groceries.

The reality of the moment shifted and changed two days later, I was no longer seething. When I accepted the reality as real and true, I retaliated. What was real and true in the moment wasn't two days later. Accepting the reality as real and true caused an action urge. I did something stupid on impulse after they had driven away, but fortunately, as my perception of reality changed when I cooled down, I was able to correct what I did. I was judging my neighbors harshly because I was accepting the reality as real and true in the moment.

Please help me understand how to work the Commitment to Accept,how it would apply to this situation and about accepting the reality as real and true.

Thanks for your help and understanding kp

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack this thread Karrin. Hoping you are okay today, been thinking of you ((( hugs ))) if okay !!

Hello again June,

The Commitment to Accept concept that I was talking about in relation to your example below would be - You would 'commit to accept' the fact that you were involved in the incident in the first place.

The reality in this scenario for you is: you have some bruises, your shopping is broken, you have feelings of anger/rage/humiliation/ retaliation/etc. Sometimes, and for some people, (and after reading your profile I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you may have an idea of what I mean,) its hard to believe the incident itself happened and therefore its hard to accept, so then it is hard to acknowledge the bruises, to clean up the broken shopping or buy replacements, to deal with the feelings that seemingly have no basis. The understanding of what happened, to know that you were knocked carelessly by those neighbours who then laughed at you and left you hurt and needing is too big and painful to handle.

Commitmnet to accept is, you look at the reality, you have the proof that something happened (bruises/broken shopping), so you start working on thinking that, "ok, perhaps/maybe this IS my reality - I have these bruises, I have broken shopping, I can't think about how this happened right now, but I will begin by working on these things first. I accept now that I have these bruises so I will now find a cream to soothe them, and I accept now that my shopping is destroyed so now I will work out whether I want to replace them or not."

Is that helpful at all?? I've read it over and over, and I've tried to rewrite it, but it kind of came out the same. Please ask further questions if not comprehending and I'll try a different angle.

kp

Thank you KP ((( Hugs ))) for taking the time to read through my example and trying to insert the definition of Acceptance. With my dissociative disorder and having history of being denied reality from my family of origin (through crazy making), it's real hard to trust what I perceive as real or reality. However, I do have the bruises and broken eggs to cement myself into the fact that it really did happen.

So, to quote you "In turning the mind with a Commitment to Accept" has been applied here because of the broken eggs and bruises. I'm not accepting what my neighbors did to me, I am accepting the reality of what happened and with this acceptance, I am taking action to care for myself. I am focusing on myself and not retaliation. Is this correct?

I'm sorry, I have a learning disability I struggle with, especially with new skills.

Dear June,

Yes, it sounds like you are grasping this concept. You are accepting the reality of what happened, and are taking appropriate immediate action for your self. You have surpassed the 'commitment to accept' phase, and are in 'acceptance' phase because you fully acknowledge that the incident with your neighbours did occur and know the circumstances of the event (although not all this memory is needed to 'accept' a situation). Another area called 'radical acceptance' may be of help to you now in dealing with the overwhelming feelings you are having in relation to it.
Radical Acceptance
Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE from deep within of what is. Let yourself go completely with what is. Let go of fighting reality.
ACCEPTANCE is the only way out of hell.
Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to ACCEPT the pain.
Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE.
ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is.
To ACCEPT something is not the same as judging it good.
Perhaps, in this example, Radical Acceptance could be applied in accepting that you had a humiliating experience where you were left hurting and needing, and there was nothing you could do about it then and nothing you can do about it now, that retaliation and thoughts of such will only keep you stuck in a cycle of pain and recurrent negative emotions ie suffering.
June, I need to point out here that I am not a therapist. I am purely using the example you gave me to illustrate a very minute part of the DBT therapy that I have found to personally help me. The information Turning The Mind and Radical Acceptance are from the book titled Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder by Marsha Linehan. NB this therapy is not just for treating BPD. However, I am happy to continue to discuss and share any of this here in this thread, or via PM, if you find it helpful to you like it is for me. In helping you in this thread is has allowed me to cement the information more fully in my mind too. So thank you.
Hoping this finds you well.
kp