What do you do when you have a craptastic day?

After surgery that is. I know for me, I want to eat a bunch of junky food and enjoy an adult beverage. I will probably only indulge in the beverage.

I have regular therapy set up and I really enjoy it and I'll rely on it afterward. I know that I won't be able to eat my sorrows away.

What do you all do? My stress level is too high and I need to know a better coping mechanism than eating. I don't want to take an anxiety pill because once I move away from all of these ******** I think my symptoms will lessen or go away all together.

Ack, hit delete by mistake....

I play mass effect 2 and line the opponents' heads up against the crosshairs in the m-98 widow sniper rifle, all the while imagining they're the heads of my bosses or anyone else who's ticked me off that day.

Nice.  I'd play the new super mario bros. for the wii, but my disc drive is broken.  Maybe some Zelda that's saved to the hard drive would work. 

Thank you fellow nerd.

I work out and when I''m nervous I clean. I text and message friends to whine and ***** and moan and groan. And will admit that I have dirty sex with my husband to feel better. Is that wrong?!?

I definitely whine and ***** more than I did pre op.

No it is NOT wrong and I think I know what I'm doing tonight.

LMAO I love this method of stress reduction!

So go on meds for the short term. You can always wean off them when life is more stable.

The idea is to learn to not SELF medicate. Part of doing that often involves using SCHEDULED and SUPERVISED medication.

You're right.  I was thinking that as I was typing the part about not wanting a pill.  Sometimes you just need someone to provide the voice of reason.  Thank you.  I'm gonna talk to my therapist on Tuesday about getting something to help me.

I've used psych meds since 1993, both antidepressants and antianxiety meds, and expect to be on them for the rest of my life. I come from a long line of anxious depressives and consider the majority of those issues to be nature, with various additional issues contributed to nurture.

By no means does everyone who ever takes a psychotropic drug have to stay on them forever. But even if you DO wind up staying on them, so what? It's no different from taking insulin for diabetes or pain management so you can have a decent quality of life. See, SELF medication can swing all too quickly into something pathological. When you take responsibility and submit to a supervised program, you're getting HELP and that is, in general, a good thing.