Something I have learned to do in the face of my disorders is to recognize thoughts that are purely illness. I have thoughts that come to mind and I am able to externalize them. I think to myself: “That’s not what I believe,” and I try to let it go. It’s not always easy and it doesn’t always work, either. Sometimes the feeling that comes along with the negative thought is too powerful, and it gets to me. Even then, feeling terrible, I am usually able to see that it is a symptom, not an immutable truth.

This is very helpful to me for a few reasons. First, it reminds me that symptoms come and go. It can be there and strong in a moment, but it’s not permanent, and it’s not something I have to take to heart. It’s also an indicator of my current state. How am I doing? Thinking dark thoughts that I don’t believe? That’s good information to be giving to a doctor or a therapist. To anyone that supports you,  really.

That’s the benefit of putting the symptom label on these bad thoughts. Getting them out of yourself in some way makes them less powerful. If there’s no one immediately available to share them with, it can be helpful to write them out somewhere. If you are in a very bad way, then it would be best to at least find a distress line to contact, but otherwise I encourage writing the thoughts out and really looking at them.

I’ve done this when I was being very hard on myself. The thoughts were choking me and I felt so miserable. I was starting to hate myself. When I wrote the words down on paper and looked at them, it changed them somehow. I could see how petty they were. They were so unfair, ignorant and out of line. It was the kind of thing a pathetic bully would say if they had nothing clever in mind.

A bully. That was an important signal to me. I was bullying myself! Or, more accurately, I was allowing my mental illness to bully me. It wasn’t the kind of talk I would ever accept from someone else. I would be furious. So why was I taking it from my brain’s malfunctions? On top of that, it was the kind of talk that I would NEVER direct at someone else. It was cruel. It was immature. It was an insult to my own intelligence.

Now I have a different way to look at these thoughts. They are bully thoughts. Symptoms of my mental disorders. I don’t have to believe them. I don’t have to think of them as true, as a part of me. Bullies don’t say things because they are true, do they? They just say whatever they can think of to make you feel bad.

And what does that accomplish? Does it make you able to improve yourself? Does it drive you to do things differently? It doesn’t do that for me. It strangles me. It shuts me down. So when I have a thought that hurts me, it gives me pause. I stop and look it over. If it’s a bully thought, I mark it as alien. It doesn’t belong to me.

Not that it never hurts anymore. There are emotions attached to some of these thoughts that cut quite deep. But not all of them. Seeing them for what they are can take away their power. Some of them have faded to minor stings. Others have lost their clout all together.

Think of it like an original Super Mario ghost. What do they do? They sneak up on you while you have your back turned. They strike when you are unaware. So what do you have to do? Turn and stare them down. They can’t take it, can they? They cover their faces because they are just weak little pests when you deal with them in the open.

Labelling symptom thoughts has been a very big step for me in coping with my mental soup. It’s not an ironclad solution, but it keeps me out of some of the deeper pits. Coping isn’t really something that has a blanket solution, does it? It’s more like a puzzle where you need to figure out not only how all the pieces fit, but if they belong in your puzzle in the first place.