For When Your Brain is On Fire

A colleague sent me a text while they were in crisis and didn’t know what to do. I sent them back a thing summarizing the most helpful techniques I’d learned while I was at Space Camp (The Intensive Outpatient Program) and going through Dialectical Behavior Therapy from 2019-2020.

A month or so later, another friend from a completely unrelated social circle texted me when her brain was shorting out. Like, 90% of what I’d written to my colleague before applied to my friend now, so with a disclaimer that I would be doing so, I copy-pasted the bulk of what I had previously typed out and sent it along to her, with a couple customizations to her specific situation here and there.

You’ll never guess what happened last night.

So now, my third time around recycling and customizing the same information, I’m thinking… I’m thinking maybe this could be helpful to some of you folks as well?

So.

For you.

When your brain is on fire and you’re frozen in place, here is what I do and what I tell my friends and colleagues to do. (Also available in a simplified comic form)

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It sounds like you are experiencing a stress response, which is your body telling you that you’re in danger even though you’re not physically in danger, but you are still flooded with these stress and panic chemicals anyway.

The most effective way to relieve them is to do something physical, which forces your body to push out those stress chemicals and tricks your brain into thinking it has survived being in danger and now it can relax again. You can’t *think* your way out of this kind of reaction, you have to physically move through it to shut your brain up.

One of the most helpful things I learned in IOP was box breathing. Breathe in, hold, and exhale each to the count of four— or do that in sync with this gif

If this animation plays jerkily, Google “box breathing gif” and pick out one with a smooth flow.

The practices that help me the most when I get triggered are to walk outside and count… everything.

Count how many trees are lining the street, count how many houses are blue. Just walk and count. It fills up your mind and breaks the hamster wheel of anxiety-thoughts. Also: touch stuff. Feel the leaves growing on bushes, pick up pebbles. Really focus on the texture of each thing. Again, it disrupts the anxiety-thoughts, forces your mind to focus on something else just for a minute.

If going outside is not an option, that’s ok! You can still give your body that physical jolt that tells it it has completed the stress response cycle by rapidly changing your temperature!

Put an ice pack on the back of your neck or submerge your face in a bowl of cold water or turn on a cold shower over your head (although that one literally makes me scream every time, so maybe not ideal if you don’t want to wake anyone up)

I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. It fucking sucks.

It sucks and you’re going to get through it.

Right now, all you have to do is breathe. Nothing else matters. Just focus on filling up your lungs, on holding in that air, on exhaling it out, on sitting still with empty lungs for a moment, and doing it all again.

That’s it.

You’re doing it.

You’re doing such a good job.

I’m so proud of you.

Keep breathing.