Half an hour to go until I have to leave for university and I am fighting tears. I am not afraid of going, but start feeling overwhelmed. Even though I get enough sleep, I am very tired, and my studies are haunting my sleep – I just cannot stop contemplating them. When I wake from sleep in the middle of the night, it is as if my brain never stopped reflecting on them, because the thoughts are there before I am even fully conscious.
I don’t want to go back to that depressed state. I don’t want to fuck this up again.
Lugubrious Layara 
That’s awful.
Among the things that you worked on with your therapist, did you ever look at grounding techniques? I’m sure you’ve said in the past you’ve worked with mindfulness techniques – how did they suit? Has anyone ever shown you any sensory modulation strategies? Perhaps these might help give your mind rest. If you’re interested I could dredge up some information for you.
Maybe also it’s time to find a therapist to help you to bolster your skills while you study because it leaves you so vulnerable. Does the local medical system make that affordable?
i REALLY relate to this. Its so hard to shut it off. It can be difficult to set them aside so you can think about other things or sleep etc.You need to do something completely unrelated that you will get caught up in. Something thats fun. I hope you feel better x
Thank you to both of you!
I contacted my therapist today and filled him in – I wanted to manage this on my own, but it looks like I need his help in this. He already reminded me to stay in the situation and not get lost in worries about the future, but it’s easier said than done: one of the docents really pushes my buttons in that regard, just through the way he talks. It’s not even directed at me, but the group as a hole, but he sends me right into panic mode.
We have spent a lot of time in therapy on talking about staying in the present and how to handle worrying, so it’s something I already know about. It used to work pretty well, but these past couple of days I couldn’t keep my thoughts under control and slipped back into the old habit without noticing.
What I need to do is indeed finding activities which occupy my mind otherwise; that’s part of how I recovered from chronic depression. The problem is that I have very little time during the week and when I come home, I’m too tired for doing much.
Congratulations. That was probably hard to do. But you are still doing it yourself. Your therapist may be helping you to skill up for a different situation and set of life stressors – but you are the one who is going to be doing the work. You are just giving yourself a better chance this time because study plays dirty. It has a different set of rules to work and because it has been something that hasn’t worked before it has become a nemisis too. Perhaps one of the other things that will come up this time is the need for different types of activities. Things that can ground you more quickly then something to soothe you back into a frame of mind where you can work? You and your therapist will work it out. You have done it before. You are strong even though you don’t feel it right now.