What do you do? Positive but MT?

[The People]

I talked earlier this week about cops showing up at my door as they were told that someone in here was suicidal. While I was sound asleep and not at a point where anything will happen it nags at me, some days more than others. I am going to talk a bit about things I do to keep me from going over the edge, hopefully pulling myself back from it

- I am ALWAYS honest with T and PDoc about how I am doing. I use contracts if need be. A long time ago I realized that the contracts were with myself and not them. They just heard them. Makin that promise takes the weight off. I am a keeper of my word so I can then go and focus for someone else.

- I used to crawl into bed and stay there. Now I know that is the worst thing for me. I have days where I just stay home and write and I have few friends to call upon. But even if I walk to Safeway to pick up some fruit when I am in my dark place I am usually forced to talk to someone. Even just to say excuse me. It seems to break a bubble that was holding me in in pops, at least for a little bit. I can breathe more easily.

- I am creative. Well, we are. We use this to escape. Along with our book we do poetry and short stories. There is always paper around for the littles to draw and colour. They moved away from that a lot but part of it is fear. We will encourage them to go back to it.

- We have learned not to give up on alters that make life harder. They have their own pain. hey make us nuts but the more we try to block them the more pain they feel and the more they create a ruckus That is a hard one as there are some we would like to put into a locked room but it doesn't solve anything.

- We check the calendar. Sometimes dark times sneak up on us while we were busy doing other things. It helps to know that we dipped because it is this day or that. Sometimes there is no day or reason but knowing trigger dates helps us to be prepared. It took us a long time to figure some of them out. Some dates are trigger because of dark times. Some are hard because of the present life we have.

What do you do to pull yourself back from the edge?

Safety is the first rule according to an old friend who used to spend time here.