cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1805789
So, I have a problem that I won't be able to solve until the end of 2025. If everything goes well, it will be like nothing ever happened. If everything goes wrong, I might have to pay money I cant really pay right now. (No idea how much exactly but mor than I can afford probably) This is obviously a stress factor at times. I "could" try to solve it right now, but I can't really afford to solve this if it doesn't work out and have to rely on my parents' money, which sucks and is bad. In a way, it's probably not the end of the world; I heavily doubt I will go to prison, at least, but it sucks to have something that feels like a set-in-stone bad end. Feels like knowing the day of your death. Also, my dad has cancer, and that also is a bit of a stress factor, to be honest.
I'm schizophrenic, and usually just browsing the internet/games/anime is enough to keep my stress and thoughts at bay. Today, though, I couldn't think about anything else while doing other things, and it is really messing with me.
Do you have any tips for dealing with (I think you call them intrusive thoughts)? Other than drugs. I only do alcohol and I dont want to become an alcoholic.
Actually typing all of this out was nice if nothing else.
I dont want to become an alcoholic
well at least you have a good head on your shoulders
Don't have advice since I poorly deal with stress as well. I hope you get some good advice or your material conditions improve.
There's likely options that you haven't considered yet and others which have not emerged due to the situation not developing, so to speak.
No need to explain what's going on but as a general example you might be able to declare bankruptcy, you might be able to establish payment plans to avoid prosecution, you may be able to defer payment or prosecution based on being schizophrenic, and you might be able to do some tricky manoeuvring with buying your debt that has been transferred to a collections agency to eliminate it for pennies on the dollar.
But to be able to come up with a strategy for how best to approach this situation, you need to know what you're working with. It sounds like you're in a holding pattern at the moment, which can be very distressing because you don't know if/when it's going to come down on you let alone how it will come down on you - so obviously it's virtually impossible to come up with a strategy for dealing with a situation that has a lot of unknowns.
This next bit of advice is going to be a bit specific to me because I'm prone to catastrophising and I have a long history of denying my emotional needs, so take it or leave it based on your best judgement but I would write down a worst case scenario so that I could get it out onto paper. I would consider making a sketch of a plan for how I'd deal with the worst case scenario (e.g. Homeless > Live in car? Consider moving to my country's equivalent of a trailer park. Put out feelers to see if anyone in my circle can take on a refugee. Etc.)
The reason why this helps me is that by structuring my thoughts in this way, I can process some of the emotions they bring up in me and I can put the thoughts aside to some extent rather than being wracked by a constant series of What Ifs where I lack the space and the clarity to put one What If to rest before my brain throws the next two at me. People are unique though and YMMV with this.
The next thing is the pink elephant paradox. There's plenty out there on this which would do it better justification than I would in a comment but suffice it to say that if you are focusing on not thinking about something then you're actually thinking about the thing which can aggravate stuff like intrusive thoughts.
Once you're across that, the next thing I'd do would be to take a meditation approach to the thoughts. Obviously it's much easier if you have practiced meditation and just a reminder that if you are prone to delusional thinking (i.e. actual pathological, clinically-diagnosable delusional thinking and not just "I believe that Trump won the last election" kind of delusional thinking) and/or psychosis then you should approach meditation with due caution. But if you are comfortable with meditation or you aren't at high risk for those things then apply the same approach of cultivating an attitude of equanimity and curiosity towards the intrusive thoughts when they hit you. I'll spare you the psychology 101 lecture here but if you are having a strong emotional reaction to the intrusive thoughts then they will persist for longer, they will be more deeply embedded into your memory, and you can create positive feedback loops that add fuel to the fire.
If the intrusive thoughts enter your mind, try not to chase after them but especially in this sort of situation there's another side of meditation practices that tend to get overlooked in the west, specifically that aversive responses are also a form of chasing the thoughts. If you can modulate your aversive response to the intrusive thoughts, you can lessen the frequency and intensity of the intrusive thoughts over time.
Related to the above bits, if you reflexively engage in activity to distract yourself from these intrusive thoughts it's probably not the most ideal approach because being in a sort of frantic state of constantly trying to outrun the thoughts or trying to crowd them out is going to put your nervous system into a dysregulated state which can amplify things like threat detection, black-and-white thinking, catastrophising, and your general emotional response, all of which are unhelpful for your current situation.
There are other things that may be helpful but I don't want to overload you so I'll leave it at that for now - I get how overwhelming it can be, I don't want to go adding to that.
There are avenues for medication to use as an adjunct to deal with the anxiety and distress besides the typical benzos. Beta blockers in particular might be of use to help with managing this but that's definitely a discussion to take to your doctor.
Edit: Marx have mercy! Someone managed to get me to say "Have you tried meditation?" as a suggestion for dealing with psychological distress.
What has become of me? Will I be prescribing yoga to people next? 😅
