Exercise 3

Mood: 1ish

Meds: 1 pm

Sleep: Somewhere between 8 and 9 hours

Other: I'm flat broke for at least the next 2 weeks. It's going to suck. I'm going to be so sick of sandwiches that I might shank the next person I see holding a piece of bread. Yes, we'll be cooking, too, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to cook and work at the same time. In other news, Kitty is coming here tonight for a long weekend. I hope we'll have a good time. I'm sure we will, though, even though we'll probably have to just sit at home mostly 'cause I'm broke. :( There have been promises of Chinese, however. ;)


I'm going to go ahead and do another exercise from my workbook. This one is on "Surviving A Crisis Without Making It Worse," which, God knows, I need to learn how to do. So here we go.

The first thing that's in the chapter is a list of things people do to make themselves feel better in the short-term that are ultimately harmful. Because I'm too lazy to screenshot it and make it an image, I'm just going to type it out. The ones that I'm guilty of will have "X"s beside it.

_X_ Drinking alcohol

_X_ Overeating

___ Cutting yourself

_X_ Verbally lashing out at someone

_X_ Avoiding other people or isolating yourself

___ Using drugs

___ Engaging in disordered eating (fasting, purging, etc.)

___ Gambling

___ Throwing things

_X_ Engaging in dangerous sexual practices (for instance, having unprotected sex or having sex with someone you just met)

_X_ Using sleep to escape

___ Threatening suicide

___ Becoming violent toward others

___ Threatening others

___ Banging your head against a wall

___ Pulling out your hair

___ Attempting suicide


There's a list for "other," but I think the ones I checked about cover it. As horrible as I can be, I think that a quick look at this list oughta tell me that I'm not nearly as bad as I could be. Nor am I as bad as people sometimes make me out to be. That's good because it means I don't have nearly as much work to do as far as crisis management as I was afraid I did.

The next part is a cost/benefit analysis. How much good this is going to do me, I have no idea. My crazy rarely responds to logic, but we'll give it a shot, anyway. The particular behavior I'm going to choose for this analysis is "being a bitch." I'm picking it because it covers a number of different actions that I engage in. Basically, I'm supposed to put a number (1-5) beside each thing that corresponds to my motivation for doing these things and/or good reasons to not do it. I'm using a combination of my own motivations and the sample ones they offer in the book. So here we go.

Cost/Benefit Analysis Of "Being A Bitch"

Benefits of Self-Destructive Coping Behavior: Being a Bitch

_1_ Helps relax and calm me

_4_ Feels good

_5_ Don't have to face problems

_3_ Helps avoid/escape emotions

_1_ Distracting

_5_ Sick happiness in realizing that other people now hurt as much as I do, i.e., masochism by proxy

_3_ Punishing self by pushing other people away is cathartic in the short-term because I "deserve" the punishment

Total: 22

Costs of Self-Destructive Coping Behavior: Being a Bitch

_5_ Feel guilty afterward

_5_ Fucks up every single relationship (friend, romantic, etc.) I've ever had

_5_ Vicious cycle of making my bipolar symptoms worse

_4_ Ultimately makes me feel very depressed later because I've destroyed something yet again; this is separate from both guilt and bipolar symptoms

_3_ Avoidance technique: What was bothering me in the first place inevitably comes back because it was never resolved

_5_ Feelings that come with the aftermath make it hard to function for weeks

Total: 27

Benefits of Healthy Coping: Not Being a Bitch

_3_ Makes me deal with things

_4_ Feel better about myself

_5_ Relationships are better

_3_ Not as great a risk to my mental health

_4_ Easier to go back to functioning once the storm has passed

_2_ Forces me to learn other ways to cope

Total: 21

Costs of Healthy Coping: Not Being a Bitch

_5_ Realize I am the only one who feels like shit, as the rest of the world goes along happily, neither knowing nor caring that I'm hurting because they're only concerned with themselves and what they want

_4_ Have to find other ways to cope that may not make me feel as good in the short-term

_4_ Have to face problems and emotions

_2_ No quick escape

_4_ Experience hurt faster because there's no rush of anger and adrenaline to stave it off

Total: 19

So the benefits of being a bitch vs. the costs are 27 vs. 22. The benefits of not being a bitch vs. the costs are 21 vs. 19. The fact that I can't think of other ways to handle problems--particularly interpersonal problems--is most likely the factor in how close the numbers are, especially the last set. But no worries. There's a section farther along in the book that covers that, too.


Ok, this part is going to be a reminder to me: ways to distract myself from the desire to engage in self-destructive behaviors. The bolded parts are the book's instructions; the non-bolded parts are my own examples.

Reframe: Tell myself "I've gotten through this shit before; I'll do it again." Read a book completely unrelated to my problems and empathize with the characters. Try to find meaning in the crisis (i.e., if there were no "bad," I'd never really know what "good" is).

Mindfully engage in an activity: The book thing again. Go for a walk. (I know this one works.) Go somewhere that's not my apartment. Word games. Bake something. Play with makeup. See if any of this changes the way I feel about something.

Do something for someone else: I'd normally cook or bake for friends, but nobody but Fangbunny and me are in this county anymore. So this is basically going to be "do something nice for Fangbunny" or "check up on other friends online."

Intense sensations: This one is iffy for me. It ventures too close to the random sex/BDSM play thing. If it's anything other than a hot bath, I'd better stay away from this.

Shut it out: The suggestion here is to go somewhere quiet and peaceful. (For me, this means cool and relatively dark.) Then, make a list of the problems that are making me feel like shit. Then, for each of the items, I'm supposed to ask myself if I can fix the problem right then. If the answer's yes, then shutting out isn't the way to handle it, but if the answer's no, then the problems can be shelved for a little while until I'm more able to handle it. Then, for the problems that can be shelved, I'm supposed to imagine an image that represents these individual problems and imagine locking them away in a box that's stashed away in the back of a closet somewhere. I have to admit, this one seems kind of dubious as far as its effectiveness, but I suppose it's worth a shot if all else fails.

Think neutral thoughts: Sing songs (badly). Wonder what happens when we die. Think about the beach. Remember all the places I want to go, but have never been to yet.

Take a break: Go shopping (or window-shopping because I probably won't have money). Go to the park. Take a day off work and watch stupid movies.


This is almost the end. I'm going to write out the summary of urge management here, then I'm done.

Summary Of Urge Management

1.) When you first notice an urge, set a timer for fifteen minutes and make a commitment to yourself not to act on the urge for that period of time.

2.) Pull out your cost/benefit analysis exercise for the urge you're experiencing, and remind yourself of the reasons you don't want to act on the urge.

3.) Resist acting on the urge: reframe, mindfully engage in activities, do something for someone else, generate intense sensations, shut out the situation, think neutral thoughts, and take a break. Use your personal skill list to help you remember which skills work best for you.

4.) Re-examine your urge after fifteen minutes. If it remains intense, try to set the timer for another fifteen minutes and continue using skills to resist acting on the urge. If it has disappeared or at least come down to a tolerable level, get on with your day.

5.) Remember that the idea behind these skills is only to get you through the crisis without making it worse. They will not necessarily make your problems go away or make you feel better.


Ok, I'm finished. I'll need to make cost/benefit analysis for other behaviors, too, but this post is long enough for now. Maybe I'll do some later, though.

Gone to work now.