Imagine a lovely Sunday morning, your face greeted by gentle rays of sunlight and kissed by cold breaths of December air. As you slip on you slippers and begin your descent to the living room, the sound of crackling bacon catches your attention but not before its smell does and you waft towards the kitchen. You see dad at the dining table, reading the morning paper. Breakfast has been prepared and only mom and the bacon are missing. The perfect Sunday morning.

“It was all going well I didn’t do anything wrong“, you muttered insensibly before sprinting to your room, dropping a piece of bacon on the floor.

Mom finally brings home the bacon and breakfast starts. As you munch on that third strip of bacon, a brief absence of light happens, like those one second blackouts where you’re unsure if it actually happened or you just blinked longer than usual. Mom and dad’s voices are slowly getting muffled. the walls of your home being closing in on you without moving from their foundation. Only you feel this. Then phantom hands phase through your skull and abruptly squeeze your mind. “Stop“, you harshly whisper. Mom and dad barely heard. “Stop, stop, stop, please not today“, you beg. “It was all going well I didn’t do anything wrong“, you muttered insensibly before sprinting to your room, dropping a piece of bacon on the floor. You faint.

Recalling these events grant me a lovely cup of shortened breaths and a slice of anxiety. I’m quite sure some of you have had similar, hopefully less intense experiences. I haven’t seen a shrink yet to know if this is normal or if it’s something serious like a disorder (it would be awesome if this were still considered normal). I hope and pray YOU see one soon for peace of mind. But for the others who are still building the courage and the resources to see one (a soft stigma exists), I was able to come up coping mechanisms that hopefully help you, too. Here are three things that helped me live!

Don’t use the phone.

What do you do first thing in the morning? Do you pray? Do you sit still for a couple of minutes thinking of nothing? Tabula rasa style? Or do you pick up your phone and do a “quick check” on your notifs and social media accounts which often takes an hour or two? Just like that, an eighth of our day is gone. “But your math isn’t right“, title of your sextape (B99 reference) doesn’t matter. This is the case for many, I included. I haven’t perfected this yet, but I’m getting there! I did a little experiment with myself a while back. I compared the days when I didn’t pick up my phone first thing in the morning with the days that I did. As shocking as it may seem, the likelihood of me experiencing those “blackouts” were significantly lower when I didn’t pick up my phone. Don’t get me wrong, blackouts still happened during some of those days but on with lesser intensity.

Write, don’t tweet.

For some of us, tweeting our feelings and sentiments about dread appears like a solution. It did for me, but not in the long run. The way I understand it, Twitter poses itself as a ‘public diary’ with which people scream their hearts out to a bird-shaped whole while subconsciously hoping someone from the other end answers back in agreement. This actually works but it also backfires. Big time. We feel a rush of validation whenever that bird scream back with ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’. When it doesn’t? It sucks the life out of me. Now if you’re not a celebrity or an “important” person, the latter scenario most likely happens. Heck, even if you arean “important” person, it’s not healthy to rely on other people’s validation of your feelings. You are your own person, and that in itself makes everything you feel valid. Go write your thoughts. Go spill your heart out on paper. Start writing.

Stop, breathe, and be.

Don’t fight the moment when it’s there. Don’t resist but don’t cave in. Stand or sit still. Breathe. Be. Let the moment be and let it slip away. There is beauty and strength in observing from a distance. Observe yourself. What would you do if you didn’t hit the brakes and stop? You can rewire yourself and your habits. Yes it’s true you can’t not feel, but what happens after that you have complete control over.

Don’t be dismayed if you can’t do these properly at first. I still fail every once in a while and that’s okay! Trust me when I say it gets better the more you keep on trying. You’ll be more self-aware and more in control of your actions. Chin up and keep smiling! 🙂